Yesterday, I picked up my new glasses. I’d take a selfie if I could remember how, but I don’t. I asked David to take a photo using my old iPhone and he did, but I don’t know where it went. (I need a new phone…maybe next month?).
So you will have to wait until Mage and I get together in CA next month. Mage, and my kids all have cameras and iPhones. I have a camera too but I won’t be pointing it at me. Oh wait, I finally found it, or them. I now have four photos….duh!
- The frames are blue, although you can’t tell it here.
The other reason I can’t take a selfie is my shoulder. My left arm is weak from the stoke I had a few years back, and my right arm has a torn rotator cuff.
Yesterday, I visited my orthopedic surgeon to get a shot, corticosteroid and something else, he said. He also said, “that’s it.” I’ve had four shots and therapy and the shoulder is no better. So the next thing is surgery or “just live with it.” Today, I am living with it. I don’t want surgery again anytime soon, so I’ll do that for a while.
Using a model and the MRI photo, he showed me what happens when the rotator cuff tears loose from the bone. I almost said “Ouch, no wonder that hurt.”
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Daughter Julie came by this morning to take David grocery shopping. We were at the grocery store Thursday for Flu shots and walked a long way in the Mall to order my glasses. We patted ourselves on the back for all that walking.
Have now talked with both daughters about burial issues…where, how, etc.
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Friday we picked my glasses up and then I took David to our favorite Irish Pub for lunch.
While we ate, the owner who is from Donegal County in Ireland told me about how things have calmed down in Ireland and we talked about the Irish music playing on the cafe’s sound system.
I told him I don’t have a drop of Irish blood in my veins, but grew up in western NC where I learned many Scots-Irish songs, and was raised Catholic so I knew many Irish priests. I also worked with many Irishmen when I was on Capitol Hill during Tip O’Neil’s time in office. All this made me think I must have Irish somewhere.
When we were outside the pub, I told him I am mostly German and English (he always walks us out.). He said, I’m not Irish either, I’m Scots descent by way of Ulster, but don’t tell those guys inside (he has two partners from the Republic of Ireland). I told him I have Scots, Welsh and English ancestors too, you know how most Americans are, a little this and a little that.
***
I read two mysteries by Henning Mankell this week, Faceless Killers and Dogs of Riga. Meanwhile I am reading a chapter a day of Madeline Albright’s Memoire which is quite good.
i’m glad you found the pictures and i like the glasses. The irish Pub sounds fun — I hope the partners don’t read your blog ;>0….. we are both ordinary Americans with a mixture of this and that and the other. i found out I had Irish on my father’s side and German on my mother’s, but in both iinstances the thrice or twice great grandparents had tried to keep that fact secret. So silly.
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Those glasses give you the look of a serious scholar . . . appropriate for one who delves so deeply into matters historic. Hope you find ways to get some relief from the aches and pains.
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One Day at a Time.
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I hope your pain eases up soon. Your glasses are very smart. Thinking about you 💕
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ThanksCharlotte.
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Attractive glasses. Too bad it isn’t as simple to get a new rotator cuff. Can appreciate you wouldn’t look forward to surgery. Constant pain plays heck with quality of life and can with disposition — hard to maintain cheerful attitude for some. Hope you get some relief with heat or whatever else might help. I guess some people try alternative therapies like acupuncture, and others but I’ve always wondered if they’re just a placebo effect. Maybe you might explore some pain management class if you haven’t already. Good you have such a great sense of humor. At least laughter releases healing endorphins.
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It’s too bad you are still in pain. Unlike you, David is considering having another surgery — his back or hips.
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This tear in my tendon isn’t arthritis. It’s different. The thought of surgery on a shoulder tendon, which would incapacitate me for a year, is more frightening. Even my doc said, no one likes to do this surgery. I don’t know if he meant himself or the patients.
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Hey, the glasses look good. Sorry about the shoulder. I’m pretty much at the I don’t want surgery stage. If the glue will just hold a little longer I may make it through this life!
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Glue is good! Thanks.
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Nice glasses, Dianne, or should I call you Professor Dianne? You look quite erudite I must say.
Sorry about your shoulder. I had a partial rotator cuff tear a couple of years ago. It finally healed itself, They will, but a complete tear won’t, it requires surgery..
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Oh gee thanks. Erudite mind and a and crumbling body. 🤓
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Yes, doc told me it would never heal. The cuff broke completely and retracted under the shoulder bone. The MRI is not pretty.
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Nice glasses!
My right shoulder is fine during the day but I can’t sleep on that side at night and it is stiff and hurts like crazy in the morning. I keep a heating pad right by the bed so that I can put it on my shoulder before I get up and that seems to help.
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My shoulder hurts 24/7. The latest shot left me black and blue. Thanks for the tip. Yes heat seems to relieve some of the pain.
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Love the new glasses. Very bold choice. I’m Irish, Scottish, English and German. W is French and Swedish. Our kids are simply Canadian.
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Thanks Lynn. As you like them it’s okay. I know you are an expert.
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The glasses look good. You chose well.
Rotator cuff problem–had that when I was teaching and carrying so much from one classroom to the other. I found an exercise to do, very simple, and it made all the difference. I did the exercise a few times a day and in about a month I was fine. Put head on table like we did when children putting our head down for a nap, only while standing. Let affected arm hang down and just let it dangle in a circular motion. You can do this for a few moments and then go on with your activities. The students would often see me doing in class.
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I have been the exercise and therapy route. Thought they would help, but it’s worse than ever. My cuff is completely torn from the bone.
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Don’t blame you at all for not wanting surgery. And then there’s the recovery time. Hard to tell when to give in or hang on sometimes. We are the proverbial mixed bag too. Two of my sisters did the 23andme thing and confirmed what we already knew and added another half dozen no one could figure out except that there always were a lot of sailors in the family on all sides. 🙂
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Recovery is six weeks in a sling and six more months of therapy. Very serious and painful too.
Sailors on both sides, what fun. I found an ancestor in Holland who fell into a canal and drowned. Probably drunk. Dads side is full of religiuos types. Moms side is ful of misadventurous types. They say opposites attract.
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Glasses nearly the same as mine except mine are two tone purple. Very distinguished!
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Glad you like them. They looked lighter in the store. They area dark blue.
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Great glasses. Distinguished looking I’d say.
Any of us in North AMerica are a little this and a little that as you said. It makes us interesting!
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Oh yes, Canadians and Mexicans too. Most people don’t realize many of those immigrants from south of our border are European and Indian and African descent. Years ago, I had a reporter ask me about people from Guyana who immigrated to the US but said they were Indian.
I told him the British Empire carried many people of Indian descent (including modern Pakistan) all over the world in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
Very true for other nationalities also. Degas was from the West Indies, as was Hamilton, Camus was from Algeria, Van Gogh was from the Netherlands.
This truth is a good example of why fighting between ethnic groups in the US and other “settler” countries is stupid. Each of us is a big mixing pot. There is no them and us.
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