Back on the Bike

Well, at least for today, and it was only ten minutes. But when I actually feel rested enough and I have the energy and incentive from watching the Tour de France, yeah, I can do ten minutes. Besides, I relaxed the rest of the day, watching the boring-ass World Cup final (yesterday's game was so much better!) and bits of baseball games (Mets won, Yankees split their day-night double header) and even some golf. Mostly sports-less tomorrow, but that's a work day anyway. I hope my body kicks into gear and makes the bike a habit! Particularly since I now have new flexible watch bands in multiple colors (and some wires to hang them on) so wearing my Apple watch to time my exercise won't bother me as much. And if I don't go on? Not beating myself up over it, I have to listen to my body and whether it needs sleep or movement.

A Game for the Ages?

England has moved up in the FIFA world rankings with today's defeat of France in a truly bizarre and memorable World Cup third-place game. They were up 4-0 at halftime, and it was clear to most thinking people that France had no real intention of playing. I mean, I wore an "I Love England Football" t-shirt today, i know they're good, but they're normally not "beat France" good. AI claims "France's lack of effort or intensity in their games stems from two main issues: tactical frustration in their World Cup exit to Spain and morale issues," but considering FIFA's longstanding corruption I believe money changing hands must also have been involved somehow. Alas, we'll never know. At least I can take some comfort in believing that Tadej Pogačar won this stage of the Tour de France fair and square, he's phenomenal and so pleasant to watch! Mets lost today, of course, and the Yankees game has been postponed until tomorrow as the weather is really nasty. It started raining about when we exited the supermarket so we got a tad wet when bringing up the groceries, but driving conditions weren't dangerous until a bit later and now... well, I wouldn't want to go out in this mess. Maybe it'll finally cleanse the air quality. In other unsurprising news, we continue to organize for our England trip, and Robin's been amazing at frothing heavy cream so it almost got to the consistency of proper English cream so I could enjoy it with my strawberries, as well as sorting my iPad charger as the one I'd been using suddenly stopped working. All I've done is consolidate some more shopping bags as the ones we've been using are starting to fray, file away the Mom's estate paperwork, apply a solution on which to hang my Apple watch bands so I can sort through them the way I do my earrings, and of course buy more watch bands as I don't have any real vibrant ones (or blue ones that resemble KPMG's corporate colors and I want one of those for our Family Day at the Bronx Zoo in two weeks). Nothing much really.

Ping Ponging

Fun day at work and at home, trying to juggle lots of job and personal stuff at the same time. I feel like I'm at a ping pong game or something. But personal stuff (more things from Mom's estate) is done, I have a bunch more papers to file, and I'm in good shape at work as usual. Even had a chance to speak with my uncle this afternoon in his new senior living complex (via FaceTime no less, Mom could never have done that!). Big weekend awaits for footie, with England/France tomorrow in the consolation game and Spain v. Argentina in the big one, commandeered to a ludicrous extent by US insistence on four quarters throughout the tournament (these "hydration breaks" totally ruin the flow of the game) and an actual Halftime Show. And maybe, just maybe, I'll get back on the bike over the weekend, if I can breathe by that point.

Choking Hazard

I can't remember being this masked up out of doors since 2023, when Mom was still living in Bayville and we wore masks in the car driving down to New Jersey to see her. Today it was all public transit and walking, but even crossing Ninth Avenue to the Moynihan train station was difficult. The office was nicely hermetically sealed, however, and I'm fairly well caught up with job work. Maybe things will get better tomorrow, when I don't have to leave the house anyway.

Quality of Life

The air quality rose to dangerous levels today due to the Canadian wildfires wafting down to cover much of the northern US. Thank goodness I work from home on most Wednesdays so I didn't have to go out anywhere, although I believe some of the bad air did come through to our apartment. Certainly it affected us both physically, because we're Olds. Something else that came through our apartment was our downstairs neighbor with his daughter - huge comic book fans, and the daughter is an illustrator. She was positively drooling over Robin's work, and they showed us photos from the various cosplays they've done at comic conventions. Made me long for my "previous" life before it got too unwieldy to travel and Friends of Lulu's mission was more or less accomplished and Robin wasn't really having that much fun any more (hey, those cons are work for him). But it's wonderful to have "fans" living in the same house as us! Not coming through today was England; I honestly didn't expect them to win the semi-finals against friggin' Argentina, but I also didn't expect things to get so nasty. Ah well, I get to see them battle France for third place in the Hundred Hours War on Saturday, sans England shirt as that's finally in the laundry.

Gearing Up

A very hot, windy day where I work, but no issues walking, so the hallux is holding up okay. I schlepped an Amazon return into Whole Foods, where I usually get my lunch, and because of the weather I decided to splurge for a 2-liter bottle of iced tea to pour from during the afternoon. Well, enough of it was left over by the time for my homeward commute that I took it home along with my laptop and, while I was glad to have it during the few minutes in direct sunshine waiting for the local bus, I really can't carry that much stuff any more over great distances. But I'm home now, the All-Star game is underway, I cannot believe France is out of the World Cup on Bastille Day!, and I'm ready for bed again. More heat tomorrow but I'm working from home again.

The Calm Before

No baseball (Home Run Derby doesn't count, particularly as they've changed the rules again and none of it really matters anyway), no footie, weather is decent enough to have had the windows open for a few hours this morning but we're back to AC... I feel like I'm in a holding pattern again. I got nothin'. Work is well in hand, took a couple hours PTO as I felt positively drugged, but nothing much to watch...

Steamy

I didn't go out today, although Robin's been downstairs to the front door at least once with an Amazon pickup (I laid out my weekly pills and supplements this morning and found I needed to order more of the latter, so those will be here any minute), but the heat still permeates and makes us both feel kind of drugged. So I watched some Tour de France and both NY baseball teams (so not worth it) and odd sports like cricket, but mostly rested and did the dishes and... oh yeah, steamed about 7 shirts for work, so I consider that a good day. Next I'll have to get up enough energy (which I did NOT have today) to get back on the exercise bike. But for now, I'm catching up on my debit accounts...

Through to the Semis!

I can't believe I'm undergoing World Cup withdrawal, but I really got into it this year. I mean, I'm not as obsessive as our mayor, but once you get to the quarter finals (even the Gang of 8) there have been some enjoyable games. And I didn't expect England to beat Norway, so the fact that they did made it even more fun for this binational household. Certainly more fun than the crispy rice hot dog we had at Kura. Folks, please stay away from that, if you value your palates and stomachs. Other than that, the sushi was lovely, the food shopping reasonable, and my hallux behaved. Next on the weekend agenda, catching up on personal finances (as opposed to inherited ones) and steaming some tops to wear to work because I'm definitely not going to want to do that with the rising temps.

Silly Site o' the Day

We continue to enjoy the World Cup as the quarter finals start to wrap up, but I'm not sure I'd go to this sort of lengths even if I had this person's immense talents:

 Via Laughing Squid.

The Perils of Speaking Too Soon

I honestly thought the reupholstering of my orthotics had taken care of the hallux soreness. Even bragged about how I could walk again to my coworkers today. Alas, lots of walking and standing about (especially the latter) during the World Cup watch at the office (where we were treated to tasty food from our San Antonio branch as they'd lost the basketball bet, and of course everyone shows up for food so the queue was pretty long) did enough damage that the blister was back by the time I got home. So my conclusion is that it was me staying off the foot last week and not really going anywhere that contributed to the healing. Not doable going forward, alas, especially with an upcoming vacation after Labor Day. Ah well, I'll make do the way I've been making do for the last 18+ months, I suppose. It's not debilitating, just painful, so I'll be careful. For now, I'll just rest.

A Day Without World Cup

I had the opportunity yesterday to watch the Egypt-Argentina match either in my office or out on Manhattan West Plaza, but after the first half I was kind of falling asleep so opted to go back to my workstation instead. Fortunately we recorded the playback on our home DVR last night, and I finally watched that this morning. And yeah, I can see where the corrupt FIFA (but I repeat myself) seems to have greatly favored Argentina, especially on that brilliant disallowed goal, but unlike the overturned American red card it's not like you can prove anything was amiss. So it was fun to hear the incident alluded to by our footie-loving mayor this morning, and I think going forward I'm going to record all the remaining games, or at least tomorrow's as that will be taking place as I get ready to leave the office for my homeward commute. Meanwhile, the NY baseball teams are either winning or losing, and both could really use an All Star Game break.

Learning to Walk

Today was the acid test for whether the newly-upholstered orthotics have really made the difference in my no longer having foot pain, as it involved a bit of walking during my commute. So far so good, the bump on my left hallux may take a little time to fully heal (as is the case for diabetics) but it doesn't appear anything is pushing it into the shoe any more. And I can walk a lot faster without pain and without limping, provided I reteach myself how to do that. I keep expecting, pardon the pun, the other shoe to drop, and it hasn't happened yet, so I just have to retrain my body how to walk normally without a limp and hope the rest of me gets properly aligned again. It's been bad for at least a year and a half, so the sudden absence of pain is delightful.

Easing In

I was right, I didn't sleep well at all last night, maybe 3-4 hours at most, and it took its toll today. Thank goodness it was a work-from-home day! I'd also been tossing and turning over work stuff which came to fruition today when I could least handle it, but it's out of my hands now and moved up the chain of command so I think I'll sleep well tonight. Especially as the US men look to be going down in World Cup defeat. Serves our country right for having the grifter in chief get involved.

Footies

The heat continues to dissipate, so for the first time in almost a week (not counting when I had to move my car) we went out today to do our grocery shopping. And my left hallux no longer hurt! Whatever the shoe place did when they reupholstered my orthotics, it worked like a charm. So happy I can now make plans to actually walk when we're in England! Might have been nice to get some sleep this evening, as I have work in the morning, but too many idiots decided they had to shoot off more fireworks despite the torrential rains this evening, and besides, England beat Mexico in a World Cup game for the ages, so we had to stay up for that. I suspect I'll be something of a zombie tomorrow.

The Paradox of Intolerance

For mysterious reasons, I've spent much of this July 4 thinking about the Nazis in Skokie and the paradox of tolerance. As I age I have less and less patience for bigotry and hatred and bullying, and wonder more and more what can be done to curb it, stop it before it starts, and punish it to the full extent of the law. But I do despair, especially when I look around and see warmongering glorified (the tall ships were lovely and the flybys awe-inspiring to an extent, but they're all symbols of war when you get right down to it) and cheating rewarded, even when the media doesn't call it out. I mean, the World Cup commentators looked like they were itching to discuss how much Paraguay cheated and were repeatedly rewarded for it whilst France was punished for their reactions to being punched and kicked and such, but they couldn't bring themselves to use the "C" word at all, cowed as much as our political media not using the "L" word to describe the everyday utterances of those in power. And my goodness, when will we stop idolizing billionaires as if their gains are not mostly ill-gotten? But even amidst the despair there is hope. We have a lovely mayor and tons of lovely citizens who deeply care about making this country better, the TV fireworks were pretty (and we even saw some local bursts out our front window), I got to watch bits of 1776 and Yankee Doodle Dandy again, and once this awful animal-frightening noise is over I look forward to the heat wave finally dissipating.

Move-In Day

Today our downstairs neighbor's moving van officially arrived with the rest of their stuff. Pablo asked if we could move our car, not optimal on a 99-degree day, but we obliged and found street parking about a block away. Even so, that trip and the one to retrieve our car when the van had gone pretty much knocked us out. I keep forgetting I'm an Old (something us Olds do forget), and the heat affects me more each year. That's why I don't much care about coworkers asking me what I did during my week off while they travel to beaches or foreign lands. I didn't want to go anywhere in this kind of weather even when I was younger and not as affected! September is soon enough for our overseas vacay. Now I must go take care of my latest heat rash...

We Have the Power

We knew it was coming.We'd been warned that Con Edison was treating faulty equipment in this heat wave and there'd be brownouts to avert an even greater blackout situation, but until two hours ago we weren't affected. Then at the height of the evening heat, all the power went out. Thank goodness I'd showered not long before, and we have three battery-operated fans and four LED lamps. Even so, it didn't take long for the apartment to heat up during the last two hours. It's not like I could do anything besides sleep, or at least lie down and try to forget how uncomfortable I was. The electricity just came back on, and now we're waiting for the place to cool down again. I've said it before, I don't take any creature comforts for granted, and I'm very grateful it was only a 2-hour blip!

Forward Into the Past

White Rabbits, and the heat wave begins. Although I decided to make an English breakfast (lots of different breakfast meets plus eggs plus caramelized onions) I knew I'd be taking it easy the rest of the day. But I'd promised a work colleague that I'd send her a photo of all the old gum wrapper chains I'd made during my childhood and even into my young adult years, so I had to get out the five tin containers in which I've kept them lo these many decades, and while I was at it I dragged out the three or so jars of buttons I've kept for nearly that long. I even tried my hand at lengthening a couple chains with some wrappers still in the tins and, hey, I've still got it. I'm not crafty but by golly I can still chain gum wrappers! Anyway, Robin and I will devise a photo shoot tomorrow in the hopes that someone may want to give these sentimental treasures a good home. Meanwhile, more World Cup (England won, hoorah, USA winning at the moment but down to 10 men) and sending out of laundry (since put away!) and just not trying to move around too much in this heat. The living room blinds and shades are drawn closed until at least Saturday. Ugh...

Seeping In

We're starting to discover how extreme heat, even the onset of same, affects older people. Because, you know, we're Olds. I have various stomach and muscle ailments, Robin has been having trouble focusing, and we're not even going to try doing any more housework for the rest of the week. The living room blinds are drawn against the afternoon sun, I'm getting through my analog reading, and we're in a holding pattern watching the World Cup and baseball. Our downstairs neighbor Pablo volunteered to help us throw out our very old air conditioner, but we're not taking him up on his offer until the heat wave subsides. I'm just glad the kitchen trash is out. Whatever limited mail we get can wait until maybe Sunday; I'm content to have finally received notice that my $300/month pension from my first job will start coming in Any little bit helps!