Modern medicine

Had a procedure done today at the UW Medical Center. Will have another one tomorrow. Nothing critically acute. They both needed to be done for a couple of years.

I overslept due to mis-setting a new alarm clock that I got last week. Even so, I was two hours late and they were able to fit me in promptly. I had called to let them know that I would be late. The UWMC schedulers switched my time with the next patients and things worked out well for both of us and the surgical team.

I am extremely grateful for excellent convenient health care with good parking that is a 20 minute drive in light traffic.

I am grateful for my sobriety

I am grateful for my sobriety--everyday and especially today.

I dropped a friend off at a detox facility today. She is so addicted on alcohol that she gets sick if she does not drink every few hours. At that level of alcohol addiction, it is important to have medical supervision when quitting drinking. Alcohol is the one drug that kills people when they stop cold turkey.

My friend walked out of the detox facility after an hour because an intake staff member said things she did not want to hear aka “he was mean to her”. I wish I could make my friend get sober. Unfortunately, she is the only one that has the power to get her sober. To date, she has been unwilling to follow good orderly directions. She is a great example of self-will run riot. She knows that she will die a premature painful lonely death if she continues to drink.

I don't know what 'it' is that separates those of us that are sober from those that continue to use. All alcoholics have a hard time with directions and authority. Willingness is vital to sobriety. In the 12-step paradigm, it is being willing to go to meetings, get a sponsor, work the steps and help others. Whatever that special 'it' is, I have been blessed to have it for all but a week of the last 11 years and almost six years of continuous sobriety.

I am grateful for my sobriety.

Bug and Jenny are two great cats

As a kid, I had a tom-cat named Sam.  A couple of roommates have had a cat of their own. Bug and Jenny are my first two house cats.  I got them five years ago.  Both are short-haired spayed female cats.

Jenny was one year old when I got her for free off a Craigslist ad. She had been the youngest cat in a house full of cats.  She was a scared-dy cat when I got her calling a plaintive m-e-r-o-w at 4 AM.  She needed a friend. 

After much kitty shopping at the local cat shelters, I got Bug.  Bug is very affectionate—at times—in true aloof cat fashion.  Bug will ride around on my lap and will eat cat snacks out of my hand.  She likes to lay on my hand for five minutes every night purring while I rub her belly.

As far as I can tell, both cats are plain old house-cats.  Jenny is a 'Calico' and Bug is a 'Tortoiseshell'.  In the cat world, color almost qualifies as a breed like how German Shepherd does in the dog world.  Jenny is a thin medium sized cat.  Bug is a small chubby cat.  Jenny tends to dominate Bug when they play. 

They have cat tv when I put birdseed outside the sliding glass door for Chickadees to eat.   Bug is the worst hunter-cat ever.  She chitters at the birds before rushing through to cat door to try and catch them.  I don't think she really wants to catch the birds, she just wants to play mighty cat hunter without the hassle of having caught a bird.

Both cats will come greet guests by letting my visitors pet them.  I like to think that makes me a good cat owner since I have friendly social cats.   I don't know when they were born.  Since my birthday is in March, so are their birthdays.  Bug is 5 and Jenny is 6.  Or maybe it is 4 & 5.  Either way, they are healthy happy friendly cats.

I love my cats and am grateful that I have two well-behaved friendly social cats.

A wonderful dinner with a great friend

Tonight I met a friend for dinner and a meeting.  We started at a meeting in the local 12-step hall.  Not my favorite meeting due to a crowded room and random low levels of living in the solution (or not).  Nonetheless, it counts as a meeting in my book and that is always a good thing.

Our choices were pizza in the U-district or Mona's Bistro.  My friend does not do so well with dairy and so we went for the bistro.  It was about 4 blocks off the freeway.  After driving around the greater Greenlake area, called for directions and bee-lined over for dinner.   At first, we were in the wrong beer-hall/restaurant that was next door.  Once we got in the right place, things picked up.

We had a large salads and 'small plates'.  My Arugula Caesar salad was delicious.  Gigi had the warm spinach salad.  She had the shrimp tacos and I had the bbq steak tartare sliders.   The sliders were small burgers done medium rare with a killer delicious sauce, cheese tomato and onions.  3 of the best (mini) burgers I have ever had the pleasure of dining on.  After that, we had warm brownies with vanilla ice cream.  There were huge portions of warm delicious brownies topped with a nice vanilla ice cream.

The waitress was awesome answering all our questions with a patient, kind and pleasant demeanor (we had a lot of questions).

A great evening with a wonderful friend at a fantastic bistro with delicious food and great service.  I am grateful that Gigi has been my friend for a decade, and that she called me out to dinner and a meeting tonight.

Sunny warm days

Today was unseasonably warm in Seattle—it was a whopping 60 F with clear skies and bright sunshine.   I got to drive around town  with my car window down.  Still a little chilly for windows down while driving on the freeway. 

Driving across the 520 bridge from East to West, the snow-capped Olympics stood prominently against the skyline in all their glory.  Going home from  West to East, the snow-capped Cascade mountains were gorgeous from Mt Baker south to Mt Rainier.  It is a panoramic view of 100 miles of snow-capped peaks buttressed by a forest of  evergreen trees running North-South located 30 miles to the east of Bellevue.

A visit to the UW Arboretum was a study in green from the new grass to shrubs and trees sprouting buds and the first leaves of spring.  The ducks, joggers and dog-walkers were a kaleidoscope of activity in a sea of green after the dull gray of winter.

I am grateful for the natural beauty that surrounds me.

My father, part I

My father was a good provider and a hard worker. He missed work twice in 33 years working as a pilot for Pan Am Airlines from 1945 t0o 1978.

He taught me many valuable skills such as welding, operating heavy equipment and fishing. We had some incredible father-son misadventures together. He certainly spent a lot of time with me when I was a teenager.

In the end, we were estranged when he died 17 years ago. I am grateful to him for all the good things he taught me in life.

Longevity

It was my 52nd birthday on March 5th.  I am a bit surprised and quite pleased by the serenity I have finally achieved in my life.  It was a long time coming.  Blogging about gratitude has been a huge part of this new attitude of gratitude.

There is a sort of schadenfreude along with my increasing age.  I am outliving others near my age.  Having a spinal cord injury 30 years ago statistically implied that I was going to die sooner than later.   A few of my friends and stars such as Michael Jackson have died in the past year or two.

I am especially surprised by the fact that, to the best of my knowledge, I don't have cancer.  As a kid growing up on a farm with a father that was a fervent follower of Dow Chemical, my chances are almost insanely high for having cancer.   For examples:

    When brushing flies off our horses, I would use handfuls of DDT like pastry chef rubbing flour on a rolling pin.

    When weeding the blackberries, I would fill a 300 gallon tank with Banvel 2,4,D, water and a surfactant.  Banvel was also used by the US government in Vietnam in a infamous compound called Agent Orange used to defoliate the jungle.  You could literally watch the weeds melt on a hot day.  Spraying a couple of 300 gallon tanks per day with a 5-horsepower pump invariable resulted a all-over residue by the end of the day.

    We had an indoor pool that was kept quite warm.   There was a problem with mold growing on a painted wall.   Latex paint with a dose of Mercury strongly inhibits mold growth.  The big surprise is that I am not mad as a hatter—but I did not lick the brushes either!

    While adding extra insulation to the attic of our house, I used a semi-trucks worth of Zonolite aka vermiculite aka asbestos that came in paper bags about twice the size of a kitchen garbage bag.  It was a bit like gray lightweight Styrofoam cubes ranging in size from dust particles to ¼ inch cubes.  Since I did not have a mask, I could not help but breathe asbestos in the confined space of a poorly ventilated attic.  It was not until 25 years later that I realized vermiculite was asbestos—but after my childhood, I was not all that surprised.

For an overweight out-of-shape 52 year-old paraplegic, I am pretty healthy.  For that, I am extremely grateful.

My new dryer (and old washing machine)

I got a new dryer this week courtesy of the apartment complex management replacing the old one that finally died.  It is your basic Whirlpool clothes dryer with one extra feature.  It has a huge barrel and door making it a great dryer for larger items such as sleeping bags and bed comforters.

I washed all 3 of my comforters and 10 pillowcases this week.  The dryer was great at being able to tumble the comforters instead of rolling them up into a ball that was dry on the outside and damp on the inside like all my previous dryers had done.  I love sleeping in freshly washed bedding.

The dryer is a means to an end—clean dry clothes.  I am grateful for being able to easily do my own laundry right here in my apartment whenever I want. 

A low level of drama

I live a quiet life in Bellevue.   I rarely travel far nor go on many romantic dates.  The downside is there could be 'more' in my life.  The upside is that I have peace and serenity in my life. 

If I could magically change my life I would have a healthier and more dynamic life.  Since I can't magically change my life and physical abilities, it is miraculous that I have found a deep sense of peace and serenity living the life I have.   For that, I am extremely grateful.

my Kindle

Love my Kindle. On my 3rd John Ringo book this month.

I am grateful for 21st century toys that being the world (and the stars) to me.

Classier problems

By nature, I am more than willing to stay home and isolate by myself from the world (and my friends) left to my own best thinking. Fortunately for me, my HP has seen fit to stop that by giving my car a small electrical problem. If I don't drive my car every day, the battery goes dead on the 2nd or 3rd day. My mechanic could not find the problem. The throw money at it solution could easily run into thousands of dollars for new alternator, starter, voltage regulator, wiring harnesses, etc. The simple healthy solution is for me to go meet with friends or go to a meeting every day. That is definitely a higher-powered problem in my book!

Another task I have taken on is persuading my 12-step program to put together a series of articles by members on gratitude into a 100ish page compilation handbook. After searching the King County Library System, Amazon and Google, I did not find a lot of books specifically on gratitude. There are lots of self-help books on feeling better, happier, more spiritual, etc, but not so many on gratitude. It turns out my 12-step program has an online digital archive of 27,000 articles with 1790 articles containing the world gratitude. It costs $30/year for unlimited access. That was a total buy. I have already spent over $100 on books with far less material. Definitely a higher-powered project.

My problems are a lot classier today than they used to be. For that, I am grateful.

More about gratitude

Writing this blog about gratitude is one of the best things that I have done for my mental health in my life. Since I started 10 weeks ago all my relationships have gotten and I have a fantastic level of peace & serenity that comes from me being okay with my life.

I have the opportunity to search through 1200 short articles on Gratitude by some incredibly grateful people to pick about 30 of the best ones as a suggestion for a compilation book. How cool is that? Even my homework is to research gratitude!

Words are not flowing off my fingers tonight for this post. Nonetheless, I have tremendous inner peace and a strong sense of security/determination that I am headed in the right direction with my life.

I will sign off now to spend the $30 to get access to the 1200 articles on gratitude. Time to start research of my favorite kind—reading and bookmarking!

More daylight...

At 47 degrees North, daylight hours in Seattle vary between 8 in December to 16 hours in June. Combined with a seemingly perpetual overcast, the limited daylight makes for dark and dreary winters. By the time my birthday rolls around in early March, the days are getting longer by 3 minutes & 20+ seconds for the next 6 weeks. We get nearly 3 hours more daylight from March 1 to April 30.

I love it as the days get longer knowing that spring and summer will last until the Fall. Okay, that was stating the blindingly obvious, but I do relish in my numerology (my favorite word to misuse) of knowing it will be warmer and sunnier for the next six months.

One astronomical oddity is that on March 18th, we will have 12 hours 2 minutes of daylight and yet the Spring equinox is not until March 20th at 7:21 EDT. Seems like the equinox ought to be on the 18th. Further wiki research reveals the reason for that.

Equilux: 1. the Sun appears as a disk in the sky with a radius of around 16 arcminutes, and so the top of the Sun appears to rise while the centre of the disk is still below the horizon, and the instant of the equinox is measured with respect to the Sun’s centre, and; 2. the Sun’s light is bent, or refracted, in the Earth’s atmosphere, so that rays from the Sun can light you up even before the Sun rises, and keep you lit after it sets, with the degree of refaction being around 34 arcminutes. These two factors combine to mean that the Sun will appear to have “risen” when the centre of the disk is still 50 arcminutes (16 + 34) below the horizon, making the amount of daylight longer than the expected 12 hours. How much longer depends on where on Earth you are. For example, in the UK the length of the day is approx. 12 hours 10 minutes, rather than exactly 12 hours.

I am grateful for more daylight hours and warmer days!

Serenity or living in the present moment

Before recovery, all of my adult life was spent living in the future as in 'someday I am going to be...happy, wealthy, successful, etc'. My past was too painful to spend much time in. There was never 'enough' while in the present moment.

Over time as my age and addictions progressed, the future could no longer be sugar-coated to be anything other than Hobbesian— solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.

It has taken years of recovery, therapy, mediation and other self-improvement methods for me to spend my days living in the present. One statement about the present is that it is a gift. The real blessing of living in the present for me is the gift of serenity. Taken individually, each of my days are good.

When I get sucked into doing some sort of life-evaluation, then my life and days come up short since I should clearly have and be so much more than what I have and am today. The slogan for that kind thinking is don't should've on yourself.

Today, I am grateful for my serenity and living in the present moment.

progress

Had a good day today. Gave my roommate's daughter Leah a ride to the airport. Lisa P took me shooting pistols at Wade's Gun Club in Bellevue. Took Lisa to a great lunch at Ruth's Chris along with a walk around Bellevue Square. Went to a different 12-step organization meeting tonight.

We talked about the 3rd step tonight. I find it to be a bit of a paradox that as I become more spiritual, I think about defining god less and work on doing my part more. That is a result of the progress I have made in becoming more secure (entrenched?) in my belief system of what works for me in my life.

Today I have lots of gratitude and serenity. Life is good.

Meeting commitments

I committed myself to blogging 5x/week about gratitude this year. For the first time this year, I am not going to be complete this week with my 5x posts. That is a lot of progress on how I show up in my life and with my commitments.

I had a great birthday weekend am very pleased with having lived long enough to be 52 years old.

I am grateful for being older, wiser and having serenity & sobriety in my life today.

My birthday

My birthday is on March 5th. It is a great time of year to have a birthday. The days are getting longer, trees have begun budding, early flowers are blooming and the spring equinox is right around the corner on the 20th.

My birthday was on a Saturday this year. I celebrated with friends at a really delicious Vietnamese fusion restaurant, Monsoon East, in Old Bellevue on Friday night. Saturday was a mixed martial arts (MMA) event at the Snoqualmie Casino with a modest amount of gambling—I like gambling, but I hate losing money so I almost never gamble. I had a burger at the Twin Peaks Café (Twedes) in North Bend and brought home a slice of their awesome cherry pie for desert.

Tonight I am going the Space Needle with my roommate Elma and her daughter Leah. They have never been up in the Space Needle. It has been a couple of decades for me. It will be fun.

I stretch my birthday out over weeks as a part of my recovery. Instead of having one perfect moment that I immediately want to last forever, I have a bunch of pleasant events with friends. That works really well for me so that one perfect moment is not a make or break event for whether or not I had a good birthday. Now I always have good times on my birthday.

I am grateful for the increased wisdom and serenity in my life as I get older.

My spirituality

One description of the 12-step programs is that they are a spiritual program of action. The meetings have but one ultimate authority—a loving god as we may understand him. That works for everybody at the meetings whether they be atheists, agnostics, spiritual or religious believers.

Years ago I spent time contemplating the nature of god and attributes such an entity might have. I concluded that if I have a god, he is omnipotent. What is true for me is that as long as I act as if there is a god, my life goes a lot better. It does not matter if there is or is not a supreme being. What matters is what I think and do. Basically that boils down to my turning my worries over to my higher power and doing the next indicated thing.

While discussing that with a friend tonight, I realized that I am a spiritual agnostic. That covers all I need to know about god at this time. Many of the smartest men in history spent their lives trying top prove the existence of god (or no-god) to no avail, it is not something that I spend much time on. I simply do my best to act as if there is a god and move on.

I now meditate on gratitude in the morning and at night, along with during the day as needed. That works really well for me and I am grateful that I have found a way to meditate that works for me—feeling grateful to my higher power and others for the gifts I have been given in my life today.

I have always had the basics of food & shelter in my life. I am and was loved by my family but it all too often was expressed in ways that hurt resulting in a lack of emotional security, serenity and intimate relationships. Today I have a full complement of the hierarchy of needs with food, shelter, relationships and such at something approaching the high end of the poverty level in Bellevue. That makes me richer than about 80% of the people in the world. It is nice to have those tools and toys.

The real miracle in my life beyond sobriety is the inside job of having serenity and gratitude in my life. Working with others who are struggling reinforces my gratitude in great measure. It is positive reinforcement to continue on my path in the direction I am heading. It is working for me today.