Interesting Stories

A group of us meet at a local mall every week for recovery and fellowship.  We don’t share a lot of back story about family members focusing instead on ourselves.   Today we got into some family history.  One guy’s family were Jews from Poland that got out before the holocaust.  Another’s mom was a Miss Maryland beauty queen.  One lady was Dutch via generations in the midwest.   I have known these people for 10 years.   Did not know that about them.  There is a good chance I am a crappy listener.  I know we are very reserved in talking about our family history.

I am grateful to know more about my friends and their family history’s.  Fascinating stuff.

2015 Comes to a Close

2015 was a dreary year.   My body aged much faster than time passed on the calendar.  

I am ready to regroup for 2016.  Physical fitness will be a high priority this year.  Ideally, swimming will be my primary exercise outlook.   Healthier eating will help.

I am grateful to have survived the year with enough gumption to plan on making 2016 a better year.

A Much Better Sense of Community

Spent the morning at the mall with our regular group of 5 people.  We exchanged Xmas cards and small gifts.  Bought some gift cards for others while there.   Went to a noon meeting and greeted all 20ish men in the room by going around the room and shaking their hand.  Saw my old friend Paul from Tri-cities who is town for Xmas.   He took me to my only Seahawk game in the new Century Link stadium eight years ago.

I have always had a problem bonding with other people in my life.  In my world-view,  I can attribute all personality issues in life be attributed to nature or nurture.  I am darned sure I missed out on a lot of nurturing throughout my childhood.    Part of my recovery is to re-parent my inner child so that it lives in a much more loving and secure world.   That is best done with the help of many other kind people that love in a healthy way while I reach out to help others.   It takes a village.

My relationships with others are now by far and away the best they have been in my life.   I am grateful for their love and support as they show me how to live.

Headache

I rarely get actual headaches in my head.  There are plenty of “headaches” in my life.  This morning’s headache was greatly mitigated with acetaminophen and sleep.

I am grateful that I rarely get headaches and have great compassion for those that do get them, especially those that suffer from migraines.

My Cat Bug

I have had my tortoiseshell (tortie) cat Bug for nine years.  Torties are almost always female.  She is an incredibly kind gentle and loving creature.  She has never bitten or scratched me hard enough to break the skin.   She greets me at the door when I come home (and feed her kitty treats).

This is the longest pet relationship I have ever had.   We get along well and spend lots of time together.   She sits next to me when I work at my desk and sleeps next to me in my bed much of the time.  Bug likes to lie next to me when I am reading my Kindle.

We got another cat last year that we now call Baby Kitty.  She is also a tortie.   Lea and Baby Kitty bonded very closely.   BK follows Lea around the apartment and meows when Lea takes out the trash.

I am grateful to have such a great kind loving social cat in Bug.

Joined the Apple Mac Universe

My new car stereo has a variety of inputs including CD, AM/FM radio, Sirius, Spotify, Pandora, Bluetooth, USB and a 2.5mm audio jack.  My goal when buying the stereo was a better FM radio experience.  I hate commercials.   Now my goal is to play MP3 files.  

A USB stick would work but it is in linear order from start to finish one at a time.   A cheap MP3 was better but was still seriously lacking in user-friendly controls.   It was impressive to have 64GB on a $40 device,

The stereo was clearly designed to work with Apple univers in the iPhone, iPad and iPod domains.   I broke down and bought my first Apple product yesterday.  $pendy and attractive.  I am copying my MP3 files over and will give it a try in the car later this week.   I hope it works out so that I get the music playing experience I am seeking—constant sequential music with little need to do more than skip songs I am not in the mood for.

Getting my files transferred over called for installing an iTunes program on my PC and getting the iPod sync’ed to my PC along with some help from Google.

I am grateful for sophisticated tech devices, being able to afford said devices, and the tech literacy to make them work with a small amount of time and effort.

Feeling Better

It is not clear whether I had a cold or flu for the last five  days.   An infection started in my chest and moved to my sinuses.  I was not nauseous although I had an upset stomach for a couple of days with some fever & chills one night.   I guess it does not matter much what it is called.  I was sick and now I am better.

I will get a flu shot this Friday when I see my doctor.   I surely don’t want to tempt fate by having a worse infection due to lack of prevention on my part.  That would suck.

I am grateful to be feeling better.

Colds and Medications

Came down with a medium-sized cold on Thursday night or possibly a mild flu since I also had an upset stomach along with fever & chills.  Took lots of cold medications and some acetaminophen.   I am sure the medications made whatever infection it was much less virulent. 

I am grateful for a mild infection and medications to treat the secondary effects like pain and coughing.

A Persian Lunch

A new guy at our morning meeting is from Iran by way of teen years in Germany.   It was his birthday last Friday and he does not have any family here.  Lea bought him balloons on Monday.   I took him, Lea and three other guys out to lunch today nicer Persian restaurant in Bellevue.

We met at a noon meeting which already got the others in early recovery a bit out of their comfort zone from the Alano Club.  It is always good to go to a new meeting.   A couple of them shared at the meeting expanding their recovery horizons even that much more.

It was a celebration of his recovery and my small token of a geo-political statement for all the anti-Muslim rhetoric bandied about by fearful haters in the news these days.   We had a good time at lunch.  I wish we would have lingered to chat longer, but it was a good start for all of us on practicing socializing with and supporting others.

I am grateful to be able to afford lunch at a nice place for myself and others.   

Modern Medications

I take four prescription medications every day.  One needs to be monitored on a monthly basis.   They are not addictive nor mood altering drugs.  They help with my body do better with poor circulation and a compromised immune system.   I would have died years ago without them.

There are multiple rants to had on the US medical delivery system and pharmaceutical industry.  Obamacare has changed the lives of millions of people for the vastly better and will again be changing the US health insurance landscape with mandatory insurance required next year.

I am incredibly grateful for the life-saving benefits of generic drugs and health insurance.

Lots of Rain

Seattle rain set a new record for this date (12/7) with .97 inches of rain beating the old record of .88 inches in 1968.  It has been a wet start to December with the average first week of rain being 1.35” and we have had 3.2”.   A couple more inches are predicted in the next two days.  Our weather is wonderfully mild.  5 inches of rain in 10 days is a mild fraction of the impact that other places can get in a few hours or a day.  

I don’t like going out in the rain, but it is okay to drive in and we don’t have flash floods.   There will be some flooding and landslides.   Not living at the bottom of the valleys nor on a steep hill easily avoids those problems for most of others.  Others chose less wisely and have real problems.  Federal flood insurance ensures the same problem keeps happening over and over again.

I have lived in a desert before.   It was creepy not having rain.   It was simple math since before the first dam that California would have water shortages.   I knew I would never live in a place without precipitation.  I love fresh clean soft (not mineralized) water way too much.

I am grateful for fresh clean water.  Let it rain! 

A Fantastic Finish to A Great Football Season

College football is on its second season of a four team playoff to a champion.  The last games of the season before assigning bowl games and playoff spots was the league championship games held today. #1 Clemson and #2 Alabama both won.   #3 Oklahoma is in the only league that does not have a championship game from two divisional winners such as North vs. South in the Pac12.

#4 Iowa played #5 Michigan State for the Big 12 conference championship and last spot in the playoffs.   It was the last game of the regular (not bowl) season going down to the wire.   Michigan State scored a must-have touchdown with 30 seconds left in the game.   It was a fantastic finish with an 18-year freshman getting tackled by 5 bigger and slightly older guys before the goal line and still making 3 yards to score the game winner on the their all-but-last chance.  It was a perfect finish to a great regular season of college football.

There has been 600-ish college football games this fall.   I am grateful for all the entertaining great plays, feats of athleticism & teamwork, and great finishes.   Good luck to all in the holiday bowl games.  May all the games have a exciting ending.

College Football League Championship Games

I have watched a lot of NCAA football this year.   Tomorrow is the last day of good games until the bowl games after Xmas.   In an effort to squeeze even more money out of “student athletes”, leagues now play a championship game thus getting around the rules limiting the number of games and generating more money for the big league schools.

These are the most meaningful games all year determining the schools that will be in the final 4 championship playoff bowl games and seeding for the other bowl games.   It is a lot more fun for players and their fan base to be in San Diego instead of Detroit in January (or any other time of year).

I despise the hypocrisy of student athletes when the UW spent millions to remodel their stadium moving the student seating from the desired middle of the field to the shaded west end zone selling the naming rights to Alaska Airlines for $40 million  while refusing to pay its workers a $15 minimum wage as voted on by the residents of the City of Seatac.

I love the optimism of youth while watching college football.  For example, Michigan State beat Michigan on the final play of the game while never leading during the entire game.  It was a crazy finish.   Happens every weekend.

I am grateful for the entertainment of college football on TV.   There are at least 5 or 10 good games every weekend from September to December and during the bowl games.

Better Disagreement Skills

Got into an instant spat with my roommate this morning.   I was again annoyed by her making a commitment to do something and then failing to meet that commitment for days.  She asked what I was thinking about.  I expressed frustration in a polite way.   Her defensive response was to posture-up and leave the room muttering crap under her breathe.

In the past, conflicts with roommates would need to be solved ASAP in a single discussion.  Another good theory that never worked in practice…   Instead  I declined to spend my morning with her, made some phone calls and meet with a recovery friend for step work this afternoon.

While my roommate did not say much when she got home, her body language expressed chagrin and she completed a part of her previous commitment.   We still have a bunch to work out, but we did not use, break anything nor abuse each other verbally.   No major amends need be made nor did we spend the day in active resentment.

I am grateful for better skills and much more patience in resolving conflicts.

Root Canal

Got the second half of my second root canal completed today by a student Endodondist at the UW School of Dentistry.  I was in the chair for about 7 hours for a job that takes a working professional about an hour.  The student had a nice touch and I tried to sleep through as much as possible.   I was extremely lucky to not have this be a horribly painful situation.  My tooth was sore.  Lidocaine reduced the pain to a negligible level.

I had a root canal done 6 years ago in Redmond.   That costs $1100 and took a few minutes since my dentist had already done most of the work.   This root canal cost $780 and took 7 hours.   I am sure rates have gone up considerably.

Now I need to get a crown installed by a dentist.  Not my favorite way to spend time.  I do love having all my original teeth (sans wisdom teeth) and am willing to go to some lengths to avoid losing the first one to rot or decay.

I am blessed and grateful to have nice straight teeth that are generally in good health and pain-free.

Giving Tuesday

Today is “Giving Tuesday”.  GT was founded by the 92^nd Street Y which is a Jewish Community Center in Manhattan.  Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook fame lead the charge with a commitment to give away the vast majority of his $45 billion fortune.

On the other hand, I got a call from a tele-marketer claiming to represent a charity for veterans.  At best, those firms give 10% of the money collected to said charity (often less than 1% which is essentially nothing).  I told him to not call back and hung up on him.  Vultures.

There are many worthy organizations and causes to be supported in the US and around the world.  I am a big fan of better governance.   The Sunlight Foundation and Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) provide great bang for the buck value.

I am grateful for all the volunteers and charitable organizations that make our world a better place to live, work and serve.

All I Need

It is crazy era to be living in.  According to Oxfam, next year 1% of the people will own more than half the world’s wealth.  That is a huge increase in 7 years.  In 2009, they owned 44% of the wealth.   Looks like trickle-down economics did not work as promised… 

Since getting paralyzed at 22, I only worked about 7 years of my adult life.   Thanks to the blessings being hurt on a job covered by workmen’s compensation insurance, I got a pension that allows me to live in a nice apartment in a somewhat expensive city with a car, heat, clean running water, reliable electricity and plenty of food to eat (maybe way too much food).

Those are all great things.  One thing that my cohorts often take for granted is the security of having those resources.  There is little danger of no clean water, food or being invaded happening in my lifetime.   That is a tremendous amount of emotional security in not having to worry about fleeing for my life like what happened in China when I was a kid, Eastern Europe during the Soviet era, Central America, SE Asia, Africa and the middle-east since the dawn of history.

I am grateful to have all I need with no anxiety about whether it will still be here tomorrow or next year.  Thank god for a stable prosperous place to live and the means to do it.   It is a HUGE blessing.

Staying Warm on the Coldest Day in 22 Months

Today was the coldest day (26° F) in almost two years.  I stayed warm & comfy watching football.   Seahawks now have a winning 6-5 record after beating Pittsburgh today.

Had an upset stomach this afternoon and did not make it out like I planned.  Oh well.  Tomorrow’s plans are a meeting and lunch with Sandy.

I am grateful to be warm and well-fed on a cold winter-like November day.

Sober Holidays

I used to think of the time from Halloween to January as “whiskey season” as a way to cope with the chasm between how the holidays –should– be and how they actually were.   Now I am sober and reasonably happy through the holiday season.

It has been an even quieter than usually holiday season for me this year.  That is okay.  It is fantastically better than being caught up inside my head crazy-making over life not being how I mistakenly think it should be.

I am grateful for both my sobriety and serenity this holiday season.

Bonding With Others

Went to a meeting this morning.   It was nice to feel like I was among friends instead of feeling alone in a room full of others that I had known for awhile.

I used to have a terrible case of terminal uniqueness that lasted for several years in early recovery.   I had some concerns about missing a “bonding molecule”  (like dopamine or something) in my brain.    Turned out I needed more humility and to do a better job of surrendering to a power greater than myself.   While I am still an introverted loner that likes to isolate, I do a much better job of being with others when out and about than how it used to be.

I am grateful for the many good friends and kind loving people in my life today.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I am grateful for plenty of food, a warm place to live, and friends among the many blessings in my life.

A Great Mechanic

I have had my car worked on by the same shop in Bellevue for over a decade.   Ali’s Automotive in Bellevue provides great service and will drop me off at home and pick me up when the car is done.   It is extremely conveniently located 2 miles away.

For the last 25 years, I have driven 5 Ford Thunderbirds or Mercury Cougars.   They are the same car with different trim.   They work better than anything for the way I get my wheelchair in the backseat with a nice high roofline and relatively low seat compared with, say, an SUV.   Ford does not make these cars anymore so I have to buy older ones and keep them well maintained for reliability and safety.

The expensive replacement catalytic converter went out.   Ali’s vender no long stocks the one the installed and so it took them a couple of weeks to get it covered under warranty.   They have my car overnight and will bring it back tomorrow.

I could not drive these older cars without a good inexpensive reliable convenient mechanic.   My current Tbird is a 1996 that I bought two years ago with 65,000 miles on it.  There are cheaper cars to drive.   None that work so well for me.

I am extremely grateful for a reliable convenient mechanic.  Happy Thanksgiving to Ali and his family!

It Could Have Been Much Worse

While transferring from my car to my wheelchair today, I slipped and fell to the ground twice today.  Both times I was able to get back in my car and then back in my chair with the help of someone helping my chair while I used it to left myself up.

One of my fears is falling and not being able to get up.  My planned solution was to call the fire department for help.  Fortunately I was able to get up with a little help from one other person and most importantly did not tear up my shoulders.

I am grateful that a small problem did not turn into a large disaster.   This was definitely strong motivation for more diet and exercise discipline starting real soon—like RIGHT NOW!

An Early Thanksgiving Dinner

Made a rib roast and (packaged) scalloped potatoes for an early thanksgiving dinner for me and Lea tonight.  It was good and a nice way to get started on the long holiday weekend with a quiet dinner between football games, reading, TV shows and homework for Lea.

We will do meals with others on Thanksgiving and a big gratitude potluck dinner on Saturday night.  I like to think of those as being like an extended family get-together.   I got 15 pounds of black forest ham to take to the dinner on Saturday night funded by our morning meeting.

I have a lot to be thankful for this holiday season and am grateful to get to be able to share it with other friend and fellow travelers on the road to happy destinies.

A Better Peace With Myself

Yesterday was a good day.  Today was not so good.  That is okay.

As I get older and have more recovery, therapy and maturity, my negative thinking and resultant anxieties don’t bother me nearly as much as how it used to be.  Issues de jour are not life sentences, it is just a undesirable event during an okay life.

I am grateful to live life on a much more positive even keel than how it used to be.

A Better Day

It has been a mildly tough week after a rough year for health care issues.   The health care issues are hopefully mostly resolved.  Today was a pretty good day.  Went to a meeting, ran some errands including picking up new glasses, met with Bill to discuss my work in the NA step study guides and hung out at the mall for a couple hours.   Came home, had a nice salad for dinner, ate some delicious banana nut bread and started a good book that I have read before.

That is good enough for today.

I am grateful for better health and better days.

Reading

I love to read.  I have spent more of my waking time reading than any other activity.  I used to read mostly books and a few magazines.  Now I only read magazines while waiting at the doctor’s office—if then.  I spend more time surfing the web than reading books, but it is reasonably close.   If I have a book that I like, book reading time goes way up.

A friend shared a recent article about how most Americans don’t read books after high school or college.   I found that surprising.  Most of my friends are readers.   How can you not read?

I am grateful to be a reader and have good reading skills.

Living On A Hill

A series of strong fall rain & windstorms are blowing through the area like they do every year in late autumn.  A friend talked about flooding issues with me tonight.   Her house is on a hill, but she is having problems with flooding in the crawl space.  The Stillaguamish river runs through her lower pasture during high flood stages but is not a problem beyond maybe having to fix an electric fence in the spring when the flooding is gone.

I have never lived in a place that got flooded.  To my way of thinking, it’s crazy, stressful and way too much work to live in a place prone to flooding given other options.

I am grateful to live in a place that will never flood in my lifetime.   Getting up the last bit of hill in the snow is too risky to try in my rear-wheel drive car.   If I wait a day or two, that problem goes away.

Overcoming Loneliness

Almost without exception, alcoholics are tortured by loneliness. Even before our drinking got bad and people began to cut us off, nearly all of us suffered the feeling that we didn't quite belong.    As Bill Sees It, p. 90

The agonies and the void that I often felt inside occur less and less frequently in my life today. I have learned to cope with solitude. It is only when I am alone and calm that I am able to communicate with God, for He cannot reach me when I am in turmoil. It is good to maintain contact with God at all times, but it is absolutely essential that, when everything seems to go wrong, I maintain that con-tact through prayer and meditation.

From AA’s Daily Reflections for  11/17

I have been lonely all of my life.   The loneliest place in the world for me is in a large crowded noisy room.  I can’t get around and I can’t hear comprehend others due problems with tinnitus making it impossible for me to understand what they are saying.

Reasonable accommodations are for me to meet with people one-on-one in quieter places.   That means that I don’t hang out with a gang of friends.   Meeting with five others at Crossroads Mall on Wednesdays is invaluable in helping me learn how to socialize with others in a group.

Thanks to years of Alanon, my broken (relationship/friend) picker is not such a factor in my life these days.  However, it is definitely another case of progress not perfection.

I am grateful for the good friends that are in my life. 

Writing More Frequently

I am working on getting back to writing in this blog more often than not.  Don’t have much of a topic for today, but I am sure that even a short post is better than doing nothing.

I am grateful to be learning how to do large projects in bits and pieces instead of my old beliefs of having to have a magnum opus or nothing.

Happy Birthday to my sister!

Being a Better Friend

My roommate acted out in an ill-advised inappropriate way in a store today.   My perception was that it was using behaviors coming out sideways due to not working the steps and getting a fuller measure of relief from 12-step recovery.  She was || that close to going to jail and creating major hassles in her life.

Instead of a litany of critical comments for being stupid, I got to see her pain as manifested by acting out in old behaviors and  then provide loving support for her while not condoning her actions.   It went as well as could have been hoped for in that situation.   As addicts, our perception would be that she did something dumber than using crack or heroin.   In reality, she pretty much just planted a big red flag identifying a problem that she needs to work on and did not cause any further damage—much less the kind of irreparable havoc that using would have created.

I am grateful to be a much better friend today than how I used to be.

A Shut-In Day

Was going to meet with Bill and then go to prison tonight among other activities planned for today.   Instead I stayed home, reading, watching TV shows, napping and playing Freecell.   I was concerned about coming down with whatever bug my roommate Lea had for the last couple of days.   I will get a flu shot tomorrow.

One day does not make a week, a month or a lifetime.  Staying in while potentially sick on a cold windy rainy day is not that bad an idea given the crappy health I have had so far this year.

I am grateful that tomorrow will be a more active day and that I don’t have to live like the movie Groundhog Day doing the same thing over and over.

Self-Acceptance

We know that God lovingly watches over us. We know that when we turn to Him, all will be well with us, here and hereafter. 12x12, p. 105

I pray for the willingness to remember that I am a child of God, a divine soul in human form, and that my most basic and urgent life-task is to accept, know, love and nurture myself. As I accept myself, I am accepting God's will. As I know and love myself, I am knowing and loving God. As I nurture myself I am acting on God's guidance.

I pray for the willingness to let go of my arrogant self-criticism, and to praise God by humbly accepting and caring for myself.

From AA’s Daily Reflections for November 11^th

All too often, I berate myself for real or imagined mistakes.   This is definitely a family of origin issue, no matter what I did, it was never good enough.  My parents are long gone from my life and yet I continue with negative self-talk.   Any kind of logic or therapy or recovery tells me that it is incredibly self-destructive and not helpful to living a better life.

Working on fears in my 4^th step, it is ever more clear that I have many great fears about success.  Much of that is from a fear of the pain of loss.  If I don’t have anything, I can’t lose anything.   That is insanely bad logic since I will lose all possibility of a life that is happy joyous and free.

I am grateful for the progress I am making on reducing negative self-talk and being a better friend to myself.

A Bit of Exercise

I get great medical care through the University of Washington Medical Center (hospital) and its peripheral system such as the UW Physicians medical clinics and Harborview.  One way for me to reciprocate in the benefits of a teaching hospital is to participate in medical research studies.  I have been in about 8 studies in the last 15 years.   Some of the studies have turned into longitudinal studies over time.   The ones I have done dealt with spinal cord injury issues and pain or physical fitness.  I definitely got more than money out of the studies with enhanced knowledge of pain management or being more motivated to exercise.

I recently started a “clinical trial” (a more advanced version of the usual study).   Today I did an exercise stress test with a VO₂ breathing mask and a lot of electrodes while using a hand crank ergometer (stationary hand bike).  It felt good to get some more vigorous exercise.  I have an older noisier verson of the ergometer.  Swimming is not working out for me this year.   I will set up my hand bike and use it…sometime soon!

I am grateful for some exercise and for great medical care that I get through UW medical system.

Celebrating Birthdays

My sister and three of my friends had birthdays this month. 

My sister is on the far side of the world, so we won’t be getting together.   I stepped up to help her with some paperwork this year that cost a few bucks to do and took some effort.  I told her that was an early birthday present.   It was the nicest thing I have ever done for her besides my getting sober.

Nine of us got together for dinner tonight at the Nordstrom Café.   We had a nice quiet meal and sang happy birthday to four people all rolled into one long name.   It was fun.

These people have all made a huge impact in my life.   It was nice to be able to organize an event for them.

I am grateful for the wonderful supportive people in my life that share their successes and milestones with me and allow me to share mine with them.

Letting Go of Guilt and Shame

I frequently get struck by feelings of guilt and shame from events that occurred long ago going back to early childhood.  There is no rational reason to have these negative feelings.   They do not make my life better in any way, shape or form.  Undoubtedly a lot of this baggage has to do with family of origin issues.  While never starved for food, there was definitely some serious emotional neglect by my parents (who presumably did the best they could with what they had).

I was overly optimistic that working on my 4^th step would be pretty easy and not too emotionally loaded.  Usually I do 3 questions per writing session.  The first question tonight was on issues of guilt and shame.  I acknowledged having major issues with this, gave and example and stopped writing.   I left room to add more examples as they occur to me.  My brain went into shutdown/balk mode and was not going to process the usual suspects on demand.  I have no doubt they will come to me.  Best case would be if they never haunted me again.

I am grateful for the progress I have made and will make on letting go the feelings of guilt and shame that haunt me from minor faux pas and larger mistakes from my past.

Values

Working on a 4^th step via the NA Step Study Guides.  The question was posed as to what are my values.  What I came up with was as much a list of list of behaviors as anything else.  I like people that are kind, smart and helpful.  Don’t like greedy violent warmongers.

I am grateful for all the kind loving supportive people in my life.  It has taken me a long time to learn how important relationships are in my life.   Better late than never.

Auto Upgrades

Bought new tires at Costco last week.   They will be installed on Thursday.   Got a new car stereo today with HD radio and BlueTooth.  Stereo is ridiculously complicated and will take some getting used to.   I could not even figure out the power button without having to look at the manual.

The tires were a safety must-have.   My car is rear-wheel drive and tends to spin out on slippery wet pavement.  I have no intention of driving it in the snow—especially since my apartment driveway would be the worst piece of road around when it came to driving uphill around two sharp shaded corners.   That is okay.   It does not snow here that much and I don’t have to be somewhere else everyday.

This was the first time I bought a car stereo in 34 years.  Mostly I just want to listen to the radio and I was having some static/distortion problems with my factory setup.   Much like many other digital devices, the in-dash radio units (“heads”) are incredibly inexpensive.   Speakers and labor was 80% of the cost.  As soon as I figure out how to use the stereo and get it setup in a way that works for me, I am sure I will like it a lot.  It will be more radio and also USB drives loaded with music.   I will surely listen to many more 12-step speakers while driving around via my smart phone storage or an mp3 player.

I am grateful to able to maintain my car in good running order and for modern audio devices with digital smarts.

Not As Childish

The AA 12x12 references a group of doctors trying to determine what alcoholics all had in common.  Their conclusion was that most alcoholics were still childish, emotionally sensitive and grandiose.  Whenever I here the childish part, I immediately want to put my hands on my hips and say “AM NOT!”  Yeah, I still got it…in spades.

The good news is that I am a lot less childish, immature and grandiose than how I used to.   There is a young man at a meeting that is essentially trying to bully me in weird little ways at every meeting.  After months weirdness I will finally have to respond, not because it is bothering me, but because it is toxic to recovery at the meeting.  I will show him love and kindness as a I explain his behavior to him and how trusted servants are supposed to do this role per the literature.  Ideally it will help him be a better person.  At the very least, we can hope for less toxic behavior.

I am grateful to be less childish, overly sensitive and grandiose than how I used to be.  Plenty of room for more progress since I am a far cry from perfect.

My Second Root Canal

Had a mildly sore tooth for the last month.  Lacking dental insurance, I now get my dental care at the UW School of Dentistry.  The price is right although scheduling is weeks slower.  That makes a strong argument for being proactive in my dental care.

Students are definitely slower than practicing professionals.   Spent 3.5 hours in the dental chair this afternoon while an endontist-to-be did a root canal.  Was going to be a 3-session experience, but due to the long time today, I will only have one more visit in early December.

I have a lot of skill and experience in advocating for my health care.   It is nearly impossible to make well informed choices about dental care.  My previous private practice dentist did a great job on the dental care.   I am also sure he was gouging me for replacing fillings that did not need to be replaced.   Whenever the dental students see the gold work on my teeth, they all say with a sense of reverence and awe “ooowww, that’s nice gold work”.

I had my wisdom teeth pulled 15 years ago.  I have all the rest of my teeth and want to keep them.  They work great for me.

I got my first root canal 7 years ago.   It cost me $1200.  The second root canal will take a few more trips to the dental school and cost me $150.  I might buy a new laptop and car stereo with the savings.   I already paid for new tires on Tuesday [they will be installed next week].

I am grateful for great cheap dental care and for having all my teeth.

A Searching and Fearless Moral Inventory

Working the 12-steps via the Narcotics Anonymous Step Working Guides.  Despite the plural name, it is a letter-size soft cover book of 124 pages with 400+questions on the steps.  I am writing my responses in cursive in a 3-ring notebook.  Tonight I finished the last question of the 3^rd step and so am now on the 4^th step.

Last year Lea and I started a simplified recovery bible-based workbook with short fill-in-the-blank answers.  That was not a searching inventory by any stretch of the imagination.

I read the 4^th step from the the NA 12x12 today and a couple pages from the study guide tonight.   It has been almost 10 years since my last 4^th step. 

An online definition of moral is: “Moral comes from the Latin word mores, for habits. The moral of a story is supposed to teach you how to be a better person. If moral is used as an adjective, it means good, or ethical. If you have a strong moral character, you are a good member of society. If someone is a cheat and a liar, you might say, "She is not a moral person.”

I am grateful to be sober and working on being a better person.   After a rough year with health care issues, I am optimistic for happier times.

I Just Voted

King County—in the Seattle metro area—strongly encourages voting by mail aka “absentee ballot”.  I have been to a voting both a couple times in my life in college when there was a booth at the apartment complex where I lived in Santa Barbara.  Other than that, it has been all vote-by-mail.   VBM is a fantastic way to vote by leaving a paper trail that can be audited and recounted along with no lines and open 24/7 for weeks in advance.

This year there were a couple of measures asking how voters felt for already implemented taxes such as a tax on oil trains amounting to $17M.  The choices were to keep or repeal said taxes.  I wanted a 3^rd choice to increase taxes.  Not an option.

In light of the voter suppression going on elsewhere in the country, King County is a bastion of voting opportunity in many ways.

I am grateful for the opportunity to vote in a easy user friendly manor that does not require me to get special ID or have to wait in line for hours at a distant hard-to-get-to location.

Discipline vs Motivation

I get several self-improvement emails every day.  Some are spiritual or 12-step recovery based and others are of the positive psychology ilk.   Not a lot of new material, mostly they just serve to remind me and reinforce the obvious. 

One email that continues to provide food for thought weeks later is was to go with discipline for doing the next indicated thing such as exercise or other healthy behavior instead of waiting for the motivation to feel like getting exercise or whatever other tasks I am procrastinating on.

This year I have had a rough go on doing the next indicated thing for a variety of reasons including health care problems.  This week, I am going to use discipline to get back to a healthier routine of more meetings and swimming.  I will go to at least 7 meetings and swim at least 2 times this week.

I am grateful for the self-care skills I have learned to help me live a better life today.

Back to School

My roommate Lea has gone back to college to do a vocational stint to become a phlebotomist.  Her first class is on Tuesday.  That is a huge amount of progress from three years ago having the worst case of incomprehensible demoralization I have ever seen on January 1^st 2013.  She has had to overcome more than most due to physical and mental health issues.

I am proud of the progress Lea has made.  Helping her get a life that works is the nicest thing I have ever done for another human being.  Knowing her has made me a better person.

I am grateful to be able to be of service to others today and for getting to share their success with them.   We will do something to celebrate her progress on Monday.  That is new behavior for us.

Modern Logistics

I do a fair amount of shopping on Amazon and have the $100/year Prime membership.  It is cost effective to shop on Amazon compared with driving around checking prices in real life and vastly more secure than giving my credit card to unknown merchants all over the web.

Today I bought some cat medicine.  While writing this Gratitude blog post, I checked prices.  It is the same price on Amazon as at the local Petco store (according the Petco’s 50% ad on the web…cough…cough…BS).  Before deciding on which medication to get, I consulted some cat health sites and read reviews.  The choice of medication was obvious.  It will be here Tuesday.

Amazon Prime purchases used to arrive in 2 days.  In the last month, some Prime purchases have been scheduled for 3ish weeks away.  My guess is they are shipping from China.  It feels like bait and switch scummy that these items are presented as “Prime” and yet shipped via slow boat.  Definitely diluting the Prime brand with small print about arriving in 3 weeks.

/rant off

My thought in writing is how fast products and services are delivered at low cost in my life.  My sister sent a printed document from Australia that got here in less than a week.   Amazon has a same-day delivery service for a large selection of goods for customers living in selected places including the Seattle metro area.

Email blows snail mail out of the water.  Digital downloads shrank Blockbuster movie rentals from custom built stores to Redbox vending machines in a few short years.

My dad was a pilot and got to fly around the world for work in trips lasting up to two weeks.  Now the world comes to me faster than he could make it to Hawaii and back.

I am grateful for modern logistics including Amazon, UPS, FedEx, the USPS, and the web.  They make informed shopping a lot easier for me.

Changing Seasons

It will be Autumn in four days on the 23^rd at 1:21 AM PDT.  I miss the long hours of daylight. 

This year I am going to get a plant light that I will also use to help mitigate Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) and to keep my plants green, lush and thriving through the winter.   I use the front window as a backdrop for my office/computer desk.   The plants are relegated to a dark corner where they do not thrive.  My plant-killing cats don’t help.  A grow light will make for brighter days for all.

I am grateful for the 23° precession of the earth around the sun.  That gives us a reasonable change of seasons which is vital for life as we know it.

Swimming Again

Went swimming tonight for the first time in 8 months and 2 days.  It felt great to be back in the water.  I was in the pool for 25 minutes.   That was a good start on exercise and a bit of an investigation into how well the skin on my burn and legs would handle the 91° water.  It went well. 

Hopefully I will soon be swimming every day.  That was the plan when I got a 90-day unlimited pass the day before I burned my ankle.  Fortunately, the pool was nice enough to put the plan on hold until I commit to restarting the clock on the unlimited plan.  Tonight I paid the single use fee of $5.

I am grateful for getting to go swimming again.  It took a lot of resources to make that happen including help from Lea and a great place to swim.

Refugees

According to Google (matching donar site) the biggest refuge and migrant crisis in Europe, the Middle East and Africa is affecting the most people since WWII.  The people in the videos I saw were healthy young men that made it to Europe.  By extrapolation, the aged, women and children are being left behind.

One of my favorite quotes on war is “war is a place where old men send young men off to die”.  If those declaring war had to do the fighting and dying, there would be a lot less war.

For my entire life, the USA has spent more money on defense than any other country and usually more than the next 20 countries lumped together.  That was not a good investment in long-term well-being for anybody put the owners of the military-congressional-industrial complex that Eisenhower warned about.

The biggest problem in my locality is the construction noise while the siding is being replaced on my 180 unit apartment complex.   That is a first world problem.

I am grateful to have a stable safe peaceful place to live where immigrants to our local community come to work at Microsoft and Amazon as opposed to fleeing for their lives.

A Gorgeous Late Summer Day

It was a perfect 78° in Seattle on Thursday.   For having had the hottest driest summer on record, trees and bushes are amazingly green around Puget Sound.  Cottonwood tree leaves are starting to change to autumn colors.

I am grateful for a gorgeous perfect day, a chance to spend time with others and for trying to be of service to another person in heinous pain (especially grateful it was not me).

A Friend of a Friend With a Resentment

A common 12-step cliché is that ‘having a resentment is like taking poison and expecting someone else to die’.  My friend of a friend (fof) is living (via casual rental) with a man that started smoking heroin again as of last week.   It is not going well.  The fof is determined to fight it out and emerge triumphant over the man and his addiction.  Pure crazy making insanity.  It is not going well and will only get worse as the battle wears on.

They are not asking for advice.   They did ask for a ride after the bus they were on stopped at an intersection proceeding no further after the light refused to allow for a left-turn for half an hour.  I won’t drive around Bellevue in rush hour traffic if I can avoid it.   For them, I got on the road at 4:50.   Two hours later, I completed what is usually a 30 minute drive.

I am grateful for my housing security.  The place I live is not perfect and I will have to take action to rehab the interior with new flooring and paint.  That is small potatoes compared with living with an addict in active addiction after having pre-payed the rent.

Labor Day

Today is Labor Day.  I owe a huge debt of gratitude to those who fought for the rights of workers in the prior to shortly after the turn of the 20^th century resulting in Washington State’s Workmen’s Compensation Act of 1911.  After getting paralyzed on the job in 1981, I have been on workmen’s comp for the last 34 years.  It is the difference between living in a place of my choice or being trapped in subsidized housing with poor medical care.  A huge quality of life difference.

Until now, I did not even know when WC started in the world, USA, or in Washington State.    Here is a nice article on how it came about in Washington.

I am grateful for my Workmen’s Compensation insurance.  My life would not be the same without it.

Happy Labor Day!

A Prime Number

Had 1181 posts when I started to write tonight.  Wondered about the factors, e.g.2 & 3 for 6, and checked Google.  1181 is a prime number.

I have much better math skills than most of my friends, mostly it is a bit of a parlor trick to me.  It turns out that social and emotional skills are a lot more helpful in living a happy life..  On the other hand, math literacy is vital, useful and wonderful to be able to quantify things.

I had a hard time with calculus.   More studying would have helped a lot.    I am in awe of the math insight of others such as Euclid (geometry), al-Khwarizmi (algerbra),  Newton and Leibniz (calculus).  Imagine needing to invent the concept of zero as happened several times and places in history—that seems bizarre to me—even a cave man (or a monkey) could tell he had no food.

I am grateful for how the language of science has shaped our modern world.

An August Rainstorm

In August, Seattle is one of the driest places in the US.   For the next week, we are getting a November storm set from Hawaii, aka the Pineapple Express, that is forecasted to drop several inches of rain on a parched landscape.  It could not come at a better time.  We are having the worst fire season on record in terms of burned acreage.

I am grateful for an out of season storm sequence bringing rain and cool weather to our record hot summer.

New Apartment Siding

My apartment complex is owned by the largest publicly traded apartment on the west coast—Essex Property Trust.  Essex spent $4.3 billion two years ago to buy BRE Properties.  Now Essex looks to be spending some money on upgrades with a substantial rental increase that is sure to follow.

I love the accessibility of my apartment, ,my parking spot and the location.  The two downsides are my shower is less than ideal for me and that we are on a small hill that prevents me from going for walks around that neighborhood.

I am grateful for a nice place to live in a crime-free neighborhood that is well maintained and incredibly convenient to run errands around town.   Few people live in a more convenient location than how mine works for me.

The Chasm Between Wisdom and Virtue

I have not exercised in 8 months beyond the occasional more active outing that would consist of wheeling around on a relatively flat hard surface.  This morning I was overwhelmed by self-pity due to my rapidly aging body and so skipped going to a morning meeting—that did not help my attitude.  Fortunately lunch with a friend and therapy resulted in feeling much better and some activity.

I am not much of a “hater”.  I do hate the tyranny of insanity that results in my doing much less than I know would be good for me while feeling bad about not doing anything.

I am grateful for the scheduled structure in my life that gets me out of my head and into the action of getting out interacting with others.   It makes it a lot easier to help downsize the chasm between knowing what is good for me (wisdom) and doing what is good for me (virtue).

Lost and Okay

I have lacked a sense of direction on my journey through life for a long time.  Sure, I am working on staying sober and my relationships with others, those are great things but not enough.   I need to find a “mission” or project to work on to provide a challenge and a sense of accomplishment with creativity.

Swimming will be a part of that journey in a couple of weeks when the local adaptive access pool re-opens in three weeks.  I will have gone 8 months without swimming due to health care issues.

Working with others needs to be a part of whatever I do.   I will work on some craft projects at home.  That is a double-edged sword.   I would enjoy the projects and be isolating—that never works well for me on any kind of long-term basis.

I am grateful to be okay and look forward to engaging in right-size challenges in the future.  I will get help from others in locating the right project for me.

Restarting My Day

Had a rough morning and afternoon today.  Compensated for my sloth and self-pity by doing nothing allowing a trickle of negative thinking turn into a stream of ill-will.

Fortunately I am getting better at taking right action before that kind of thinking turns into a raging torrent of days with of negativity.  I got up, got dressed and went to the last half of a meeting.  Chatted with some friends afterwards, shopped and ate at Whole Foods, and made it home feeling much better.

I am grateful that I don’t get trapped isolating with “my own best thinking” nearly as long nor frequently as how it used to be.

One Last Hot Day

It was 89° today.  According to my weather website of choice, wunderground.com/, there are two days in the next ten days that will be above 80°.  The hottest summer on record in Seattle is cooling off.  Statistically, the average temperature cools off 2/10ths of a degree per day from July to January, then warms up again.

On a thermal tangent: Speaking of heat, J. Williard Gibbs comes to mind.  Without the concept of Gibbs free energy thermodynamics would be nothing.   JWG is widely regarded as America’s greatest native born scientist.   He graduated from Yale with the first American doctorate in engineering.

Both last summer and this summer, I bought portable AC units somewhat shaped liked oversized carry-on luggage.  Both of them began to die well before their time.  The good news is that I got my money back last summer and just need to ship this one back in the next week to get a refund on it.  I appreciate the refund but would vastly prefer a quality product that did not die after a month of use.   The fan noise quality was disappointing.   I bought the ones with the best reviews.  Next year, I will strive to get a better model.    The good news is that my summer was fantastically more pleasant with AC in my bedroom.   My plasma TV is generates way too much heat to watch without AC.

I am grateful for a warm dry summer and look forward to a cooler season to come that is projected to be warmer and dryer than average.

Crossroads Mall Farmers Market

A small group of us meets every Tuesday morning at Crossroads Mall to fellowship and discuss 12-step recovery.  Deborah went with us today. 

After our meeting, we browsed the Daiso store which is a Japanese dollar store where everything costs $1.50. 

Then we got a delicious slice of pizza from a wood-fired oven at the farmer’s market.  After that, we got a beautiful small bouquet of flowers for $5 and a tiny half-flat of blueberries for $16.

The farmers market tends to be overpriced in my humble opinion compared with the QFC next door.   It is worth a few extra bucks to wander the stalls and support local small businesses.  The local blueberries were better than the California imports sold at the grocery store.

I am grateful for a warm sunny day, cheap stores, good pizza, beautiful flowers and fantastic blueberries that I got to enjoy as a result of my meeting with others at the mall.  It would not have happened nor been nearly as fun without them.

A Good Day Today

Today was a good day for me on a perfect mid-August summer day in Seattle.  It was a cloudfree 82° with a slight breeze making it pleasant in the shade and warm enough for swimming in the sun. 

Went to a meeting, did some chores around the apartment, a great lunch with a good friend, met with my therapist, a few more chores, watched the second half of a Kung Fu movie, halfway thru the 5^th book in the A Song of Ice and Fire (Game of Thrones) series. 

I am reading the GoT series for the first time.  I thought I was going to be done when I finished A Dance With Dragons, but a little Wikipedia research revealed that there will be 7 books in the series.  Books 6 and 7 are not yet published.  It is a masterpiece of story telling.

I am grateful to have had a good day and am looking forward to another good day tomorrow.

I Had Dropped Out

We might next ask ourselves what we mean when we say that we have "harmed" other people. What kinds of "harm" do people do one another, anyway? To define the word "harm" in a practical way, we might call it the result of instincts in collision, which cause physical, mental, emotional, or spiritual damage to people.   12x12 p. 80

I had been to Eighth Step meetings, always thinking, "I really haven't harmed many people, mostly myself." But the time came when I wrote my list out and it was not as short as I thought it would be. I either liked you, disliked you, or needed something from you—it was that simple. People hadn't done what I wanted them to do and intimate relationships were out of hand because of my partners' unreasonable demands. Were these "sins of omission"? Because of my drinking, I had "dropped out"—never sending cards, returning calls, being there for other people, or taking part in their lives. What a grace it has been to look at these relationships, to make my inventories in quiet, alone with the God of my understanding, and to go forth daily, with a willingness to be honest and forthright in my relationships.

            From the Daily Reflections for August 16^th.

I had truly dropped out of relationships from an early age.   Upon reflection, it amazes me how much I had sought to isolate from others from an early age.    I think of the book title All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten and wonder how I possibly missed all those important lessons for 50 years.  It doesn’t really matter how it happened—nature or nurture—what matters now is how I deal with where I am at today.

I am grateful to have fantastic resources that help me not only get sober, but live a richer life filled with relationships in my community.  The opportunity was always there, I just never answered the door on a regular basis before.

A Solo Quick Trip To Monroe

Tonight was the night that I volunteer for my monthly prison meeting.  My road-mates could not make it so I left earlier than usual due to missing out on the carpool lane.  75 minutes later, I completed a drive that takes 30 minutes with no traffic.

There was some sort of staff training event going on.  I waited for 30 minutes only to find out that they would not be having inmate activities this evening.  Time to go home.  I stopped by a meeting on the way home chatting with friends before the meeting started.

The pleasantly amazing part of this evening’s effort was that nothing bothered me.  I missed yakking with my road-mates on the drive there and back due to their having to take a night off for family events.  I missed being with the inmates and our meeting time.

I am grateful for having a peaceful sense of serenity and acceptance for having made my best effort for an event that did not work out as planned.

Into The Sunset

My roommate’s son came by this afternoon to get some clothes and gear he had left here.  I made him lunch, he got a shower, did laundry and had a nap.   I took some pictures of them together. We gave him a ride back to Everett. 

My roommate has been to 50+ meetings in the last 20 days.  I shared that with her son on the way to Everett.   I am sure he was glad to see his mom in recovery.  Seeing and hearing her success has to give him some hope.

We dropped him off at a gas in NW Everett.  He got out of the car, gave his mom a hug and said goodbye.  We watched him walk a short block west into the sunset to the next crosswalk.  His story was that he was going camping with a girl.   Looked like he was going to the dopehouse to me.   It was sad.

I started the car and we went the other way to go directly home.  My roommate sniffed back a few tears and said “I hate this town”.   She did the vast majority of her using in Everett/Snohomish County.

I am proud of my roommate for being the best mom and friend she could be to her 24 year old son that appears to be in active addiction to me.   

I am grateful for the resources to be of service to others today.  I am blessed to have a nice place to live, food, a car, and to be sober so that I can be of service to others.

Now Garden Variety—Was Terminally Unique

I was so deep in my self-pity that I was terminally unique being sure that my problems were worse than anyone else’s problems.  It was crazy, lonely and painful.

Now I am just a garden variety drunk that mostly hears the similarity between myself and others.   It is a far cry from being able to identify with everybody I meet, but at least now the possibility exists.

I am grateful to have progress from terminally unique to being a garden variety drunk that hears the commonality when listening to others instead of the differences.

Working Towards Mindfulness

Most of my life, I would (day) dream about how my life was going to be.  My past was a painful place to reminisce, the present sucked due to my baggage of the past and so I was stuck dreaming about an unrealistic better future while never taking enough of the right action to make it happen.

Today I get to spend a lot more time in the present doing the next indicated thing.  I am working on being more productive in creating a happier place in my mind and my life.  Self-compassion helps me accept my life as it is instead of ruing the life that I don’t have, never had and never will have.

I am grateful for knowing and living a better life than how it used to be.  I have hope for a realistic pleasant future.  That is a lot better than how it used to be.