I had a colonoscopy Wednesday morning, which isn’t exactly great fun. (At least not for me.) But we more than compensated by enjoying a Bob Evans breakfast immediately afterwards. We actually went into the restaurant, sat a table, and had our food served to us. It was such great fun that Thursday we went to Outback Steak House for dinner. Today we had our second visit to Church in over a year followed by a very nice restaurant dinner at First Watch. We had forgotten how nice it is.

I needed new shoes and a few shirts for the summer. I actually went to a store, but didn’t see anything I liked. I couldn’t face up to going to multiple stores to find they didn’t have what I want in stock. I ended up ordering clothes online. Everything has been delivered. I like everything I ordered. Everything fit well. It turns out I didn’t have to wait for Covid to get my clothes.

I also visited an audiologist this week. I learned they can help me with my hearing. After several days of mulling, I contacted them with my hearing aid selection. This is a case where waiting for Covid was helpful. I select a hearing aid that was introduced just 4 months ago. I’m not sure when I will be fitted, but it won’t be before Monday the 19th because this week I’m flying to WPB to spend a few days with Mom. We have a long list of thigs to do, but I’m thinking we might find time for a couple of restaurant meals.

Danita is not joining me in WPB this year because Bud needs more support. Riderwood finally came out and said Bud is no longer safe in independent living and has to get more support. They had their professionals do an assessment last week. It’s an impressive array — PT, OT, speech therapy, and social workers. Danita expects to hear what level of care they recommend for Bud as early as today. For now, the only thing we know is that Bud will be moving to a new apartment. In the mean time, some of Bud’s furniture needs to be replaced. The couch is way too low for him. He needs a lift chair. He can’t take his electric cart. There are lots of decisions to make. Fortunately, the family agrees with what we know so far. Danita spent quite a bit if time looking at furniture.

As you can see there’s lots of activity in our house. It’s quite a change from our pre-immunity year. I hope this finds everybody doing well.

We had a small, quiet Easter dinner at Bud’s today. End and Lynne joined us. We had ham, green beans, potato salad, and a chocolate covered pound cake that looked like a very large egg. It was a nice time.

I had a strange thing happen to my old bike recently. The gear shift cable separated from the shifter. I was forced into high gear. I was a couple of miles from home with no hills, so it was no trouble getting home. The cable itself looked great. I guess every 17,000 miles I should replace all the cables.

Now that we have full immunity to Covid, this week will be doctor week for me. I also want to get a real haircut and buy some clothes. I usually buy Rockport shoes, but I found all the Rockport stores are permanently closed. I’m trying an Amazon alternative. We’ll see how that goes. I can always send them back.

I hope everybody had a great Easter and is doing well.

We got our second Covid vaccination shots as scheduled on Tuesday. The second shot was a much different experience than the first. Three weeks ago, M&T Stadium was doing 500 shots a day. Last week, they were doing 5,000 a day. We spent two hours getting our shots, and that was with the check-in person giving us a short cut reserved for old folks. Most of the people in line were younger — teachers, essential workers, etc. We cleared the calendar Tuesday and Wednesday, but it turned out we didn’t need to. Neither of us had a serious reaction to the vaccine.

The highlight of the week was a visit to see JaMM. JiaJia and Mark have had their first vaccination shots. We’ve all followed the Covid protocols carefully. We decided it was safe enough to have an in-person visit. It was a beautiful day. Mark and Jiajia made a fantastic lunch — spicy ribs, couscous fruit salad and Australian pudding. After lunch, we went for a hike along the Susquehanna river. The weather and the view were both fabulous. And, of course, Mira was the star of the show. You can se a few more pictures if you visit the website.

This was the first real trip in our new car. The driving aids are more effective than I thought they would be. It takes a little while to understand the car’s behaviors. Once I did that, driving was amazingly easy. It will be somewhat less easy in the rain, since lane keeping turns off when the wipers turn on. But the other driving automation features still make driving considerably easier.

I hope this finds everybody doing well.

We’re trying to figure out how to use our new car. That is taking a while because we aren’t driving very much. The dealer was OK. We got a good price with little hassle. But picking the car up was painfully slow. After making an appointment at a time the salesman recommended, we spent hours sitting in the showroom waiting to actually take delivery. To add insult to injury, our salesman was deathly afraid we would ask a question about the car. The dealership has a little script the salesman is supposed to go through to introduce us to the features. Our salesman gave us a copy of the script buried in the other paperwork so we wouldn’t see it until after we left the dealership. Almost a week later, I finally figured out the car was delivered with many of the safety features turned off. The dealership sent us an Email invitation to write a review. I decided the dealership really didn’t want to see my review online.

Last week I was bemoaning the lack of a CD player. I was dreaming up all kinds of complicated and expensive solutions. But I received some excellent advice from a retired high school art teacher — convert the CDs to MP3 files. (Thanks, Duane). As soon as Duane said it, I knew it was the obvious solution. I already have a CD-ROM drive, so the only cost was my time. Thanks to some sloppy weather, I had plenty of that. I spent 3 days “ripping” CDs. I found I was working the CD-ROM drive too hard. After a while, it refused to rip disks and I had to give it a break. But I converted the music and loaded it onto my phone. Now I can play music anywhere. If I’m on the porch, I can connect my phone to our Bluetooth speaker to get a great sound. If I’m in the car, the phone plays music over the car’s radio. Technology is amazing.

We’re scheduled to get our second vaccination shot tomorrow. In two weeks, we will be free to move about the country. We’re super excited. We have our calendar cleared for two days in case we get a reaction. After that, the next several weeks are planned out. There are fancy deserts and restaurant meals in our future. I also have plenty of doctor visits.

I hope this finds everybody doing well.

We had big news this week. We bought a new car yesterday. Our old red Honda Accord was 10 years old with a little over 100,000 miles. We decided to replace it with a new red Honda Accord. We expect to pick the car up Wednesday.

Cars have changed a lot in the last decade. We like having a built-in GPS. Ten years ago we had to buy the top-trim level because putting a GPS in a car was an expensive proposition. It required a special design of the dash to accommodate the display. Lower trim levels didn’t always have a display. So the GPS was a big deal option. Today we had to buy the top-trim level to get a GPS because most people don’t need it. All trim levels have a display, but most people connect their smart phone to the display and navigate with their phone. We’re to cheap to get phones with data plans, so we “had” to get a car with all the fancy trimmings. (So sad!)

Our new car is a hybrid, getting over 40 MPG. It has a continuously variable transmission (no gear shifts). There is no shift lever. Instead, there are buttons on the center console for drive, reverse, and park. Even the parking brake is set with a button on the side panel.

The safety features are mind blowing. We barely got a chance to check them out on our test drive. I turned on the blinker when there was a car in my blind spot. I immediately got a pleasant chime warning. Whenever a car was passing us on the right, an icon of a car showed up in the mirror. There’s also lane keeping, adaptive cruise control, emergency automatic braking, and much, much more.

What the car doesn’t have is a CD player. What will I do with all those music CDs?

The internet has made car research a breeze. Before we visited the dealer, I knew which car, which color, which trim level and options, and what I should pay. The dealer gave us a good price on the new car, but not such a great deal on the trade in. So I sold the old Honda to Car Max. I had an electronic estimate from the internet. The dealer said they couldn’t match it. Car Max gave me the full amount without discussion. The only problem was how long I had to wait at Car Max. In fact buying the new car wasn’t very fast either. We spent 2 hours at Honda and another 4 hours at Car Max. We had an early lunch and a late dinner. But as it turned out, we had a neighborhood food truck to serve us festive tacos. The whole neighborhood got to help us celebrate the new car.

I hope this finds everybody doing well.

I suspected the tires that came with my trike were cheap. But I decided not to replace anything until it demonstrated its deficiency. That didn’t take long. Not only was my tire flat, it was damaged by a small piece of wood. Fortunately, I had a spare inner tube and the appropriate tools for a roadside repair. Unfortunately, I purchased the wrong tube. My bike uses a smaller valve called “Presta”. I purchased a tube with a “Schrader” valve. This is like the valve on car tires. Unfortunately, it doesn’t fit in a hole designed for a Presta valve. I knew better. I just didn’t read closely enough.

I was only two miles from home, so I picked up the front wheel of my trike, hiked home, ordered good tires, and the wrong inner tubes. Twice. I think I finally have the correct tubes on order. They should be in Monday.

The COVID positivity rate is below 4% in Howard County. And we should have some small amount of protection from our first vaccination shot. We decided I could bring home a Sunday breakfast. Bob Evans makes a fine breakfast.

That’s what passes for news around here these days. I hope this finds everybody doing well.

Maryland put us in the 1C category for getting COVID vaccinations (65 and older). Some facilities have been giving 1C shots for several weeks. Danita was checking all the sites daily. I would hear that a site had appointments available, only to find that either the website was not responding, or the reservations were no longer available. Monday, I got a message that the Colts football stadium has appointments available. Of course the website was not responding. But there was a number one could call if they weren’t able to use the internet. I decided that included me (my screen was frozen after all) and used the call-in number. I waited 20 minutes, then was connected to a very helpful person who got Danita and me appointments for this weekend. We were delighted. We were talking about visiting friends, eating in restaurants, and traveling. Even scheduling my colonoscopy sounded upbeat. Euphoria was rolling out of our ears and getting in the carpet. Until Tuesday morning, when Danita got her Email confirmation. And I did not.

What did that mean? Did I have an appointment? Was I required to have the confirmation before getting the shot? The phones were not manned all day Tuesday. Or Wednesday. I was in a massive funk. (Emotions are not logical.) Thursday they opened the phones. I talked to a very helpful woman who corrected my Email address. That sounded good, but I still didn’t have a confirmation. 23 hours later, the confirmation Email finally arrived. There was no more euphoria, but the tension level dropped precipitously.

Now both Danita and I have our first shots. Our second shots are scheduled for March 22.

The football stadium is one of Maryland’s mass vaccination sites. They’re doing a soft start — 500 vaccinations a day. They are gearing up to do 10,000 a day. The facility shows it. They have spent tons of money on computers, iPads, carts, people, and every other thing you can think of. Being a football venue, there is plenty of free parking and more bathrooms than they could possibly need. They even bought cute little white busses to shuttle people who are mobility challenged. Everybody is being as pleasant and helpful as possible. If you show up without an appointment, many sites send you home. This site gives you the option of standing in a long line and getting an appointment. That way everybody comes home with something. Several people in our neighborhood drove 45 minutes to another mass vaccination site at 6 Flags near DC. A few drove an hour to Waldorf. The Colts stadium is an ideal venue for us. It’s just 20 miles away, right off I-95 on the south side of Baltimore. It’s as good an outcome as we could possibly want.

There’s nothing else nearly as interesting. I hope this finds everybody doing well.

We got a nice day in our normally sloppy weather early last week. I went for a ride on my trike. I was slogging up a steep hill. The road was wet from snow melt. The tire started to slide. If this happens on a bike, I put my foot down. Once my foot is planted, I can use the brakes to hold the bike still. I never use the brakes first, because if I stop moving, I fall over. So I put my foot down. I didn’t even think about it. But I sure did regret it. The problem is, on a recumbent trike my back-side is 2 feet off the ground, and my feet are in front of me, not below me. It’s impossible to generate any meaningful force.

Gravity can be an awesome thing. If a trike is determinedly going backwards down a hill, it forces the pedals to rotate backwards. Neither pedals nor shins have conflict-avoiding behaviors. The bike was fine. I, however, spent the next several days staying indoors and wearing shorts. Today it was sunny and a balmy 35. Perfect for a ride. This time all was well.

The other thing I’ve been doing is adding features to my budget database and making the code more robust. One of the things I like about working on the database is that it requires my undivided attention. These days, my mind mostly wanders a fog of memories, daydreams, and snatches of old songs. It’s nice to have an activity that forces me to focus for a few hours.

There’s not a lot else going on. I hope this finds everybody doing well.

There’s not a lot to report this week. I did taxes. Jul’s COVID turned out to be a mild case. Danita is in PT for her sore shoulder.

We had a coating of ice starting late Friday and going on through a lot of Saturday. Fortunately, the Friday food truck was here. Most of the ice melted today. We expect today’s food truck arrive in a little while. I even got a bike ride in today. I wouldn’t have taken a two-wheeler out, but a trike doesn’t fall over if there’s a small slick spot. As it turned out, the roads were fine.

I hope this finds everybody doing well.

It used to be we could go over to the clubhouse and get free coffee. Then the clubhouse was COVID-closed. No troubles, we dug out the Mr. Coffee. That was fine, until it stopped working. Normally, I just re-seat the valve, but this time the valve had disappeared. We looked everywhere. I can’t imagine where it went. But it was gone for good. I loved that Mr. Coffee. It had one on-off switch and one green light. What more can one ask for?

Again, no troubles. A quick trip to Amazon found that they still make the same Mr. Coffee. In the mean time, we put our one-cup brewer in service. The next day, I found that Amazon shipped our new Mr. Coffee by USPS. And that same day, we discovered the one-cup brewer was leaking. That called for another trip to Amazon. We were definitely getting into a serious shortage situation.

All’s well that ends well. The USPS came through and delivered our new Mr. Coffee on time. The new one-cup brewer came in two days later. I was amazed that the old carafe fit in the new Mr. Coffee perfectly. How many times have you heard of people who had to buy a whole new coffee maker because it was cheaper than replacing a broken carafe? Now you know somebody with a spare carafe.

We had a spate of good weather this week — three days in a row of temperatures above freezing and no precip. One of the wheels on my new bike started squeaking. I was convinced a bearing wasn’t lubed. As soon as I got home I called the shop. They said it would be no trouble, just bring it in. Danita and I loaded the bike into the Leaf, only to realize I had to charge the car first. (It’s a bit of a drive to the shop.) All’s well that ends well again. It turned out to be a minor adjustment. The forecast is for a week of sloppy weather. I won’t be worrying about bikes for a while.

If you think this is what old folks do for excitement, I’m about to prove you wrong. Next weekend, we have neighborhood food trucks on Friday and Sunday. The Sunday truck has the key-lime pie in a jar. It tastes grand.

On the bad side, Jul thinks she has COVID. Here’s hoping it’s a mild case. Danita and I hope Jul has an easy recovery, and that everybody else is staying well.