We were planning to eat dinner with the Jonses from the Italian food truck. The food truck was a no-show. This happens surprisingly frequently. The four of us decided to go to the local deli. The pandemic has really dropped. The advantage of eating at the deli instead of bring food home is that we can get the salad bar (very important for meatless Fridays), and we can enjoy the free soft-serve ice cream. The deli gets most of their business at lunch. They never have people waiting for tables at dinner time, so we don’t mind sitting and chatting. The down side is that Carmel offered to drive, and we accepted her offer. She drives like a New Yorker (which she is, but still, they’ve been here for a good while).

The bigger news was Mom’s birthday Saturday. Many people remembered her, which she really appreciated. We took her to an afternoon concert, then went to Catonsville Gourmet for dinner. Plus desert, of course. This place is one of the few that offer Smith Island cake.

The still bigger news is that Easter weekend has been organized. Jul, Brian, and Elizabeth will come up. Kathryn and a friend will come down. Ed, Lynne, and Mom will join us for Easter dinner. Mark & family will be in Boston — Mark is running the marathon. All together, we’ll have 10 people for the holiday. It promises to be a good time.

I hope this finds everybody doing well.

We had a delightful anniversary. We went into DC to enjoy an Van Gogh immersive experience. They had reproductions of many of his paintings along side interpretations of the art and important events in his life. Then we went into a huge room where themes based on some of his work were projected on all four walls and the floor. One of the themes was a river. The projected the flowing water on the floor. It was disorienting and hard to walk, but also quite interesting. We stopped at a deli for lunch afterwards. Thanks for the tip, Lynne.

One of our residents organizes a “Lunch and Learn”. A resident discusses their profession, personal history, or other aspect of their life. This month we had Bob. Every three years, our houses are appraised. The appraisal and the tax rate determines our property taxes. If we disagree with the appraisal, we can ask for a review. If we don’t like the results of the review, we can appeal to the county appeal court. Bob is one of three judges on the Howard County real property appeal court. He is an entertaining speaker and, of course, highly knowledgeable about property assessments. He told us exactly how to appeal our appraisal, some likely arguments we could use to get a lower evaluation, what documentation we would need, and how to get that documentation. Unfortunately, he gave this talk a few months after our appraisal. We will have a chance to appeal our next appraisal, which will be in three years.

Mom got a quite unusual letter from Chase Bank. They said there had been no activity in one of her accounts for a long time. If she doesn’t take action by April 4, they will turn the money over to the state of Maryland under the abandoned account law. I found this quite surprising because the account is a CD. One does not expect transactions on a CD account. Mom signed and mailed the letter stating this was her account. A week later, I called the bank. They said they couldn’t see whether the letter had been received or whether it was considered a correct response. Both Mom and I have to visit a bank branch. (So much for the Power of Attorney.) When we arrived, the person we had an appointment with wasn’t there. The replacement didn’t know that one can’t add a deposit to a CD. After two hours, we had done nothing and learned nothing. Except I forgot to feed the meter, and got away with it. Actually, my beautiful wife explained that if I pop the handicap tag, I don’t have to pay for parking — it’s the Maryland law!

We had a wonderful dinner with at the Sochurek’s Sunday afternoon. Life can be very good.

I hope everybody is doing well.

We just wrapped a wonderful weekend with Jiajia, Mark and Mira. We had a little rain, but mostly the weather was grand. Our highlight activity was a visit to the National Zoo. Mira learned the difference between a tiger and a lion! Grandma joined us for breakfast brunch this morning. Other things happened this week, but who cares about that stuff? There’s more pics on the web page.

We’re having a mix of rain and wet snow today. The temperature is near freezing and dropping. The low will be 17. Fortunately the precipitation is tapering off. It looks like the roads and sidewalks will remain clear. Still, it’s nasty, sloppy weather which makes it a great day to stay inside.

We went to a BSO concert last Sunday. Neither of us enjoyed the first half very much. The second half was much better. We have another concert tomorrow. The BSO usually has a contemporary piece, which we sometimes like but more often find not very pleasing. But with Beethoven and Shostakovich on the bill, the concert should be a good one.

My phone has become unreliable. It works most of the time, but sometimes it stops working. I use the phone as my bike GPS. It usually starts acting up after an hour or so of riding. The symptoms are varied. The phone is less than 2 years old. I’m disappointed in the phone’s longevity. Trying to get it fixed does not seem to be wise. I replaced it with a Pixel 5a. The phone came in yesterday. I’ve been using my stay home time to master some of the improvements changes Google has made over the last two years, plus the customizations they put in their Pixel phones. Now Danita and I both have Pixel 5a phones.

I use Google Authenticator for two-factor authentication at some web sites. The process of changing phones made me realize my authenticator keys aren’t backed up. That means if my phone suddenly died, I wouldn’t be able to access those sites. I was quite surprised that Google doesn’t support backing up the authentication keys because it opens the possibility of a hacker getting to them. I see their point, but I think loosing access to the sites is the more important issue. I was able to back up the keys by taking a picture of the bar code used to transfer keys between phones. I was able to upload the keys from the photos and confirmed they work.

Danita and I ordered a Pickle Ball set. Our neighborhood has a Pickle Ball court near the swimming pool. We got our first game in yesterday. The weather was sunny and warm (near 60). We are far from proficient, but it was fun to move our bodies around and do something different.

I hope this finds everybody doing well.

Both the ophthalmologist and Zenni were most helpful with Mom’s glasses. The Ophthalmologist confirmed the glasses were made to his prescription. He noted that one eye had a significant difference between his prescription and Mom’s old backup glasses. He suggested we try getting glasses half way between the old and new. I returned the glasses to Zenni, who gave us a full credit towards a new pair of glasses. We ordered new glasses yesterday before her retina specialist’s appointment. They should arrive in a couple of weeks.

Work on our house is continuing. The upper wall and deck are done. The lower back wall of our house was stone. The new stone is up. This is faux stone that has no structural function. The faux stone is made from spun cement, shaped and colored to look like stone. There are several layers involved in the stone wall. They start with a cement and chicken wire layer (just like ferrocement). After that sets for a couple of weeks, they glue each stone to the wall with more cement. After the cement sets, they come back and put in the mortar. The next step for our unit is to put up the mortar. It feels like we’re coming to the end of the construction on our unit. They still think they will be done with the entire neighborhood this spring.

We have a very steep hill behind our house. It’s on the north side, so the house blocks the sun. It’s extremely muddy and slippery. The construction crew has a hard time moving themselves and their material to the back of the house. Several of our neighbor “lookey loos” walked behind the house only to fall in the mud. The board felt compelled to issue a warning. Whatever “they” say about old people being wise is continuously being proved wrong by example. It’s going to be a tough job restoring the grass when construction is done.

That’s in for this week. I hope this finds everybody doing well.

Why is nothing easy? Mom’s new glasses came in. They made everything look blurry. I compared them to her old glasses and found there was a very significant difference in one eye. Mom and I have an appointment with the ophthalmologist tomorrow afternoon to see what went wrong.

Our big news this week was a visit with JAMM. The adults had a good time, but Mira was having nothing to do with her grandparents. When we first arrived, everybody came to great us. When she saw us, Mira immediately started crying. Mira has a fenced play area. She let me read some books to her as long as she was inside the play area and I was outside. She let me give her two blueberries. Other than that, all Danita and I got was looks that kill and crying. As you can see below, Mira has mastered the art of climbing stairs. She’s also doing very well with her language skills. She is definitely above average in every way.

I hope this finds everybody doing well.

Mom got a clean bill of health from the neuro-ophthalmologist. Her condition is not all that unusual. She was lucky to have it clear up so quickly. Some patients take a year to get normal vision back.

It looks like the Nissan Leaf might be working. After having so many problems, I saw the battery drop from 14 to 12 volts and immediately started charging the battery. I went to a different dealer. The mechanic there explained that this is normal for the Leaf. As long as the battery stays above 12 volts, it’s fine. We’ve been monitoring the battery closely. If it continues to do well for another week, we’ll declare the car fixed.

Coming up for this week, Danita and I each have a routine doctor appointment. Our neighborhood has a food truck coming Friday. We had a lot of good weather last week, but my bike was in the shop for routine maintenance. I learned that I haven’t been paying enough attention to some torx-head bolts. That was mostly because I didn’t have a set of torx wrenches. It’s always fun to buy new tools! I should get a ride in tomorrow. Then it’s back to bad weather for the week (cold rain).

I hope this finds everybody doing well.

Mom had a bunch of doctor appointments this week. Her double vision is gone, but the consensus is that she should see a neuro-ophthalmologist. That sounds like a very specialized field to me. Perhaps they have doctors that specialize in neuro-ophthalmology for blue eyes, or left eyeballs? But as it turns out, the doctor we were recommended to is incredibly busy. We were lucky to get an appointment for next Thursday.

Mom’s glasses gave up the ghost. She’s been wearing a backup pair, but they aren’t very good. While we were at her non-specialized ophthalmologist, we got her prescription updated. I asked the doctor to include her PD (pupillary distance). Sometimes doctors let the opticians measure the PD. Obviously, if you go to an optician and ask for your PD, they are not very happy about providing it. He immediately asked if we planned to order glasses online. The doctor said he thinks getting glasses online is a good idea and recommended EyeBuyDirect. The first three pair Mom liked didn’t have clear lenses. They came with lenses that automatically darken in bright light. This isn’t what Mom wanted. Then we tried Zenni, which Jul recommended. We quickly hit the jackpot. We ordered a pair of bifocal glasses with her prescription for $30. We’ll see how they are when the arrive. We opted for standard shipping, which is a couple of weeks. Zenni has very low prices for standard glasses, but adds a lot for extras (such as fast delivery).

We went to the first neighborhood activity in quite a while. Covid cases are dramatically reduced from their peak here in MD. In our county, the positivity rate is under 6% and the number of cases per 100,000 population is under 20. We’re still masking up. But we are going back to restaurants and we went to a neighborhood party last night. It felt good to socialize.

That’s the news for this week. I hope this finds everybody doing well.

Saturday morning Mom suffered from sudden onset double vision. This is often caused by a stroke. I spent two days at St. Agnes Hospital with her. The doctors were great. The admitting doctor used a few simple test to determine that her left eye was not tracking normally. There were CAT scans, MRIs, and other tests. There were evaluations and reports. At the end of the two days, there was no doubt that this was not caused by a stroke. We will be turning to Mom’s ophthalmologist and retina specialist for a possible explanation of the cause. The good news is that her vision started improving Sunday afternoon.

There were some genuinely funny moments. The ER doctor was trying to establish a timeline of events. Mom said the double vision started about 10 of 6 (AM). The Doctor kept on trying to confirm the time was 5:50. The difference was obvious to me, if not to anybody else at first. Mom learned to tell time on an analog clock. With the minute hand so close to the 12, it is much easier to think of it being just 10 minutes before the hour. The doctor leaned on digital clocks, and kept on thinking of the reading she would see on the clock. It didn’t take long for the doctor to see the two were the same, but it was a funny moment.

Then the doctor was trying to test’ Mom’s mental function. She pointed to the wall and asked “What is that device on the wall that tells time?” The correct answer was a clock, but Mom couldn’t see the clock because a nurse’s head was blocking Mom’s view. Then the doctor pulled her smart phone out and asked Mom what it was. Mom’s reply was that she didn’t know about those things — Apples or whatever they are.

The staff throughout the hospital were very good. Hospital rules clearly state I had to wait outside the building until Mom was admitted. The admissions staff quickly offered me an exception when I explained Mom would feel anxious by herself. That was fortunate, because Mom wasn’t admitted until after 5 PM. The hospital is that under-staffed.

Mom was evaluated as a fall hazard. The rules were that Mom had to stay in her bed unless a nurse helped her. When Dani called Sunday morning, Mom swung her legs over the edge of the bed to help her reach the phone. That caused the bed to issue urgent beeps. Then the PA system issued repeated warnings, “Bed exit in room S5011”. The staff were always responsive, but never more so than when they thought Mom was leaving her bed. (I wasn’t there just then, but bed alerts in other rooms occurred while I was there.) In spite of that, the staff was happy to let me walk Mom around. They turned the alarm off. Mom’s room had a family niche that had a window with a great view. We walked over to sit in the sun for a while. Then we walked up and down the hall.

Mom’s back home and doing well. I’ll be contacting doctors and making appointments tomorrow.

I hope this finds everybody doing well.

On the weather front, we expect to have some bitter cold temperatures. Tonight’s low is forecasted to be 10, with strong winds and a windchill of 0. But we dodged most of the snow. We got about half an inch. We have a very sunny day with no winds right now. I’m basking in a very warm seat just inside our storm door. It’s 25 outside and certainly over 80 while sitting in the sun. Amazing!

The deck door is installed. They still have to install the trim and screen, and paint. We’re enjoying the view out behind our house.

We have the car back. Replacing that expensive module did not solve the problem. I’m charging the 12 volt battery at night. I also got a cigarette lighter volt meter to help keep an eye on things while I think about what to do next.

Howard County is doing very well with COVID. The CDC has 4 transmission levels. According to the Maryland site, we have 50 cases per 100K population. That is level 2. Our positivity rate is 10.4%, which puts us just over the definition of level 4. We will officially drop to 3 when the positivity rate drops below 10, and level 2 when the positivity rate drops below 8.

We feel safe enough to attend the BSO concert tomorrow. Everybody is masked and vaccinated. This pleases me immensely. The last piece will be Saint-Saëns’ Organ Symphony. You can say this piece is unsophisticated. You can even call it schmaltzy. But I love it, especially the last movement. The feeling can’t be reproduced with any audio system I will ever own. The only way for me to experience this piece is in person. We’re still taking precautions. We mask up in any public building. That means no eating in restaurants. We’re still using N 95 masks. But if present trends continue, we’ll eat with the Jones’s when the food truck shows up next Friday. It’s Italian food. Yummy. And the conversation is always first rate.

Unfortunately, the sun stopped shining in the front door. I hope everybody is doing well.