{"id":34099,"date":"2023-10-25T10:53:48","date_gmt":"2023-10-25T17:53:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/?p=34099"},"modified":"2025-05-29T06:18:26","modified_gmt":"2025-05-29T13:18:26","slug":"new-reality-update-iii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/?p=34099","title":{"rendered":"New Reality Update III"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I saw my doctor in July 2022 and learned I had atrial fibrillation. Since then I&#8217;ve been taking meds for it and seeing a cardiologist. The meds had it under control until yesterday, when at a checkup with the cardiologist it was back. Now I&#8217;m scheduled for a cardioversion procedure to shock my telltale heart back into its regular rhythm, and have doubled the medication dosage. The procedure&#8217;s scheduled for the 1st of November, and it&#8217;s possible the increased dosage of flecainide will have done the trick by then, in which case no procedure. That&#8217;s what I&#8217;m hoping for, but if I have to get the shock treatment, I&#8217;m okay with that too. Too bad the procedure won&#8217;t be on Hallowe&#8217;en, which would be more appropriate, but maybe the med tech&#8217;ll have a hunchback or something. Getting old &#8230; full of surprises.<\/p>\n<p><a title=\"IMG_7831\" href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/halfmind\/53220543121\/in\/album-72177720308895564\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/53220543121_a7c39f7193_n.jpg\" alt=\"IMG_7831\" width=\"240\" height=\"320\" \/><\/a>Hallowe&#8217;en, my birthday <em>and<\/em> favorite holiday. The unboxing of the birthday Seiko is less than a week away. Excitement abounds. As if that&#8217;s not enough to look forward to, our son Gregory and daughter-in-law Beth are driving down for Thanksgiving. Now to think of something we lads can smoke in the Weber. I lean toward brisket, with turkey breast a close second; Greg might have an even better idea.<\/p>\n<p>A couple of years ago we started buying prepared Thanksgiving dinners, one year from Whole Foods and one year I think from Costco. We almost always share the day and the meal with our friend Mary Anne, who&#8217;ll join us again this year. I always like to smoke something out back \u2014 meat or poultry \u2014 to serve on the side. Our son and I (Mary Anne too) love anything smoked or smothered in barbecue sauce. I&#8217;m not sure about Beth, but I know Donna&#8217;s not that hot on yee-haw country cookin&#8217;; in any event, there&#8217;ll be something on the table for everyone, and lots of leftovers.<\/p>\n<p>We started the week with 100\u00b0F highs, then yesterday it clouded over and never got out of the low 70s. It&#8217;s 10:30 a.m. on Thursday as I write, the thermometer outside the window showing 66\u00b0F. Damn, it&#8217;s about time.<\/p>\n<p>As always happens when I put more than one library book at a time on hold, they come in a clump. I&#8217;m currently reading four \u2014 three novels and a collection of nonfiction essays \u2014 all due back in a week or two. So if you don&#8217;t mind, I&#8217;m going to retire to my reading chair, turn on the reading lamp, put my feet up on the reading hassock, put a dog in my reading lap, and fart around on the iPad for an hour before actually cracking a book.<\/p>\n<p>Stay fresh, cheese bags.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hallowe&#8217;en, my birthday and favorite holiday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[412,18,15,40,2],"tags":[4053,4419,4420,4421],"class_list":["post-34099","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books-reviews","category-consumerism","category-cooking","category-critters","category-personal","tag-bigseikolittledick-2","tag-myheartsnotinit","tag-readingwithdogs","tag-thingstolookforwardto"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34099","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=34099"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34099\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34228,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34099\/revisions\/34228"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=34099"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=34099"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=34099"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}