I feel like Mr. Spock in “The City on the Edge of Forever.” Why? Because yesterday I had the first of at least two, and perhaps three, surgeries to remove melanoma skin cancer from my head.
A huge bandage, at least an inch thick, now covers the open wound, that the dermatologist said is “very large,” being about the size of a quarter. So I’m keeping a stocking cap handy, in case the doorbell rings, to cover my head. In a couple of weeks I will undergo plastic surgery to make myself more presentable.
This is just about as silly and minor as a blog post can get. I’m playing around with my Bluetooth speaker in the sun room. By switching the wireless link over from speaker mode to headset mode, I can make it sound just like a cheap AM radio.
After spending so much time and money on listening to music from the Sixties in the best possible sound quality, I’m getting a nostalgic kick from making it sound like it did on a transistor radio from 50 years ago. For excellent audio, I can recommend the recent vinyl re-issue, by recent Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees the Moody Blues, of “Days of Future Passed.”
I was hoping that 2018 would have a better start than 2017, but such will not be the case. My father passed away in October, ten months after suffering a stroke. His death meant the end of me having Durable Power of Attorney and made me Trustee.
To see my father and carry out my responsibilities I have been to Phoenix twelve times in the past twelve months, with some of those visits extending to two weeks. Which wouldn’t have been possible if I hadn’t quit working. It’s technically retirement, but I’m having a hard time thinking of it that way, as I haven’t been able to do anything normally considered to be a retirement activity.
I am anticipating returning to Phoenix in a couple of months, but something unrelated has come up that could interfere with the trip. I have been diagnosed with a melanoma, adding injury to the insult of being bald since I was 28 years old. The skin cancer has apparently been a long time in the making, although I’m sure that being exposed to the hot Arizona sun so much this year hasn’t helped, so perhaps it isn’t entirely unrelated.
Today was my initial consultation since the biopsy came back positive. Being told by a Harvard-trained specialist to expect “extensive removal” and “significant scarring” isn’t very encouraging, but at least there was a picture of Annie Little to look at in the examination room.
When I’m in Phoenix to visit my father at the assisted living facility, I stay at his house, rather than at a hotel, so I can leave a lot of things there, including items forbidden in the plane cabin — a can of shaving cream, shampoo bottle, etc. This makes it possible to avoid checking a bag at $25 each way, and instead I spend $35 to upgrade my seats and board flights in a lower-numbered group that assures me space in an overhead bin for a carry-on bag.
The catch is that my old bag is a bit too big to reliably get past scrutiny at the gate. So I went in search of new luggage at a sprawling “outlet village.” Nothing at the Samsonite store was right at all, and even if it had been, almost everything was over $200, even after a 30% discount. Upon leaving, I saw a Brookstone store across the way with a “closing — everything must go” sale in the window. I went inside and immediately my eyes fell on exactly what I was looking for.
It’s shorter than a standard 22-inch carry-on bag, but at 70% off I couldn’t resist getting it for only $36, and it’s working out very well, assuming it holds up. Something else I’m doing to pack as lightly as possible, and with TSA security in mind, is leaving my laptop at home. I found an inexpensive Android tablet with a unique design that does the trick. The 8-inch Lenovo YOGA 3 Tab with 2GB of memory.
I love this thing! Construction quality is superb, and the sturdy built-in stand makes it useable as a laptop alternative. It has only 16GB of storage, but a cheap 32GB microSD card, combined with outstanding battery life, takes care of downloading many hours of Netflix videos to watch during a flight. I used only 8GB to hold more than enough for at least two round trips. Netflix, and the technology to deliver and display content, have come a long way in the ten years since its streaming service was introduced.
One of the many — many! — things I had to do during my last trip to Phoenix was see about getting my father’s old car started. Why he didn’t trade it in when he bought a new car a few years ago is something I don’t understand, but so be it.
The car is a 2001 Ford Focus wagon with under 13,000 miles, and because it had been sitting in the garage for a very long time, that’s only a thousand miles per year. Heck, I used to run twice that much, averaging 40 miles per week on foot!
I already knew from my previous visit the car wouldn’t start. I had checked the oil and the antifreeze, but when I turned the key to accessories there was nothing. Using an ancient battery charger my father bought as a joke gift for my mother 50 years ago — that she did not appreciate — I charged the battery. It took and held the charge.
The engine cranked but it wouldn’t catch. So a couple of weeks ago I had the car towed to a garage. Thanks to a small engine repair class I had taken, I knew the problem had to be in the fuel system. This video link should start at a point that shows exactly what the garage found. Starter fluid got the engine going, but the fuel pump was shot.
I’ve been a Netflix customer for 13 years. Ten years ago I took advantage of the streaming option for Internet Explorer the day it became available to me, and I bought a 1st generation Roku player 8 years ago. Today, another Netflix milestone has been reached, because I have cancelled my DVD/Blu-ray subscription. It’s an online world, fer shore.
