Email Adventure #4: A Mid-Summer Update

 

Hi there! Happy 4th! I've been meaning to drop you a note for a long while...but I've just been busy.  Golly, I can't believe half of 2021 is over already. HOW did that happen? My last virus blog was mid-May and I should catch you up to date...

I don't know what I've told you already. Some of this may be/probably is old news. I'm not sure...

The Shirley Cam works great! The Shirley Cam is one of my security cameras, repurposed to see Shirley when she comes to the slider and wants in. I don't always hear her...so when she comes near the camera, the alarm on my phone dings and I can see that she is there.

Shirley has been fine. She hasn't come out of her box though in the last four days. She's "remodeling" (i.e tearing holes in the back of her box). She did this last year as well. Apparently this is a normal cycle for her kind of tortoise. She would normally tunnel under the ground to avoid the summer heat....but the ground is too hard here for her to do that...so her cardboard condo acts as her underground lair. Her digging at the walls is her tunneling instinct kicking in. I was worried about her not eating, but after three days of her being a hermit, I stuck a plate of food in with her...and she surprisingly ate it. (She would never eat inside of the house in years past...)

My friend Eric (from Costa Mesa) came up for a visit over Memorial Day weekend. He had never been to my house before. It was hot and there wasn't really much to do in the heat. He'd been to the Underground Gardens before (which is about the only thing interesting to do in town). But we made do. We took a tour of some of the small towns around here. He was most enamored with the Cash Store in Minkler, but we also drove through Centerville, Orange Cove (aka The O.C.--Ha!), Cutler, Orosi, Dinuba (where we stopped at Wimpy's for lunch) and Reedley. We went for a round of Ghost Golf and to the drive in to see A QUIET PLACE 2 and FRIDAY THE 13TH. It was a nice visit.

I had another series of IVIG treatments over the first several days of June. My mom flew into town on June 5th. She has several properties here in town and she had projects on them she needed to do. However, the day after she arrived, I was leaving town---for two weeks. I was grateful Mom would be there to look after Shirley. However, I had the car. The plan was for mom to either Uber places or rent a car. She did neither and basically stayed home the entire time I was gone.

The reason I left for two weeks was because I had several things going on in the Bay Area. First, I had long had tickets to the Immersive Van Gogh Exhibit.

That was scheduled for Tuesday, June 8th. This was an extension of the same exhibit that had opened in Paris in 2019. Erich and I had seen a knock off show (Van Gogh and His Contemporaries...or something like that) when we were in Italy. It had been held in an old church in the old section of Florence. It was an interesting show, but it was a long way from what the show in Paris was supposed to have been like. This show was immersive, but it was also very overhyped. They had taken Van Gogh's work, edited it to fill large spaces and animated it. It was neat...but at only 30 minutes and, essentially being a glorified slide show or screen saver, it was NOT worth the nearly $50 each price tag and the hassle of getting up to San Francisco to see it. In addition to this show (which has copies all over the country), there are no less than 4 other knockoff shows playing all across the country. I'm sure that one will come near you, if there's not one there already. If you want to see it--go. Just don't knock yourself out getting to it. 

After Van Gogh, I got to do something I hadn't done since before the pandemic. We went to a tiki bar! Hooray! I was having withdrawals. While I would have loved to return to Zombie Village, it (and several others) had not re-opened since the pandemic. Instead, we visited LAST RITES (which you can read about HERE, the second bar mentioned in the story). It was nice to return to tiki land...I just wish it had been at one of my fave places. 

The next week, I had my appointment at Stanford. The day before, Erich and I drove to the South Bay Area. We had lunch at a place called Falafel Drive In that has been there (and I remember) since I was a kid living in San Jose. Afterwards, we met up with Erich's friend Peggy. She had moved to a new place several months earlier and we were going to see it for the first time. Her place was nice...and it was in a mobile home park. It looked nothing like a trailer. It was one of the newer, "modular homes". Wow--surprisingly very nice!

We took Peggy to dinner on this cool street that had been blocked off to traffic to allow outdoor dining in downtown Sunnyvale. That was nice.

The next morning, at 8, we were at Stanford. Dr. Lin really impressed me. She doesn't think I have C.I.D.P., which is what my local neurologist had diagnosed me with. Although my nerve biopsy had shown a "focal loss of large and small myelinated nerve fibers", it didn't give much other detail. I had undergone 8 months of IVIG treatments...and I was no better. (It was supposed to improve me after merely 3 months. It didn't.) However, even though my issue is not Chronic Inflammatory Demyelinating Polyneuropathy, she doesn't know what it is. She said that she thinks my issue is probably idiopathic, meaning that it is caused by something unknown. Apparently 70% of neuropathies are idiopathic. Swell.

But...she's continuing to look into it. She ordered all sorts of new blood tests and I will eventually be seeing a pulmonologist at Stanford because I get so out of breath just doing the most mundane things. I'm also returning this Wednesday (July 7) for another EMG test. The EMG is a nerve conduction study. They will stick needles into my muscles up and down my arms and legs and then shock me in various areas to see how well my nerves receive the signals. It's very painful and lasts about 2 hours. I've had it done 4 times before with no conclusive results, but she wants to do it anyway. EEEK!

After Stanford, we headed up to Healdsburg. We were meeting our friends Ashley and Sai for a quick overnight visit. I think we had all anticipated wine tasting---and we certainly hoped to visit the Korbel champagne winery---but we never made it to one. It was just so stinkin' HOT. And no place seemed to have air conditioning! Erich and I went out early. He wanted to revisit this place that had made this particular cocktail and had these incredible eggplant chips drizzled in honey. It was swelteringly hot inside and just as miserable inside. We walked around and eventually found a place with A/C that had cocktails. When Ashley and Sai showed up, we joined them. We walked around the town square a bit, tried the cocktail and eggplant chips (they really were yummy) despite the heat...then went looking for dinner. We found a place with outdoor seating. It was miserably hot and only cooled down when we were finishing up. Oh well.

The next morning we had breakfast---in a parking lot--in the heat. While it was nice to see Ashley and Sai, the heat really put a damper on our excursion.

After returning home, Mom used my car...but didn't get much done. Hers was a wasted trip...and Fresno/Clovis has been soooooo hot. Sorry, Mom.

Since getting home, I've been trying to get a move on in getting ready for my move. I've been removing my movie posters from their frames in anticipation for the move in late October. I've got a good start on the task, but have so many more to go---including the ones i have up and hanging. (Those will be the last ones down and packed up.) UGH! There is SO MUCH to do before my move. I'm dreading it...

Mom left June 29. My IVIG treatments scheduled for early July (and all subsequent treatments) were canceled. And that's about it.

I did get notice that I was turned down for my Social Security Disability appeal. I've re-appealed. This appeal will involve going to court at some point...but that won't be for anout 18-24 months. Jinkies!

Aside from my upcoming return to Stanford, I have a few other things coming up. A friend named Troy (who goes by the name "Okiehawker" or just "Okie") on one of my vintage movie poster forums will be visiting nearby Sequoia National Park with his family and some other friends. I'll drive down and meet him in Three Rivers (where they are staying at a campground) on the 12th. Then, on the 22nd, I'm thinking about heading down to Bakersfield for the day. Why? Bakersfield's tiki bar, Tiki-Ko, is still shuttered due to the pandemic...but the long-awaited sister bar, The Sinking Ship, is now open in the basement of the building Tiki-Ko resides in. Hot diggity! I am sooooo excited to go-go! Of course I'll make a full day of it---hitting other places of interest up and back. Yippie! (Now if they would only open a tiki bar HERE! Ha!)

I hope all is groovy there.

CHEERS!

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