GoLytely

Today I've been getting along on a liquid diet. And now this afternoon I've been drinking GoLytely, and running to the bathroom every once in a while. So far, so good -- I honestly don't understand all the horrors of GoLytely that I've heard, I've drunk nearly half the gallon down now and everything has gone very smoothly, I feel fine.

Still, I'll be so glad once I've got my colonoscopy tomorrow out of the way. Ah, the joys of being past 50! This whole procedure has been preoccupying me out of all proportion these past several days...

Crouching

Well, the doctor phoned me to answer my questions not ten minutes after yesterday's post, LOL!

Now it's the weekend, and I find myself like an animal crouching in the underbrush, crouching, crouching...

Random thoughts strike me: I ought to water my houseplants, forgot yesterday to water them on Friday as usual. Do I need to run out for groceries today, or can I let that go till tomorrow? Christmas shopping needs to be done, three months to go, and still less than halfway done. I wonder if, due to my health, I should think of retiring before age 65, instead of sticking it out all the way as I've always planned. A friend sent me three emails yesterday, each begging for a reply; but I just replied to an email from this friend day before yesterday, so I honestly don't feel like assuming additional epistolary burdens again right away, dammit! Oh, and I need more poison bait bits to set out in garage, basement, attic, it's getting to be that time of year with the mice again...

Like an animal in the underbrush, crouching, crouching... And my mind is a blur...

Rain

The rain forecast for yesterday has finally arrived, and it's just what we need: slow, steady rain that's been falling all morning, and bids to continue on into the afternoon.

I've been tackling various minor tasks this morning, overshadowed now by the fact that I'm scheduled for a colonoscopy next week -- ah, the joys of advanced middle age! -- and I've called the doctor's office and I can't get the doctor or a nurse or anyone to return my call with an answer to the very simple question, how soon beforehand should I lay off my medications? You know, the medications I first started on only a few weeks ago.

With the weekend at hand, and the day next week drawing nearer, it would be nice to know.

Lazy

There are days when I just know, before the day even begins, that it's going to be a slow, lazy, lackadaisical day.

Days like today. Foggy. Pearl grey. Slate sky. Drizzle. Rain in the forecast. And nothing terribly pressing on my calendar for today.

Slow, lazy day.

Rosary

Have I mentioned? Lifelong Protestant though I am, I have in fact for many years said the rosary. Yes I know, I'm a Protestant tinged with Catholicism. Nonetheless I'm a lifelong Protestant, and I doubt I'll ever convert. But I do, I honestly do say the rosary. I've been doing it for 35 years, ever since my late teens. At some times less regularly, at times more regularly. But I honestly do say the rosary.

There are family reasons for this, and also (the proximate cause of my taking up the rosary) there was a good friend of mine back in college who had a big impact on me spiritually. He was a devout Roman Catholic. We used to discuss our faith, he the Catholic and I the Protestant. He gave me a rosary. He taught me how to say the rosary.

And, miraculous to say, I took him up on it. He never pressed me, never asked. But privately, on my own, I took to saying the rosary. Kept it up pretty faithfully through my mid 20s, then more sporadically for a number of years, then once again more regularly these past several years.

Immediate family know, or at least used to know, of my practice. Apart from that, as with many of my quasi-Catholic inclinations, I've been pretty clandestine and under the radar.

Don't ask me the whys and wherefores. Yes, I could get into that, in elaborate detail, but as I get older I find myself less and less inclined to air such matters.

Still, I do leave me scratching my head sometimes...

The Poverty of British Life

I've been reading a volume of letters by the British poet Philip Larkin. It always amazes me when I read stuff by mid-20th century British writers -- Larkin, C.S. Lewis, Dylan Thomas, etc. -- how they had such a shoddy standard of living. Running a little paraffin stove to help heat the bedroom -- no central heating, of course. "Better to come visit me in the summer, when I can spare enough blankets for you off my own bed." The stock Briticism, "butter is dear," and margarine hardly any more affordable. Going to great trouble to get an ordinary fountain pen repaired instead of buying a new one. A university library (this was early 1950s) with not a single typewriter in it, not even for Larkin who was the head librarian.

And these were middle class writers who were pulling in a tolerable income from full-time job plus writing. I get the impression that I enjoy a far higher standard of living than they did.

Great Britain, mid-20th century: what I always think of is bad teeth and no central heating.

Shortwave

I have two shortwave radios, both of them portable and both of them reasonably good radios. Though the one shortwave (call it shortwave #1) is really a far more sensitive and sophisticated radio than the other shortwave (call it shortwave #2).

So what have I done with these two radios? Well, the past ten years I've had shortwave #1 sitting and gathering dust, seldom used, in a room upstairs. While I've had shortwave #2, fairly often used, sitting on the end table next to my wicker rocker in the living room.

I repeat, the less capable shortwave (shortwave #2), sitting by my elbow in the living room, gets probably 98% of the use. I've been trying to remember how this setup arose, and I think the idea was that I'd get better reception from upstairs, hence have shortwave #1 in the room upstairs. Not that this makes much difference when shortwave #1 is seldom if ever used.

So. The other day I finally took action, and did the obvious thing: I switched the two radios. Now shortwave #1 is on the end table in my living room, where it is used almost daily. And shortwave #2 is in that room upstairs, for if-and-when I need a radio on my infrequent forays into that room.

Actually shortwave #1 in the living room, being more sensitive, gets better reception than shortwave #2 would get either in the living room or upstairs.

And so I sit here in the living room this morning, wrapped up in a wool Indian blanket in my wicker rocker, cup of coffee at hand, and the dulcet tones of Radio Rebelde on 5025 kilocycles in the 60 meter band from Havana at my elbow. (Yes, I'm the sort who still says "kilocycles.") Can't understand more than the occasional snatch of Spanish, but you know, for me that's a windows of consciousness thing: listening to a detailed but only marginally intelligible sound stream opens wide the doors of perception. More perhaps on that some other time...