Spo-Reflections

What’s top of my mind:  The cold. 20 January is deemed the coldest day of the year; it is uphill to ardent temperatures to 20 July, the reported hottest day of the year, with its peak at 50C (bloody hot F). But that is six months hence and right now it is cold. The dirty secret of The American Southwest is it gets cold in January. Mind! ‘Cold’ is relative; I can see already the acrimonious comments of the Spo-fans who live in cooler climes when I tell that it gets down to near freezing at times. Few bother to turn on the heat, possibly due to not having home (or office) heating. Maybe it just feels cold because I am older. My late Father may he rest in peace at the end of this life was constantly cold; he was always wanting a fleece jacket or blanket even in summer. I am starting to feel similar. At work and at home I have space heaters going and I sleep in sweatshirts and such.

Where I’ve been: Eating alfresco. Last weekend there was a break from the cold; it was sunny and temperatures briefly got to a high of 20C (68F). This feels cold to us locals but for my visitors from Michigan it was practically summer. We went out for lunch and they wanted to eat outdoors. In the sun with their jackets off they looked as happy as two cats in a sunbeam, while Someone and I sat across from them wearing sweatshirts and jackets.

Where I’m going: Nowhere for now. My knees are being difficult, especially the right one. They feel stiff if not downright painful when I try to squat down. Oh the pain. I don’t remember injuring them so what is the matter? I try to get up from the chair and go on walks rather than succumb to not moving about. My evening walks only seem to aggravate the matter, worse luck. I may have to take Motrin (or something like it) despite the kidney functions.

Do you have stiff and/or painful knees?

What I’m watching:  When patients were last in the office for a face-to-face appointment. The Overlords reminded me the other day patients should have an in-office appointment every twelve months, and if they are taking controlled-substance type medications they are obliged to do so by the State of Arizona. I think a yearly face-to-face appointment is reasonable. I am posting in the charts ‘when they were last in’ and asking thems who haven’t been in before 2025 to make their next appointment in office. Most patients are OK with this, but a few have taking umbrage at this modest request. They state it’s inconvenient, or I’ve never been in so why do I have to do so now? Using the magic word ‘regardless’ I tell them regardless, they have to.

What I’m reading: The Potato. Eileen (the dear!) knows I like books in which the author takes a certain food-stuff and tells how it transformed the world. I’ve read such books on the topic of tea, salt, rice, cod, and red dye from The New World. Her latest book-prize is about the humble potato. I like potatoes, especially the atypical tuber-types. They come in all sorts of colors and flavors, and they are often tastier than the mundane ‘Idaho’ spuds.

What is your favorite way of having potatoes?

What I’m listening to: The eve of St. Agnes. Speak of the coldest day of the year, every 20 January I read the poem “The eve of St. Agnes’ by Keats. The story is about a young girl who goes to bed on St. Agnes Eve to dream of her true love.* In these past years I’ve been not reading it but hearing it via Audiobook (or something like it). I always fall asleep before it ends.

What I’m eating: Spicy baby food. At the mentioned luncheon I asked Brother #3’s guest what sort of food he enjoyed. He said he liked Indian the best, which he calls ‘spicy baby food’, meaning it is hot, delicious, but the consistency of porridge. True, this. Our delicious to-go Indian food comes in plastic containers the type you get at the grocery store delicatessen. It is served over rice or scooped up with bits of naan. Lovely!

Who needs a good slap: The Felon. Not a day goes by that he does something immoral and heartless, but this latest outrage, this grandiose delusion about Greenland, is lunacy. This is what happens when dark-triad types** are put in charge and no one has the guts to stand up to them and tell them what he is doing is wrong. A minor consequence of his threats is the stock market to turned south, wiping out all I gained in the past six months.

On my 1-5 scale, I give The Felon five slaps.

Who gets a fist bump:  Someone. There is nothing like gentlemen-callers to La Casa de Spo to get Someone into gear to tidy up the place. The home office looks clean and dusted, the first time in ages. Prior it looked like a thief had been in there unsuccessfully looking for something. Oh the horror.

What I’m planning: Feeding the cat. I have mixed feelings about The Yule Cat, the pussykins that comes by the office at PHX. He (it) is generally a friendly beast but when he/it play-bites it is nasty. He/it is now banned from being around patients lest he bites them. Some of the staff have been donating little tins of meat that he/it eats with relish. I recently bought some tins myself. This will assure his/its coming by, will it not. I’m turning into one of my patient types: the lonely senior who feed feral cats.

What’s making me smile: Quilting. Monday was a day off, a day I hadn’t planned to have. So what does one do with 24 hours of bonus time? I got out the quilt I started twenty years ago that I never finished. It is you basic ‘log cabin’ design, ten by ten squares with a border yet to be determined. I didn’t have a goal in mind when I started other than to say I made a quilt. It may become a bedcover for the guest bed in The Dragon Room. I am pleased as Punch for proceeding with it.

*I get no such dreams, worse luck.

**The dark-triad is a collection of narcissism, sociopathy, and Machiavellian. It is all about the person, and getting what he/she wants and will do anything to get it without caring how or who gets hurt.

Note: I wrote this yesterday evening. By the time it gets posted it will be Monday morning and I have slept and woke to another day and a much better mood. Spo.

I get rawther pensive on Sunday nights. About 8PM I get the sense of the weekend being over and the tasks accomplished. The bed has new linens on it. I have some tea candles burning and Enya ‘Watermark’ playing. It’s serene in that way I can never determine if it is a ‘good’ quiet or a sad one.

Sunday evening is when I am the most reflective who am I and where I have been and where I am going. There is often the sensation the answer is ‘not much’. Brother #3 was in town for a friend’s funeral; the man died at Christmas time from complications of alcoholism – such an ignominious end for someone in his 50s. I was supposed to die by my mid-thirties and here I am approaching my mid-sixties with developing bad knees and a vague terror of not feeling at all good about myself. I remember one of my professors suggestion whenever one is taking ourselves and Life too seriously, go watch a Marx Brothers movie, to remember Life is absurd and the best thing to do is recognize this and laugh at it.

Mind! I have nothing really to complain about; my blessing are legion. All the same on Sunday night facing another week of the same – which isn’t bad – there is a part of me that feels ‘why bother anymore’. Not to be worrying! This is a philosophical thought, not a sign of going off the deep end.

What I need to do is get some things on the 2026 calendar, things to look forward to- some trips to visit chums perhaps, or to a place unknown. Despite my body image and bad knees I persevere with stretching and exercise. After all, when one doesn’t know where one is going, the worst thing to do is to stop and not move until you have figured it out. Rather, you keep going; The Journey will reveal itself in time.

The blog anniversary of approaches. It is in early February and it celebrates twenty years of blogging, can you imagine? I ought to do something big for the day but what? The fact I have this milestone cheers me mightily. It strengthens me; it stiffens my resolve.

“The reward for lots of work seemed to be lots more. If you dug the biggest hole, they just gave you a bigger shovel.” Terry Prachtett.

I learned a new ‘law’ the other day. A podcast pundit talked about something called ‘The Jevons Paradox’. The Jevons Paradox states as technology makes a resource more efficient to use the overall consumption of that resource often increases not decreases, because the efficiency lowers the cost, in turn boosting demand and leading to more widespread application. This seemed related to a phenomena I have experience all the time: so-called labor saving devices do not create free time but more labor. I call it the “Lucy on the chocolate wrapping line phenomena.* I remember being more proficient than my colleagues when I worked at a state hospital. Discharging patients faster opened up beds and got me more admissions; I often worked far more than my colleagues who purposely held onto patients to avoid getting new ones.

Why humans reward each other for good efficiency with more work is a psychological mystery. Maybe it gets down to greed viz. bosses see their minions can do more/work faster and speed things up hoping for more product, more profit, more everything. Thanks to dictation services and computer cutting and pasting at work I write better and more detailed medical notes, but it seems more is now demanded in a note, everything from the time the session began to all sorts of CYA inserts. I see patients for med-checks at twenty minutes per appointment; I sense if there was a way to speed things up The Overlords would do it. Mercifully this hasn’t happened – yet.

Someone and I subscribe to meal kits. They are often pitched as ‘high protein’ or ‘high fiber’ but what is first and foremost now is ‘easy to make’ viz. done in twenty minutes or less. Make meals quick, gobble it down, and get on to more work. They say thems in Europe take time to prepare and better yet eat a meal. I wonder if this is true. If it is, I envy them.

There is a lot of talk about the value of time taking precedence over other things like money. I would edit this: it is more about how to spend the time you have. Resist the urge to hurry! I take comfort in the thought that when one goes to an area bereft of labor saving devices there is plenty of Time on one’s hands.

*For thems unfamiliar with what I am referencing: In an episode of “I love Lucy” Lucy and Ethel are hired to wrap chocolates on a moving conveyor belt. They do their best which isn’t good. When their supervisor admires their apparent industry she shouts to someone to speed up the conveyor belt.