Tank birthday and I'm a Geezer

[Paul B]

My wife is not doing very well at all this week. I can't really feed my fish correctly as I really need to target feed the pipefish and waspfish.

The waspfish only eat once a week but I am concerned about the pipefish.
This pain doesn't respond to normal pain relievers because it is nerve pain so nothing works. We just have to try to wait it out but it is very difficult.

 

[reefsandrotts]

My wife is not doing very well at all this week. I can't really feed my fish correctly as I really need to target feed the pipefish and waspfish.

The waspfish only eat once a week but I am concerned about the pipefish.
This pain doesn't respond to normal pain relievers because it is nerve pain so nothing works. We just have to try to wait it out but it is very difficult.

Prayers they can help her with the pain Paul

 

[Paul B]

Prayers they can help her with the pain Paul

Yes they do and I do a lot of praying. She is in a prayer group where they pray for other people.

 

[Paul B]

Today started off great. Then Dale called me and I found her on the floor. 15 minutes later, I got her on the bed and then to her walker.

It's very hard to get up from the floor if one leg doesn't move and gets stiff like a board. Not easy at all.

I thought it was going to be a good day.

 

[Paul B]

Because of lack of free time, I just tested my salinity. It's 0.019. So I can start keeping bullfrogs.

Everything looks fine, better than fine, although I know many people would go crazy. I don't go crazy over fish stuff, more important things to be concerned about.
I have to keep adding salt today until it comes close to 0.025. This may take a few hours.

 

[Paul B]

I did something really "smart" this morning. I normally get out of bed at 5:30. Have a cup of coffee and come on the forums to see what ridiculous,,,,,,,, I mean to see what interesting things people are doing to their tanks.

At about 6:15 it gets a little light out and I take my walk which starts out going a half a mile to the beach steps, then down 167 steps to the beach and I start my 2 mile walk. Then back.

Today I got up at my normal time, made a cup of coffee and checked out the forums. Nothing exciting was happening on them so I opened the shades to see what the weather looked like because it was supposed to rain all day, and when it rains hard, I still walk but I put on full rain gear. No real men own an umbrella

It was pitch dark, so I figured it was pouring rain. I put on my boots and went outside. It wasn't raining but it was still pitch dark and if I wanted to walk, I would have to bring a flashlight.

Then it dawned on me. It wasn't 6:15. It was 5:15.. Like Duh. Now what am I going to do? It was too dark to go to the beach because I may get abducted by Aliens or eaten by rabid penguins. So, I went back inside and watched YouTube for an hour.

Then I went for my walk. It was high tide and the surf was up to the bulkhead so I couldn't walk on the sand too far without swimming.

 

[Paul B]

 

[Paul B]

This morning we are in the midst of a Nor Easter which is like a hurricane. The winds are 55 MPH and there is lawn furniture flying all over the place. We still have power but the day is young and the lights blinked a few times. It is about 6:30am and pitch dark outside but I am getting ready to go out for my walk. I will put on all my rain gear because we are supposed to get 3" of rain and it is raining so hard now that I may need a canoe.

I want to walk around here to see if anyone lost siding or roofing as I hear a lot of banging outside over the wind noise.
My generator is ready and I have 15 gallons of gas on hand. I also have flashlights in every room.

 

[Paul B]

You can't tell from this picture but there are 55 MPH winds and it is raining. I couldn't get all the way down to the beach because the wind was too strong and the waves were crashing on the steps.
I took a video, but I can't put it on here

 

[Paul B]

Today looks even worse. The storm picked up but it is still pitch dark outside. I hear things flying all over the place and the wind sounds like a jet engine. Perfect for my walk. I will try to get to the beach but I will have to take a couple of bowling balls for ballast.

 

[Paul B]

I walked around our community this morning in the rain. So far we didn't get too much damage probably because last year we lost a lot of trees.

This tree is down and two next to it will have to come down as they are leaning over.

This new fence also partially fell down in the wind, but this is right near the 150' bluffs on the Long Island Sound so It is very windy here and the wind is from the North East.

There are also some street signs down and other minor things. I didn't make it to the beach but I assume the ocean is still there.

 

[Paul B]

My Daughter took this picture on her deck in Manhattan. I think this creature is 7 feet tall.

 

[Paul B]

I have been having trouble walking every morning because my ankle has been hurting so I have been cutting my walks a little shorter and I have been walking on a street instead of a rocky beach, so this morning I went to a foot/bone Dr. I figured I had a hairline crack, ankle ich or a bit of that Brooklyn disease.

He took an X Ray and gave me the results. He said I see you broke your leg skiing a long time ago. I said, I did and it was a spiral break that started at the ankle and spiraled around to my knee. It was in the 70s.

He said he could tell it was a long time ago because ski boots are made differently now, so it isn't easy to break your ankle now, as the boots are higher. He said: today they wouldn't fix the leg like that. Today they would have operated on it and added screws because the broken bones didn't heal well, and they left a large space between the bones, which filled in with new bone, but now my leg is all filled with arthritis.

He was very surprised that at my age, I could walk at all and told me that if I didn't have a heavy construction job, and didn't walk every day, I wouldn't be able to walk at all. He said that this should have given me problems 40 years ago. But I told him that I am a real Man and not a sissy, girly man so I can do anything. OK, I didn't really tell him that but I wanted to.

He is in my medical group and said that, looking at my last stress test, physical and pulmonologist report, I am in excellent shape and may live to 100.

Except for that arthritis thing which I am filled with after my 39 surgeries, all for Manly things.

I could get my ankle fixed a couple of ways. I can get a replacement ankle, but I said I already have too much metal in my body and I am afraid to walk past a magnet.

I can get my ankle fused, where I would walk like Uncle Festus. But I also don't like that idea because it would screw up my ballroom dancing. Or I could try cortisone shots. Cortisone it is.

 

[Paul B]

Yesterday was our 53rd wedding anniversary. Unfortunately, it is bittersweet because my Son N Laws Dad also died last night.

A couple of days ago we went to visit our Grand Daughter who went away to Massachusetts for high school.

 

[MadReefer]

Yesterday was our 53rd wedding anniversary. Unfortunately, it is bittersweet because my Son N Laws Dad also died last night.

A couple of days ago we went to visit our Grand Daughter who went away to Massachusetts for high school.

That's great and sad news Paul.

 

[diana a]

So sorry to read about your son-in-law's dad.

It must have been wonderful to see your grand daughter. How is she adjusting to be away from home?

 

[Paul B]

Diana, she absolutely loves it.

On Sunday we went to see my granddaughter Greta at her high school in Massachusetts on the other side of the Long Island Sound from us. (I also never heard of anyone going away to high school, but that's just me)
She lives in Manhattan, so anywhere would be better, and I'm glad she is in a safer place.

So we head out to the ferry early in the morning. The ferry to Connecticut leaves from Orient Point at the very end of Long Island, about 40 minutes from my house.
When my wife bought the tickets, they asked her if she wanted "Preferred Boarding," so she said yes.

You pay more for that, and I'm not sure what it means. Anyway, we get to the boat and ask for a spot near the elevator because my wife, Dale, can't walk and barely walks with a walker.

The guy at the ferry dock says, do we want Preferred Boarding or a spot next to the elevator? We said, we want both. It turns out that with Preferred Boarding, you get in the front of the ship so you get off first, but the elevator is in the very back of the ship, so you can't have both. You would think the Lady who sold her the tickets would have mentioned that, so we paid extra for nothing.

Anyway, we get on the boat right at the back next to the elevator. Too bad I didn't bring my fishing pole for the hour-and-a-half trip.

The last time we were on this ferry, I saw an ocean sunfish. Very cool. This time I only saw trash.

This ferry was in WW2 on D Day. It ferried troops back and forth from the front lines to England, and it received a Presidential Commendation. It is over 85 years old, but I'm sure it was painted and had the oil changed since then. They had a picture of it at the time, and it had guns all over it, and it looked like a mini Battleship.

This is on the front.

We reached the shore in New London, Connecticut, right next to the General Dynamics Corp., where they make Nuclear Submarines. The last time we took this ferry, a submarine was next to us on our way out.

An hour later, we found Greta's high school, which looked like a beautiful, old, Ivy League college.

It even had a lot of ivy on its 200-year-old chapel.

That's Greta, my beautiful Granddaughter. She gave us a guided tour around the place, and I thought it was a college.

It was on a Sunday and we didn't see anyone, not one person on this huge campus. It's named Pomfret.

We spent the day there with her and took her to dinner. After dinner to our surprise, the waitress said, Our bill was taken care of. I asked: By whom? Greta said, "By me!" (I know our Daughter gave her a credit card and told her to pay the bill)

Greta told the waitress that it was our 53rd anniversary, and she said congratulations and all that and asked if we wanted dessert. Greta did, so we ordered.

When we were done, the waitress came over and said, "Our dessert bill was taken care of by that man at the bar". I said Really! and went over to the guy. I thanked him and asked why he paid our bill. He said he heard it was our anniversary and thanked me for my service because I had my Vietnam Veteran hat on.

Very nice. There are nice and generous people all over the place.

We left Greta and went to our hotel 7 miles away. It was a huge hotel with 400 rooms, which is big for Massachusetts. We went in, and the lobby was as big as a football field, but not one person in sight.

We checked in and got a handicapped accessible room. We went into the room, and someone left the air conditioning on the coldest setting. I didn't have my snow shovel with me, so I quickly shut it off and turned on the heat.

After a while, the "heat" was coming out colder. It was about 50 degrees outside, so we would have liked a little heat. But nothing. I called the front desk to tell them, and they said, "Oh, that's terrible," and would send the mechanic right up.

10 minutes later, this guy shows up with tools. He looks at the unit and starts looking behind the curtains at the window. I said, " The thermostat is over here on the wall. He said OK, let me look at it.

He looked at it, then opened the AC unit and looked around. Then he said: I just got this job a day and a half ago and don't know anything about it. But tomorrow, "I will send up the smartest guy in the world who knows everything". Well, if he knows everything, I will ask him if he knows how to spawn copperband butterflies and get rid of hair algae.

My wife, Dale, gets in the shower, and what do you know? There is also no hot water.
I go down to the guy in the lobby because the smartest guy in the world won't be in until tomorrow, and we would like hot water, or at least lukewarm water, today.

The guy says the boiler broke, and there is a temporary boiler outside on a truck, and it takes a while for the heat to get up to the 4th floor.

I was born at night, but not last night, and I know that the heat in those rooms comes from the unit in the room and not the truck outside, as I worked building many hotels. I didn't want to argue with this Jiboni because I think he actually believed this.

I went upstairs, and my wife was out of the shower, shivering, and showed me the bathroom. There is no place to hang anything, so you have to put your clothes on the floor, on the "wet" floor because, being it is a handicapped room, there is no step to get into the shower, and in the shower, there is also no place to put the soap or those stupid little bottles of shampoo and hair conditioner (not that I would use such things), but if you wanted to, you had to put them on the floor.

I then took my semi-cold shower and tried to turn on the TV. All it did was light up. I turned on the lamp, but it didn't work, so I took a bulb from another one and put it in that one.

I will wait until tomorrow for the "smartest guy in the world" to fix the TV, too.

The place had a pool. YYYYyaaaaa.

It was in a separate, free-standing building, but there was no place to change (or put anything down), and I assumed it was also cold like everything else, and I didn't bring my ice skates, so we didn't go in. No one was in sight.

They had a beautiful gym, and Dale likes to exercise as much as she can, so we went in. No one was there.

I helped her on a machine and adjusted the knob that adds weight. It was sticky. Very sticky. I looked at my hand, and I was covered in a tar-like substance. Jet black, and it wouldn't come off. Most of the machines also had this substance on them, as people must have touched it and carried it to all the machines.

So no exercising. It was dinner time so I went into the huge restaurant they have there to look at the menu.
It was a buffet and they had everything you could imagine, but no one was there except, I assume, the chef, who was the only one there, and he was eating by himself.

I went back to our room and it hit me. I was in the center of the hallway, and there are 80 rooms on each floor. I was in the middle of the hallway and looked both ways. No one. Not one person or evidence that anyone was ever there.

I figured it out. We were in the "Twilight Zone".