The funny thing about my stroke (funny strange, not funny Haha!) is that not only did it rob me of my mobility, virtually all of my motor skills and my ability to speak, it also really did a number on my internal thermostat. I’m chilly all the time, even when others around me are perfectly comfortable. I feel like a 90-year-old man (no offense Dad!).

Speaking of my dad, it’s perfectly comfortable over there (for me, not Jen) when we go to his house, a.k.a. “the Costa Rican rainforest”, for a visit. That’s probably because he has his thermostat permanently pegged at 87 degrees, 365 days a year. His heating costs are  about $320/month. His cooling costs in the summer are $12/mo. I’ve never seen my wife or siblings sweat (or swear) profusely while just sitting there talking.

In the last couple years, I made the two best purchases I’ve ever made in my life. My first triumphant score was an electric bed warmer. It does pretty much exactly what the name implies. It goes between the bottom sheet on my bed and the top of my mattress and keeps me all warm and toasty. When this one (eventually) dies, I’m replacing it THAT DAY, even if the price has gone up 1000%! 

My other game-changing purchase was an electric, heated throw. I can be found living underneath it from Fall until Spring. The one side is imitation sheepskin like my mom’s seat covers were made from in her Pontiac T1000 Hatchback she drove in the ‘80s. The other side is this faux mink or rabbit’s fur stuff. Whatever it is, it’s very soft. I wear shorts year-round just because I like the way it feels on my bare legs. I named it “Wooly”. I kinda hijacked that name from my uncle, he named his throw that a long time ago according to my cousin, but he’s cool – so he won’t care.

On a routine, normal 24-hr. day, I get chilly for about 3 of those minutes. That’s the amount of time it takes Jen to transfer me using the Hoyer lift from my bed to my chair. After that, she immediately covers me with Wooly and then I’m golden again – everything’s right with the world, it’s all lollipops, rainbows and unicorns. I know what you’re thinking and I agree, I’m pretty spoiled. BTW, she just had a birthday and she got a buncha cards, texts and emails. They mostly told her how kind, thoughtful and wonderful she is – I really need to up my game.

Back to Wooly, one time I think her feelings got kinda hurt because of it. She said to me, ‘Sometimes, I think you love Wooly more than you love me.’ I replied, ’What’re you talking about? That’s 100% absolutely almost not true!  More?  Not a chance. Equally?  Um, we should probably talk.’ The day didn’t improve much from there.

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(Believe it or not, that isn’t a professionally made text divider that I just copied from the internet, I made it myself. I know, hard to believe.)

Recalculating…

Apropos of nothing, I’m bringing him up just because I’ve been hearing a lot about him lately and I’m wondering, what is your opinion of Elon Musk nowadays?  I became aware of him and learned a lot about him 10-15 years ago. At the time, he had founded three large, successful companies (Tesla, SpaceX, PayPal) and several smaller ones – before his 40^th birthday. All of that eventually made him the richest person in the world. He’s super smart too. He didn’t know anything about rocketry and aeronautics and stuff like that, so he learned everything he needed to know to start SpaceX from books. So, I was a big fan.

But then he bought Twitter for some reason a couple years ago, changed the name to X (a name used by no one but him) and then he started getting weirder than he already was. He’s now in a position of immense power that has no guardrails and he’s totally free to single-handedly, and seemingly willy-nilly, make massive decisions that he, and only he, thinks are good. It doesn’t matter to me if you love what he’s doing or if you think his actions set the country back 40 years, that isn’t my point. My point is that he’s making gigantic decisions about American policy almost daily that affect a lot of us but more importantly, those actions are molding how the U.S. is perceived by millions of people worldwide. The power and authority to make those decisions was just handed to him because he just happens to be friends with the president, he wasn’t elected to do any of that. He seems to be a little reckless and unhinged these days, too. I just wish he would go back to focusing on what he’s good at – building reusable rockets and electric cars – and leave the shaping of government policy to the officials we elected to do that.

Years ago, Jen got me a t-shirt that had, “Elon Musk for President”, printed across it in big, bold letters. Who would’ve guessed it at the time, but that prophecy would almost come to fruition in 2025.

OK, that’s the first and last time I’ll talk about anything that’s even slightly “political”. It’s just no fun. I’m happy to let the Sunday morning pundits, college professors, activists and other political junkies {of which I am: e) none of the above} hash, rehash and pulverize whatever’s going on in Washington D.C. – I’m out. I think burying your head in POLITICO or The Washington Insider half the day and watching cable news nonstop the other half can drive you a little crazy or even make you bitter or angry. Immersing yourself in that stuff all the time can steal your joy. Like Jen reminded me, life’s too short for: a) drinking crappy coffee and b) self-induced harm to your mental health. 

We recently discovered a musician we both really like. His name is Lukas Nelson, he’s the son of Willie Nelson (who we also really like in spite of, or maybe because of, his “unique” singing voice). He’s an excellent guitarist and songwriter, just like his dad. He has a song called “Turn Off the News”. When we heard it for the first time, the lyrics really resonated with us. Here are some of them:

Turn off the news and build a garden Just my neighborhood and me We might feel a bit less hardened We might feel a bit more free

Thought I’d mention this because it just occurred to me…

Speaking of music, even though I’m not a huge fan of country music, I think it has the greatest song titles. I recently heard this song: “God is Great, Beer is Good and People are Crazy”.

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That’ll do for discussing serious subjects on this blog. I wanna get back to talking about unimportant and goofy stuff like electric blankets and old family pictures.

Später!,

– Jim