You spent an hour or so working in the yard
this morning – mostly dealing with leaves in/on and around the deck and in the
woods by cleaning the two paths to and on the picnic table area. Carol raked
mostly on the sides and back. The leaves are to be collected by the city
Tuesday for the last time. Tuesday, the third is also when you meet Dave and
Marsha so you will probably go up to Kim and Paul’s for lunch on Monday and
stay over then come home Tuesday night. Presently you are waiting for Carol at
Kroger’s on Mason-Montgomery Road. You had a late lunch at Panera/Chipotle then
Graeter’s ice cream for dessert after a stop at Walmart on Mason-Montgomery
Road.
1628 hours. I notice that you like to place ‘road/street’
after the road or street name. What is the significance? I tend to not want to
include it, but you ‘force my hand’.
Once home you found you had trouble dropping
the pills in your weekly clear plastic pillbox, which is approximately nine
inches by two inches by one inch deep. The problem is that the tips of the
fingers on your right hand are, more often than not, numb from the tip to the
first knuckle (about one inch) as if they were asleep. Being right handed you
find this more than annoying. Filling the weekly pillbox is a Saturday night
ritual that you rarely miss. The reason is another ritual on Sunday morning.
You take your blood sugar, fix half a peanut butter and raisin wheat bread
sandwich, peal a banana and pour yourself a glass of skim milk into a glass and
usually stop when the glass is three-fourths full. Then you sit down and sort
out the Sunday Cincinnati Enquirer comics. First, you take your pills after
taking an initial glance at the first comic on the top left hand side of the
page, “Zits”. Then you open the pillbox marked ‘S’ for Sunday and proceed to
sort out and take the morning pills. This routine is abruptly upset if you have
forgotten to load the pillbox the night before.
Loading
the pillbox on Saturday night. The first pills you drop in, one and a time,
always from right to left (Saturday back through Sunday) is Hydrochlorothiazide,
25 mg., one each day. This is a small pink pill of less than two centimeters in
diameter. The second capsule is Januvia, 100 mg., one each day; it is beige and
two centimeters in diameter. The color and size is what is important, next in
importance is the container. The first four are clear plastic, round, labeled;
with a white screw non-childproof cap and the same size, three and a half by
seven centimeters. The third capsule is Levothyroxine, 100 mcg. It is small,
yellow and oblong about one by two centimeters, again, one a day. The fourth
capsule is a thin oval shape in a dull orange tint, Simvastatin, 20mg. One more
pill container sets in this first row of a beige plastic basket ten by six
inches with a depth of two and one half inches. It is a smaller white container
with a “Bayer Children’s Aspirin” slapped on its side. The common ‘baby
aspirin’ is circular, small and yellow. You only drop one of each in the
Saturday, Thursday, Tuesday and Sunday pillbox days. This concludes the first
row from right to left. Orders are to take no statins but the seven Simvastatin
and the four baby aspirin a week. Too many statins were causing your kidneys to
begin failing. This has since been corrected and the kidneys are presently in a
healthy normal range. The doctor was surprised how quickly the kidneys healed,
at least he told you he was. You didn’t understand the reason for him telling
you this because you had nothing to do with the healing other than to stop the
other statins like he ordered.
1805 hours. This is fun. This is something I enjoy writing
about because it is a ritual every week and I look forward to it just as I do
the Sunday comics. I could do this sort of thing all day. I have two more rows
to go to complete this ritual in/from a beige plastic basket. The ritual
symbolizes that I have accomplished the weekly goal of living a fairly normal
life for one more week. This is what happens when you have been taking pills
mostly daily since the early 1960’s.
The second row of pills begins from the left
in a dark (about) three and a half by two inch wide container with a white cap.
It is a dark gray iron tablet, 65 mg, about two centimeters in diameter, and it
is the equivalent supplement to 325mg of Ferrous sulfate. The second pill in
this row is in a slime green Kroger container and it is a large white,
three-centimeter in diameter tablet, Vitamin D 1000 IU bone supplement; again,
these pills are taken once each day. The third container in the second row is
clear; as were the first four in the first row. It is Lisinopril, 40 mg. The
pill is yellow-beige and two centimeters in diameter. This last pill container
in the second row is white, about one and a half inch square three and
three-fourths inches high with the white cap. It is a two-tone green capsule a
centimeter in diameter and is named Diltiazem Hcl Er(Cd), 180 mg.; like the
others, one tablet daily.
The
back third row of medicine has four containers of larger size so no more than
four can set in the row. From left to right in a clear plastic bottle with
white cap is Florentine Hcl 40mg. It is a large-medium sized white capsule with
partial orange stripe markings. The next clear container is full of Kroger
brand Senior Vitamins. The container next to last is larger and white
supplement called Glucosamine 500mg; Chondroitin 400mg tablet to help rebuild
cartilage and lubricate joints. The last bottle is brownish (though clear) and
is five inches high and two and a half inches wide. It contains fish oil
tablets, your order is for four of these a day, taken in the morning. -
Amorella
Wow.
This was a fun exercise and it vividly reminds me of the poem, “The Naming of
Parts”.
** **
Reed,
Henry. "Naming of Parts." New Statesman and Nation 24, no.
598 (8 August 1942): 92 (pdf.)
LESSONS
OF THE WAR
To
Alan Michell
Vixi duellis nuper idoneus
Et militavi non sine gloria
I.
NAMING OF PARTS
To-day
we have naming of parts. Yesterday,
We
had daily cleaning. And to-morrow morning,
We
shall have what to do after firing. But to-day,
To-day
we have naming of parts. Japonica
Glistens
like coral in all of the neighboring gardens,
And
to-day we have naming of parts.
This
is the lower sling swivel. And this
Is
the upper sling swivel, whose use you will see,
When
you are given your slings. And this is the piling swivel,
Which
in your case you have not got. The branches
Hold
in the gardens their silent, eloquent gestures,
Which
in our case we have not got.
This
is the safety-catch, which is always released
With
an easy flick of the thumb. And please do not let me
See
anyone using his finger. You can do it quite easy
If
you have any strength in your thumb. The blossoms
Are
fragile and motionless, never letting anyone see
Any
of them using their finger.
And
this you can see is the bolt. The purpose of this
Is to
open the breech, as you see. We can slide it
Rapidly
backwards and forwards: we call this
Easing
the spring. And rapidly backwards and forwards
The
early bees are assaulting and fumbling the flowers:
They
call it easing the Spring.
They
call it easing the Spring: it is perfectly easy
If
you have any strength in your thumb: like the bolt,
And
the breech, and the cocking-piece, and the point of balance,
Which
in our case we have not got; and the almond-blossom
Silent
in all of the gardens and the bees going backwards and forwards,
For
to-day we have naming of parts.
From:
solearabiantree.net
** **
1852
hours. This was published two days after I was born. Good for Henry! I’m happy
it was publishable. Dr. John Coulter focused on this poem in one of his
classes, I forget which of the many I took from him. Reed’s poem made an
immediate impression on me. And, looking at the broader perspective, this poem
is much more important than a birthday and the naming of pills.
Indeed, from your immediate perspective,
this is the point of this day’s work. – Amorella
It is the truth, Amorella.
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