Friday, 10 June

Not much has been happening. My doctors' appointments went swimmingly, no one seemed to have any surprises for me this time, so the rest of my vacation is mine. Today I do laundry and some shopping, and try to finish the pile of "to file" that one of John's lady friends left for him when she sorted through some of the paperwork. John has to work, so I may meet him for dinner. He has traded a room for house repairs with a work buddy of his, and they carpool, so it means John has much better hours and we have dinner at a reasonable time. Greg owns a Golden Retriever by name of Chewy, who seems to be the world's quietest dog. He stays closed in the back bedroom all day and I don't hear a sound out of him. Suits me, and Charlie, John's cat.

It is mostly cool and overcast, typical June weather. Highs so far are in the low 70s. For security and the indoor cat, John keeps everything closed up all day, which means it's often warmer and damper inside than outside. He also has the typical male cave mentality, which means the curtains are permanently closed. I can't even GET to some windows, as he has the same clutter gene that I do. He noticed that I'm very distractable (Oh! Bright Shiny Thing! What's that noise?), and I've noticed that he procrastinates on things he needs to do. I have some suggestions but I know the first reaction from him will be NO. But I hope he thinks about them and implements something because he needs a much better routine than he has. It's really similar to the one I was in when I was so depressed, and changing it was part of what got me out of the depression. (Spring did a lot for it, too, but California never really has the dark winters that England does, so spring goes kind of unnoticed around here.)

The first time I turned on the TV in the motel, it was just starting up an ad that said, "Do you suffer from non-valve-related atrial fibrillation?" Got my attention in a big hurry. It was an ad for Pradaxa, the new alternative to Coumadin/warfarin, with fewer side effects for most people. Both my GP and cardiologist said this was a good thing for me, so I started it about 48 hours ago. I have learned that when it says "take with food," it MEANS it. I waited a little too long after dinner and woke up at midnight with the worst case of heartburn I've had since I had to take steroids. Even though I now take it with meals, I still get a little discomfort now and then. I'll hope it goes away as my system gets more used to it, because warfarin requires blood tests to get the dosage just right, and I can't have salads, and neither one of those is a problem with Pradaxa.

One of my favorite moments of the trip so far was sitting in the IHOP attached to the motel and listening to a table of four grandmotherly types -- 65 if they were a day -- talking about how much they liked Lady Gaga's music. I do, too, and I thought it was just me. I do miss California.

This is the first trip where I've thought that east Los Angeles might have something on west L.A. Santa Monica was crowded, the courteous drivers I found on my first trip have all left and these New Yorkers seem to have taken their place, and parking was ALWAYS a problem. I got to Whittier and all the stores have parking lots and there aren't many cars on the roads and there's far more lawn space, even in the heart of town. Dirty and concreted it might be, but there are benefits.

So I'm going to have a big slice of Marie Callendar's blueberry "double cream" pie for breakfast, and take the underwear out of the dryer, and go shopping. What a life.