What is it about nice people that attract total idiots?Nice people are martyrs. Idiots are evangelists.

SOCK IT TO ME BABY!!!

Wednesday, October 15, 2014

And WHY is my BP so damn high???

Well, here I am with my two latest addictions- my Spotify playlist (titled "Scrappy", natch) and News360, which is basically Spotify for news stories.  It has one unfortunate flaw- a side effect of being based in San Fran- a lot of gay rights stories that I keep flagging as "I don't want to see this", they keep saying, "We'll try to keep this kind of story out of your feed," and, well...

Anyway, here we are with the Guess Who playing The Key off the lp Canned Wheat (good Christian message, nice long drum solo), and day three (four?) of rain preventing any new picture posts, so I guess I'll sing a few verses of "woe is me" for you.



My last (I thought) manouver for last night was to check my e-mail one last time.  But, it gave me the old "we need your password" business.  So that meant we try my usual PW.  No dice.  Oh, wait, I'll bet it's the one for Comcast.  This meant daring to get into Laurie's arcane filing system, which involves several showers of random loose papers on the way to the one with the PWs on it.  As I returned to the computer, I looked up at the decorative pouch on the wall where I put my "to be dealt with" papers (Not so decorative as jammed full as it was), and said, "I can't very well throw stones at Laurie when I told myself three days ago to clean that out and I haven't."

I tried the PW- no dice.  So I rebooted.  When it came back up, my speakers weren't working and my Kapersky AV was missing in action and refused to be found.  A system restore later, speakers were back, but KAV and e mail were still down.  After several attempts to find a solution myself, I gave in and tried chatting with a Microsoft Tech. (And silently vowed- well, maybe not so silent- that by the time I was done that night, KAV's absence would be permanent, as this is the second time it fled the scene under fire).

Marika was very nice and helpful (though she wouldn't write me an excuse to take off work the next day), but the MS system was not so kind.  I had to request a security code so they'd let me reset the password.  But the options were to send it to the e-mail (and we know how helpful that would be) or set up a second "dummy" e-mail to send it to.  Once that was done, I was to re-submit the info I just gave them, and they'd get back with me with what to do in the morning.

So I moved on to KAV- or rather, sent my payment to Norton and said, sic 'em!  That enterprise was not without adventure as well- and the loading process gave me the time to sort out that pouch full of assorted important garbage, but by the time Laurie got home from work, it was all but taken care of.  Last time I buy anything involving security from Russians, lol!



So we move on to "dummy" e-mail part two.  They sent me a link to that which I had already filled out twice, and asked me to fill it out a third time- which I did before work, with a sigh.

(Now playing-  The Buckingham's Kind Of A Drag.  On so many levels.)

Moments later, they sent me what appeared to be the same link ayet again.  But I had left for work.  I gave it a tiny bit of thought at work, and thought, did I capitalize the PW I retrieved from Laurie's avalanche paperwork?  So, when I saw MS had sent me the same thing yet again, I tried the PW one more time, making sure to capitalize correctly.

Guess what?  Got right in.

(Now playing- Better Than Ezra, "God save the King of New Orleans...")

----------------------------------------


Today the visiting nurse confirmed what the Kroger BP taker told me Saturday- that despite my dutiful taking of my medicine, my cutting of potato chips to a trickle, carefully limiting my other sodium, cutting down my food intake, and some minor honest to God exercise, my BP had creeped back up again.  She said, "Don't get frustrated... probably let your sodium go up blah, blah.. have to adjust medications... blah blah... listen to some music on the job, blah blah..."

Easy for you to say.  You're not the one going through the supermarket aisles shouting, "I am NOT going to live like this!!!"  I texted Laurie, "I'm ready to eat chips and pepsi till my head pops off!"  But I am grudgingly being good... though e-mail adventures, car repair bills, MONDAYS, and our geographic shift to a rainforest area aren't helping.




Kodachrome
They give us those nice bright colors
They give us the greens of summers
Makes you think all the world's a sunny day
I got a Nikon camera
I love to take a photograph
So mama don't take my Kodachrome away...



But I am listening to music...

7 comments:

  1. I immediately knew the answer why your BP is so high:
    News360 is based in SanFrancisco.
    Done.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Unfortunately, the new rising predated the News360. But the constant stream of Gay news items has made it lose lots of its first luster.

      Delete
  2. Al's comment made me laugh.

    I know this is going to sound "out there" but do you ever meditate? If you've tried it and you think "this doesn't work for me because my mind goes 200mph," try getting a guided meditation on CD. I find that helps me. We live in an extremely fast-paced environment and our bodies need down-time. You might want to sleep more if you aren't getting enough.

    My suggestion: quit listening to News360 and add a half hour of meditation daily. Also, don't add the junk food back in yet. There is a solution out there.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Meditation prolly wouldn't be a bad idea, if I could develop the discipline to do it. If left to it's own devices, my mind is not a fast traveller but a constant one. Every layer I silence overlies a deeper one that's watching a show, listening to a song, of whining about some imagined unfairness.

      I am still trying to be good in the food dept, but my enthusiasm for it is waning fast. I don't think sleep is a problem Let me get a week or so down the road from the car bill, computer problems, etc, and we'll see where I'm at.

      And thanks for caring enough for the suggestions. The work nurse suggested listening to music, but for it to help I'm going to have to get back to a financial point that will allow an ipod or somesuch as the choices I can pick up at work are less than thrilling. One hour of relaxing can be shot in the ass by any three minutes of Whitney Houston or Michael Bolton.

      Delete
    2. Oh, and surgical removal of Mondays could help... but as one of our engineers put so well today, "This week has sucked from one end to the other!"

      Delete
  3. Chris:
    Don't worry about not eating potato chips...I'm doing what I can in your stead...(sorry, I like 'em and my BP is as close to normal as it's ever gonna be).

    As to the whole meditation "thing"?
    I USED to be able to do that (thanks to martial arts decades ago), but just try it down here NOW, where barking dogs and boom cars and all the muffler-less vehicles and people shouting to OTHER (invisible) people as they stagger down the street...THAT tends to dissuade one's ability to concentrate on ANYTHING (sometimes, even SLEEP).

    As to the PW/puter problems?
    I don't use KAS...have Malwarebytes...AND AVG (free)...seems to do the job well enough, even with an antiquated XP O/S
    I know there ARE days when a reboot requires lacing up the combat high-tops and "doing what comes naturally"...lol

    Rather than lower your BP, ask the doc about RAISING everything else UP to match...could be worth a try?
    (I'm no sawbones, nor do I play on on TV, radio, or the Internet)

    Hang in there, brother.

    Stay safe up there.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. But what would he raise? Apparently my sugar is already there...

      Delete