This is the second day in a row I started writing before breakfast. Maybe I can get back in the habit. Since I started walking regularly people keep saying things like “I bet you are feeling better now.” The answer is no, I feel worse. One benefit of being sessile for a year is that my arthritis stopped bothering me. I have osteo-arthritis, the cartilage has worn off the joints and the bones rub against each other. Now that I’m walking regularly the joints are irritated again. I wake up in the morning with a sore left hip and shoulder. For a while, the problem was the base of the back. The new one today is my neck. I might cut back on the walking for a bit to see if it gets better. I might not, I like walking. A little probing just revealed that my right shoulder is tender too. The difference is that I’ve been sleeping on my left side of late, at least that’s how I wake up. I’ve been to an orthopedist and the arthritis is not bad enough to do anything about other than take Tylenol. I usually don’t bother to do that.
I followed my eventful, fun, and friend-packed Sunday with a relaxed solitary Monday. I only left the house to get eggs and a few other things from the local supermarket. I was going to walk to the better Stop & Shop but for one day at least I enacted my plan to give my joints a break. There was a Mets double-header and deGrom pitched the first game. That’s always excited. As usual he gave up no runs and just one hit. Perhaps we should consider the outing disappointing as he struck out only 6 in 5 innings. His ERA is now 0.50, that means he’s giving up half a run a game. First baseman Pete Alonso is called the Polar Bear. I want him to become a star again so the Mets could be led by the Polar Bear and the deGromible Snowman™. I love that I’m excited over baseball.
On the fantasy baseball side of things Gord’s Gold is in third place We gained a lot of ground on the second-place team but lost ground to the team on top this week. I love that we are succeeding without and of the big household names on the team. That is my managerial style, avoid weak spots on the lineup as opposed to frontloading the team with stars.
I remembered to upload tonight’s Gord’s Gold to Mixcloud and set it to come live tomorrow at noon. There is a more clerical work involved in putting on the show than I expected. I have to make a spreadsheet with all the song and artists, that’s a given, but because I report to the Folk DJ listserv I have to also include the album, which is easy, and the label which isn’t. I have to google to find all the labels. Then I have to properly format it all to make the report. I do a promotional video every week which means finding photos of seven of the musicians and recording the voiceover. Then I have to edit the video, so my words synch to the pictures of the artists. Then I take four of those pictures to make the cover for the show on Mixcloud. I email all the artists that I’m playing before the show. I know most don’t care but some do.
The show is being streamed tonight on Folk Music Notebook at 11 PM EDT, you should listen. If you can’t listen then you can find it on demand here, Gord’s Gold, on Wednesday at noon. This week’s show has fewer big names than most, it’s probably closer to what people that know me expected. The problem is that I have to also attract listeners that don’t know me. I was just looking at my list of future plays and there are many classics lined up. Don’t worry there will also be new releases and lesser-known artists that I love.
I’m an idiot. I did not relax yesterday, I did laundry. That’s probably at least part of why my shoulder hurts. I hate doing laundry, because of that I get a feeling of accomplishment when I do. I also like having clean clothes. Most of my socks disappeared. I try and do presorting, when I take the clothes out of the dryer I separate socks and underwear as they go in a different dresser than the rest of the clothes. I haven’t gone through the larger bag; I hope I hope I find them clinging to my shirts. Now I remember the exciting part. Our dryer gives you 30 minutes for $1.25 and charges 25¢ for each additional five minutes. I find that I usually need 40 minutes though sometimes I take it out after 35 and sometimes it’s still not fully dry after 40. Yesterday I put in my card, it charged me $1.25 and gave me the max, 99 minutes! Not only that when I checked to see if it needed more time after 35 minutes, saw it did, and restarted it, it went back to 99 minutes! I got free dryer time! Yes, I meant those exclamation points. I always find it exciting when something doesn’t work right, and I benefit. My favorite Community Chest card is Bank Error in Your Favor Collect $200.
Now to make breakfast then go out to vote. I didn’t vote early because with Rank Choice voting I needed more time to do research. I didn’t do more research. I’m all set for mayor and City Council but not the other offices. Even the mayoral choice is tough as I have to decide how much to weigh things. Scott Stringer would have been my second choice, but he’s been accused of sexual harassment. It’s one accuser and there is no evidence other than her word. Voting for mayor is quite different than voting for a representative or even an executive like the President. The mayor has most of the power in the City and the most important difference they make to our lives is in managing the services. Maya Wiley has progressive positions I like but has no relevant experience. I’m going for Kathryn Garcia who has a record of success in city administration. She has the New York Times endorsement, would be the first female mayor the City ever had, and her name is Kathryn, you know I have an affinity for people whose names are variants of Kath or Cath, which includes Caitlyn and Kaitlyn. Years ago, I wrote a blog about all the friends I had with those names. I confused my first therapist because at that time I was regularly talking about Katherine, Kathryn, and Catherine and for some reason she couldn’t hear the difference between the K and the C.
Wise Madness 