August chitchat

[agate]

Does anyone else think of August 1 as the midpoint of the summer season? Actually September can be quite summery too but I think of August as the time when the worst hot weather is apt to happen.

We can brace ourselves for it and make sure any air conditioning we use is working with its filters tended to.

Things have been very wild around here because today, apparently without telling even the management, the company that services the laundry room here just came in and made it impossible to use quarters in the machines any more. They have set up a new system that obliges people to use a smartphone.

Most people here don't use smartphones. If they have one, they don't use it much, and they might not know how to use it for financial transactions.

Some of the residents were almost in tears. The managers eventually locked the laundry room with a sign saying it will be usable tomorrow. But not with quarters.

So I've been busy trying to deal with this issue here, on the phone with the management company and talking to residents about something that I don't understand but they look to me as someone who might know more than they do because I do have a computer.

I wish I could do more to help them but I'm afraid these companies--the laundry service company and the building management--have made up their minds.

Companies seem to love upgrading to a more high-tech version of whatever it is they're offering. It makes them look up to date with bright shiny new technology.

And I've had to start doing daily blood sugar tests now because of a couple of abnormal lab test results. It's no big deal ( and it's something I should have been doing all along but wasn't) but it is one more thing I have to do. It usually takes only about 15 minutes and is far better than a daily shot of an MS drug.

I'll stop frothing at the mouth now and ask everyone here what is going on in your life?

[Prot]

I don't use a smartphone. In my case because I can't get the swiping right.My daughter says that I'm too heavy handed. I use a senior phone to get codes sometimes needed to access websites. Mood has been slightly on the low side. Not enough to be clinically depressed, but enough to have me thinking I should stop posting re my lived experience with severe mental illness. I get little response to such posts, compared to others being open about their mental health.

I've decided to try and lose weight. I'm about 75lbs overweight. I'm not a great one for calorie counting as I can get quite obsessive about the precise weight of food items,and how many calories they are. I also need to move about more. Most days I do <700 steps (educated guess). I've been advised to do 5 minutes walking with the stroller every hour . My legs are willing, but my arms pushing the stroller aren't. I need to strengthen my arms. It's more than a little monotonous walking to and fro in a small flat.

[Virginia]

Agate, that is bad about management requiring older people to use a smartphone, which many of them don't even own. They are expensive to buy and there is a learning curve even for those of us who already own them. I have an iPhone but I don't use it for financial transactions. I feel sure with what I do know that I could learn, but some of those people are going to have a hard time. Things like that make me angry. I wonder what purpose it serves. Was there a way that quarters were being stolen? Or maybe it makes it a little easier for management because they don't have to collect them?

How do you do the daily blood sugar test? Do you have one of those machines that you stick yourself with? I used to work with a lady and I would see her doing that every now and then. However, with her I was just as apt to see her with a bag of candy, nibbling on it.

I don't mind my MS shots three times a week. The needles come already loaded and I just put them in an injector so it isn't so bad. I did dislike the Copaxone, every day shots. They left really bad site reactions for me. With just three a week I can change where I give them enough not to have too many problems.

I am sorry you are having to deal with so much at one time. The slightest thing can undo me now.

Tim, I am sorry you are having a bad time mood wise. It is not good to be alone and have even mild depression. I know because I have been on my own for something like 38 years. Thankfully, the early part of that time I was able to get out and do things with people. I also worked, at least part-time until 2011. Since then I have pretty much been alone. At first the family came over my way on the weekends and we enjoyed eating out together. Both of my brothers have lost a son. One was two years ago and the other was last year. Grief in the family has kind of put an end to our enthusiasm about getting together.

I hope you will be able to lose some weight. I have never had much problem with that. If I am careful about what I have for breakfast. This morning it was just a boiled egg, but that gave me enough protein to keep me satisfied until lunch. I have found that eating protein every meal helps. I usually just drink a protein shake at lunch. It is quick and easy. I order them from Amazon and keep them in the refrigerator. They pretty much keep me satisfied until my evening meal. If you are not already doing it try having protein at meal time and be careful about your fatty foods. They are good but not if you are trying to lose weight.

Nothing really going on in my life. My brother and his wife came by yesterday and left me some fresh tomatoes and corn on the cob. My brother has Parkinson's and he did not look well yesterday. The battery on his power chair gave out so he was trying to walk. His wife had to help him down the outside stairs. Also he is overweight. He has gained a lot since his son died two years ago. It isn't helping his Parkinson's and of course I worry.

I do think of August as kind of being mid summer and on the way to Fall. We are having a little cooler weather beginning today. It is only in the 80s. First time we have been out of the 90s to 100 in quite sometime.

Hope all of you have a good month.

[agate]

Tim, I'm sorry that your mental health problems aren't being addressed. It might be that I just don't feel qualified to discuss them since I have no training. I do know something about depression and anxiety attacks from personal experience, and spells of either depression or anxiety (or both together) are miserable. When I was in my early 20s I was having panic attacks that would wake me up at night, and then I would spend the rest of the night sitting up in a chair shaking with chills and trying to distract myself by watching any TV I could find at those late hours. A doctor prescribed Librium and it helped. I don't think it's prescribed much any more but it was a mild tranquilizer that didn't make a person sleepy, or maybe it tranquilized me enough so I could manage to sleep.

Virginia, quarters weren't being stolen. This building's laundry has never been vandalized. The laundry service company was sending out one person to do repairs on the machines and another one to collect the coins from the coinboxes. That seemed a silly way to do things but it was their way. I suspect that the company got tired of having problems with having to fix jammed coinboxes. If the coinboxes got too full, as they did whenever the coinbox employee hadn't been around to empty them, the machines wouldn't work until they were emptied.

It's probably a cost-saving measure on the part of this company. I'm hoping that the building management will look into hiring a different laundry service company but so far that isn't happening, and in fact they've put their new system in place already. I'll have to see tomorrow how it works. It looks as if they did back off from the smartphone requirement and have put in a system where you insert a credit or debit card into a machine that reads it and then starts up the washer or dryer. Many people here can deal with that but probably not all. It would be far better if they had left the coin option in place but they've already put metal strips across the coinslots so nobody can use them.

I have a blood glucose monitor, which I don't have to pay for. I have to get test strips and lancets for it but again there's no charge. It isn't a machine exactly or at least it's so small that it's hard to think of it as a machine. You put the test strip in and immediately it's ready for the blood sample, and then in seconds it shows the reading. You do have to be careful about getting the sample but there is a device that holds the lancet, and you poke your finger with it.

Diabetics can often cheat a little. I can get away with a very small piece of chocolate every day as well as one cookie. The doctor who managed my diabetes said that sugar isn't forbidden but the amount taken in each day has to be watched. He said it was just as important to watch the fat intake and be careful to get enough fiber and protein.

Tim, I had to lose about 100 lbs. when diabetes turned up. It took me about a year, under a doctor's supervision, but I felt ever so much better after taking that weight off. At the time I was taking two naps a day in addition to sleeping about 8 hours at night. After losing the weight I've been down to just one nap a day, and sometimes it can be only half an hour. It was difficult to do but I did learn to keep a food scale handy and count each day's calories. Every once in a while I check the protein/fiber/carbs/fat/potassium intake, especially the trans fats and try to correct any problems but by now I've memorized the calorie count for most of the foods I eat regularly, and weighing some foods isn't so much of a chore now that I'm in the habit of it.

My problem with foods like a can of nuts is that I can sit there and keep reaching into that can without counting how many nuts I've eaten. I do better when I count out the nuts I think I should have, put them on a plate, close the can, put it away, and then eat my ration of nuts. Um, without getting tempted to reopen the can.

[Prot]

agate apologies if I pressurised you. I didn't mean to.

[Virginia]

Tim, I hope you will soon be feeling better. You have had a lot to deal with. Just getting new bridges is enough to lower one's mood. After Agate mentioned it I did recall having bad attacks many years ago. It was at night and I would grab my keys and pocketbook and Leave. I would drive aimlessly around until I would wear myself out. Then I would start trying to find my way home. When I would get worn out I would be as anxious to get back home as I had been to leave. I had a really sweet dog and I always left her in the house. I would start to think - nobody knows she is in the house alone. If something happens to me what will happen to her. I went through this for quite awhile. Maybe a year or a little longer.

Also, my youngest brother was having really bad panic attacks about a year ago. He could be talking on the phone to me and he would just say he had to go and hang up. After some months he went to the dentist. When they laid him back in the chair he had to get up. The dentist said "this is not going to happen today is it?". He said no and left. She knew his son had died a few months before.

No matter the reason for depression and feeling down it is still real to the person who is living with it. I don't think there are any answers. No one knows how. We can be here to listen and that is about all we are qualified to do, even though we have had bouts of it ourselves.

Agate, I think the credit cards are a much better way to go as far as the laundry room goes. I have used a number of those and there is not as much to learn. Hopefully they will post some clear cut directions.

I had to set all clocks in my house today. The power was out for several hours during the night. My microwave is hard to set and I had to get out instructions for my home phone. Everything else is straightforward.

Our weather is only in the 70s today. I have a sweater wrapped around my shoulders.

[agate]

I just arranged to reschedule an appointment for diabetic shoes on Tuesday. It will have to wait until September as far as I'm concerned even though the weather forecast on Tuesday looks good so far. There has been too much going on, and I can't take the added stress of getting myself to an appointment--going to an address I've never been to before, where I don't know what I'm in for (where are the restrooms if any?).

I gave the laundry a try today and luckily it wasn't hard though the "clear-cut instructions" aren't so clearcut to people of my vintage. "Insert card with chip facing up," for instance--what chip? I guessed at what the "chip" might be and kept tinkering until the machine beeped. Many neighbors here won't be able to hear that beep though.

The chip is a little square on a credit or debit card, I think. At least I knew what was meant by the "stripe" because in supermarkets I always had to swipe a card with the stripe facing a certain way. Maybe supermarkets are talking about a chip now and I'm just not up with the times.

It wasn't so easy getting to the laundry today because the day began with a toilet blockage. I'm still working on that and hoping it will gradually resolve itself. At least it's not flooding.

Last night some neighbors and I found water pouring down through a ceiling light fixture in the community room. I called the emergency maintenance number and the maintenance man came over and fixed it but he had been here all day helping people learn the new laundry system, even though he's usually off on Fridays.

Never a dull moment.

I hope to get around to the Keep On Moving thread--and my July average step count for which the world has been waiting.

[Virginia]

Good for you for cancelling your appointment for new diabetic shoes. Enough is enough to handle at one time.

Yes, we are.panting with batted breath to get the new step count!

[Prot]

My step count isn't good. I don't have a step counter, but it's probably <700 steps a day. I'm not good at doing what I know I should be doing. The monotony of walking to and fro in a small flat doesn't help matters.

[Virginia]

I don't get many steps in either. I do try to do leg exercises but that doesn't make up for the steps.

[Prot]

Yesterday I asked Chatgpt to do me a fortnightly meal plan based on criteria I gave it. I think it did an OK job, but that I've bitten off more than I can chew. That I should instead have 2 meals a week from scratch. These are the meals Chatgpt came up with for the fortnightly meal plan. I'd welcome your opinions as to 4- 6 that would be best for a pensioner with a lowish income and limited cooking skills.

35ef2dc7-37eb-49a5-9cdd-26fdd6542fd2.png

[agate]

Sorry, Tim, but I can't seem to enlarge that to make it readable. Even at 300% magnification it's still too blurry. Maybe it's just my eyesight.

[Prot]

Sorry, Tim, but I can't seem to enlarge that to make it readable. Even at 300% magnification it's still too blurry. Maybe it's just my eyesight.

Not just your eyesight. Same for me. Forum software problem, as I can see it clearly on another forum I posted it to.

[Virginia]

I can't pull it either.

[jingle]

Where is everyone? I'm always here looking for people talking ... I sure miss all of you and hope you will be here soon.