}

Thursday, November 22, 2018

My big day out


Today was my first day out of the house in a week, as I said in the Instagram caption, and I really did go to the grocery store. I also made a special stop because I needed to. It was actually a good trip.

As I said in my Healthcare Update last Friday, I whacked my gouty ankle quite hard. I said:
“…my ankle was finally pretty much better, then yesterday it was a little sore, which isn’t unusual. I was getting ready to stand up and somehow managed to hit my ankle hard on the footstool in from of my chair. The pain was incredible, and unlike what would happen for an ordinary knock, it didn’t subside quickly, but kept going.”
The soreness continued every day since then, up until yesterday, when it got a bit better, and I decided I wanted to try a trip. I was probably getting a bit of cabin fever, actually, but I was still a bit dubious today. I went anyway.

The first stop was to a home improvement store because I needed to get a lightbulb for our staircase. I wanted the wider selection that the store had (as opposed to the grocery store) because I wanted the brightest LED I could find for a standard recessed light. It had to be LED because the light is quite high, and it’s not something we want to change very often, and LED is “instant on”, unlike compact fluorescents that inevitably need to “warm up”. I was successful, but I need to drag the big ladder up to change it—tomorrow, maybe?

The supermarket was as it always is, with some new things spotted, as always, but I realised as I was walking through that it was easier to walk than when I arrived. I appear to be getting better. Finally.

When I was done, I took the selfie above while sitting in my car, about to head home. As usual, I took several versions, and the lighting was really good—maybe a bit too good, actually, because it showed all my flaws. When I launched Instagram to post the photo, I noticed that I had maniacal eyebrow hairs over one eye. I’m at the age at which I need to “manscape” to avoid old man eyebrows, something I haven’t done lately.

So, I took a new photo within Instagram and noticed for the first time (because I haven’t done a selfie that way before) that Instagram leaves the photos flipped. It’s common for cameras pointing at us—a phone with front facing camera, a computer’s “webcam”—to show us a mirror image because that’s what we expect to see, since we’re used to seeing ourselves in mirrors, not real life. When I take a selfie with my phone the normal way, the version stored is the right way around, but the Instagram stayed flipped. Maybe there’s another step I was oblivious to because I haven’t done a selfie that way before. In any case, others could see what I see when I look in the mirror, so that’s kind of special. I just didn’t realise that in advance. Now I know.

So, that was my day, really. I got home a bit after 4pm, and it wasn’t very long before Nigel got home. And tonight I worked on some advance blog posts—how very Roger Green of me.

It was good to be able to walk considerably better than I have for the past week, but the tiredness problem I also talked about last Friday is continuing, and I still need 9 to 10 hours a night. I still hope that will get better, too.

Still, a bright, sunny, pleasant day after so many cold rainy ones was good, getting out of the house better, being able to walk much better was, well, better still, so I’ll take all that. Celebrate the little things, as I often say.

And now, I just did.

2 comments:

rogerogreen said...

Advance posts? You party animal!

Arthur Schenck (AmeriNZ) said...

I know, right? I stole borrowed your ideas for regular links posts and for an "ask me" series of posts, so why not go for the Holy Grail—advance posts—too? Or, maybe it's the brass ring… 🤔