The Watering Hole

Dropped Be off at dialysis this morning, then had to decide what to do for a while. After being at home feeling terrible doing next to nothing for days I at least didn't want to to go directly back home. Decided to drive north and go up to the Huntsville area and look around. Stopped at Larrys Guns, several interesting but expensive SxS shotguns but no .22's to speak of. An American Arms 20 gauge and a Bernadelli 12 that were extremely attractive. Large amounts of rimfire ammo, especially CCI , but no Subsonic HP or RWS Subsonic which is what I like, so didn't blow any money. Left there headed north with another place or two in mind when I spotted a billboard, Gun Show at the civic center; had not been to a gun show in a while, so why not, let's go look. Had to park a long ways out from the VBCC, the once inside the show was all the way to the south side of the building. Once inside, several sellers had some really beautiful SxS shotguns, which I am drawn to look at, but at two grand and up all I can do is admire and walk on. Very little rimfire ammo and what there was had just laughable prices. A very few interesting rifles, mostly centerfire. Nothing but junk optics. Several sellers had some interesting knives and I do happen to collect pocketknives but I only spotted a couple that were in patterns that I might care to look at and as usual, steeply priced.

By now way too much time had passed and the pain was really starting to set in. And I still had to walk all the way back to the car. I didn't think that I was going to make it but it was getting desperately late to be on time to pick up Be at dialysis so there was no way that I could stop. Blew out of there in a hurry once I actually got back to the car. Made my way to Hwy 565 headed to 65 south and back to Cullman. Traffic was absolutely flying, there were places where I was exceeding 90 mph to stay with the flow of traffic and not get ran over! Gave the little 175 horsepower 2.0 liter 16 Valve DOHC a workout. I was still a little over 25 minutes later than when she was supposed to get out but I didn't get chewed out because she was late getting out of dialysis.

Our grandsons. Lucas will be four soon and Kai is two months now.

Yesterday after getting Be back over to our daughter's house I went home, picked up the mail, vacuumed the car out then decided to run back up to Walmartay to get some grocery items and then fill up the car with gas. Got town and it started raining. It was coming down hard while I was in the store but I caught a lull to put things into the car. Just as I got to the gas pumps the bottom fell out again so I said to heck with it, I don't want to get drenched just to fill up the gas tank, it'll wait until tomorrow.

Got back south to Hanceville and the power was out. Quite a bit of tree damage visible and it was obvious that the biggest part of the thunderstorm had went south of where I had been. Nothing down in the driveway so I could get in but I had to light the kerosene lamp to see to put things away. Power came back on sometime between nine and ten. Didn't see any trees blown down near the house.

Got Belinda back to see the doctor midday; got a sack full of medicine for the upper respiratory infection. Back over to our daughter's house to meet the home nurse, then Ashley back.

And I did get to fill up with gas finally without getting soaked. By the rain that is. 😹

Been having an awful time sleeping, or more accurately not sleeping. Have to be up and going again in the morning to get Be to dialysis. Daughter Ashley is supposed to pick her up in the afternoon. It's supposed to be raining still so maybe I'll be able to crash and conk out without interruption.

Sleep disturbances are just another part of the autoimmune disorder, disease, ever how it's termed. Five months with no treatment it certainly hasn't improved. Still waiting to hear back from the neurologists office regarding whether they're going to be able to get together with Cigna on the HMO insurance or not. I talked with my family doctor about the neurologist in their medical group; no help. He's about to retire plus he has no prior experience with such autoimmune problems. There's a new neurologist coming town in OCTOBER. That's it, there are no other neurologists in this area. Dr. Christopher Laganke of North Central Neurology who I have seen for years is THE neurologist for the entire area between Birmingham and Huntsville. I can't afford the 150 mile round trip drive 12-24 times a year to the Big Cities, plus there I would be two counties away from my PCP in an unfamiliar medical environment. So it's wait it out and hope for the best. I'm trying to be optimistic and keep up my sense of humor but the damage grinds away at me and the World of Pain has really strong gravity. 😿