Paying the piper

I smoked cigarettes for 40 years. I was really good at it. I enjoyed it and I miss it. But, the resulting COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease), not so much. I thought I had wrestled it to the ground but I was wrong. My experiment with giving up my last inhaler has failed. There's a feeling that you get with shitty lungs - you take the deepest breath you can and still feel like you don't get all the air you should from it. It feels like you are getting diet air.

That's what hit me this morning while I was swimming. Even when my lungs were at their worst, I could always swim. But, this morning, it was tough. I was swimming as normal but breathing diet air.

So I came home and pulled out the unopened Spiriva that I had decided I didn't need and fired it up. Then I sent a note to my doctor to please refill. My new insurance has an online pharmacy so I decided to switch my prescriptions there. Signing up was a bit confusing but I finally got that noodled out and set up and it looks like it's a fair bit cheaper than my current one so that's a pleasant surprise.

I feel like there's more Valentines Day hype this year than in the past. My Valentines Day gift is the start of 2017 baseball.

I finished my swim book today - Tracy Kidder's Strength in What Remains: A Journey of Remembrance and Forgiveness. It was interesting - especially the first half but I have to admit I was glad when it was over. I may do music for the next swim or two before I start another book. But next up is Kate Andersen Brower's First Women: The Grace and Power of America's Modern First Ladies.

Today's plans involve a walk - back to Uwajimaya for another poke bowl. Also I want to exercise my walking lungs. I was going to skip today and go tomorrow but to my delight, ljtourist pinged me last night to lunch with him tomorrow and, after lunch, try out a new (to us) donut place.

Also today I need to make sure the house is picked up so that the house cleaner can clean. No, I don't clean before the cleaner but I do like to ensure she doesn't have to waste time tidying up. Plus, she and I have different ideas about where stuff should be put away so rather than my spending time trying to figure out where she put x, I make sure x is put away before she gets here.

I have sewing I want to do today but someday very soon, I need to fill out the CPA's tax thing and send it in. It won't even take an hour. My finances are dirt simple on my end. The only deduction I have is the six months of mortgage interest I paid last year. My financial adviser handles the complicated stuff. But nothing will happen until I get it going. Maybe tomorrow?

All done

I walked, I sewed and... I did my tax return work! I feel productive.

My lungs behaved very nicely when I walked over to Uwajimaya. That's kind of a relief. I often think that whatever I think is wrong with me is psychosomatic and the fixes I apply, when they work, are simple psychological placebos. But, even if the Spriva is helping only in my brain, that's fine by me. My bottom line is to be able to breathe and however that needs to happen is legit in my book.

Also the poke bowl was just as good today. I did remember to take a picture before I inhaled it.



I made three dolls while listening to https://60db.co which is my new favorite news show. It's only available in an iPhone app. They have a website which works pretty well on wifi but is pretty flakey on my phone outside. I just got a tweet from them that they are working on Android and on fixing the website. It's mostly 6-12 minute segments of various pod casts and news shows on a really wide range of subjects. I like it a lot.

But, I cut my sewing time short because that tax work was nibbling at me. So I just sat down and did it. I'm guessing I'll have to pay probably $500 or less. And then another $300 to the CPA. I'd be perfectly ok with paying less to both.

Then I put my boots on and took the papers to the mail box. Done and done.

The house is pretty picked up so things are fairly under control for now.