Our RV Adventures

We were up early and out the door by 7:15, heading up to Friendswood for our yearly checkup/pill renewals with our long-time GP.

As much as we(I ) hate getting up early, we like doing our doctor’s appointments this way to get in and out quicker. Seems like as the day wears on, they fall further and further behind, so that your 1pm appointment, that you arrive for at 12:45, becomes a 2pm call-in, if you’re lucky.

But today was even quicker than usual. Although Jan’s appointment was for 8am and mine was for 9, I got called in first, at about 8:10 and then Jan was called in around 8:20. And then we were both out by about 9:15. Really quick.

I was hoping to get off my two blood pressure meds this year, like I got off Metformin last year due to a 5.7 A1c. So I had been checking mine at home, with my readings all in the 120/70 to 125/75 range. But the kicker here is that I’ve been off my two BP meds for a month now.

As happens every year with our scripts, it seems like as they get moved around the country from WalMart to WalMart following us, we always seem to lose some refills along the way.  So when I ran out, I stayed out and didn’t call the doctor for an extra refill like we had to do for a couple of Jan’s.

So I was somewhat peeved, yeah, let’s go with ‘peeved’, when the reading on their automatic machine came up with 148/83. At this point I asked her to to do it manually, you know, the old fashioned way, where you use a stethoscope and actually listen.

And when she did this, twice because I don’t think she believed it the first time, it was 121/71 and 120/70. Now that’s better.

But my doctor wasn’t completely convinced, but she did take me off the Amlodipine, but left me on the Lisinopril, and said, “We’ll see”.

So I’m half way there. And we’re both Good to Go for this year.

Though we won’t get our lab work back for a few days, we’re not expecting any surprises. And we had promised ourselves that after being so good our diets, we splurge today over at Stomp’s Burger Joint in Bacliff.

But since we got done at the doctor’s so early we had some time to kill, so our first stop was at our favorite Ocean Express car wash near our old house. They do a great job and the truck always just glows in the sunlight.

Not bad for a 15 year old truck.

Wish I could find out what kind of spray-on wax they use, so I could get some for the rig.

After killing some more time grabbing a coffee at Starbuck’s, as we didn’t have coffee at home this morning, we finally headed down to Bacliff and Stomp’s.

Now there was a time when I might have splurged with the Stomperado Challenge.

But those days are long, long passed.

Stomp’s standard burger patty is 8oz of pure Angus Beef, that’s ground to order, hand-formed to order, and cooked to order. Now that’s fresh.

So right off the bat you’re eating the equivalent of 2 Quarter Pounders with only slightly less bread. But as recently as last year, my go-to burger here was a Hog Wild Double. That’s with 2 – 8oz patties, or 1 pound of Angus Beef.

The ‘Hog’ part though, means that there’s some pork mixed in to the patty, specifically rendered bacon, so It’s not pure beef, but it really adds to the taste.

Now in my mind, I saw myself ordering my usual Double, but when I got there I realized the fallacy of that. There was no way I was going to be able to eat that much, especially since Jan and I were splitting an order of their ‘cut, battered, and fried’-to order Onion Rings. Did I mention ‘Fresh’?

So we both ‘wimped’ out and got our new normal burgers, Jan’s favorite Outlaw, with Cheddar Cheese, Grilled & Chopped Jalapeno And Onion, Salsa Picante Served On A Whole Wheat Bun with Mustard and Tomato,

and my Hog Wild, an Angus Beef Patty Mixed With Rendered Bacon And Topped With Melted Cheddar Cheese Served On A Whole Wheat Bun With Mayo, Mustard, Lettuce, Tomato, Onion, And Pickle.

And of course I had to bump it up a bit with some Carolina Reaper powder.

By the end we were so full that we were arguing over who HAD to eat the last Onion Ring. But we both lost, and had to split it.

Waddling out to the truck, we said we both ‘hurt’, but agreed it was a ‘good hurt’. And tomorrow, back on our diets.

That’s about it for today. I’ll catch up with the rest of this afternoon in tomorrow’s blog.

Thought for the Day: 

The ‘Welfare of Humanity’ is always the Alibi of Tyrants – Albert Camus

ghdg

Today was a pretty straight forward day at work, with just the same old, same old. But I did leave a couple of hours early.

We did find another replacement front passenger window for my client’s ‘95 Thunderbird on eBay, and I ordered it for him. It should be here next Tuesday, the 26th, and hopefully this one won’t get broken when they remove it from the vehicle like the last one was.

I did go ahead and order our suitcases and walking sticks from Amazon today.  We each got a set of these US Traveler Rio models, one orange and one green

I guess we’ll argue about who gets which color later.

These are the walking sticks we got also.

Some people said we really wouldn’t need them, but reviews on our particular cruise said that there are steps everywhere in these old cities, and recommended them.

I realized today that I need to dig out the license tag stickers for our RV before our test drive this weekend. The tags renewed back in November, and I put the new ones on the truck then. But it was raining that day, so I put off doing the rig’s. At least that’s my story and . . . you know how it goes.

She can laugh about it now.

When I got home about 3:30 Monday afternoon all ready for us to head up to Sugarland/Stafford for our dinner/Puddles Pity Party concert, Jan was nowhere to be found. She should have been dressed and ready to walk out the door.

Then I heard a voice from the bathroom, the shower enclosure to be specific. It was Jan telling me that the shower door latch had broken and she couldn’t get out. And had been stuck in there for over an hour.

And she was right. She was stuck good. I had to actually use a large screwdriver to carefully pry apart the door frame and the door jam until it came free. Without breaking the glass, of course.

She was actually a lot less upset than I expected, and we still made it to dinner in plenty of time, so no problem.

And she was really, really clean, too.

Luckily  the last time, about 6 years ago, that I replaced the latch, I bought two. So I replaced it after we got home from the concert.

But this afternoon when I called Jan about 1pm, she didn’t answer. Ok, no problem. But she didn’t answer at 1:15, 1:30, and 1:45. So at 1:46 I was on my way home to check on her.

I knew she wouldn’t be quite so forgiving if she got trapped twice in three days. And I doubt the shower would survive, either.

But luckily for me, and the enclosure, it was a false alarm. After she muted her phone yesterday while getting her mammogram, she forgot to turn it back on.

Better safe than sorry.

Tomorrow, starting at 8am for Jan, and 9 for me, we have our yearly physicals. Hopefully they’ll be as good as last year’s.

Whatever the outcome, we promised ourselves big burgers from Stomp’s over in Kemah for lunch, our first ones in about a year.

Wife tells programmer husband “Pick up a loaf of bread on the way home from work and if they have eggs, get a dozen.”

(If you’re a programmer this is hilarious!)