2020, Oh-boy!

After the initial leg surgery on June 2, 2019, and after I eventually got home after rehab, and after the wound vac had done its job fighting the infection that developed—after all that, I really wasn’t in the best of shape to do anything outside for the rest of 2019. Oh, I did a few small things, but we even hired someone to come in and cut the lawn. I was eventually recovered enough—despite two follow-up angioplasties—to rake leaves in October/November and then do some snow shoveling come December. A third angioplasty took place around Christmas and a fourth would happen in March 2020.

Anyway, that inactivity led to me perfecting my jigsaw puzzle skills. I got pretty good, completing a 1000 piece puzzle in about three days. I shunned the smaller puzzles. I found only one 3000 piece puzzle that I could not complete and eventually gave up on. It was a Harry Potter puzzle showing Hogwarts. Every piece was nearly identical in shape and size. And there were huge swaths of similarly colored pieces. It drove me nuts!

Of course, March 2020 was when the shit hit the fan and everyone was suddenly locked down. My puzzle skills really came in handy!

I also started some sourdough starter and it took off. I learned how to do a lot of baking: bread, bagels, muffins, pretzels, I tried them all. Sometimes I tried different types of breads and most all came out very good—which was/is bad. Way too many bread products! I finally learned how to keep the mother sourdough in the fridge so I don’t have to bake Every. Other. Day. Now I’ve got to use the mother every two weeks or so.

Terry and I had booked a cruise on Puget Sound for April of 2020. That got canceled by the cruise company and we rebooked for October. That got canceled, too.

My vascular surgeon scared the heck out of me with the angioplasties and the blood thinners he prescribed for me. (It doesn’t help that he has said I’ve got the same problem on my right leg that will need surgery—soon.) As a result, I decided I didn’t really want to go on any cruise. Unfortunately, the cruise company would let us back out despite their having canceled on us twice. As a result, Terry and her sister will be cruising in a couple of weeks. Terry will also make a short trip down to Portland to visit my son and his family.

I also told Joe I wasn’t going fishing in the back of beyond anymore. I didn’t want to take a chance that the plane, even if it was going to check up on us every day, would be able to extract me in time should anything happen. We had already booked a 2020 trip. Joe bought me out with the idea of taking one of his grandsons. Of course that 2020 trip never happened and now the 2021 trip looks to be postponed, too.

I lost the second half of 2019 to degenerative vascular disease and we all lost 2020 to Covid-19. It’s been a couple of horrible, no good years. I want a do over!