Going for a Walk

I last saw my weight loss doctor [who is also my PCP, but we do the appointments separately; in-person for general visits and telehealth (normally) for weight loss--she's an internist, but she was my weight loss MD first before I asked her to be my PCP when mine retired after I'd gone to him for 20 years] about three weeks ago. I'd gained about 15 lbs. since last December, mainly, I think, from going back to Ozempic, which doesn't work as well for me as Mounjaro (due to insurance--neither Medicaid nor the qualified assisted Anthem health plan I had in May and June covered the latter), and 2) I went through a period where I was overeating and eating a lot of calorie-laden food after I left Shriners and especially while my roommate was out of state for three weeks.

I've been much better with my eating for the last month/month and a half, but my weight hasn't budged a bit. Part of it is water weight--I just blow up ankle-wise in the summer, and while compression hose help, I can't go up on my diuretic because it was what was making me so dizzy a couple of years ago, so they cut it back. So about 5-7 lbs is water weight, because when we had a cool spell, I suddenly lost some. I had, at one point, been 328 lbs and had lost down to 208 lbs. I'm about 223 lbs now.

Sigh. So until (and if) I get insurance that pays for Mounjaro (or unless it goes to generic early--apparently that is being petitioned as the patent expires overseas first, even though it doesn't here for several years), we decided I would try to walk about three times a week, starting for about 10 minutes a day. I promised to do it the next day and did, but then the heat wave of doom came, so I didn't.

Today, it's supposed to get to 90°F, but it was only 76°F about noon, so I decided to put on some sunscreen and a floppy sun hat (since it is also very sunny and nice outside) and go up the street and back. There is an incline at either end. The close-up is me before I went for a walk. The other is me after. It took about 15 minutes to do the circuit. It's a small step, but it's a start. With the inclines, it's a fair little walk. Next time, I should actually bring my inhaler. It did hurt my back a little, but it should be better in the long run. The knees did pretty well, though. The key will be doing this and doing more activity.

Of course, since I got back, I've been helping my friend do some things around the house that apparently, despite normally being fairly minor, wiped both of us out, and I just woke up from a 2-hour nap, and he's still asleep. So I did more activity and kept on going, then my little windup key just wound down entirely. We have to put a fan together later (I'm talking one of those big shop fans) for his bedroom, so it's good I got some rest. It wasn't hard to put the other one together, but there was lots of bending, and if I remember, my back was not happy, even though he had to hold the fan part because it's so heavy while I dealt with all the screws because I'm the mechanically inclined one. 🙂

I know, it's a silly hat. I've got one in purple, too, though. They're good against the sun.

How do you like my 'Censorship is so 1984' shirt from the ALA? It's new. Also, look how tall my tomato plant is!

Statement of the AHA and encouraging historians to comment by today

AHA Submits Comment Seeking to Prevent Politicization of Federal Grantmaking

The AHA submitted a comment to the Federal Register stating our opposition to a rule proposed by the Office of Management and Budget that would give political appointees final approval over all federal grants. The AHA urged historians to submit their own comments by July 13.

I pulled a lot of old files off of Dropbox today

Frankly, I got tired of them annoying me with the 'you're out of space, upgrade' messages when I have a terabyte of OneDrive storage with my Microsoft 365 subscription that more than meets my needs. So I pulled almost all of it off, even deleted the deleted files permanently, leaving one several-kilobyte-not-megabyte-big file, and it's still saying over half my 7.25 GB storage is taken up. 🤷‍♀️

Anyway, I found this...one of the early designs for this blog had this logo I designed using a superhero-generator tool I don't remember the name of and am not sure even exists today. I do not have an inner dominatrix, I promise. I just liked the costume, although of course Edna Mode would say, 'No capes!'

#23 of 24

I am, by the way, on Bluesky. I got on it back when it was invitation-only in 2024, I think (hence the simple handle, just like I had on Twitter). I hadn't used it hardly at all, though. I'd like to, though, as I deleted X (Twitter) last year and Bluesky is better than Threads in some respects. So I read this book. I'm just starting out, though. If you're interested in following me, or if you'd like me to follow you, I'm at: https://bsky.app/profile/eilir.bsky.social.

Two more

22 out of the total of 24, 10 books ahead for the year. It helps to be unemployed.

Wonderful

Nearly a millennium ago sky-watchers recorded a new star so bright it was visible in daylight for weeks, and Hubble has now traced how far its remnant, the Crab Nebula, has expanded since — a thousand-year-old explosion still visibly unfolding

In July 1054, court astronomers in China recorded a new "guest star" near Tianguan, the star we now call Zeta Tauri.

Hubble Space Telescope mosaic image of the Crab Nebula. Credit: NASA, ESA, J. Hester and A. Loll (Arizona State University).

 

I didn't know this part - it makes it even sadder

Woman, 78, Last Polio Survivor Living In Iron Lung, Passes Away After Machine Becomes Too Old To Repair

This was on top of the post-polio syndrome and long Covid issues she was already dealing with. 😢

My sincerest condolences to her loved ones.

 

Her last interview:

Anticipation

Everything is happily staked now. The Kellogg's Breakfast tomato is taller than I am, with the pot.

Kellogg's Breakfast Tomatoes getting bigger

Jalopeños almost ready to pick

Carmen Sweet Italian peppers
They are red at maturity but sweet green, too.

Indigo Cherry Drops fruit heavy on the vine, just needing to ripen

 

Eureka!!! A memory from long ago...

So I saw this on Facebook Marketplace, and it jogged my memory. These were the primers we found up in the attic that I taught myself to read at age three from (obviously from the lower grades). I'd forgotten what they were called, just that they predated the Dick and Jane books. 120 million copies of McGuffey's Readers were sold between 1836 and 1960, per the National Park Service. They're still popular in homeschooling, because their stories are drawn from the Bible (and other classical sources), often with morals. Bringing the third-grade reader to show-and-tell and reading from it in first grade is what got me skipped up a grade (they wanted to skip me up two; thankfully, my mom said no, one was enough of a challenge, being the youngest kid in class. Just because you're gifted doesn't mean you're good at everything. They were practically trying to teach me to multiply before I had addition down. Cool to see these, though.

[UPDATE: Every single one of them (The McGuffey's Eclectic Primer through the Sixth Eclectic Reader, plus the Eclectic Spelling Book) is available in .EPUB and other formats on Project Gutenberg, meaning they can be sent to a Kindle or be read on a Nook or Kobo. I just sent them to my Kindle Scribe. There is much happiness here now. You can find them here. All but the 2nd and 5th readers are also in .PDF (not sure why they're not), so they can be printed.]

 

I adore pop-up books

I would love to see this in person.

A giant pop-up book unfolds at LA’s Central Library

A pop-up book that’s seeking to break the world record for size has unfolded at the Central Library in downtown Los Angeles.

The art piece is 31 feet wide, more than 11 feet tall, and weighs in at 1,800 pounds.

Luceros y Penumbras, which roughly translates to “starlight and shadows,” is rooted in L.A. artist Daniel González’s experience visiting the library and his family in Mexico as a child.

Here is the site for the actual exhibition: Luceros y Penumbras from the Library Foundation of Los Angeles.