As I may or may not have mentioned before, I retired at the end of last year. It was earlier than I expected to, but it was time. All I ever wanted was to be respected for my work, but that wasn’t in the offing — and I certainly did nothing to help the situation in the last year or two. Things spiraled downward out of control as I had more and more trouble sleeping, getting to work on time, and even caring about the latest insults/rants from my boss. So when the choice came to “get up, or get out,” I chose get out.
Of course, this was in the middle of the WuFlu epidemic
, and so any plans to travel and enjoy myself got put on hold. Not only that, in the first week after retirement, I actually came down with the Chinese virus, and it took me over two months to shake it. How bad was it? I drove to the ER to find that I had a 103.8 fever…and they couldn’t admit me. I spent several hours in the ER because they got interrupted by a “Code Blue.” I suspect it involved the elderly lady (quite deceased) in the hallway that I passed on the way out. I wish I was making that up. She was not breathing, on a gurney, with oxygen tubing coiled up, attached to nothing. Two attendants (looked like EMTs) were standing nearby, talking quietly. I assume they were waiting on clearance to take her to the morgue.
The ER’s waiting room was full on the way out; I’d made it a point to come in very early, so I didn’t have much of a wait, but obviously, if dead people are being left in the hallway, things were difficult at that time (end of January). Things have changed a lot since then; there’s way fewer new cases
, and we’re starting to see an end to the mask mandates. Private businesses can still mandate them, and many still do. And I’m over my case, though I’m still having issues, some of which may be related to two+ months of forced inactivity, and others to the activities I could do…mostly computer gaming. I’m now having serious arthritis problems in my right hip, shoulder, and index finger. Especially the index finger. That leads to my subjects du jour: reading and blogging.
In short, I’m bored to tears and the arthritis leaves me those to occupy my time. (Yes, it’s hard to type with the arthritis, but ten fingers in use is better than one, clicking over and over.) So I shall return to the blogging fold (for now?) with reviews of light novels. Maybe some anime. Who knows? Check back tomorrow morning for a new post.
