Ryan Jones

I can understand. I'm one of these people who like to personally research everything before I go to the doctor. If I have a diagnosis in mind and the doctor has a different one then it's important to me that he/she explain why they think their diagnosis is better than mine. Believe it or not I've never had a doctor get offended by this, I think they appreciate it if you're as interested in your own health enough to do background work.

Sounds like an esophageal stricture to me. Usually correctable by stretching. It's something that runs in our family. Google it and see how well it fits the symptoms. An endoscopy will tell for sure if he has it. Then you have essentially another endoscopy by a surgeon that enlarges it. You often have to have it done multiple times over the years.

I probably have you beat in the age department. I'll be 70 next month. I always tell people that you're only as old as the youngest member of the relationship though so when people are gauche enough to ask my age when Justin and I are out together, I tell them I'm 25. A weird thought, if Justin and I are together for 44 years, there will have to be some serious strides made in human longevity, I'll be 104! lol I have a son who is 47, 3 grandchildren and 2 greats. Managed to avoid the whole wife thing, been happily unmarried my entire life but it's important to Justin so I'm going to do it.

Justin and I have been together almost 10 years. We didn't live together until he finished high school and we do the same type of thing. So far we've never had an argument, it's not making up, it's just absorbing the aura and the heat of the person you love.

Raleigh is a good place, especially for someone interested in arts and music. It's not as stuffy as Durham or Charlotte. Lots of young career professionals and students.

I used to love coloring my hair, when I still had hair! lol We had this shop in the 70s/80s called Commander Salamander. They would do temp hair color and makeup. It cost but if you let them pick the color and do whatever they wanted with the makeup, it was free. My boy de jour and I always went there first early Saturday evening to get "ready" for the evening. We ended every Saturday watching and participating in the Rocky Horror Picture Show movie in Georgetown. The only accidents I've been in I've had time to prepare so wasn't injured at all. I can imagine the shock it must do to someone's body who wasn't anticipating it.

Hi to everyone. Hope you're all having a great day. It's nice here, cold again in MD. We had 3 days at 70+, now a possible snow/ice and rain mix on Tuesday and Friday. I'm tired of winter. I'd move but I can't find a place that's better than living in the DC suburbs. With the lack of tall buildings, lots of park space and museums, the DC area is really more like a European city than an American one. My writing seems to have halted itself. I think it's all the wedding talk. Justin and I had planned on getting married last year but Covid nixed that. His parents and grandparents (and Justin) insist on a big wedding. Now though we've reserved the caterers for Saturday September 4. We will have it at his grandparent's house, their yard can hold far more people than I assume we're inviting although who knows? Maybe we'll have to rent out Meriwether Pavilion for it?

That was very interesting. I had a different type of life than most people but this made me go back and think about things that happened, the age I was at and how it affected me. I might write my own version of this for personal viewing.

I pretty much only use the Kitchen Aid for cookies and meringue. I used to make bread but decided that the store bought frozen uncooked loaves worked just as well for me since we are not adventurous eaters. Normal old white bread is fine. I have a bread machine, used to buy the mix from Walmart. I almost never step into a Walmart so when I'd have to go I'd buy every box on the shelf.

That's a cool item to have. I have my grandparent's silverware that they got in 1920 as a wedding present. Not plated, actual 925 stamped silver. It's still in the wooden case that it came in. Have never used it, maybe later this year if the pandemic cooperates we can use it at my wedding to Justin. Was supposed to be this year but his grandparents insist that we have a big wedding so hopefully later this year.

I have one of those heavy metal potato mashers. It was bought by my parents right after they got married so that would be 70 years ago. I don't use it for potatoes anymore, now I use my hand mixer because I like them really smooth. I use the leftovers to make potato cakes for breakfast. What I use my heavy metal potato masher for is to make sure my ground beef is in the smallest pieces possible for making tacos. It really works well to separate the meat up.

Do you have a favorite kitchen appliance or utensil? Back 4-5 years ago or so I came across an actual Disney Frozen Ice Cream Maker in a grocery store. List price was in the neighborhood of $30, it was on sale for $10. I had never purchased one of these, always just bought my own ice cream but I remembered back as a kid how good the ice cream tasted, at least in my memory, when my grandparents used to make it using one of those hand cranked ones where you put ice and salt in. So I bought it and it's the best thing ever. It holds a little over 3 cups (2 cream, 1 milk) plus the added ingredients. I'm a chocolate person so it's always chocolate for me. I use it sometimes twice a week, if it ever stopped working I'd have to get a new one. I'm just getting used to my Instant Pot, it may be a good one also but nothing can outdo the ice cream maker! Just getting ready to head down and make some now, mixed up the base last night. It does better if the base is cold before you start to churn it up. When done and solidly frozen the texture is like Haagen Daas, very hard. Not full of air like the store bought cheap stuff.

Got my first vaccination today. Moderna. So you have to wait 28 days for the second vaccine. This was the best run site I've seen. Most of the site I saw on the news had these long lines of people waiting outside, this place had big signs all over the parking lot telling you not to get in line until 10 minutes before your appointment. Now I'm just waiting to see if I get any side effects. Already have the second appointment for Mar 30th. A doctor told me years ago that when I got the flu shot, if I exercised the arm it would help disperse the vaccine and lessen the chance for a sore arm. So I was doing all kinds of swinging the arm around exercising while I waited the 15 minutes to make sure I didn't have a serious reaction. I figured I deserved a treat so I went to this acclaimed local donut shop near the vaccination site and got myself 6 glazed chocolate frosted donuts. Not a one of them made it to my house and it was just a 15 minute drive.

Well, I guess there really isn't a downside to it now that you mention it. On the same note, my boyfriend and I were visiting my son and grandkids back a few years ago and we went to a restaurant in Amsterdam for our 5th anniversary and his 21st birthday where all the food was served on a cute guy who was laid out in front of us. They did only use his chest and stomach areas for the food though. Everything was cut in bite sized pieces and for some reason they didn't even give us a knife! The dessert was this gooey soft chocolate brownie with really warm chocolate sauce and vanilla ice cream and as we were finishing up the guy acting as our plate/table suggested we could lick the remainder off him.

No idea what it is you do but the only practical solution to annoying people is to plant them in the garden. Happy birthday to your mother. Mine would be 99 this year, had she remained alive. We can't have Rediwhip in this house. If we do then my boyfriend reverts to a teenager again and we both end up incredibly sticky. When I need whipped cream with a dessert I just make my own! As for headaches, I very seldom get one, if I do then an Excedrin Migraine (or the generic) gets rid of it quickly.

If wine doesn't help then it's incurable!

Had to take my sister today for stretching of an esophageal stricture. It seems to be a genetic thing in my mother's side of the family. Two of her sisters and three brothers often had to go for this, I have it also but not bad enough to get anything done yet. For those who don't know what it is, the esophagus narrows and food gets stuck. When it happens to me, for just that short period of time, 30 seconds or so, it can feel like a heart attack before the food moves on into the stomach. If it gets more severe the same type of doctor that does your endoscopy does this but they have to be a surgeon. In any event, the hospital I tool her to was close to the MGM casino in MD. Because of covid I haven't gone to a casino since November but had nothing else to do for two hours so went to the poker room. In two hours, playing a low level $2/$5 No Limit Holdem game, I won $2200. Also hit a high hand for an additional $500. Not bad for 2.5 hours of work! Once I get both vaccinations (first scheduled for Mar 3) then I can get back to playing more often. Before the covid nonsense I played 30-40 hours a week. Hope everyone is doing good!

Sorry to hear that your son did that. I can't even imagine, as crazy as we all were as teens in the 1960s, what we would have done with the technology of today in regards to everything inappropriate. Today everything seems so magnified when in reality it's barely anything.

Glad to hear you're better. Amusing prostate story, kinda. I'm old, near 70. I have to get up 2-3 times a night to pee so went to urologist to see if there was a magic pill. I do have an enlarged prostate, nothing too much. Doctor gave me one pill, it did nothing to help the getting up to pee. Sent email, she gave me a pill to help that problem. Instead it made me have to get up every 2 hours, almost on the dot. I only went because my boyfriend wakes up when I get up and there's nothing worse than a grumpy kid. I keep thinking he'll grow out of it but we've been together practically forever, he's 25 now and still just as grumpy. It does only last a few seconds though so I haven't planted him in the garden. Stopped taking pill. Better just twice a night than 3 or 4 times a night.

I've never understood the whole "need for sleep" deal. Pre Covid I would sleep 4 hours max, get up at 3am and go to play poker at the casino. Now I'm lucky to make it to 6am before I get up, it seems such a waste to sleep when the entire depth of human knowledge is just waiting for me on the net. I've really gotten into physics and cosmology lately. I'd go for morning sex but my bf hasn't grown out of that teenage need to sleep even though he's 25 he still likes to lay there until 9am. He's got his bar exam in a few days, then he finds out if he passed in May. At that point he's told me he's going to go to work for his father's law firm.

Part 1 - Hotel at Midnight We were wandering, my droogs and I, through the cavernous, darkened hallways of the Hunt Valley Inn. It was long past our turn at the costume contest but it took so long to get these false eyelashes on that I had no intentions of taking them off until they fell off on their own. In addition, this incredible acid rush was still motoring through our systems to the point where we all felt it necessary to go back to the room and get our motorcycle helmets on so

The location? A science fiction convention outside of Baltimore, circa 1980. Our little group attended all the local conventions and there were a lot of really fun times. Some people would say unusual times, I'd go with different since it wasn't at all unusual to us. Come along and get into my head as I recount some of our adventures at this fateful Balticon.

Quiet here also, just our coldest overall weekend of the year. Will have one more small burst of wintry precip Monday morning, then be up to 60 by later in the week. I made 80 chocolate chip cookies Saturday morning, there's less than 30 left right now. I'm going with the "someone broke in and stole some cookies" story, otherwise my boyfriend and I are pigs.

Have found what I was looking for! Thanks! Ryan

I'm thankful that the weather forecasters didn't become doctors or they would have killed most of their patients. We were supposed to have 2" of snow, followed by sleep and/or freezing rain. Instead we have had no snow, just the sleet/freezing rain. Received both email and text from my Covid vaccination site that they would be closed today and it was automatically rescheduled for March 3 at the same time. Not sure why they had to wait 2 weeks to reschedule. I'll keep checking other places to see if I can schedule quicker. The vaccine has started to show up at a lot of drug store and grocery store pharmacies now.