This evening I purchased a set of hiking poles that I’d rather lose in the abyss of our coat closet than actually use, so I can answer in the affirmative tomorrow if the PT asks whether I’ve given it any thought. I’m supposed to carry one (or both) on longer walks, or if I have to go somewhere while feeling particularly wobbly, but my goal is to strengthen and steady my leg enough to avoid using them. They’re collapsible and I’ll stash one in a bag so it’s there in case I need it, and maybe keep the other handy for those occasions when I can use a little stability boost while shuffling around the house.
How many more items like this will I have to purchase? The device the speech-language pathologist had me order for breathing exercises arrived a week or two ago and is still in its box; she’ll calibrate it at our next appointment. A planner will arrive this weekend because I need to schedule at least 16 more sessions with her and would get flustered trying to enter all that information into a phone app — I chose an hourly option that will also allow easy tracking of my ‘off’ time, something the neurologist suggests.
There’s a Springsteen lyric for every occasion and the obvious choice here is “I ain’t nothing but tired/Man, I’m just tired and bored with myself.” All I want to do right now is get away from myself, and the remaining days of July are the best time to do it because August will be a slog of checkups and tests. A possible hitch looms on the horizon: I received word today that my SSDI claim has reached step four several months earlier than expected. That seems like a poor sign given my age, which already makes denial a near certainty.
The final review could take another two to four weeks, but I’ll probably start planning for an appeal now by making a checklist of what to do once its necessity is official: steps like requesting my file so I can see if any records were missing, and then tracking down whatever my doctors’ offices didn’t submit. That must be a stultifyingly dull job, poring over medical records all day — almost as bad as reading my posts here. Maybe I’ll toss in some Eight is Enough reading material for the examiner’s entertainment the way I’m about to direct you Betty Buckley fans to this recent interview she did with People, in which she’s still venting about her frustrations with Enough’s producers almost 50 years later.
I don’t doubt a word she says — she looked like a hostage in the accompanying cast photo — and will test your Eight is Enough trivia with this anecdote she shared. Can you name the Bradford daughter?
“One day I was sitting in my dressing room and one of the girls [who played a stepdaughter], I won’t say her name, she came in. She goes, ‘Betty, I know you’re going through a really rough time. I just want you to know I’m older than you are.’ So amazing. It was funny.”
— Betty Buckley
The answer is Joanie: Laurie Walters is six months older than Buckley if IMDb is correct. As I begin the series’ second season, Joanie, Nancy and Mary are the only essential sisters, while each of the three brothers is important in his own way. The first season was so short that this could easily change, so don’t hold me to it. We also need to discuss whether Don Johnson had ever peeled a potato before having to do it in a scene with Lani O’Grady, because unless my eyes deceived me, he was egregiously wasteful. That he was playing a medical student only made it worse, even if he had no intention of trying to match into surgery.