Teddee Is Tired

I thought cortisone was supposed to really rev you up.  I went for a follow-up visit yesterday for the injuries I received when I fell several weeks ago and was told, based on some simple strength tests, that I had strained my right rotator cuff.  The physician's assistant in Orthopedics, affiliated with the Urgent Care facility I had gone to the day I fell, seemed fairly certain I had not torn the rotator cuff, which is good news, and says the pain I'm experiencing has nothing to do with the chipped shoulder bone.  She prescribed a muscle relaxant, which Humana refused to cover so I didn't get it, and cortisone.  I've taken the three tablets prescribed so far for the first day and really haven't noticed any difference...and, based on the last cortisone I enjoyed several years ago, I was really hoping to feel "shot from guns."  But that was given by injection, so perhaps that's the difference.  I recall feeling the best that following week that I'd felt since I was in my twenties!  Lots of physical and mental energy.  I was unaware of what I'd been given and asked for more and was, of course, told "No way."  Too bad there isn't something legal, that's not debilitating in the long run, we could take as we age to regain that get up and go.


That said, I haven't had a bad couple of days.  I left the cabin early yesterday and drove to the apartment in Boulder.  I snapped a photo of the newly seeded grass that's coming up in the park just to the west of the building.  They are watering furiously and it's looking great.  What a delightful view of the Flatirons...

I wanted to get to the apartment early because I needed to color my hair and while that was processing I got a few things unpacked and put in the kitchen cupboards.  It was a treat to be able to step into the shower and rinse out that hair color, I'll tell you.  It is so difficult to get the product out when you're rinsing by hand in a wash pan.  Additionally, you use a lot of water...good for at least one trip to the spring!  

I just made it to my medical appointment, perhaps a mile north of the apartment.  I really liked this physician's assistant.  She seems to know her stuff, didn't keep me waiting, didn't seem rushed, and answered all my questions.  She said if the lump remaining in my eyebrow is scar tissue in the muscle it may never go completely away.  The numbness, which I also inquired about, does seem to be less today than it was even yesterday.  She said the bruise remaining under my eye may take quite some time to completely dissipate.  I was given some simple exercises to do for the next four weeks for the rotator cuff, at which time I'm to return.  

After my appointment, I returned to the apartment and applied my makeup, which I hadn't had time to do earlier, then drove to meet my friend Paula for lunch.  Yes, it was finally the second Wednesday of the month when we get our Social Security checks, but Paula agreed to go to Olive Garden again so I could use the $20 gift card I had been given by management after the restaurant charged my checking account twice for my lunch the last time.  The food was good and we had a great visit but, once again, the service was not really up to snuff.  I still have enough for another lunch on my gift card, but I'm not sure I'll ever get Paula to go back, so may have to go solo!

After lunch, I went to Walgreens to pick up my prescription, then headed back to Nederland where I stopped at Ace for the paint for the secretary (whoopee) and at B&F for Cheap Chicken and Wednesday's senior discount on a few groceries including more kibble for the foxes.


This morning I heated lots of water and did dishes out on the patio then decided to drag out the ugly table and try to do a better job of painting it than I'd done the other day inside the cabin when it was so windy...

I'd put the first coat on with a brush, but could see brush marks.  Today I tried a roller and now I can see roller marks!  It was really too hot, I think, and I was right in the sun.  I may have to sand this a little and try again although, based on past experience..."It will never be noticed on a galloping horse at midnight..." and it's pretty much midnight in this cabin with all this charcoal brown paint!   I noted today, according to Ace, this paint is called Prancing Pony.

I also decided to use Prancing Pony on this old cutting board that had been an atrocious 60s or 70s yellow with some equally atrocious Pennsylvania Dutch designs on the back...

Maybe eventually I'll stencil some subtle design on this so people can actually find it when it's hanging against an equally Painted Pony wall!


Then, on to what I expected to be the fun project...the secretary!  I started out with the three drawer fronts...

This paint is Chestertown Buff, one of Benjamin Moore's Historic Colors.  It's more intense than it appears in this shot.  The one below is truer.

I had moved my painting around to the shade on the west side of the cabin, but the sun soon passed over the yard arm and I had to put up the umbrella.  I had given the primer on these a light sanding, followed by a rub down with tack cloth, and the paint went on, by roller, quite smoothly.  At one point, however, the very light breeze gave a little gust and I found myself picking out dandelion fuzz, and later gnats, from the wet paint, so this was not without challenges.  I'm thinking of adding to my bucket list more creative expletives just to keep the neighbors entertained.

I went on from there to the secretary base.  This is the piece I had attempted to prime with the spray Kilz, which went on so rough.  I really had to sand it down, inside and out and clean it thoroughly with the tack cloth before I could even start to paint.  I decided to paint the inside first...

...so put it on its back.  This went quite well using a brush for the edges and corners then filling in with the roller.  It is time consuming and brought back memories of painting the shelf unit back in the 80s that's now in storage, but has been such a useful piece of furniture in every place I've made a home since my first studio apartment in Chicago in about 1968! 

It started to cloud up and I decided to call it a day, bring everything inside, clean up and drive back to Nederland and get ice--I'm starting to think this old cooler is not doing its job.  The ice doesn't last long at all--and sugar so I could make syrup for the hummingbirds which have been without any at my feeder since the bear was last here.  

One morning soon after that last night the bear managed to empty the sugar water out of the feeder, I was sitting at the picnic table having my morning coffee and a hummingbird flew close over my head...

Photo courtesy of Wild Bear Mountain Ecology Center, Nederland, Colorado

...descended toward the deck on the opposite side of the table and commenced this bizarre routine just a few inches off the deck, popping up and down very rapidly and turning figure eights in a very circumscribed area and just generally causing a stir!  Then it rose to about table height, repeated the performance and flew off.  I wasn't wearing anything colorful, so unless it was responding to the new tablecloth, I think it may have been trying to communicate that the feeder was empty!  I love animals.  Teddee