Cues

Captel 800i (still on wish-list for my own unit/and to add caller ID to my phone service, but the technology is here to caption incoming calls without an extra relay number and keep those hanger-uppers accountable–applause for parsimony!), increased skills in sign language vocab and reception (thanks to concentrated visits with late-deafened friends), enduring and ever-growing enthusiasm and pragmatic optimism, clever timing of an ideal opportunity at a higher level of commitment.

Win-win situations.

If you are looking to share tickets for Yamato on Friday, then email me.

Experience!

 

there she goes!

Going strong and stronger! Great mix of work and play, time with others and time to think. Developments left, right, and all around are adding up. I managed instability for quite awhile, so this level of stability is opening new doors while I retain the skills for keeping surprises in perspective. Bring out some Hammer pants…

 

feeling philanthropic and also free-riding grooves

It takes all kinds!

Two communal loves of mine are libraries and live music.  I am delighted to note the combination of both for a fundraiser for the St. Joseph County Public Library.  If you have never seen and heard Billy “Stix” Nicks play drums, then you must!  This is a wonderful opportunity to do so, while also supporting the most excellent services and programs SJCPL provides.  HT to the SJCPL Blog post by Linda.

Additionally, tomorrow (Friday, July 24, 2009) from 11:30am to 1:30pm, you can catch the phenomenal rhythms of Billy Nicks and the ambiance of downtown South Bend at Motown Plays Fridays By the Fountain.

Bill “Stix” Nicks with Motown Dance Party at Fridays by the Fountain
Sponsored by Transpo
The Morris Performing Arts Center, South Bend Tribune and Sunny 101.5 are pleased to present the outdoor summer series, “Fridays by the Fountain”. Join us in the Jon R. Hunt Plaza in front of the Morris Performing Arts Center this Friday for a fantastic way to begin your weekend! The concert is FREE and OPEN TO THE PUBLIC and runs from 11:30 AM to 1:30 PM

MOTOWN DANCE PARTY plays Motown and Soul the way they were meant to be – a class act with professional musicians and first-rate singers; all performing with passion and dedication. Drummer Bill “Stix” Nicks was a member of Jr. Walker and the Allstars, recorded at the original Motown studio in Detroit and played at the famed Apollo Theater in New York and Dick Clark’s American Bandstand. Bill has played with blues and jazz greats The Temptations, The Supremes, The Four Tops, The Fifth Dimension, Isley Brothers, Gladys Knight and the Pips, Dionne Warwick, Patti LaBelle, Marvin Gaye, Wilson Picket, Louis Armstrong, Sammy Davis Jr., and Pinetop Perkins.

Lunch will be available to purchase from downtown vendors The Morris Bistro, Papa John’s, and State Cafe … or bring a brown bag lunch, a chair or blanket and relax on the lawn. Since 2001, Fridays by the Fountain has attracted a wide audience to the plaza. Local business people, young families and senior citizens alike have come to enjoy the free concerts, outdoor dining opportunities & the restored fountain. Visit our website!
Location: Hunt Plaza at Morris Performing Arts Center, 211 N. Michigan Street, South Bend, IN

 

this. is. great.

Sweet!

Go ahead and call it a comeback:  I won’t knock you out.

 

pure energy

There’s a lot to be said for an operating autonomous nervous system!

 

life is a highway (flexy przybysz remix)

Probably having a lot to do with deft handling of several surprise situations during my road test*, I’ve got a green light to drive again.

This transition back is the sweetest of several I’ve made, I must say. (Most likely due to recency effects–I have always been most grateful for the bigger picture survival opportunity from day to day.)

Re-construction continues on many scales! Can we fix it? Yes we can!

* These situations reminded me of the initial trip back from Indy after my surgery, and the just-mopped slippery floor we encountered when taking a restroom break at a busy fast-food establishment.

 

unpackinem

Largely thanks to my family, I’m still feeling good and happily unpacking and attending to simple stuff tonight. (They did the labor-intensive stuff all week! I am confident I’ll be pulling my weight soon.)

I should have written down the many song/lyrics ideas I had during our time together. Well, I thought they were funny…

I’m still flashing back to C and D’s re-enactment of the scene from “Titanic,” on the wooden ship at the playground. Then there was L with his fire in the hole, and exclaiming he was in the hole on the beach. Nephew A provided lots of comic relief moments, but now my night meds are kicking in, I’m winding down, and you really had to be there for most.

So splendid to share time with my family when they aren’t stressed in a hospital setting. And it’s needed, too, so we all can heal! And it’s kind of weird, but an accepted reality I’m at peace with: I need to condition them to my expanding capabilities–and be more sensitive to accounting for their perspectives through my actions (rather than trying to talk them through, just show them). I’m thankful we have this opportunity!

 

T-plus twenty hours to my driving evaluation

It’ll be a first going through the whole three hour gauntlet of testing. So worth it to get back to self-directed routines. Flashbacks to driver’s ed sessions are fun memories, thanks to Mr. M. Man that was a long time ago! Well not in geologic time, but still.

I’m filling time here. Transmission problems sidetracked our caravan anout 45 mins from home. And I’m in the fuzz from a combo of smoke inhalation and going no sound (ABI battery is protesting the shortened night charge times when it usually gets trickle time to top-off). And I suppose _I_ am functioning on less than ideal sleep too.No worries. Right?

 

mediate

A little INXS in my head today. Nice. Been awhile. Fun video too.

Vacation’s been grand, even with the sprinkles, occasional downpours, and cooler temps. (Ten percent chance of precipitation? Ha!)

 

I am still a nut!

Put me in a room with 5000 different pieces of exercise equipment and then enjoy the show. (Ok, it would just be irritating to some people to witness, but I assure you my public fitness center naívete is genuine. Note this as yet another contradiction in my character, considering my fondness of athletics.)

I feel so old. It’s very much like this: “In my day, we were lucky to get a turn on a 5 station weight machine in the balcony of the school gym.”

I did get a great work-out today, and I think I will even get a hang of the different machines, but in the meantime:

I will likely face the wrong way on a seat again. And I’ve decided that’s O-kaaay.

 

what a Przybyszwald Summer Vacation means Part 1

I always pack the sunscreen and repeatedly encourage its use. I’m the only one to use it consistently, and the only one that gets tanned instead of burned.

We will camp within walking distance of a “superstore,” yet both my mother AND my sister have been very concerned all week that I not forget my hat. Of course, this preoccupation with being sure to take something I take everywhere anyhow will mean I will forget something even more important (and not available in the Northwoods).

I should be more careful, I know–they monitor my blog and are still in a position to dump me and leave me in the lake.

 

88 degrees at 8pm

“Alright, who’s packing heat?”

 

yahoo times sixty-five-thousand

Bringing out the tapes during short trips in the planetary body.

Solid workout at PT today. Ended my session on the treadmill. I think this was my first time on one. I was thinking of the music video with the choreographed ‘millers (was that OK Go or a band named something like that?)
Other exercises took me back to doing the bear/crab walk on all fours in elementary school gym. I used to get up from the floor by sticking my behind in the air and walking my hands and arms until I could raise my upper body. It was amazingly effective! At an in-patient therapy session, just before I was released, I figured I’d never do that again. Now it seems within reasonable reach. Just like that (snap!)

I probably wouldn’t have tried this for months. Now, I know some safe exercises to build more starting now. I think I had been using the same exercises, since 1996, to regain balance, walking, and strength. I’d notice functional improvements, but this time around, I am more aware of individual and groups of muscles that are getting to be part of the action. What really rocks is tapping into the mind-set I had in my days of youth sports. That’s the intangible on top of the primary benefits.

 

time of my life

Don’t ask me where the song came from. I’m cleaning, and should have tunes on, but I don’t. I guess it’s good at this point in my recovery to allow my brain to wander musically. (I think I would have done much better in the hospital if I had had music… And not been bombarded with the flickering of TVs… but hey, here I am now, and the third time is where I’ve used my lessons from the last two surgeries–once my mind was allowed to come back around.)

I winnowed down my socks. I still have two pairs of patterned long socks that weathered the way through my mom’s and my teenage years. They don’t make them like that anymore! (I am selective when I wear them now because they are getting thin…)

I usually wear things beyond a condition anyone would want them, but I’m donating a thousand new/almost new hospital footie slippers to charitable orgs–and I still have a hundred for gifts and personal use. It’s unfortunate I’m not craftier with sequins.

 

turning inward and outward

I love how the processes feed into and out of one another!