final Saturday in my birthday month

There was a film, memory slips because all I recall is one scene - - an elderly woman is dying (seems like I wrote about this a week or two ago but IDK and IDC), in her house in a village in must have been Italy or Greece. Noise stirs her, she opens her eyes, raises her head and looks up to see her neighbors, elderly peasant women who are not dying yet, dashing into her house, grabbing things that she soon will leave behind, and running out with them. To me it was shockingly unfeeling, but it must have been a custom there.  

AI knows everything: "The film you are thinking of is Zorba the Greek (1964). In this classic drama, there is a famous, bleakly memorable scene where the elderly French innkeeper, Madame Hortense (played by Lila Kedrova), is dying of pneumonia in her bed. As she draws her final breaths, the local village women—who have been waiting outside like vultures—swarm into her house. They frantically run in and out of her room, pulling down her curtains, looting her furniture, and grabbing her personal belongings while she is still alive and dying right in front of them."

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Sixteen years ago, October 2010 when I started this webblog, posting faithfully every morning, if I was an hour late posting, the phone started ringing or emails started arriving asking if I was okay. I wasn't, of course, and today it's still so: when someone asks, "Are you okay?" I may tell the truth and say "Hell no, I'm ninety-one."

It was in that Time between mid-October 2010 and mid-January 2011 when my heart prognosis was two to five months to live and I was casting around for what to do when a friend initiated arrangements for me to go to the heart institute at Cleveland Clinic, and other friends scheduled to fly me up in their company jet. As it happened, the waiting Time from diagnosis until my surgery appointment used up three of my two-to-five months. 

It was an interesting wait, and honestly I just accepted it and let it be, come what may. I wore a heart vest that would kick in with a shock if my heart stopped beating (it never did). My angina, diagnosed as unstable, kicked in about every ten steps or so. At the Time, we lived at The Old Place, and if I wanted to walk down front and across the street to My Laughing Place with the storm-ravaged cedar tree at the Bay's edge, I had to stop for an under-tongue pill once on the way down and pause for it to take effect, and at least once on the way back. 

BTW, in October 2018, Hurricane Michael took out that cedar tree along with pretty much all others on the property, but we were living here at 7H by then.

Anyway while I was still in hospital for diagnosis and first treatment, a friend urged me and I started a daily situation posting on CaringBridge, a website for that purpose, to keep friends and loved ones advised. I was first scheduled for heart surgery at Emory Clinic, then another friend called Cleveland Clinic, number one heart hospital in the world, and five minutes after she hung up, my phone rang and it was the office of the chief of cardiac surgery asking me to send my medical records so they could get started on admitting and scheduling me. 

It ain't what you know in life, it's who loves you enough to do something.

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Why no blogpost this week? I got distracted. Last weekend Harbour Village residents were advised that the condo community is about to shift from our coaxial cable system for wifi and television, to a new all fibre service. The changeover has already started and is to be completed by November. With wireless connections instead of wiring under the rug to the other side of the room, it means we can have a television here in 7H living room, which will be nice for folks who want to watch sports. So, I've spent every waking moment of this past week indulging an obsession: shopping. In my years, 22 to 80-something when I shopped for cars, during the shopping frenzy the rest of the world went by in a fuzzy blur while I focused on that hobby, car shopping. This week I found it was almost as bad for me to shop for a new tv.

Researching, measuring, taking notes, reading Consumer Reports articles about television sets. Selecting a television set for the living room and searching store inventories to see who has the one I've chosen. Finally yesterday afternoon settling on a decision and placing an order. 

Consumer Reports publishes good, reliable stuff. Their top rated television is a Samsung. I no longer allow Samsung products in the house. When we moved in to 7H in December 2014, we bought new Samsung kitchen appliances: refrigerator, stove, dishwasher, microwave oven. In short order, but after warranty of course, the microwave went bad and I replaced it with a new Samsung microwave. In short order the second one went bad and I replaced it with a different model. A year or two into our Time here, the Samsung refrigerator went bad and I replaced it with an LG. About five years into our Time here, the Samsung electric range gave up with a huge explosive bang, and we replaced it with a GE range. A year or so ago the Samsung dishwasher was leaking and we replaced it with a Bosch. No more Samsung.

During my television research this week, I googled asking AI about Samsung televisions, relating my prejudice against the brand. The response, which acknowledged my sorry history with Samsung appliances, said that the Samsung tv company is separate from the Samsung kitchen appliance company, and that I'd be okay buying a Samsung television, but that, considering my mistrust of Samsung I'd be better off steering clear of them altogether. You see, AI really does have a heart, AI loves us after all. AI is so nice, surely we can trust AI not to rise up and kill us all, eh? What an interesting prospect for the next major extinction event on Earth.

At any event, I selected an LG television, which Consumer Reports rates number one for reliability (they like the Samsung picture but it rates way down on reliability). Samsung was rated 90, and under it were two LG tv models also rated 90, so I picked one. It's supposed to arrive and be installed on Friday, October 2. Maybe I'll keep my bloggers posted, maybe not.

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It's Saturday, I should blog something religious, but never mind. It's a beautiful day on St Andrews Bay.

RSF&PTL

T91

pic: scene from Zorba the Greek, the innkeeper Hortense dying