Meet Sparrow, an average man passing an average life…
Friday, August 2
We’ve noted here before that yours truly can lift weights on consecutive days, do the same workout, and be as strong on Day 2 as he was on Day 1.
Usually…Not today, tho…I was pretty close, 95 percent of Thursday morning’s workout, but not quite 100 percent…My shoulders were wondering what the deal was, the legs let it be known they had a high level of uninterest in doing 40 squats between supersets and I could only get my hot, new weight on the bench press up seven times and not the eight I did yesterday.
This is still a good workout, of course, but we’ll see if I go back-to-back anymore…That extra five percent makes a difference…I’ve heard more than one coach say that three percent is sometimes the difference between champion and runner-up and my own experience officiating is three percent is usually the difference between the best officials in an association and the merely good.
On the other hand, I’m hardly a champion athlete, just a guy trying to stay strong in his old age, so if I’m able to again I probably will because I’ll tell you what, yours truly is already looking forward to not working out on Saturday…Maybe I’ll get the lawn done.
Ol’ Sparrow has got to be the only person who can wake up at 0230 and be late for an 0800 job…I got up feeling refreshed and put some coffee on and gave the cat her canned yummy ration and dove in on some project work…After about an hour Mr Caffeine had done its work and I was feeling pretty good and that is when I started thinking about going to the gym…My policy is to get two workouts in from Friday to Sunday and if I lifted today I could dispense with Saturday evening’s session and the more I thought about it the more I liked it…I don’t know why, I enjoy lifting on Saturday, but the mood hit and BOOM, there I was out the door at 0500.
I wasn’t too late to the Veteran Service Office (VSO), only a couple of minutes, and my 1100 appointment was 30 minutes early…It was an older couple, the veteran is 92, almost exactly the same age as Pa Sparrow would have been, and she isn’t too far behind…They didn’t identify themselves as man and wife, but they had that familiarity about them and they bickered like a couple, and she’s Hungarian so they’re certainly not siblings.
Anyway, I looked over their paperwork and he filed a claim a couple of years ago that was approved and he was receiving his benefits and frankly I was wondering what they required when she said he broke his nose in the Army Air Corps and a nostril clogged up at night and he woke up frequently, plus he had headaches, too…This does not appear to be the strongest case in VA history, but claims that appeared stronger have been declined and more tenuous ones have been accepted, so I filled out the paperwork in good spirits and faxed it in…It will take a while for a decision, tho…First, it will take six weeks for the VA to send a letter acknowledging receipt and they are going to have to go fishing for his medical records, so neither of them should be holding their breath here.
For one of the few times, there was actually a line at the VSO because when this couple left a gentleman who had been waiting came in…Mr R had recently moved here and he hadn’t used his hearing aids in a while and he was far away from the people he used to use and he needed help…Well, a call to the audiologist at the VA hospital south of here took care of that…I am not entirely sure what happened because I gave the phone to him and couldn’t hear, but he was pleased with the result…He also asked me if I knew of anyone looking to lend $375,000 for a motel purchase and I had to admit I didn’t.
An older vet came in about 1400 to ask about filing an appeal because he was denied a waiver to have the copays on a VA prescription eliminated…His denial letter said his financial statement wasn’t clear, so I gave him a new statement to fill out, telling him then we could start his appeal.
Then I got to wondering if it wouldn’t be quicker merely to send it in as additional evidence and not as an appeal because appeals take forever…Literally, it could take a couple-three years…So I called the new national VSO hotline number I came across Wednesday…It was going well until Gene looked up his records asked me for my accreditation number…Crap, I didn’t have one and that ended the process right there…He did give me information on the VA office that accredits VSOs, tho, and I looked the office up, found the application, printed it, filled it out and then actually read it and found out I didn’t have the required training…Besides, the form required the signature of someone in the state office, so I will take the form to big-city training and take care of it then and perhaps I’ll be accredited before I retire.
Speaking of big city VSO training, we are now completely set for my trip to the big city at the end of the month…I called the hotel today and confirmed they received the ream of paperwork I’d sent a couple of weeks ago…There’s the tax-exempt paperwork because it’s a government stay, plus the credit card authorization form because it’s Stephanie’s county credit card and I won’t have it with me…The efficient young lady I spoke with said I will have to fill out some of the tax-exempt paperwork, but other than that everything is in order…The only downside is all the county cars are booked, meaning I will have to drive my own car or, better yet, The Wife’s new car.
Sparrow’s Sleep Log
0730 Thursday until 0230 Friday…7.0 hours for the night and 41.0 hours for the week.
1830 Friday until 2130 Friday…3.0 hours for the session, 10.0 hours for the day, 44.0 hours for the week.
In yesterday’s Sleep Log we mentioned the possibility of a 50-hour sleep week…We’ve been thru this before…Key, of course, is to go in without expectations even tho with 44 hours in the books and the Saturday Sleep Session (SSS) still to come, it seems all but inevitable…The Chinese spiritual discipline known as Tao (the Dao if you’ve been to China) teaches to hold no expectations, then the rewards will come but still, you can’t help wondering.
The Diary of a Nobody is a novel. All elements are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Anything else is a coincidence.
It was inspired by the 19th century British novel of the same name.
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