Meet Sparrow, an average man passing an average life…
Friday, January 24
You know, it’s mentioned here – pretty much every hour on the hour – about how I am generally as strong on Day 2 as I was on Day 1 when working out on consecutive days…Sometimes there might be a tad less strength on some exercises, say only getting a final set up eight or nine times instead of ten, but that’s quibbling.
This morning I was stronger than I was yesterday…I am not making that up…I upped the shoulder machine press up to 90 from 80 which was surprising because it hasn’t been at 80 all that long, but I was feeling frisky this morning…I got the new upped weight up eight times, pretty good for uncharted waters.
I also upped the bicep z-bar curl…Recall it had had 35 lbs on each side and that weight with a relatively small muscle another five pounds on each side would’ve been a bit much, so I stuck a 2.5 lb weight on each side, five lbs total, and I was able to get that up ten times, which surprised me…I was thinking eight, if I was lucky.
The only exercise I am (still) not even close to upping is the bench press…This is surprising because it’s a big muscle but I am still stuck on 180 lbs…I used to do 220 ten times but those days appear to be long gone…Today I got 180 up ten times, barely, but sometimes it’s only eight or nine and ol’ Sparrow has yet to move it the requisite twelve times required to up it.
The only downside to moving this much weight is I am consuming an enormous amount of calories…When I got home I had a protein shake and my burger patty, but a couple of hours later, driving into the Veterans Service Office (VSO), I was hungry so I stopped at the convenience store for a breakfast sandwich and a couple of breakfast-ish taquitos or whatever they’re called, and I had two cans of chicken for lunch at the VSO, plus some mixed nuts I keep on hand for thru-the-day snacking.
On arrival at the VSO, I had a message from a widow whose veteran husband had died last week and she wanted information on whatever benefits would be available and help getting them…Well, that is exactly what a VSO is for and I called her back for more information…For example, was it a death due to a service-connected issue or not because that determines if you get reimbursed, and there are a couple of other things, too.
As it was, when I called her, after expressing appropriate condolences, she said her husband had been in the Marine Corps from 1980-2001 – and probably was not a whole lot older than ol’ Sparrow -and died of stomach cancer. He had already been cremated and she wouldn’t require burial in a state veterans cemetery or a headstone, so actually there wasn’t a whole lot I could do for her.
Then about 0830 I get a call from a number that looks familiar but I can’t place it and I pick it up and a gentleman IDs himself as Mr So-And-So of the FBI…He asks how I’m doing and I say well, I’m on the phone with the FBI, I’ll let you know and he doesn’t laff despite the fact this is a pretty good line and he says he has some extradition paperwork for me to review and then it tails off and it occurs to me he’s waiting to see how long it will take for me get a clue that he’s really not with the FBI and then I put two and two together and realize it’s our friend Corky…Corky’s an old sailor, of course, so I called him a fucking cocksucker and he laffs because sailors call each other that as a matter of course…Turns out he’s got some letters from the VA he needs deciphering and I told him I was pretty free today and to come on in.
He came a bit after 1200 and he handed me the letter, adding it had come with a check for, get this, $33,000…Corky has been dealing with the VA for a long time, tho, and was skeptical, so he said the check was still in a desk drawer at home…I read the letter and the VA said there had been what they term clear and unmistakable errors (CUE) in two previous rating decisions…There were errors in both the percentage of disability and in the date of the award and the check was back pay for both…The back pay was for eleven months in both cases and Corky has a fairly high percentage of disability in both cases and while I am hardly Mr VA Finance I told Corky I reckoned $33K was, more or less, an appropriate amount…Corky’s a more or less kinda guy, so he accepted my analysis.
Mr and Mrs K came in…Mr K had filed assorted claims on his own last year and one was awarded tho three were declined…He wanted to appeal one of them…He was very well organized, which helps because not everyone is…I read his decision letter and I told him we certainly could appeal, but the VA requires new evidence and he pointed out that a form he had submitted – a Bronze Star citation – had not been considered because it had been deemed ineligible by the rating board…This was whack because I could read the citation perfectly…It was illegible only if the reader was blind…I told Mr K we could certainly resubmit this, accompanied by a typed copy and maybe one in Braille, too, as long as we were on it.
Sparrow’s Sleep Log:
1630 Thursday until 0130 Friday,
1730 Friday until 2130 Friday
13.0 hours for the day, an excellent Friday total, tho I don’t have the weekly figures handy.
Boy, the cat would not shut up Thursday night…I don’t know if she merely wanted some attention or whether she was expecting a canned yummy ration or what, but she was meowing up a storm…Usually, she pipes down after a while but not this time…I rolled over and it was barely 2100 and I thought crap, I need more sleep and she’s not shutting up so I went to the kitchen and got a space heater and put it in the bedroom and shut the door…The cat didn’t particularly like that, but good gravy, it was getting to be a bit much, and I wear earplugs to bed, too.
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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