Still Struggling

Not a whole lot has changed since my last post. It is difficult to write today, so bear with me if there are mistakes I don’t catch.

Getting out and doing errands is still extremely difficult. All it takes is one person looking at me, or speaking to me, or just standing in the wrong spot, to cause panic and failure to complete my mission. If I get past all the people standing around the store entrances, and not too many people get in the way inside, I’m OK. I can buy a few items and check out. But more often than not, I run into problems and just leave.

Food is still critical. I had none for a few days, but it’s OK. Really, it’s nothing new for me. I’m rationing what I was able to buy the other day because I’m unsure when I will be able to get more. It’s not only the matter of buying food, it’s also getting money to buy it with. I have a debit card but I have not yet learned to use it in stores. That means I have to get cash from an ATM. To date there is only one I am able to use. I have been there several times in the past week and a half. Most of the time, people just hanging around cause me to abort the mission. On two occasions there was no one there but the machine wasn’t working.

I will be seeing one of my workers tomorrow, primarily for the purpose of getting to (and through) an appointment with the dentist to see what can be done about the denture problem. I’m very stressed about that. I think there may be time for some other errands, so perhaps I’ll get caught up a little on some of that.

I did manage to get a break from stress and anxiety over the weekend. I made a last minute decision to participate in a contest on the ham radio. For my ham friends reading, it was the New England QSO Party,  Single Op High Power, CW only, run only.  I told myself I was only getting on for a couple hours to practice operating skills and improve my Morse code proficiency, since I haven’t been on the air much lately. Yeah, sure. That’s like eating just one potato chip! I can never stop after a couple hours of contesting! I ended up operating 18 of the 20 hours. I took some time out to chase the Yemen DXpedition on 160 meters, otherwise I would have put in the whole 20 hours. The result: 933 contacts, 85 multipliers, for a score of 158,610. I think that is good enough to be high score from Maine. I could have scored higher if I had done some search & pounce instead of limiting myself to running. But the point was to have fun, and running is where the real fun is for me! Yep, I know this is all gibberish to those who aren’t into ham radio! 🙂   I will of course pay a price for my fun, as always. The dreaded QSL cards will start rolling in any day now. There’s no free lunch!