Halloween; Health; Sleep; Cousin Charlie

Two dismal days.. but not really cold.


"The Doctor gets  you when you're born,
The Preacher, when you marry,
And the Lawyer lurks, with costly clerks
If too much on you carry.
Professional men, they have no cares,
Whatever happens, they get theirs."


Ogden Nash


Cheer up, it's Halloween..   the wait staff at our Bistro is in costume.. some quite provocatively.  They are young and know that us old-timers don't have the energy to get fresh (whatever that used to be).


01.  How are we doing?  You'll be sorry you asked.


Elaine and I have been kind of screwed up for a few days:  I have had achiness and chest pains for three days.. no.. its not a heart attack.. when I take two Tylenol, all of the uncomfortableness goes away for a few hours.  However, on the good side of that,  I have noticed an unusual uptick in my metabolism and am doing "stuff" again.  Also, my pants keep falling down... Maybe I am losing weight at last.   Maybe I just need suspenders.   We'll see.


Elaine was also feeling very bad for a couple of days.. but on Thursday, she received a passing grade from her urologist and she is feeling much better.


I think that both of us need a couple of more days for rest.. to feel 70% again (we never feel 100%.. that is for you young folks.) 


I just got through listening to 24 lectures on the subject of sleep.  The lecturer wants us to learn all of the mechanisms of sleep and learn how to love the 8 hours of sleep that he recommends for everyone.  He says that sleep deficits build up and Have To Be recovered, however long that can take.


As a  young man, I never slept more than 4 or 5 hours a night.  For instance, on weeknights I would stay us to watch Jack Paar, or Johnny Carson.. or whoever.. until 1 am... then I would go to bed and get up around 6 am to lift weights until I had breakfast and left for work that began at 8:30 am.  I did that for years... so my sleep deficit must be enormous.


After learning the mechanics of sleep, I had a couple of questions that I wanted to ask the professor..


 1.  What about "loss" dreams?


Example: After my wife died in 2000, I would have recurring dreams where we would be going somewhere and when I turned to look at something .. when I turned back.. my wife would be gone and I would spend a long time trying to find her.. but not finding her.


I had those dreams for  years.  And what about the dream I mentioned last week... during the day I had stood at the statue holding my wife's ashes and thought deeply about her.. later that night, I had a dream where I was to meet her at a restaurant.. as I came to the restaurant, I saw her inside and she saw me and she smiled her famous smile.... but when I went in, she wasn't there.  (I still almost cry when I recall that dream.)


The professor did not get into such dreams., in fact, he did not say anything significant (in my opinion) about the meaning of dreams.


2.  What about sleep learning?


During the 1950's, I obtained a German Grundig tape recorder and played German tapes through headsets while I slept.   I believed that I was able to learn German that way.    However, after the 50's, such learning was said to be "debunked" and disregarded. I still did it a bit in college.


The professor did read my mind on this subject and elaborated.  He said that studies in Israel are showing valid results for some kinds of sleep learning... I don't want to get into his technical explanation for this; however, he did predict great things for sleep learning in the  years to come.


02.  Cousin Charlie


As an empath, news about my cousin, Charlie K., is affecting my sleep.  Charlie is undergoing dialysis and also just had surgery to implant a heart monitor, a pacemaker.  Charlie and I grew up in New Bedford, and I have always looked on him as my younger brother. 


Charlie is a brilliant person who made some important discoveries in Physics.  He is also a great family man and an asset  to his community in Pennsylvania.   He does not deserve to suffer as he has for some time now.  But he is resilient, and will overcome his current  physical problems.  Meanwhile, I will just suffer a bit along with him, empathetically.. I just hope that I can draw off some of his pain and make his life more comfortable.  
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