Pushing Forward Back September/October 2020

Pushing Forward Back, What I'm Listening To, What I'm Reading, What I'm watching, What We're Watching

Read

  • The Crime at Black Dudley by Margery Allingham
  • The Thin Man by Dashiell Hammett
  • The Moving Target by Ross Macdonald
  • Cadillac Beach by Tim Dorsey
  • Last Bus To Woodstock by Colin Dexter

Watched

  • Endeavour, Series 3 and Series 4
  • Eureka, part of Season 3
  • Mystery Road, Series One
  • The Song Remains The Same
  • The Train (1964)

Listened To

  • Gold Record by Bill Callahan
  • Comma by Sam Prekop
  • Shore by Fleet Foxes
  • Untitled (Rise) by Sault
  • Whole New Mess by Angel Olsen

Highlights of the Past Month

  • In bold in the lists above are my picks of the month as must-read, must-watch and must-listen-to, with the corresponding photos above each category. In the music category, it was close with Angel Olsen’s and Fleet Foxes’ new albums also more than worth a listen.
  • On a personal level, the big highlight of the month was the resolution of a dispute between the hospital and our insurance company from my knee surgery last year for a bill for $11,000. The short version is that after several months, we now owe nothing.
  • Other highlights included getting a light therapy lamp to help with Seasonal Affective Disorder, getting a meditation app called Insight Timer to help me be more mindful at work and at home, and getting rid of an old air conditioner and loveseat. Unfortunately in the case of the latter, while moving the loveseat out of the house, I dropped it on one of my barefoot toes (I know, really smart), which looks pretty gnarly. I’m going to see my primary on Friday to see if she thinks I need to get an X-ray.

Ahead to October

However, it’s not all bad or potentially bad for me for the month of October. I’m beginning the month continuing to read The Life We Bury by Allen Eskens and Wherever You Go, There You Are by Jon Kabat-Zinn, both of which I started this past weekend and both of which I’m enjoying. My wife and I also are looking forward to rewatching Season 6 of Schitt’s Creek, which drops Oct. 7 on Netflix. Of course, as I am writing this, I remember that we already own the sixth season on Prime because we couldn’t wait for it to come out on Netflix and bought it earlier this year so we actually can watch it again whenever. We also are awaiting the release of the new album, Chemtrails Over The Country Club, by Lana Del Rey that originally was supposed to drop in September, but hopefully will drop this coming month.

On a personal note, hopefully, thanks to the light therapy, I will be able to wake up earlier to journal, to walk and…well…just to be awake before going to work.

I’ll leave you with a taste of Lana with Matt Maeson:

How was your month of September? Read any good books, seen any good movies and/or TV shows, listened to any good music? What was the highlight of your month? What are you most looking forward to in October? Share in the comments.

Update, Friday, Oct. 2: My doctor said the top part of my toe was broken, even without having me getting an X-ray. She taped it together with the nearest toe and told me to take Tylenol or ibuprofen for the swelling and pain. She estimated it could take up to 12 weeks to heal. But that I might still be feeling pain in it for up to six months. If it looks bad after a couple of weeks, she said that I could call and she’d prescribe an antibiotic if infected.

Further update, Saturday, Oct. 3: After a little research, I ordered some toe wraps and a special shoe for the broken toe (middle toe on the left foot) on Amazon, all for under $50. I figured it couldn’t hurt to try to see if they help with the healing and, in the case of the shoe, keeping in mind while walking around the house to watch that I don’t bang into anything else with the broken toe.

Published by Bryan G. Robinson

Blogger formerly known as Unfinished Person. Still an unfinished person...

Published

13 thoughts on “Pushing Forward Back September/October 2020”

  2. Happy for you that you won your dispute for the $11K. And I hope light therapy helps with your SAD. Have you tried 5 HTP? You’ve got me curious about the Insight Timer app.

    So sorry to hear about your toe. Yikes, that must have hurt!

    Enjoy your reading week!

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  3. September was a hard month for me given my mom’s death. I don’t think I finished any books at all. I’m hoping things will be better this month. Starting today. It’s my birthday! What can go wrong?

    It’s a great idea just to tune out the world like you did last week. I would have loved to do that with the debate, and managed not to watch it, but my husband watched it so I heard all the dirty details anyway.

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  4. I am very fortunate that I have never broken any bones. Not even a toe… But my deepest sympathy! Health insurance fights, that I know too well however. Seems that most of us do!

    My September was great and we just returned from holidays. Here’s my latest update: The Sunday Post #13

    Thanks for the heads up for Mystery Road.

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  5. I fell two years ago when I was coming home from a librarian party at a conference in Dallas, and I tried to catch myself with my hand. My thumb was bleeding heavily and it hurt, but I decided to wait until the next day to go to the doctor. It wasn’t broken, but the bone had popped out and pushed through the skin. It only took a few minutes to have the doctor numb it and pop the bone back into place, but it took forever (I received 28 bills) to get the insurance resolved (Workman’s Comp covered everything because I was at a conference…go figure). I still can’t bend it much. My friend (my age) broke her arm and it took a good year to heal. It still hurts her sometimes.

    I hope your toe heals completely and it does this quickly.

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  6. Broken toes are no joke. They seem to take forever to heal and there isn’t really a whole lot you can do about them. Sorry to hear yours is officially broken! My September reading was pretty good with a real mix of YA and adult. With Nonfiction November coming up, I look forward to tackling some nonfiction soon.

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    1. It didn’t look good on Monday night but has been looking slightly better every day since so I’ll take that. I think I did Nonfiction November last year, but this year, to be honest, I think everything has been all too real and I’ll probably be skipping.

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  7. I smashed my foot so badly once and walked on it for weeks and it was crushed. The only reason why I ended up at the doc is because I eventually could not wear a shoe and there was a hot spot on my leg which I worried was a blood clot. The doc told me some of my bones were crushed and actually already reabsorbed. Don’t be Ti. They couldn’t do anything at that point but give me a boot. No permanent damage except some numbness in one spot.

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  8. Those hospital/insurance issues can be nuts. We had a case like that when Morrigan was born, because they kept billing my college health insurance when they were supposed to be billing Jason’s work insurance. They spent YEARS trying to tell us we owed over $23k when we actually owed about $500.

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