the Curmudgeon takes the CPAP on it's first road trip.

First trip with the breathing machine, otherwise known as the CPAP. Guess it went okay although it is a bit of a hassle to lug another case plus the distilled water jug. The alternative is no longer an option, and it gives me something else to complain about.

Johannes Brahms – “A Symphony is No Joke.”

Minimalistic design that only has four parts Forehead support designed to easily flex to the needed position for a better fit

Air vents designed for quieter and gentler air diffusion to reduce noise

"Positive airway pressure (PAP) is the most common form of treatment for obstructive sleep apnea (OSA).  OSA occurs when the tissue in the back of the throat collapses and blocks the airway as you sleep.  This causes you to stop breathing many times during the night. Breathing pauses can last from a few seconds to minutes. They may occur 30 times or more an hour.  PAP supplies a steady stream of air that blows gently into the back of your throat.  When it is properly set, a PAP unit provides just the right amount of air to keep your airway open.  This allows you to breathe normally as you sleep.  The level of air pressure needed is different for each person.  A CPAP study at a sleep center will determine the level that is right for you." from UCLA sleep disorders center (see more here)


 "Sleep Apnea usually is a chronic (ongoing) condition that disrupts your sleep. When your breathing pauses or becomes shallow, you’ll often move out of deep sleep and into light sleep.  As a result, the quality of your sleep is poor, which makes you tired during the day. Sleep apnea is a leading cause of excessive daytime sleepiness."   National Institutes of Health

Bottom line, if you want to keep breathing, and you are accused of snoring, best to get yourself checked out or go sleep with the dog.

Celebrities with the disorder include:

Rosie O'Donnell was diagnosed with sleep apnea in 2007, and she discussed her sleep problems on The View. "I didn't know that I had it, but I suspected," O'Donnell said on the show, adding that she had been a little embarrassed about the issue because of the well-known connection between sleep apnea and excess weight. She underwent a sleep study and found out that she had more than 200 micro-awakenings (waking events that you might not even notice or remember) a night and once stopped breathing for about 40 seconds.

Shaquille O'Neal 

Nicole Alexander, the 7-foot-1-inch retired basketball legend's former girlfriend  actually noticed that Shaq would snore deeply through the night and sometimes stop breathing.

Roseanne Barr

In an episode of her reality show "Roseanne's Nuts" called Life's a Snore, Barr attends a sleep clinic to address her snoring problem, where she receives a diagnosis of sleep apnea.

Reggie White   The late Reggie White, a National Football League Hall of Famer who led the Green Bay Packers to a win in Super Bowl XXXI, had also been diagnosed with sleep apnea. In 2004, he died of the rare lung disease sarcoidosis at age 43, and it's possible that his sleep problems contributed to his early death. White's wife, Sara, co-founded the Reggie White Sleep Disorders Research & Education Foundation in his honor. The foundation's goal is to raise awareness of sleep disorders and make CPAP machines available to those in need.

Thomas Edison: About eight hours of sleep a night is the ideal for most people. But Thomas Edison is rumored to have worked and slept in alternating fits and starts, sleeping only four hours a night and taking frequent power naps during the day. This lifestyle of napping, working, and sleeping in short spurts multiple times a day is sometimes referred to as polyphasic sleep. Other notables who followed a similar pattern are Leonardo DaVinci, Nikola Tesla, and Napoleon.

Jerry in 1968

Jerry Garcia  the lead singer of the Grateful Dead, Garcia also had sleep apnea.  Jerry passed away in 1995 from a heart attack that his doctors say was exacerbated by sleep apnea. If Jerry were with us today, he’d probably go for something like the AirFit P10 Mask System, which is one of the quietest and lightest masks around and would accommodate that amazing mane of curly white locks and really good vibes.

Even with the CPAP, my sleep pattern is more like Thomas Edisons (polyphasic sleep).  My sleep therapist seems okay with that though he would prefer that I get a straight, uninterrupted 8 hours.  Both he and I are resigned to the fact that it ain't going to happen.   

Curmudgeon heads to his home town, Saint Paul MN

Just back from Saint Paul, and a few places north of there, to work on some genealogy stuff and meet cousins who I didn't know existed until recently.  There was snow cover but a 70 degree day helped wipe out much of the previous week's 10 inch snow.

I promise nothing about F. Scott Fitzgerald or John Dillinger.  Those two personalities, with Minnesota connections, have been over-reported and though I still find the fascination with Dillinger fascinating, I won't go there. Not too many places in Minnesota that don't claim a Dillinger sighting. Best book on Dillinger in Saint Paul is the Paul Maccabee book, John Dillinger Slept Here.

James J. Hill Reference Library, Saint Paul Minnesota

One story I find interesting is the one about Sinclair Lewis and his move to Saint Paul's Summit Avenue to write a novel about James J. Hill.   He moved in just down the block from the Hill residence.  As he set about his research he found it overwhelming and gave up.  Understandable since the James J. Hill personal papers alone consist of 672.0 cu. ft. including 1231 boxes, 65 folders, 49 tubes, and 175 microfilm reels.

Sinclair Lewis Residence, 516 Summit Ave

The Lewis research is mentioned in correspondence to Alfred Harcourt.  "...'actually spent a couple of weeks reading oceans of dope'. Nothing came of it for he says he was baffled and that he couldn’t find his way out." Mark Schorer, Sinclair Lewis. An American Life.

"The year 1917 saw him (S. Lewis) residing in St. Paul, in a lemon colored brick house on Summit Avenue... During this Minnesota sojourn, He also visited the Cass Lake lumber camps and slept in a bunkhouse." The Minnesota Backgrounds of Sinclair Lewis' Fiction by John T. Flanagan, Minnesota History, Vol. 37, No. 1 (Mar., 1960)

The year 1917 was also my father's birth year in Cass Lake, Minnesota.  Sinclair had probably come and gone before dad opened his eyes.  Grandpa very possibly was working in the lumber camps.

Very curmudgeonly of Sinclair when he wrote on April 8, 1942: "Minneapolis is so ugly. Parking lots like scabs. Most buildings are narrow, drab, dirty, flimsy, irregular—in relationship to one another—a set of bad teeth." Lewis quoted in Esquire, 50:161.   Of course being of the same persuasion about Minneapolis, by birthright, (bad pun) I agree. 

"Those who knew Sinclair Lewis well found him alternately kind or curmudgeonly, swinger or recluse, liberal or petty, generous to rivals or nasty behind their backs, appalled by Main Street but nostalgic for its barbershop gusto, a slapdash stylist who made careful chronologies and street maps for his novels, a dissipated wassailer who arose at 4:30 to write until breakfast and then steadily into the afternoon." Mark Schorer, Sinclair Lewis. An American Life.

 One of my favorite Minnesota authors was Bill Holm. "He called himself a curmudgeon, and he was, but he was a really brilliant thinker and writer and musician (a pianist),... He was a Walt Whitman scholar. He was a contemporary Mark Twain." from Minnesota mourns the loss of author Bill Holm by Casey Selix and Amy Goetzman  02/26/09 in MINNPOST (see the whole article here)  

I have most of the Bill Holm's books, most I have read.  Two of my favorites: 

Boxelder Bug Variations: A Meditation on an Idea in Language and Music This collection of poems, prose, and songs illuminates the broad imagination of Bill Holm as he contemplates the mysteries of life and beauty while musing about the state of the boxelder bug. (from the publisher) This was my first acquaintance with Bill Holm.  I went to a party for some friends who were moving out of state. I thought the book an amusing gift since their home had a infestation of the miserable little things. I must have drunk too much wine for when I got home I found the book was still in my coat pocket. Probably a good thing.

and this is probably my favorite: 

                                   The Heart Can Be Filled Anywhere on Earth

Growing up, Bill Holm knew what failure was: "to die in Minneota." But after returning to his hometown ("a very small dot on an ocean of grass") after 20 years' absence, he wasn't so sure. Finding pleasure in the customs and characters of small-town life, in The Heart Can Be Filled Anywhere on Earth he writes with affection about the town elders, seen by those in the outside world as misfits and losers. "They taught me what to value, what to ignore, what to embrace, and what to resist." In his trek through the heartland, Holm covers a satisfyingly wide emotional terrain, from scandalous affairs in the 1950s to his aunt's touching attempts to transcend poverty with perfume and movie-star airs. (from the publisher)


Other curmudgeons in Minnesota:

On the political front is Lawrence R. Jacobs.

He calls himself the Liberal Curmudgeon.  He is the Walter F. and Joan Mondale Chair for Political Studies and Director of the Center for the Study of Politics and Governance in the Hubert H. Humphrey School and the Department of Political Science at the University of Minnesota. His center is a preeminent hub for political and policy analysis in the Midwest. (see more here)

On the other side of the aisle is the Right Curmudgeon. "The Right Curmudgeon is dedicated to finding nuggets in current news stories that the politicians and the media would just as soon you miss. Our mission is to help keep you informed, armed with the facts to counter the Left’s feelings, and hopefully to make you both think and smile every day."  Michael Becker is a Curmudgeon, and true to curmudgeon form, he’s crotchety and he bites.  In addition to his blogging home at The Right Curmudgeon, he’s a regular contributor at The Minority Report, Wizbang, Unified Patriots and Joe for America.(see more here)  

I think I once found something we agreed about but I can't think of what it was.

Back to the frigid Mount where temps have not moved out of the mid 30's since our return.  We may have to re-evaluate our garden planting.  More snow peas and snowball cauliflower.

The Curmudgeon ventures forth

It's been a long hard winter on the Mount.  April 4th and the ground is still frozen.  When we tried to dislodge some of the sunflowers that were left in to feed the winter birds, they wouldn't budge.  That would be the sunflower stalks that didn't budge.  There weren't too many birds to worry about.  

We are already weeks behind our usual time to start mucking around in the garden.    

First stop this morning was at Strands where the step daughter works.  I think the deal is she cuts my hair in exchange for the money I loaned her to get her car fixed.  According to my calculations,  we should be square by about 2056, long after the time that I will know if she is cutting my hair or not.  Maybe I'll put in my will that she doesn't have to cut my hair after I'm dead.   

Unfortunately, Strands is now located on the other end of the village, about five round-a-bouts away.  I have a few good things to say about round-a-bouts but I can't think of what they are right now. 

She keeps trying to pawn her two pugs off on me. I have enough trouble getting up and down the stairs now without adding pug pee times to my ups and downs.

The big talk up town is that the Wisconsin Badgers are in the final four in the NCAA basketball tournament.

  

I know the game against Kentucky will have been played by the time I get this blog posted so if I think of it, I will tack on the score here.   Wisconsin 73  Kentucky 74

I wasn't planning on watching the game, since I disconnected the TV after the Brewer's disappointment of a couple of years ago. Anyway that's the story I've been repeating.

The only time I miss the tube is for a big game like this.  Some how I have survived without all the political announcements and advertisements, and I've certainly been able to read a lot more books.  

Spotted Cow happens to be my beer of choice, so this sign is particularly welcoming.  I could be happy just seeing the sign but since I'm there, I will keep the appointment with my Swiss curmudgeon buddy.  I have saved the following lineup for frequent perusal.  I have tried many in that lineup but Spotted Cow is my usual choice.   

The Swiss curmudgeon and I usually trade rants before discussing the latest book reads over multiple cups of coffee.  It helps to tidy up the spleen and take some of the pressure off the other people who may be the unfortunate few who cross our paths.  Check out some of the latest spleen studies and you will see the scientific research that has been done on this need to cleanse.  

One of my favorite R. Crumb characters has been Mr. Natural, though sometimes I can't remember that name, and again just recently called him Mr. Sunshine.  Once I get this spleen taken care of, I will start working on the brain.  

The more I think of it, I should have added R. Crumb to my original curmudgeon list.  I often agree with his attitude although at times he seems to go over the top. (his official web site here)


On my way back to the Mount, I did manage to take a couple of photos.  So what you see in the next two photos are road views between New Glarus and the Mount on County Highway JG.  It was cold and the snow was still clutching the valleys and the northern slopes. 

Back on the Mount heading for home.  Main Street and 2nd Street at the Opera House corner. ...and an afternoon nap. 

to my fellow Gout Sufferers

Gout, doctors tell us, "is caused by the deposition of monosodium urate crystals in the joints. These build up when there is an excess of uric acid in the blood, which the body cannot excrete. Being relatively insoluble, the uric acid crystallizes and forms deposits, usually in the extremities - usually the big toe or ankle, sometimes the fingers or wrist. These crystals are excruciatingly painful..."

 The pain, accurately described by the physician Thomas Sydenham 300 years ago as 'violent, stretching, gnawing . . . so exquisite that it cannot bear the weight of bedclothes' still seems accurate.  The big difference today is a more sympathetic medical profession,  fellow sufferers who have heightened awareness and the drugs.  

Gout is as old as civilization. Indeed, there is a strong argument that it is a disease of civilization.  I guess the message here is that we goutists, yes that's a word, and I have the web site evidence to prove it, best take our malady seriously.  Watch your diet, avoid alcoholic beverages, shellfish, asparagus and any other foods which are high in uric acid.  Keep the emergency meds close at hand and avoid punching out the sniggerers. There are a number of on-line gout support groups.  I have linked to the one sponsored by the Arthritis Foundation called Tackle Gout.

Curmudgeon Company

H. L Mencken 

cur·mudg·eon  

 [ker-muhj-uhn] 

noun: a bad tempered, difficult, cantankerous person.

Related forms: cur·mudg·eon·ly, adjective

Synonyms: grouch, crank, bear, sourpuss, crosspatch.

Using Curmudgeon in a Sentence

•  Lovable curmudgeon of 60 Minutes, Andy Rooney, dead at 92
• Perhaps all this has made me into an old curmudgeon that has little sympathy for what has gone on, in or out, of academia.
• Our friend and colleague Bob Whatshisname tells us that he is studying to become a curmudgeon in his old age. (Get a life Bob, either you is one or you ain't)

In 2015, National Curmudgeon Day better be on January 29th.

"The only thing that holds a marriage together is the husband being big enough to step back and see where the wife is wrong"  Archie Bunker



Oh and I almost forgot one of my favorites. Throughout his career, Edmund Wilson would often answer fan mail and outside requests for his time with this form postcard:

Edmund Wilson regrets that it is impossible for him to: Read manuscripts, write books and articles to order, write forewords or introductions, make statements for publicity purposes, do any kind of editorial work, judge literary contests, give interviews, conduct educational courses, deliver lectures, give talks or make speeches, broadcast or appear on television, take part in writer's congresses, answer questionnaires, contribute to or take part in symposiums or 'panels' of any kind, contribute manuscripts for sales, donate copies of his books to libraries, autograph books for strangers, allow his name to be used on letterheads, supply personal information about himself, supply photographs of himself, supply opinions on literary or other subjects

Old Curmudgeon

Old Curmudgeon is a well received beer from Founder’s Brewery. It’s an Old Ale, which means that Founder’s brews the beer then they let it age in oak barrels before bottling it. This gives the beer a very rich malt flavor that tastes like it would be at home in a port town. The brewing process involves molasses that offers some sweetness, but only enough to complement what is already given to the beer by the malt. It’s pretty high ABV at 9.8% so it is perfect for when it’s chilly outside. Address: 235 Grandville Ave SW, Grand Rapids, MI 49503