Happy Valley & Oxygen

Hello again. I think I said that same thing last year. Well, here I am again. I stopped posting just after the New Year to get back to writing a novel I began almost ten years ago. And I'm happy to say that it's now finished. It's called Happy Valley (a really trite name but it was the best I could come up with). It's about a retired English teacher who now lives in a retirement city called, naturally, Happy Valley, which is really a thinly disguised Sun City West, where I and my wife now reside. Nothing very unusual or dramatic happens during this man's life, but I think it's a life that's interesting enough to be the basis for a novel. I would hope that some of my readers might buy it and judge for themselves. It's available through Amazon (what else?) as an e-book for $1.99 or as a paperback for $10.00. Click here for purchase.

What else has gone on this year? Well, I had a near-death experience with pneumonia that put me in the hospital for more than a week. It was determined there that in addition to pneumonia, I also had pulmonary fibrosis and a diseased heart. How's that for a triple-header? I've been out of the hospital for about a month, living on oxygen, a condition that appears to be mine for the rest of my life. I don't find that having an oxygen line trailing after you everywhere you go in the house is a happy experience. It also makes trips away from the house awkward. But I'm ordering a portable oxygen concentrator that should make it much less awkward. It's a little expensive, but what choice do I have>? It weighs five pounds, runs on lithium batteries that are good for up to ten hours, and is very quiet so that it won't bother other people at a movie theater or restaurant. I guess I'll get used to it. I guess I'll have to get used to it. The alternatives aren't very good.

I plan to write two or three blog posts every week, just as I did in the past. I have lots of Trumpisms to catch up on. Will I ever run out of things to say about the Donald? I don't think so.