Tue 03 Mar 26: Today's a pretty busy day, but thankfully all piled into one part of the day -- so they're all over with at one time. Not frequent, but blissful when it happens Am better... but still not 100% Have congestion lingering, as well as coughing fits that last only a few seconds, drat. Was going to chance doing laps today but thought better as my schedule's going to be rather draining on the whole. Knee thankfully is the least of my concerns (again, doing the post-meal walking in place 10 mins, has been super-effective at preventing the usual stiffness prior to injury). Well enough to work and am not contagious, main thing Starbies has gone to plastic cups again, will small miracles never cease Am pretty much over leaky, lid-ejecting paper cups that soften to fruit leather if an iced drink's brimmed in it >10 mins. Do like the environmental responsibility of paper... but if the plastic has enough organic, compostable content to offset its environmental impact, please greenlight that sh*t yesterday Hate having no say in leaky cups because it's too expensive to mfr ones that don't, for a multinational One improvement over the older no-conscience-plastic ones: the lids are of a breakaway design -- so you can hold a full Trenta drink with fingers around the rim, as myself and obvi many others do on a daily basis to lift out of a car's drink wells... and the lid perimeter's designed so it non-destructively breaks away, rather than 'un-lid' -- dropping your $8 Venti 24oz of Java Chip Frap onto your kicks, or your white carpet. For liquid drinks it's again a sippy-cup design, which unsurprisingly I hate but isn't going away, also a breakaway design. The tradeoff (because there's always some), is once snapped on, the lids are quite difficult to get off, ime needing a special tq (take both thumbs about an inch apart, and watch the top of the cup rim through the lid -- wedge thumbtips under the lid and push inward / upward with both thumbs until it clears a few mil; only then can be lifted off. Doing it w/o this method ime, usually results in destructive modification So make sure when you order, to give the barista every optional ingredient -- because taking it off because you're helium-blonde today, will take a while Weather's all over the place here -- have seen cloud formations in shapes and sizes and altitudes I've never seen all my years being raised and living here, multiple times in life. Mornings are almost always 'red sky in morning, sailors take warning'... supposedly due to a wonked-out La Niña... who knows. But a much more dynamic and rainy Spring than last year (to my car's filthy detriment). Oh -- for those who do lots of hard exertion with the hands on a daily basis (radio antenna techs, pro rock climbers, bakers, pottery throwers or sculptors, massage therapists, bodyworkers) -- pulling the fingers and twisting them, staves off the encroachment of osteoarthritis, esp in those who used them hardest. My own fingers are beginning to show the effects of all this dead-weight-lifting of 230-lb men atop my palm-up hands, feeling for and treating TrPs in the back and shoulder girdle. But steady use of this tq when they bother me, defo keeps me working. Works for toes too, for those who depend on proper function and strength in the toes (comm'l painters, arborists, masons, trail guides, martial artists / grapplers)
Wed 04 Mar 26: Yep -- still have a cold Like junk mail, it's hovering somewhere between 'have a coughing fit every few hours' and 'man, walking to the car's never winded me before'. No fever, no sputum other than completely clear, and sleep thru the night fine. WTFITBS Anyhow... clients today were strangely light, and of those, wham-bam-ty-damn jobs Which is fine, yesterday was a somewhat exhausting day, esp for hands / fingers. Remember if you're male and into geezer years in 50s, joint pain in the fingers can be dealt with over the long-term, but simply pulling and twisting them regularly, esp after exertion. This both forces the articular surfaces apart so synovial fluid (the protein-rich lubricant and food source for each joint capsule's living articular surface cells) can get between them to lube, nourish, and heal... and breaks up encroaching formation of Ca deposits in the joint so it can be reabsorbed, from when you didn't do the pull / twist however many years / decades. 50s is when males typically develop arthritic problems bad enough to cause pain / debility... but WMMV depending on 'git'erdun, don't-eat-rabbit-food diets Done this since hearing of the tq as a fresh apprentice... and 15+ yrs later, hasn't let me down yet. Won't override ingrained-since-teens habits of too much processed red meat / sugar / salt / fried food in cheap-a$$ seed oils, too little water / EVOO / unprocessed greens-beans-veg, nor a drive-thru diet (all of the above ). But if that part of your life's dialed and still have joint pain using hands hard for work / hobby... this can stave off at least hand arthritis for decades. Mentor's over 80 and still works bodies w/ no hand osteoarthritis, been a bodyworker since '92 Looking at glyNAC -- a supp that combines glycine, an amino acid involved in cellular repair and liver function... and NAC (N-acetyl-cysteine) for cysteine, another amino known to boost immune response against viral infection -- to see if it does more than NAC alone. NAC works like a charm for certain viral infections (ime, viral styes which I used to get about every other winter since 40s, until finding NAC), but doesn't seem to do much against whatever viral squatter I currently have. This is what I've learnt about glycine, cysteine, and glutamine: all are conditionally-vital but not essential, amino acids all are needed to form glutathione, a tri-peptide used by the body to boost metabolism prevent oxidative damage detox metabolites of such damage (including xenobiotics) keeping vit C and E in their active states immune defense (esp viral infection) If you take NAC (cysteine) alone, you raise glutathione slightly. If you take glycine alone, same. Glutamine of the 3 is abundant in the human body w/o supplementation. Glycine is most rare of the 3 -- so makes logical sense to supplement glycine & NAC together, to raise glutathione highest. Cysteine is also a trigger and checksum on the other two to make glutathione... so supplementing glycine alone, despite the body initially making glutathione... will lead to rapid slowing of its formation, w/o cysteine (glycine's half-life in the body's already short, at half - 4 hrs -- if free glycine's instead used to make glutathione instead of being metabolised for excretion, more robust immune response and other glutathione functions towards vitality, seems logical). If my suspicions about this med I'm taking and its deleterious effect on immune response via liver stress are true (the podiatrist's canny evasion of questions about it, raised my hackles a bit)... then at least glyNAC will help improve liver function despite the med. But if it helps rid me of this goddamned cold too... can stop bitching about it on this journal
