Another Week: Number 48
Amy’s oncologist has discontinued the Taxol in her chest port. Instead, Amy will add a new drug — Piqray — via two more daily pills at dinnertime, plus a couple of periodic shots in her buttocks, plus a couple of blood glucose finger-stick readings each week because Piqray can impact blood sugars and insulin.
We also met with Amy’s neuro-oncologist, who said “stable is good” and wants to see her in two months.
Thanksgiving itself was just the two of us, at home. I picked up four turkey thighs at Piggly Wiggly and gradually learned to cook them over the four-day weekend. The first one was leathery, but the last one was juicy. Brownberry’s bagged sage and onion stuffing was fairly crappy. Amy ate a Bosc pear, then spent most of Thursday in bed with a heating pad on her stomach. Downstairs, I watched the Green Bay Packers beat the Detroit Lions four days after the Chicago Bears’ pathetic collapse.
On Black Friday, Amy’s oncologist phoned. Her new scans show the blood clots in her lungs getting worse, so she’s been ordered back on Xarelto, which was paused when her platelets crashed on October 8th, and which she’s been asking about since then.
Her voice is weak and she can seem out of it at times, yet she still cracks some very perceptive jokes.
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Samsung Portable SSD T7 Shield
Switching to a laptop back in July as my primary work machine brought with it the need to modernize my external storage. The 8TB hard drive on my desk is bulky, requires a power adapter, and can often take four hours to perform backup operations. SSD storage is much smaller, can be powered through the port, and finishes in a few minutes.
I do have a couple of 1TB SanDisk SSDs, but that brand has been seriously questioned in recent months, so I have been eyeing Samsung’s Portable SSD T7 Shield, figuring that two 4TB units could replace my 8TB hard drive.
Then the price dropped 16 percent ahead of Black Friday.
And then I read a story about how SSD prices are expected to jump in the near future.
So I pulled the trigger and bought a pair.
They are small — roughly the size of a dozen stacked credit cards. They are black and have a rubberized protective outer covering.
And they are fast. Bada bing bada boom – stuff is backed up, and big 4K video files are instantly available for editing. There are no grinding noises.
I am truly living in the future.
The National Dog Show
Amy loves dogs, and so she loves dog shows.
The Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show is the best dog show, but we don’t have cable.
The National Dog Show is apparently a Thanksgiving tradition and it’s on NBC — but it airs opposite football and Amy was up in bed.
However, via Peacock, you can stream not only this year’s National Dog Show but also ten previous years’ shows.
Also, Peacock offered a $19.99 Black Friday deal for a year of the service.
So now we have Peacock once again.
We watched The National Dog Show on Friday. It was okay. It’s heavily edited to cram the whole event plus commercials into two hours. It doesn’t have the esoterica or the suspense of the Westminster show. The announcers keep reminding you that you can watch complete judging segments on YouTube, which makes you wonder why you’re watching this condensed version at all.
But we now have Peacock again for a full year — Morning Joe, Poker Face, and probably some other things.
And so on Saturday, we watched Why Is This Happening? Live with Chris Hayes & Rachel Maddow. This was a great conversation. If you don’t have Peacock, you can listen to it on TuneIn.
Austin City Limits: Foo Fighters
This is the third time in recent weeks that I’m writing about the greatest music show in TV history.
On Saturday night, we watched this season’s Foo Fighters installment, and it was good. Amy loves the Foo Fighters and kept it loud even after I passed her the remote control early on.
Even though the Foo Fighters and Dave Grohl’s screams have been recklessly overexposed for the last decade or two, this episode consisted largely of newer, less familiar tunes — and there is nothing better than ACL’s audio and video production.
The thing that struck me, however, was the way the show ended with Grohl doing a solo version of “Everlong.” It seemed odd to have the rest of the band already gone from the stage and him taking their farewell applause alone.
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