Trippin' with Susan Straley

Sunday, March 29, 2020 The surreal situation, we are now living through a pandemic that has: Put millions of people out of work because businesses have been closed; Overwhelmed medical hospitals as they try to keep their staff healthy while testing and treating those sick with this highly contagious illness; (There is not enough protective equipment.) Orders coming over our cell phones telling everyone 65 and older to stay home!  Shutter in place, don't go out unless it is essential; What is considered essential is grocery trips, pharmacy trips, and exercise in the fresh air. Thank goodness we can go outside and exercise! This amount of allowed (or recommended) activity is so much MORE freedom of movement than what Ann Frank experienced.  Ann Frank and her family were stuck inside in an attic hiding from the Nazis for 470 days. And they had to do it quietly.   For us today, there are no enforcement of the shelter-in-place recommendations, just civic duty.  Of course,

3/18/2020 COVID-19 Changes It is Wednesday, a lovely warm sunny day in Florida.  I decide that even with the "Social Distancing" that we are trying to abide by, I can go to exercise and yoga at the club house. Why? 1) there are only three of us spread out in that big room. 2) I decided to disinfect my hands before entering 3) I brought along a rag to touch any door handles or remote controls. 4) None of us are coughing It was great to be back among my friends and neighbors.  We did the "Covid Hug" which is standing far away from each other and putting our arms up like cactus arms and moving them up and down.  I know, corny.  But it makes us smile and feel loved, and THAT is so important.  ************** For those of you in the future reading this, in 2019 there was a flu that only resided in animals, but one day in 2019 it morphed and transferred into a human and then transferred human to human.  This flu, as I understand it, can sit on a har

December 1, 2019 Today I get to go ride the Van Fleet Trail!  I don't know if anyone is going to be riding the trail with me.  It is one of the rides that the Withlacoochee Riders schedule during the winter season. I DO know that Will Byers and maybe Marie Adams will be riding toward me from Polk City.  (Remember I met up with Will and his group in the Everglades for a moonlight ride on the Shark Valley Trail?) I probably won't ride all the way to Polk City.  That is 60 miles and my hip doesn't like my trike seat much these days. I was thinking the other day that my hip started hurting after I changed the webbing on my seat.  The new webbing that Catrike has for the seats has more pockets in back of the seat, BUT it doesn't tighten as much.  The straps are pulled all the way and the webbing still sags.  I want to go back to the old seat!!!  I guess I will contact them and see if they still make them. Wouldn't it be great if all I have to do is change we

Hello, It is Wednesday, November 20, 2019 Today I was interviewed on our local TV station.  They were nice enough to share the program with me.  I added the captions to clarify what we were talking about.  It is about nine minutes. How do you like that cover picture?  Ha ha, what does it look like?  Leave a comment and let me know.  The big thing was I offered the first 20 people who sign up to Join the fun here on this blog a FREE download of the Audio Book of Alzheimer's Trippin' with George.  If you don't get email alerts to let you know I have posted, then you need to click the "Join the Fun" tab above and enter you email. So... first about the books and then about the rest of life... THE JOURNEY CONTINUES Some of you have been asking when book two THE JOURNEY CONTINUES will be out on ebook.   You have been anxiously awaiting. December 4th it launches!   And guess what!  You can pre-order the ebook now and it will download on Wednesday,

 It is Tuesday, October 29, 2019 and my mind and body are all over the place. Before I get into what I have been up to, I want to share a statistic put out by the Associated Press.   More than five million people in the United States have Alzheimer's Disease. We have just over 329 million people in the USA.  So five million is a lot, but it is less than two percent of the population. Now that figure doesn't tell us how many have dementia .  Remember that dementia is the set of symptoms.  You can think of dementia as the umbrella of symptoms.  Under those symptoms are many reasons, diagnoses, or folders .   Debbie Selsalvage says the folder under the umbrella with the most papers in it (people or cases) is Alzheimer's Disease.   There are many, many causes of dementia symptoms.  Some of them are curable.  That is why it is good to get to the doctor if you or a loved one is showing symptoms.  Sometimes it is just a vitamin deficiency, a tumor, or a medication si

I was up at 4:45 because I was keyed up about beating the heat on my cycling trip home.  I would be riding from Tarpon Springs to Inverness, a ride of over 80 miles.  It had been a few years since I had ridden that far, I was a bit nervous. It was predicted to be 95 degrees, humid, and sunny on Sunday.  I packed two thermoses of ice water, a bottle of Gatorade, and a baggie with salty pretzels and nuts.  If I am smart and keep re-filling my waters, I should be ok. My neck had stopped hurting during my day of rest.  I had bought a bottle of Hydrogen Peroxide and was swishing it around my chipped tooth two and three times a day.  It had done the trick! Sunday morning is a good time to travel by bike.  The traffic is lighter because many sleep in or sit in church pews. I assembled my things and got them all packed on the bike and was riding by 5:30 in the dark.  I was glad I had packed my front light and a flashing back light because it was very dark when I departed Ellen's ho