If I press pause long enough to reflect on my wife’s Multiple Systems Atrophy, and the toll it is taking on her and us, it’s almost too much to bear. So I tend not to. Yes, you’re right, of course it will catch up with me eventually. Right now, cue the cliche, it’s one task and one day at a time.

Even though I resist completely coming to a stop, I do sporadically slow down enough to take account of ways that I’ve changed as a result of our travails.

There are some silver linings.

For example, I have become a much better cook. Am I a good cook? The Gal Pal says I am, but I don’t know. All I know is I’m a lot more confident in the kitchen. My repertoire has expanded and we eat healthily.

I’ve also adopted more of a contractor’s mindset towards life. After we bought our current crib, we contracted with our builder to make some accommodations for the Good Wife. We threw in a cut-out for a t.v. and a bath tub for good measure. As a result, I got to know the builder and I was blown away by how calmly he went about problem solving. I was always afraid to bring up a problem, but he anticipated them, and rolled with them, immediately shifting to solutions. In fact, from watching and working with him, I realized that all contracting consists of is identifying problems, prioritizing them, and solving them. Full stop. Without drama or fanfare.

That’s not a bad approach to life. Being mechanically challenged, I’ve almost always freaked out whenever something breaks or doesn’t work as it should. Now, not so much. I think to myself. “This can be fixed. How can I fix it?”

And just as I’ve grown more confident in the kitchen, my home project bonafides have shot up from zero, to I don’t know, something more than zero. Just yesterday, I completed a home project that pre-MSA Ron would’ve never dreamed to attempt.

Long story short. Our Mitsubishi heat pumps came with nice digital thermostats on the second floor and mind numbingly bad remote controls on the first. By which I mean, the Japanese team that designed the user interface of the remotes should be brought before the International Court of Justice and slapped around.

So I did some research. And then bought and installed new digital thermostats on the main floor. Which entailed finding the circuit boards in each heat pump and attaching wireless dongles to the CN105 ports.

But like Rors after making birdie on 15 (shoulda been another eagle) on Sunday, I had too much momentum to stop there. Recently, I learned about apps that enable users to control heat pumps from their phones and said to myself, “Lets swing for the fence.” I know what you’re thinking. Then Ron channeled Rors on 13 and inexplicably dumped his wedge into the creek when he had the WHOLE FREAKING green as a backstop.

Not today friends. I bought second dongles only to learn I then needed to purchase splitters and then I had to connect everything to the circuit board and the dongles to the wireless network. Let’s just say when Olga came to my office this morning and said to me, “Can you turn off the heat in the kitchen, it’s too warm?” I said, “Sure, let me get my phone and PRESTO heat off.”

Felt like I hit a walk off homer. Or at least what I imagine that feels like.

DanDantheTranspoMan and Las Vegas had the odds of me succeeding on this project as the same as the Trump administration coming up with a coherent economic plan.

But sometimes miracles happen.