Not Talking, Testing Beds, and Collecting Figures – Thoughts from June 3, 2025

The day after my surgery, I thought it would be a good idea to look at beds. I did some research on beds online, but I wanted to feel them in person. Our old mattress was getting painful to sleep on. It was only slightly better than sleeping on the floor. All the mattresses I looked at were plush, which is the opposite of firm. We had a firm mattress. I wanted a mattress we could sink into. I mainly sleep on my side. My arm would hurt in the morning from sleeping on it. We went to a famous Southern California mattress store. I was on the first day of not being able to talk, so I used my phone to tell Patti she had to do all the talking. We walked in and Patti told the salesperson what we were looking for. He showed us the plush beds. It was awkward at first because I didn’t know Patti had told him about my throat surgery. He assured me she had.

We went from mattress to mattress, lying on them and getting an idea of their plushness. I tried every plush mattress that they had. Most people apparently want a firm mattress so there were only about six mattress manufacturers that came in plush. In the end, I went back to a mattress we tried before. Of course, the one I liked was handmade and quite expensive. It was on sale because it was just before Memorial Day, but it was more than the mattresses I was looking at online. It added to the expense because we were replacing a California King. We were just buying the mattress, so we wouldn’t have to deal with changing anything else.

They didn’t have the mattress in stock, so we were getting it delivered on June 5. That’s two days from when I’m typing this. Patti has already cleared a path by the front and back doors since we don’t know which way is going to be easier to get it in the house. I asked Patti if she remembered getting the old mattress in the house. Neither of us could remember. The main thing about moving in was getting the piano in the house. Four of us had to pick it up and walk it up four steps to the porch. That was about 2012, so I was a youngster in my early 40s. Luckily, there were two muscular young dudes helping us.

I’ve been watching the anime series My Hero Academia for a while now. The show is about a young student who joins a hero academy to improve his skills. Each new class has new students who become characters. There are almost as many villain characters as there are heroes. Just as my watching of the series started with buying an action figure, watching the series more has triggered buying more figures. Most of the characters have several different versions of figurines to collect. Some of them are action figures to go with the original one, but I’ve diversified my collection with Funko and other figures. My lack of space in my office is still an issue. The only place to add new things is on the wall. Eventually, I will run out of that space too.

After my surgery on May 22, I had off until May 31. Coming back to work involved talking to people for the first time. I was pretty much back to normal, but I sounded a little off. Trying to speak as little as possible, I told coworkers a shortened version of my days after the surgery. I wanted to say more and often spoke too long. Most people stopped me from talking before I hurt my vocal cords with talking too much. I think back on my early shy years and laugh at having to stop myself from talking now. I still remember what it was like being so shy, so I recognize fellow shy people and help them come out of their shy shells.