The news from Texas. Oh, God, the news from Texas. This gunman didn't even have a screed. And the police remained outside the school for an hour because they didn't have orders to go in, while a whole fourth grade classroom was under fire. Almost all the kids died. One played dead. Two teachers died. The gunman got in through an unlocked door. The lunatics are coming out of the woodwork.

"Things fall apart, the center cannot hold,
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world..."

So emotionally it's been kind of a week. Feeling bad on Monday. Thursday the usual grocery crap, plus we had to go to Costco to get some medication for James. Finally got decent Skinny Pop; threw the buttered junk away. What a waste of six dollars.

In positive news, James finally had his appointment with the pain clinic. Although the problem for him is his hips, the doctor did some examination of him and says it's really his back; the pain just feels like it's in his hips. He'll have an MRI of his spine in June and then she believes some injections and maybe hydrotherapy will help the pain.

The big news here this week was that we got new phones. If you remember, I dropped mine and cracked the screen some months back. Leo LaPorte mentioned several times that most phone batteries only last two years, and we got the old phones July during the pandemic. So on Friday we had lunch at Chow King with Ken and Alice, then walked back to Best Buy and bought phones. We were looking at the new Moto G Stylus phones, but last year's model (from November 2021) was on sale for $200 each, so we got those instead. Spent all day Saturday setting up my phone. You can back them up all you want, but there are just things you have to reload (all my podcast programs!) and then have to go hunting up passwords that the phone didn't save, and reload ringtones, notification sounds, alarm sounds, etc. It's like juggling kittens with their claws out. I do like the stylus. I did get my old podcast app to work (since I was never satisfied last time with any of the newer ones) via the .apk file for the app I managed to extract. Sadly, my favorite "Jewels" type game, the Christmas one, no longer displays properly. I tried loading it manually, but no dice. A few of the other apps no longer on the Google Play market, like Blendoku and Note Everything, also did load for me, but I really don't need the latter now that I have Google Docs to put our emergency medical info on.

Ribs were BOGO at Publix for Memorial Day, and I was going to cook them on Monday, but James decided to do them himself on Saturday. This time cooked them in the lower oven for three hours, and they were utterly delectable. Had them with corn on the cob. I got St. Louis style ribs, and we both got full and had enough ribs left over to have them for Memorial Day, too, after all.

Just finished a fifth post-series Law & Order: Criminal Intent story. Been reading fanfic online and wondering if I should do something a little...um...different for the next one, since ideas just keep popping up.

Labels: electronics, food, health, news, shopping, sickness, writing

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 10:46:00 PM

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Still sick at my end, but at least I'm finally sleeping through the night. I still have a terrible cough with lots of phlegm, but that only manifests in the daytime. I still feel wrung out and like I can't breathe well, even though my blood oxygen is a good steady 97 percent.

It's James that's in dutch again. We saw his new urologist (Dr. Starr retired last month) on Thursday. James was asked to empty his bladder completely, and then they took an ultrasound, which revealed he still had about 500 milliliters still inside. Dr. Jefferson thinks that James keeps getting the UTI because infected urine is remaining in the bladder, and that possibly his prostate is infected and swollen, blocking the urethra, too. So until he finishes up the month of ciproflaxin (and being in pain because he can't take any Plaquinel or tamulosin until he gets off it), he's also on a stupid foley catheter. This means he's going to have to go through a month of discomfort, plus we're going to have to screw with that stupid StatLoc (the sticky thing that keeps the catheter from dangling) business again. Heck, the StatLoc the nurse practitioner put on him after the catheter was inserted fell off by dinnertime! Good thing we have a bunch of extras; I just hope they last until June 16, when he has to go back and do the test again.

(We actually went through three StatLocs by Saturday night, so I had to start  using the old ones. Unfortunately the "old ones" are nearly four years old, and the little skin prep pads you use on the skin to make the StatLock stick better are all dried out. I ended up having to order more skin prep pads from Amazon...I hope they are good! They have decent reviews.)

You won't believe this, but all the Christmas gifts we'd received from friends were still sitting on a box and in bags on the hearth. Saturday I finally put them all away, except for the still wrapped gifts for Clay and Maggi. Goodness knows when we'll see them again since James' mother and sister are now both gone. We didn't used to mind the ride down to Warner Robins, now the eternal traffic jam in Henry County at the I-75/I-675 split make the drive a nightmare. It shouldn't take you nearly three hours to drive a 100-minute journey!

Watched the season finales of all the different Law & Order series on Thursday. Olivia Benson's cameo on the "mothership" seemed kind of useless; why wasn't she on Organized Crime instead to see Elliot Stabler get his medal? (Seriously, is the white computer-genius chick on Organized Crime supposed to be their version of Abby from NCIS?) Thursday was also the very last United States of Al, which left Vanessa broken up with Freddie and angry at Riley, and Riley and Al headed to Las Vegas with Al's creepy girlfriend Cindy in tow. Thanks, heaps, CBS, for cancelling that and keeping Ghosts, which I find unbelievably stupid.

Labels: chores, sickness, television

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 10:05:00 PM

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FOR TODAY, MAY 18, 2022

Outside my window...
...sunny and hot, which means I'm staying inside under the fans with the A/C. I do not do sun.

I am thinking...
...or rather wondering what makes everyone so angry today that they are willing to go out and shoot, stab, bomb, etc. the people they dislike. There were bigots everywhere when I was a kid. They emoted their hate for certain groups in horrible language. They didn't deliberately drive to neighborhoods with that certain group and shoot members of the group. Or cheer on people who did these things.

I am thankful...
...that it's only one month till the solstice. Then the days will start getting shorter again. Here at the solstice the sun doesn't set until 9:45 p.m. How absurd. By 9:45 you're getting ready for work the next day, not lolling around outside. There's never anyone out where we live anyway; they're in taking refuge from the 80 degree temps even after dark. We pass by houses with beautifully furnished porches all summer and no one ever uses them.

In the kitchen...
...not much. We had potlucks for lunch; James had leftover pork stir fry and I had vegetarian vegetable soup, and we watched an episode of CSI.

I am wearing...
...pink and green flowered ribbed tank top and grey shorts and white ankle socks.

I am creating...
...mostly this week I have been working on a post-series Law & Order: Criminal Intent piece.

I am going...
...well, since it's Wednesday I'm going to finish the laundry, and prep for complaining tomorrow because it's Thursday and I hate Thursdays since it's grocery shopping day as well as trash night.

I am wondering...
...when this damn cold is going to disappear. I can sleep through the night, but my sinus still hurts, there's still pressure on my right ear, and I'm still producing mucus.

I am reading...
...Tony Horwitz's Confederates in the Attic, which I'm really enjoying. Much better than the sequel, Spying on the South; much more subtle.

I am hoping...
...the weather decides to cool off eventually! 90 degree temps anytime sucks, but 90s in May is ultimate suckage.

I am looking forward to...
...James' retirement, but that's not until October. Nothing really to look forward to until the Hallmark Ornament Premiere in July, when I'll finally complete the "12 Days of Christmas" ornament collection.

I am learning...
...lots of gross stuff about bugs and dead bodies on CSI. LOL.

Around the house...
...James is at his desk working, although there's no call right now. Tucker is, as always, under the dining room table on one of the chairs, asleep in his "den." Snowy is singing because I'm playing "The Tech Guy."

I am pondering...
...all those violent people. I don't get it. Why dislike people because their skin is differently colored, or if their features are different, or if they worship God differently? Strange.

A favorite quote for today...
..."If you're afraid that reading a book might change someone's thinking, then you're not afraid of books, you're afraid of thinking."

One of my favorite things...
...I think we'll be finishing up one tonight: we're on the final two episodes of Longmire. It's been a good series. I still like the books better, though.

A few plans for the rest of the week:
Tomorrow: tedious grocery shopping and putting out the trash. Friday: James sees new urologist. Saturday: don't care, so long as it's not in the sun...oh, I think we are taking the truck to the Firestone place to get the A/C fixed. I need to arrange to get Butch fixed because the engine stopping in the middle of a road isn't the way I want to drive. The problem is I don't give a damn about that car. I wish I didn't have to worry about the stupid thing, but I have no money to buy a new one.

A peek into my day...
Well, we watched CSI, so here are Sidle and Grissom (Jorja Fox and William Petersen).

 
If you'd like to participate, check out The Simple Woman's Daybook.

Labels: Simple Woman's Daybook

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 3:57:00 PM

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The bad news: I still have a cold. Now I have lots and lots of phlegm in my throat, with lots and lots of moist coughing. Yeah, it's as annoying as it sounds, and I'm congested as hell. But no fever and no other COVID symptoms.

Thursday was the last day I could go do something with a CD I had that, years ago, was giving me two percent interest. Now it was only getting .02 percent, and renewal interest rates weren't any better. So we went to the bank, had to wait a half hour for anyone to talk to us (I had to run back out to the truck for water since I ended up having a coughing fit), and cashed out the silly thing, which I gave to James to pay down on his truck.

Plus we finally went to the HOA post office box and the checks we ordered for the account still haven't come. We will be on the last check soon; it's bad enough we got stuck with the HOA account, but to have this happen is freaking annoying.

And on Saturday night some moron in a full-size pickup truck ran into the "Trellis Oaks" trellis at the end of our street. He cracked the sign that said "Trellis Oaks," ripped up one of the spotlights, and actually tilted the stone-and-wood trellis back a degree or two. Actually, the people in the house at the end of the street must be still saying their prayers right now because if that Trellis Oaks sign hadn't been there, the pickup would have gone through their downstairs bedroom/sitting room!

All this and the nightmare news about the cretin with the 100+ page manifesto who drove for hours to a grocery store in a mostly Black neighborhood and shot up the place, the asshole who shot up a church in California, and the moron who shot up a flea market in Texas. People have no self-control any longer. Someone upsets them, they don't get what they want, the solution is grabbing a gun and killing people.

The one good thing about the week was a trip to Canton for lunch at Uncle Maddio's—the owner is still running the place by himself—and a side-journey to Books-a-Million, where I found several nifty books on the remainder shelves, including Ghost: My Thirty Years as an FBI Undercover Agent, which works out well since I've been writing about an FBI agent. On the way home we stopped at BJ's for orange and pineapple cups and various other things. They didn't have any plain Skinny Pop, so I got the buttered kind, and, boy, did I regret that. It tastes like "cheesy-flavored" popcorn and is revoltingly salty.

Labels: accidents, books, chores, food, illness, news, shopping

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 11:12:00 PM

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Well, it's been a week.

Sunday I went through all the chores except for cleaning the hall bath, roasted some chicken drumsticks for dinner, paid some bills, and then as always before bedtime, walked the dog.

By the time I got back from the walk, I was coughing, one of those hacking coughs caused by a raw spot on the throat, one I hadn't had when I went out for the walk. In those ten minutes, it had just shown up. And I kept coughing, except when I was drinking, which made it hard to sleep. So let's say I didn't get much sleep and spent Monday miserable and much of Tuesday miserable as well. James was also suffering the aftereffects of the two weeks of antibiotic (cephelaxin); he seems to be sensitive to this one, since he was feeling as if he could not breathe well the last couple of days, but that eased up the moment he was off the antibiotic.

Now, James had a cardiologist's appointment on Wednesday, and there was no way either of us were going to show up if we had COVID. So we took the at-home test on Tuesday, and both of us came up clear, which was a relief. Really, I can still smell and taste fine (the mucus most of all—it's revolting), and I've had dozens of colds that started just like this: cough first, and then my sinuses going into overtime and producing wildly, and then cough from the endless post-nasal drip-drip-drip. I sound like a frog and I'm exhausted.

So James did get checked out by Dr. Shash, who assuaged our fears by saying his EKG was fine, and he listened to his lungs, and said they sounded fine as well (we were worried because since his fall, the CT scan noted small plural effusions on his lungs). We told him we would definitely keep the appointment with the urologist on the 20th to see if his prostate was enlarging so much that it was blocking his flow again.

And then, guess what.

Yes, his damn UTI is back, even after two weeks of antibiotic! He sent another note to the urologist. So Thursday, along with going to Lidl, Publix, and Kroger, we had to go back to Kaiser yet again for a fourth lab test. But, I got through the shopping okay, although I was cross and tired, and thought the cough medicine I got at Kaiser was doing me good, especially when we stayed in Friday because we were supposed to have a storm (it never came) and I felt pretty good, if still slightly stuffy, with no bouts of coughing so hard my eyes watered and I couldn't catch my breath!

We spiced up the evening by watching the second season finale of Picard (all threads neatly wrapped up), the "Ready Room" short that went with both Picard and the new series, and, finally, Strange New Worlds, the new Star Trek series featuring Captain Kirk's Enterprise predecessor, Captain Christopher Pike, with Spock as his science officer, and Number One as his First Officer. Uhura is seen as a fresh-from-the-Academy role here, and we also meet Dr. M'Benga and Nurse Chapel. It is very good. They are going for individual stories here, not serialized adventures like Discovery and Picard have been. It also sounds as if the "big bad" in the series are going to be the Gorn (the "lizard man" Captain Kirk fought in "Arena").

Alas, Friday night was a cough-fest again and I woke up Saturday feeling like my head was stuffed with cotton. James went off to his club meeting Saturday afternoon and I settled in front of the television for a minor Vincent D'Onofrio film fest: the Homicide: Life on the Street episode "The Subway" which won a bunch of awards and was so innovative that PBS made a documentary about it (the documentary is also on the DVD set, but I didn't get to it), and also another episode called "All is Bright" that guest-starred Kathryn Erbe as a young woman who caught AIDS from having unprotected sex with an HIV-positive guy (who, of course, didn't tell her). (This also featured a sweet performance from Carol Kane as one of John Munch's [Richard Beltzer] ex-wives.) The final thing I played that afternoon was an interview of Vincent from a 2017 Chicago Comic Con. I did this great screencap of him talking with his hands—it reminded me of all the family gatherings when I was a kid, everyone gesturing!

 (Later on, I told James to watch a couple of episodes of The Expanse, which I really don't care about—did notice Burn Gorman from Torchwood is in it—and I watched a very early television appearance of VDO's on the original The Equalizer series with Edward Woodward; he plays Davy, a mentally challenged young man who nevertheless is overjoyed to finally be on his own and working in a department store, until one night he stumbles upon a murder and is accused of the crime, so he goes to Robert McCall for help. It's called "Suspicion of Innocence" and is on NBC's website.)

Alas, Saturday night seemed to end well: I fell asleep with no coughing fit!

Only to wake up at two in the morning with one instead. Bleah.

This is getting very, very old...

Labels: chores, errands, events, food, shopping, sickness, television

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 10:11:00 PM

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