I look forward to October every year. It's my favorite month except for December, although the leaves here don't really turn until November, but there's such a possibility in October...that it might be cooler, that it might be colorful, that we can make all the wonderful things coming up like the book sale and the Apple Festival.

It started out on a bad note Tuesday. We'd had a nice day: went to Sam's Club for gasoline for the truck, went inside and found some nice sirloin steaks for a semi-reasonable price, and some nifty dark-chocolate covered nut clusters. Nuts are good for kidney patients, and these turned out to be really tasty, with flaky dark chocolate on them. We also went by Dunkin Donuts and got two more apple cider doughnuts, and James made chopped steak and ramen noodles for dinner...

...and forgot to check behind him to make sure the chair was there and sprawled out on the kitchen floor. We had to call the firemen to get him up, and he said he was okay—he didn't even scrape an arm or a leg like he usually does and start bleeding!—but over the rest of the evening he started to hurt worse and worse around his chest, and off we went at 10:30 to Urgent Care. Even though there were few customers, it took us until 3 a.m. for him to get an x-ray and then another 90 minutes for them to look at it. I had a screaming headache most of the time there; had taken three ibuprofin before we left the house and it barely touched it, and someone's alarm was going off constantly, and there was a baby crying, and it was hot in the little cubicle we were assigned to. We were so miserable we both considered just walking out, but we had to check...

So, they said no broken anything and sent us home on a couple of hydrocodone for James and absolutely no energy for me. We got into the house and just crawled out of our clothes and fell asleep on top of the bedspread with a couple of fleece throws at about 5:30 a.m. Ever since now he has this pain around his torso when he twists (can't figure out how it happened since he appeared to have landed on his left side), coupled with the pain in his back that has been so intense he has been taking, in ones and twos, the hydrocodone Dr. Coyle gave him for post-op. I have been wakened every night by his moaning in pain.

So, whap, apparently it was now my turn; tried to get in bed early Thursday night for the book sale on Friday and instead suffered nightmares and knee pain and nausea all night. It was a whole lot of fun for both of us. I staggered up long enough to help with breakfast and feed and walk Tucker, then crashed on the futon until it was time to get up for dialysis transport. I went straight to the book sale and bought thirteen books, and didn't feel fully human again until after supper.

So James ended up going to his club meeting online again, after making it successfully last month on his own (sigh...).

Over the week I also finished putting up a couple of more fall decorations, put the new signs up on the front porch (hopefully the plague of roofers will go away), brushed Tucker, updated my blog, and finally put away the charged power supplies (and sorted out the little woven crate they're in).

I also, happily and sadly, finished the very last Maisie Dobbs book, The Comfort of Ghosts. I've been reading the series since 2007, when I read a great review of the first book. Maisie started out as a thirteen-year-old servant whose thirst for knowledge was so great that she would get up at three a.m. to study in her employer's library to further her education. Her employer educated her, and she went to college but didn't finish due to serving as a nurse in the Great War. Now World War II has ended. Maisie is at the end of a long journey. It was a satisfactory ending, but how I will miss her!

Also, back in the day when James was working, one of the things we used to watch at lunchtime was the New Zealand-produced "reboot"/follow-on of Gerry Anderson's Thunderbirds. They did a lot of fan service to the original series and we enjoyed it. However, Amazon Prime only showed two-thirds of the series. I just found out the remainder of the series was on Tubi.

Alas, now it seems our kitchen faucet is either broken or giving up the ghost. Like we haven't spent enough money.

Labels: accidents, autumn, books, dogs, health, illness, shopping, television, treats

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 11:02:00 PM

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It was another doctory week, but not overwhelmingly so, like the "day of three doctors' appointments." James had dialysis the usual three days, on Tuesday we went to see Dr. Mobley and on Thursday James had an MRI on his back, ordered by Dr. Mobley, to see what's going on with his back. Friday before dialysis we had a visit with James' cardiologist and had enough time to stop at the Perimeter Barnes & Noble and stopped by MicroCenter on the way back to get a new bluetooth keyboard for my phone. My faithful Freedom Pro seems to have given up the ghost.

The house also had to see a doctor, or rather the garage did. There are thin, taut metal cables on either side of the garage doors that roll up when the door rolls up, and then unspool and stay taut when the doors are down. One, on the truck's side of the garage, had quit spooling up over the weekend, and the other quit as the week started. Apparently this is Very Bad and can warp/break the garage door panels. So we had to have "Don't Panic! Garage Door Repairs" come to fix it. It cost nearly as much to fix as the garage door panel repairs back in 2014. Gah.

So, we had some good things this weekend: while we had to give David's birthday party a miss (my lower GI was in an uproar) on Saturday, we had a great time at Aubrey's birthday "do" on Sunday. The cake was based on Hazbin Hotel, a fandom I hear about on Reddit, but haven't investigated, and, best of all, the company was wonderful. Alice made it so we could take the power chair up to the back door and then James was able to limp in on the folding walker.

I also finished and posted a story I began on September 15, finished on the 18th, and posted on the 21st. It seemed to be well received.

In a very annoying development, DaVita will not allow me to go back and help James set up his stuff any longer. They say it's against the rules. Now, when we first started going there in July, the rules clearly said that if the person having dialysis could not get to the chair by themself, they needed to have a helper come in with them. James can get from the power chair to the dialysis chair if the power chair is next to it, but he cannot park the power chair out of the way and walk the few steps to the dialysis chair without help. The nurses are not supposed to do this, so he would get out and I would park the chair, then help him get his stuff set up, wait for James to get a finish time, then leave. Now the clinic manager says I can't do this anymore. If I want to do this, I have to get a doctor's note. Once I have the doctor's note, we have to take a conference class, and then answer a questionnaire...what the absolute f*ck? Just to help him pull stuff out of his bag?

The funny thing was that when I went to pick him up, the clinic manager had gone home and the nurse on duty just let me in. She didn't want to deal with the power chair and didn't mind me coming in the back at all. So it's just one person with a stick up their butt...

Labels: annoyances, birthdays, books, computers, friends, health, home repairs, sickness

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 10:58:00 PM

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Emotionally, it's been a bummer of a week.

The saddest part was finding out a friend had died. I met Rose Marie Badgett on my first trip to a convention with friends rather than with my mother. There were six of us sharing a room: Rosie (from Kentucky), Alice and Maggi from Georgia, Mary from Massachusetts, and Gail and I from Rhode Island. We had a wilder weekend than we expected than at a Star Trek convention because all of us were supposed to leave on Monday, but Sunday night a big snowstorm blew into New York City, flights were suspended, Amtrak was running about twelve hours behind...and the hotel offered us another night at the con rate. We had a room party and James Doohan showed up, except we missed it because Gail and Rosie had gone out to dinner, and the other four of us were in Holly's room, Mary and Maggi because they wanted some quiet, and Alice and I were watching Backstairs at the White House.

Rosie was one of the Space: 1999 fans in the bunch and I saw her twice a year until she moved to California and then I moved to Georgia. I think I saw her last in person in 1985. But we reconnected on Facebook. Apparently she had been ill for a while and passed away on Sunday.

My consolation is that she and Lin have probably found each other by now and are telling tales to each other.

Less hurtful but still mournful was the fact that we made our monthly trip to Canton on Thursday and Uncle Maddio's Pizza Joint was no more. They must have closed right after we went last month. So we made our monthly pilgrimage to Books-a-Million, then ate at a pizza place called Brooklyn Joe's. It was very good, but they don't make personal pizzas; however, they will make half a pizza one way and half another, so I got my usual bacon/black olive/no cheese and James got all the cheese and onion and mushrooms and burger he wanted on his half. Next time we will get a medium, though; we brought half of it home and had it for a meal a few days later.

Sunday we also sort of "don't care"'d and didn't go to the Yellow Daisy Festival, either. Just not the same for me since the Country Pick'ns folks retired. We already had maple barbecue sauce anyway. I would have liked to have looked at the opal rings again and gotten James a new glass nail file (the one I bought him last year was broken and the "replacement" I got from Amazon is terrible—you have to saw at your nails to file them).

Got some useful things done this week anyway: James had his preop for his new fistula surgery on Tuesday, I backed up the hard drive on the desktop, got gas for my car, picked up a prescription at Kaiser.

Did you know there's a "lost" episode of Law & Order: Criminal Intent? There is; fortunately it's a Nichols and Wheeler episode...I do dream about them finding a "lost" Goren and Eames! This one was about favoritism in picking out an Olympic site and apparently the Brazilians didn't like it, so it's neither on the DVD set nor in reruns. Someone recorded it when it was first broadcast, though, and that's what I saw. It was an underwhelming effort anyway. Jeff Goldblum overacted terribly in an interrogation scene with the female suspect. The best parts were insights into the ongoing Major Case storylines at the time: Megan Wheeler being interrogated by the FBI due to her fiance's involvement in money laundering and then throwing out her wedding invitations (very sad scene), Ross and Nichols arguing over the latter's decision to go see Breakfast at Tiffany's for insights into the case, and Nichols learning Wheeler's likes and dislikes.

On Saturday we had fun at Taste of Smyrna; this time we went early (1) when it was cool and (2) James could have a meal before his club meeting afterward. We tasted the usual "drunken pork" and creamy grits, rice balls, elk and bison meatballs (I was disappointed; they were quite bland), and a very sweet bread pudding. No Asian food at all this year.

Labels: books, conventions, errands, events, food, friends, loss, television

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 10:35:00 PM

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Well, now I know I'm depressed between James' medical troubles and Oliver being sick: I took about an hour to myself on Monday, since I had to go to Kaiser after dropping James off at dialysis to pick up some meds for him, to go to Barnes & Noble to cheer up. It didn't work. I was totally miserable walking around, even though I did buy Leather and Lark and Ashley Poston's new book. If going to a bookstore can't cheer me up, how will I manage?

Something very odd happened Monday night. We buy snack cakes for desserts; you know, Hostess cupcakes, things like that. We had a box of Ding Dongs which we had already eaten two of the cakes. When I opened one for dessert and took a small bite of it, a terrible chemical smell came out of the cake, like...I don't know, like some kind of floor or counter cleaner. I opened the cake I was about to give to James and it had the same smell! I threw them both away, and Tuesday I was terribly sick, sleepy and nauseated and burping all day, so I just threw the rest of the box away, too. So glad I didn't ignore the smell and eat the whole thing, or let James eat it.

We had leftover turkey and rice for supper on Friday, and a good thing because dialysis caused us to be ready just in time for Opening Ceremonies of the Olympics. Bon spectacle on the Seine for sure, although some stuff was just bizarre, like the decapitated Marie Antoinette projections. We were surprised at all the furor about "the Last Supper" because we watched the whole thing and never interpreted what happened in that manner. Later they explained this was a tribute to pagan gods or whatever? Ah, well, they're French after all. (Just kidding.) Anyway, I loved that they rang the bells of Notre Dame for the first time since the fire! Also the wonderful light show from the Eiffel Tower and the fact that the Olympic torch is actually a balloon in honor of the Montgolfier brothers! Enjoyed the fact that the countries' teams got to ride in boats down the Seine as well, but felt bad for everyone being drenched with rain.

I had no idea why Snoop Dogg was getting all this attention and Lady Gaga performing was okay, but Celine Dion singing was quite beautiful. I looked up the "stiff person" disease that she has and the symptoms sound gruesome, and even loud sounds can trigger an attack. I hope she was okay after the performance.

Saturday James got his new glasses. Finally! Costco was a mess to navigate on a Saturday.

I don't see any improvement in poor Oliver. He's asleep most of the time although he has been eating, and I've been vaporizing him every day. Sometimes I can get him to eat fruit or some oatmeal, but he is letting me cuddle him more and more, not because, I think, that he is getting used to me and likes it, but because he's just too worn out to fight back.

Labels: birds, books, budgies, food, Olympics, shopping, sickness

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 10:18:00 PM

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Was feeling so bad on Sunday that I forgot to put on the National Memorial Day Concert. I figured I could watch it Monday on PBS. Surprise! Not there. However, it was on YouTube. Streaming television is so weird.

We were both out of sorts on Memorial Day. I made ribs, but I wasn't really satisfied with them.

I am trying a new experiment on laundry day. Usually by the time we get up these days, I don't start the laundry until after noon. This week I loaded the first load before bed, put in the detergent, and put the washer on delay. Tuesday morning when I came out for breakfast, the first load was already finished and I could toss it in the dryer and start the second load. I may keep doing this!

My main worry at the beginning of the week was that James might be spoiling for a UTI; however, when we saw Dr. Kongara on Thursday he seemed to think there was no problem. This appointment was supposed to be a video appointment, but Bruce, who's Dr. Kongara's PA, had to give him a Procrit shot anyway, so he changed the video appointment to a real one and we talked to the doctor while Bruce got the shot ready. Bruce is in his fifties, but he is always moving. He makes me tired just listening to him talk, and he practically bounces off walls.

This week to do something different in entertainment, we decided to explore the origins of a character. We have been watching Elsbeth on CBS; Elsbeth Tascioni is an attorney, seemingly scatterbrained who is actually brilliant, who has been sent to New York City as an independent observer in a precinct where corruption has been suspected, specifically with the captain of the precinct. She accompanies a young uniformed officer named Kaya Blanke on cases and of course gets mixed up in the mystery. She also comes to like the captain she's investigating.

However, Elsbeth is not an original character: she was originally an occasional character on the series The Good Wife, and appeared on a few episodes of the sequel series The Good Fight. So I found out what episodes she was on, and we went on Paramount+ to check out those episodes. To my amusement, Paramount+ already has the Elsbeth episodes of both series linked for immediate viewing.

We enjoyed them, although with both series' serial-type format, we missed big chunks of plot points. If I were to watch the series, I would probably watch The Good Wife, which had a politician's wife taking up her legal career again while her husband was investigated for wrongdoing. I didn't like The Good Fight as much, even though Christine Baranski was excellent as usual. Both series, because of the characters and the clients, relied a lot on political plots, and I hate political maneuvering more than I hate child molesters, and Good Fight got a lot more into politics and infighting. However, we did enjoy the Elsbeth episodes a lot! The one with the potentially banned athlete and Elsbeth in jail was quite funny.

I want to say one thing, though: if this is truly how supersized law firms work, I wouldn't hire one. They seemed to be more obsessed with stabbing each other in the back and competing against each other than in their law practice. I would be concerned they weren't giving my case enough attention! LOL!

Saturday James went to his club meeting and I spent the afternoon fixing the beater bar on the vacuum cleaner. What fun. But on Sunday I got a good book (American Ramble) at Barnes & Noble. So sometimes things balance out.

Labels: books, chores, health, television

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 11:06:00 PM

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I finally picked up my new glasses on Tuesday! They were actually ready on the 14th, but no one called. As I said, this is a totally new prescription; usually my eyes change very little in two years, but in one year I've changed from a 4.25 to a 3.50, so I was worried that I wouldn't be able to see. But I can, quite well, which explains why I was having trouble seeing with the old ones; they were now overcompensating.

Tried the computer glasses out when I got home, and they were also a treat. Maybe I can now work on my web pages again.

Thursday was also a good day for James: stitches are out of his toe and he doesn't have to wear that plastic bag on his right leg any longer! This is great because he slipped on the damn thing a couple of days ago and now has a rainbow of bruises on his back because he did kind of a controlled slide to the bathroom floor. Unfortunately we had to call the firemen to get him back up.

We were able to go to Books-a-Million on Sunday (last time I got a bunch of them there, this time none), ate at Uncle Maddio's, and went to BJs for maple syrup and fruit cups.

The week also had its annoyances. I have been fruitlessly looking for a vet for Oliver, because he just doesn't act right. He's used to being here now and he should be more lively, but he isn't. Also, his droppings are very loose and wet, and it looks as if there's a lump behind his legs. I called every "avian vet" I could find on Google. One Google said was in the "Atlanta area" was over an hour's drive. Our own vet said to take him to Athens to the University vet clinic! The place I liked close by, near Douglasville, isn't taking new customers, and they sounded so nice. Riverview, down the road from us, has an avian vet again, but she was gone until the 31st.

I finally called the breeder back and they said they usually take their birds to For Pet's Sake, all the way in Decatur, but, if I wanted, I could take Oliver to see them, to see what they thought. So on Friday we drove out to Norcross to Fancy Feathers. One of the owners, Irene, looked at Oliver...and believes he might be an Olivia, and the lump is an unlaid egg. She gave us some coconut oil to give him, and told me to make sure to keep his bottom clean.

Giving him the coconut has almost restored the droppings. and the wet spots aren't as bad, but now he...or she...is getting fussy about his seed. Sigh.

I need to call Riverside eventually...

Labels: birds, books, food, health, injuries, shopping, sickness

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 10:21:00 PM

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It was a red-letter week: I finally delivered an overdue Hanukkah gift. It's been a comedy of errors for the last four months trying to get Mel and Phyllis their gift. Either they were where we were and the gift wasn't, or it was the other way around. ::sigh:: It's not even valid as a Passover gift now.

The bad news is that James' toe is still not well; we had it checked out at podiatry this week. The doctor said if we were still patient about this we could "stay the course." So we are, but she sent him down for an x-ray to make sure.

The good news of the week was Saturday in (1) going to Hair Day (where the Hanukkah gift finally was reunited with its owners) and talking to everyone, except for Charles, who is in Greece! and (2) going to the Jonquil Festival. We got there just in time for the Ready Go Dog Show. All the dogs are rescues, some from shelters, some from specific breed rescue. Five dogs performed: an Australian shepherd, a Pomeranian, and a chihuahua named Tito all chased frisbees. Then Phobia, a smooth Border Collie, jumped from a box over a hurdle six feet high. The final performer was a Belgian Malinois named "Beano," also a frisbee freak. The handler said the hardest thing to teach Beano was "stay"!

James got himself two sugar-free desserts (I tasted the lemon cake; it reminded me of the lemon squares from Solitro's Bakery!) and also picked up some jambalaya and red-beans-and-rice for lunches. They had a bumper crop of vendors, but didn't see much that we wanted. The honey guy was there, but he had no small bottles of blackberry honey.

On the way out we stopped at the library because they didn't have an outside book sale this year. Their "perpetual book sale" has shrunk from three large bookcases to two smaller ones. I still found three books: Reviving Ophelia, which I've wanted to read; Sisters in Crime, a collection of short mystery stories about women; and Strongheart, an award-winning children's book about the famous dog star. (We did go to Barnes & Noble, and I didn't buy anything. The library books only cost $2.75.)

In other news, dropped more stuff off at Goodwill, posted the first part of a seven-part fanfic and redesigned the graphic for the series, tried out a new grammar-checker called Quillbot, and listened to more Colonial Williamsburg podcasts.

Labels: books, dogs, events, festivals, friends, gifts, health, sickness

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 10:12:00 PM

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After we saw the total eclipse in 2017, both our minds turned toward this year's event. Since Evansville, Indiana, would be in the path of totality, and was just a short drive over the Ohio River from Owensboro, Kentucky, where we stayed in 2008 to see the Remember WENN play (and met Jen Payne!), we had toyed with the idea of staying in Owensboro—and hopefully being able to eat at that terrific barbecue buffet again if it was still in business!—then driving over the border early in the morning to see totality.

Unfortunately, the last seven years have been...well, a fat bitch. A TURP, four hospital stays in 2022, UTIs and falls...James was in poor shape physically and mentally I wasn't a barrel of laughs. So we made no plans. And watching ABC's "Eclipse Across America" segment later in the week was depressing as well as thrilling. But, can't be helped. Instead on Monday we watched what Atlanta had of a partial eclipse (about 85 percent) from our driveway. It never got dark, or dusky, but the light, to me, had this silvery cast, and the temperature did noticeably drop and the wind picked up.

My favorite part of the eclipse was past peak: about ten minutes after what we got of totality, the mail lady came by. She said "Can I see? Can I see?" and I said yes and she stopped the mail truck in the middle of the street, jumped out, and I let her use my glasses!

Kept busy this week: Tuesday I shelved books in the library, returned all the fannish things I dragged out of the closet looking for the eclipse glasses to the closet and concatenated all our vacation souvenirs in one drawer in the spare room (where I found the eclipse glasses).

Wednesday James had a stellar workout at PT, and then we went to Barnes & Noble, which I suppose was a bad idea because I bought two books (but...they were history books and one was half off...) and the SVU magazine.

A victory on Thursdays: no more followup trips to the dermatologist! James' nose is now well enough to take the daily Band-Aid off. We also had an appointment with the sleep doctor—he's gonna see if he can get James a new C-PAP unit, but James will probably still need the sleep study first—which I had to leave early because I had my checkup scheduled for late this afternoon. As usual Dr. Mobley was over an hour late; thank goodness I had someone to chat with (thanks, Vanessa!) since James was stuck out in the waiting room.

Friday we went out to the Costco David (therapist) recommended to us, out where Macland Road intersects with Charles Hardy Parkway (which turns out to be the other end of Dallas Highway; it changes name when you hit the Paulding County line). In fact, we went through Dallas Highway and stopped at their Walmart first—nicely kept, but their sugar-free candy assortment isn't much; we did find more mushroom-flavored rice sides (but, horrors, they're on clearance! mushroom rice goes with everything). The Costco was not quite so empty as David described, but we walked around and picked up a couple of things.

Even though I do not "redd up" the house in summer, I did get some lawn decorations this week. There's nothing like neighbors having cookie-cutter bland front yards to inspire you to put up more decorations. I got a butterfly, bird, and blue flower, a rainbow pinwheel, and a tiny bunny to go between two mushrooms (do those garden decorators actually know what those fly agaric mushrooms are? LOL). I put them up on Sunday and trimmed the nandina, which was starting to look like it stuck a root in an electrical socket.

Labels: books, chores, decorations, events, food, health, magazines, nature, science, shopping

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 6:58:00 PM

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Woohoo! Got up on Tuesday and our water pressure was back to normal. It has been a horrible two weeks dealing with dribbling faucets; hell, if somebody's house caught fire last week, I doubt if there would have been enough water pressure to put it out!

James had his nose checked again; Dr. Warner says it is healing okay. I wish the dang scab would just fall off.

Saturday we had Hair Day. Washed towels because we needed facecloths. Had a nap.

I am reading Braiding Sweetgrass, which is lovely and lyrical.

Labels: books, chores, friends, health, news

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 11:51:00 PM

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We had a fairly good Atomicon, despite being utterly exhausted from allergies and coughing. We arrived in Helen Thursday afternoon just about four, when several of our friends were checking in, offloaded our junk, and then lay down until I started texting to find out where we were going to dinner. Spice55, the Thai place, was the choice, and we had the usual yummy dinner. I wait for this every year, as they make the best pad thai.

Something sweet happened after dinner: Jessie and some of the others were enchanted by the black-and-white stray cats hanging outside the shopping center where the restaurant was. A lady was also interested in the cats and she and James started talking; she was ex-Navy and also had been a Marine. Now, we had had an appetizer, so I still a lunch-sized portion of leftovers, and it was supposed to rain on Friday. I suggested we stop at the Dollar General, which has frozen foods, to see if we could find him something for lunch there. We did find some taquitos. The same lady also was in the store, and she was quite disturbed by how cluttered the aisles were and that James could not get around in his power chair. She told us she was going to report the store for ADA violations. And on the way out she paid for his taquitos!

Thursday night I was feeling well enough to play some games, and we played Uno No Mercy, which is fiendish. I got kicked out of the first game almost immediately, and ended up winning the last one.

It did indeed rain almost all day Friday. It was probably good because James and I were both stuffy and miserable, and we stayed in with anyone else who didn't want to go out in the rain, talking, farkling around on the computer. I found Law & Order Toronto: Criminal Intent available and watched that, and last night's Law & Order as well.

For supper the weather cleared well enough to go to the Nachoochee Tavern and have some pretty good pizza. I had to share with James, so I had to eat cheese [bleah], but it was still okay.

One of the things James and I have begun doing since Atomicon has been held at the Country Inn and Suites is to have a daily walk downtown after breakfast. It's about a half a mile, and then we stroll around the little downtown area, maybe walk down to Hofer's Bakery, and then return to the crossroads of downtown and head toward the parking lots, strolling a road in the back down to the hotel. Total it's about a mile and a half, maybe more.

I was feeling so short of air from the congestion that on Saturday morning we took the truck instead; we haven't done that in years and I felt like I was regressing. But I did manage to totter around downtown. We visited the glassblower's shop, bought our annual candy from Hansel & Gretel, and visited the history museum that we missed last year due to food poisoning. This is in a building that used to be the City Hall. Helen was a tiny little logging town at one time, outside of what became Unicoi Park, and when the logging left, so did a lot of the population. Helen became basically a gas and food stop, so they turned the town into a "Little Bavaria" to attract tourists. We've been going to Helen with our friends for...well, Jessie and Aubrey both turned thirty last year, so...longer than that!

We also bought more white peach balsamic vinegar (love this stuff) and some blackberry ginger as well from the Alpine Olive Tree. I got James a neat gift: someone gave us a little turntable/light gadget: you plug it in and put a statue or something on it and it lights it up and revolves. They had laser-etched lucite items, and I got James a U.S. Navy one, with an aircraft carrier and destroyer and planes flying overhead. (I was going to get him a smaller one, but he said the planes weren't correct!) It looks really pretty on the turntable.

We then drove down to the Mount Yonah Bookstore—the owner always puts out a "Welcome, Atomicon!" poster and gives us a discount—and I found a brand-new copy of the annotated version of The Phantom Tollbooth, one of my favorite books in the whole world (seriously, what my life would have been without the Stadium School and Hugh B. Bain libraries I will never know). I also found a book about a woman FBI agent, a book by Robert Ressler (one of the first FBI profilers), and the book that inspired the series Homicide: Life on the Streets, which introduced Richard Beltzer's John Munch character.

And it was back to Spice55 for supper with Alice and Juanita. I had pad cashew this time, which was exquisite.

Sunday I was feeling strong enough to do the walk downtown, if a bit slowly, and we made it to the Christmas store before I started to be nagged by lower GI problems. It was a good walk, anyway. We spent the afternoon reminiscing about old television series, and had supper at Rib Country in Cleveland, GA. The ribs are so good and half the price of any ribs in the Atlanta metro area.

Alas, neither of us slept well, so we staggered up, ate the hotel breakfast, and packed up and left. Stopped at the outlet mall because I so much needed new socks. We also stopped at a knife shop where James went in; I sat and read. And finally, by the vet—$1300 for exams and boarding! Oliver apparently seems to be okay to them; it looks like they don't have an avian vet again. ::sigh:: Yes, they noticed he's shy.

Labels: Atomicon, books, events, food, friends, games, gifts, history, kindness, shopping, travel, walking

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 10:47:00 PM

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I am so pissed!

In our 18 years in this house, we've had normal water pressure, some really good water pressure (like mostly on during the last two years), and some abysmal water pressure, like it was in the fall of 2022. But it's been so nice for the longest time.

On Monday when I was cleaning the bathroom, the water in the toilet turned brown.  I called up the water department and they said the firemen were probably cleaning out the hydrants, and that I should turn on the outside faucets for ten minutes to clean out the line. This seemed to work cleaning out the water.

Then the freaking water pressure dropped. I'm not talking "just a little bit." I'm talking you can't wash your hands after you flush the toilet because the water coming out of the faucet is a stream the diameter of a drinking straw. Even on full stream the shower massage won't work, and you can't run the faucet or flush the toilet if you're in the shower. The water coming out of the kitchen faucet droops down instead of coming out straight.

It makes cleaning out James' catheter a fat pain in the ass, too. And I have to clean it out three times a day, and the catch containers, too.

If you call up the water department, they will tell you this is your fault and you must have a leak.

Miserable, miserable.

At least Will Trent was on again, although it won't be back until April now, due to stupid basketball. The same goes for Elsbeth, which I'm still on the fence about. She's almost too flaky.

In better news, this weekend was the semiannual book sale sponsored by the Cobb County library. It was cold when I got there Friday when they opened; I went back Saturday when James was at his club meeting. Day 1 and then Day 2 hauls.




Once Upon a Crime are crime stories based on fairy tales. America's Jubilee is about the 50th anniversary of American independence (1826). Raising Cubby is partially research for a child character I'm writing. Joy Adamson's Africa is a collection of her art—people who've read her wildlife books forget she was a trained artist—including four absolutely gorgeous portraits of native African people in traditional dress.

We had been noticing since it got cold that the batteries on James' power chair were discharging rather quickly. It seemed to go away during warm weather, so we didn't worry about it much, but in the last couple of weeks it seemed that his usual speed, "3," appeared to be slower than he was used to. Thursday during shopping the batteries were half drained just from a trip through Lidl and Publix.

So James looked up to see if any of the Batteries+ stores had those batteries in stock. Turned out the one on the corner of Roswell and Wieuca did, so we went out there Sunday to get them replaced.

We did not get the names of the two guys that helped us, but, wow, you had to see the work they had to do to get those batteries out! James looked up a video on YouTube and the process seemed very simple: remove the front cowling and footplate by depressing the silver buttons on each side of the latch, unplug the batteries from the chair, then pull them out, take off the leads, attach the leads to the new batteries, slide the batteries back in, reattach wiring to the chair, and replace the front cowling. The videographer did note that putting the front cowling back on was "kinda fiddly."

Well, the front cowling was "fiddly" and it took a good ten minutes before they figured it out, but it wasn't the only thing they had trouble with. Both batteries are rectangular blocks, no curves. The batteries they pulled out were swollen and distended on the top and the sides! (These were the original factory batteries.) The guys had to get on the floor and pull on the strap around the batteries and brace with their feet to get them out! It was a tight fit going back in, too, but not like that! They were a great couple of guys and James has already left excellent reviews for them on the survey and also did a Google review of the specific store.

Labels: book sales, books, chores, events, power chair, television, water

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 11:55:00 PM

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This was a week of getting tiny things done (like mending), Valentine's Day, and of a short trip that ended in a rather blah manner.

The best news was that I finished the taxes, sent the state their $28, and anticipated the refund. James had them charge him the full tax rate when he cashed out his 401K, but we made so little this year he's getting it all back. We'll do what he did with the 401K money, put it toward his credit card, because those individual physiotherapy/Kaiser bills add up fast.

We don't do much for Valentine's Day anymore. It was a nice day, so after physical therapy we stopped at Walmart. We bought yogurt and sugar-free candy, but most of what I wanted I just had to order. Walmart is nowhere near stocked the way it used to be. We also stopped at an Indian grocery store in the same shopping center (we thought it was the one Jerry recommended, but it wasn't). To my surprise, they had jars of lupini beans. Of course I grabbed some; nice to have them on this side of town. For supper we had the shrimp we got at Publix in a scampi sauce with spaghetti, with caramel-center dark chocolate hearts for dessert. His Valentine gift arrived in the mail that evening just in time: I got him a set of accessories for his air fryer. He bought me Ali Hazelwood's Bride.

On Friday we did something we hadn't done for a while: went to the Barnes & Noble in Buckhead. It was a good bookstore trip, but we ended up eating at IHOP on the way home. I don't want to eat here anymore; any meal I'm interested in gives me heartburn, and I won't eat eggs, and I don't want total carbs (like pancakes or French toast) for dinner.

Did more books on Sunday: 2nd and Charles trip, but didn't buy anything. James also went in Hobbytown while I stayed outside and read--I was in the midst of a rather absorbing story. Sunday was also the day we watched Oppenheimer. Interesting filming technique--but "Oppy" seemed like a weird duck. Glad I saw it, but don't ever see myself watching it again.

Labels: books, chores, errands, food, movies, shopping, taxes

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 11:46:00 PM

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A quiet week. Our big event for the week was on Friday driving up to Canton for our monthly "trip" (It's about the longest trip we take these days, thirty miles). We browsed around Books-a-Million—I bought four books: a mystery anthology, a time-travel mystery, an Arthurian retelling narrated by Elaine of Astolat, and a rom-com, and James bought me Ali Hazelwood's Bride for Valentine's Day—then had lunch at Uncle Maddio's.

We got rick-rolled during lunch. 😊 At least we didn't get Whammed at Christmas.

James had his stitches out on Thursday. The ones under the skin graft were so buried we went through four doctors before one could be found who could see the stitches! Now I only have to tend the nose; the graft donation site near his ear has surgical glue on it which will wear off.

Saturday was our first Hair Day without Lin. Ron and Sheri (the hairdresser) decided to keep up the tradition. I wasn't feeling good most of the day due to the impending rain and a constant headache which even three ibuprofin didn't relieve, and Lin's absence made it worse. We stopped at Kroger on the way home, relaxed a bit, and then went to the Lawsons for a very delayed Christmas gift exchange. I usually play games with the others, but the headache was so draining I just stayed in the living room with the guys, mostly leaning on James' shoulder.

February 9 would have been my mom's birthday, and it was also the 60th anniversary of the great Disney live-action story The Scarecrow of Romney Marsh, about smuggling on the Kent coast of England in the 18th century (about the time of the American Revolution). Patrick McGoohan plays both the daring Scarecrow (in a terrifying mask) and the mild-mannered vicar Dr. Christopher Syn. According to Patrick McGoohan, this was one of his favorite acting roles, and the original DVD release, as a "Disney Treasure," sold out in one week. One of the fond memories of my childhood.

Sunday was the Stupid Bowl, or rather the Puppy Bowl. All the puppies were cute, but there was a Yorkshire Terrier mix named Vanessa who was the most darling puppy you've ever seen. (There was also a tiny, 2-pound miniature poodle puppy named Sweetpea, but they let you know during the show that Sweetpea had medical problems and had passed away after the Puppy Bowl was filmed.) So adorbs!

Labels: books, dogs, food, friends, health, sickness, television

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 10:23:00 PM

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This week began with the Rose Parade and ended with party cleanup.

The Rose Parade was covered live on KTLA in Los Angeles and we watched that feed cast to the television instead of the commercial-ridden network broadcasts. Other than sorting medications for the week, did nothing on New Year's Day except eat junk food and watch Galaxy Quest. The day ended on a satisfactory note with the two-hour M*A*S*H retrospective: just the cast and the producers talking about the show and the changes of format, no dubious celebrities telling us how much they loved the show.

Tuesday I updated all the copyrights on my web page so I could do my monthly web site backup. Except when I went to do the backup, the backup drive was gone. It usually sits next to my computer desk and has been in that location for over a year. But, apparently, it, and the container it was in, at some point tipped over and fell in the wastebasket, and it was sometime previous to when I emptied the baskets for trash last Thursday. Annoyed that I now have to go waste money on a new one.

Kaiser still hasn't reupped James' referral to physiotherapy, so we went to MicroCenter on Wednesday instead; I got the cutest little two terabyte (it's about the size of a deck of cards) backup drive that can be hung up on the side of the tower instead of near the basket. It was a grey, bitterly cold day and it was good to get home after we went to Publix next door.

Thursday we did our monthly trip to Canton: strolling the aisles of Books-a-Million, then lunch at Uncle Maddio's Pizza, and finally a stop at BJ's for maple syrup and fruit cups.

On Friday James had his second iron infusion. I posted a short story on AO3 and cross-posted on Fanfiction.net. We ate supper out so as not to have to dirty dishes. Alas, it seems the Okinawa on Dallas Highway doesn't have beef bulgogi like the one on the East-West Connector. I had Mandarin beef instead, but it wasn't a fair trade.

And Saturday was our Twelfth Night party! We ran to Hair Day quickly to get James' hair cut, then came home to finish tidying up and then it was time for food and conversation. We had a couple of call-outs as the Spiveys and the Butlers both were under the weather, but it was a great time anyway. Clay and Maggi and Bill and Caran were here until midnight talking up a storm.

Sunday was cleanup day, and I went outside and took down the lights as well since there's a massive rainstorm coming on Tuesday.

Watched three good movies this week: Operation Mincemeat (now I can't wait to read the book!), Feast of the Seven Fishes (which kinda reminded me of Mystic Pizza but more low-key; I liked the Italian family dynamics more than the jerky Yuppie mother who was trying to force the rich boyfriend on the blond girlfriend), and Knives Out, which was so really convoluted (and I thought some of the families on Law & Order: Criminal Intent were bad).

Labels: books, computers, electronics, fanfiction, food, friends, movies, New Year, nostalgia, parties, shopping, television, weather

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 11:08:00 PM

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It was an unremarkable week leading up to Christmas. Tucker did finally get his bath. The gifts were wrapped and the spare room finally looks decent again. Wednesday was James' physiotherapy and "Doughnut Day," plus we made it to Hallmark to spend our coupons. Grocery shopping was done on Wednesday, and on Thursday I finally got my birthday dinner.

It was terrible. Some friends recommended Bay Breeze a few years ago, and we have enjoyed going there. They have baked stuffed shrimp that is actually affordable, and, even if it's not the "jumbo shrimp" they describe, it's usually good. Well, apparently it's gone way downhill according to other friends. We didn't get our appetizer until after our entree and it was overcooked, the shrimp were overcooked and tough and salty as the dickens, as was the appetizer (potato skins). After we finished eating, we went to downtown Marietta to walk around. We found gingerbread boys at the Australian bakery, went into The Corner Shop (the British store) and the candy store (found a dark chocolate Toblerone for dessert), and I checked out the new bookstore on the square, Elephant Books. (It's pretty much just starting out, so not a lot of books, and it strikes me as a "boutique type" place.)

We never did get to the antique store to see the vintage decorations among the vintage items because Mr. Lower GI was acting up again and we had to come home.

Friday I finished prepping my 2024 journal, and then Sunday it was back to the chores again, so Christmas Day would be free.

Labels: birthday, books, dogs, food, gifts, illness, pets, shopping

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 11:31:00 PM

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On Monday evening at 11:30 p.m., I officially turned 68 years old. How the Dickens did that happen? In my head I'm still the six year old who fell in love with Lassie, the ten year old who learned to play the organ in the fifth grade classroom at Stadium School, the fifteen year old who adored Mr. Abosamra's English classes, the eighteen year old who missed almost the entire final quarter of twelfth grade due to surgery, the twenty-something who cried when the Paperback Books store in Providence closed...ten budgies, eight cars, two states, and James...so many years!

Monday we were off for a birthday dinner. Alas, we forgot Bay Breeze was closed on Mondays. We made a short stop at Ollie's Discount Store, then ate at Okinawa instead. Bulgogi beef, yum!

I spent the rest of my birthday replacing light bulbs on the bottom of the Christmas tree.

And when I did, that part of the bottom of the tree still didn't light up. I wanted to cry. Instead I just threw a spare string of lights at the bottom and replaced the lights in the middle of the tree where they had gone out last year. Those came back on.

I gave up and put the decorations and the tinsel the next day and it exhausted me fully. The best part of the night was listening to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir's annual Christmas concert. The guest was David Suchet, who told the story of Englishman Nicholas Winton and the Czech Kindertransport, so I spent time tinseling in tears.

By the way, I want you to see the smallest Christmas miracle. I bought this star at the Woolco at North DeKalb Mall, Market Square as it was then, and now demolished, in 1991 for our first Christmas tree together. Every year "Little Blaze" still lights...every year I know it might be the last, any day this year might be, too, but I always see her light anyway. Inspiration from a small Christmas star. She makes me cry.

I had a bunch of Hallmark coupons, so on Friday we went to Gretchen's at the Avenue at West Cobb. Unfortunately Mr. Lower GI decided to go spare at this point; James got a Battlestar Galactica ornament and I had to hotfoot it to Barnes & Noble to use the bathroom. The result was that I spent no coupons, but did buy four discount books, including two Christmas books.

It took us a long time to get over Snowy's death, then we had the whole summer with James falling or hurting himself in some way. In the last few months he's been asking me if we were going to get another bird. For a long time I couldn't think about it. Snowy's death itself had been so painful—I couldn't forget how his little body struggled as his legs stopped responding to his body, but he still attempted to crawl into a corner to die, and he didn't want me to hold him or comfort him in my hands—that I cried almost constantly about him at least once a week, most recently a week ago on his adoption day. James said I needed a bird; I was thinking more that he needed a bird; after all Snowy had been his working companion.

But this weekend he talked me into it. He'd found a bird store out in Norcross called Fancy Feathers.

But that's a story for another post. I did vacuum before we left. The last thing I wanted to do was frighten a baby bird with "the bizippy thing."

Sunday I got disgusted at my laziness and went downstairs to at least put up the airplane tree. It took me what seemed like forever because I dropped something like every fifth ornament. I broke the wing off one of the glass airplanes, and one ornament I dropped even knocked two more off the tree. I was fit to be tied by the time I was finished because I felt old and useless. There's nothing to decorating the airplane tree. You hang the ornaments, swag the garland, put on the star, and you're done. And it took so long. Sigh.

Labels: birthday, books, budgies, Christmas, Christmas decorations, food, illness, music, television

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 11:27:00 PM

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The week had a good start—since I'd done all my Monday chores on Sunday, we took the time on Monday to go up to Books-a-Million—bought a couple of remainder books—and while we didn't have lunch at Uncle Maddio's as usual, we did stop at BJ's to get maple syrup and other goodies.

This week I started putting up Christmas decorations, but because Advent is so late this year, I got complacent—not to mention that this year I am still not feeling much "Christmas spirit." I got so dispirited last year, and really haven't come out of it, although I managed to keep James out of the hospital this year (so far). The falls and the hell he went through during those ertapenem shots ground me down to nothing.

We couldn't even go to physiotherapy this week because I got sick just before it was time for us to leave. When I wasn't in the bathroom, I was asleep—until we had to go to Kaiser for James to get a blood test. Ended up stopping at Publix on the way home.

Recovered a bit on Thursday, enough to do some shopping and get James his biweekly Procrit shot, and we stopped by Big Lots, where I was lucky enough to find a set of blue lights for the Christmas tree on the front porch, since the previous set had blown out when I put up the lights earlier this week. Unfortunately, Thursday night was a flat nightmare.

Tuesday James ran out of Ambien, which he needs to sleep. So when we were at Kaiser on Wednesday, we picked up a new supply (Kaiser will only give him a thirty-day supply at the time; we are required to pick it up in person) and I had to finish filling in the Ambien for the rest of the week in his day-and-night pill dispenser.

Apparently I filled it once...and then filled it a second time. So James had two on Thursday night and I didn't realize. So I thought he was having some sort of stroke after I had tended the raw spot on his leg and I couldn't get him to sit up. I kept telling him to wake up and he kept insisting he was awake and then closing his eyes and going back to sleep. At one point he was lying crosswise on the bed with a pillow under his head and I was in the bathroom in tears.

That brief sleep seemed to rouse him a little, and I was able to finally get him straight in the bed and his CPAP mask on and send him properly off to bed. This is when I was finally able to go into the bathroom and check the pill compartments and take out that extra Ambien from the other five compartments. Sigh. I spent most of the night checking James' breathing. On Friday morning, he didn't remember most of what happened—I told him he was asleep!

Friday we went to the Apple Annie craft show as usual. Saw many nice things, but so much of the show is jewelry now, or beautiful woodwork that I don't grudge the artists the money, but we can't afford. Instead we bought stuff from the bake sale, which should last us as desserts for several weeks!

When we finally went into the sanctuary before leaving as I always do, to pray, I burst into tears instead and just knelt there and cried and cried.

On Saturday morning, James had his hair cut, and then we spent the next five hours at Urgent Care getting a problem checked out. Since Monday, probably another side effect of James' new meds—I sent Dr. Salazar a note telling him I was not giving him the third dose on Sunday—James has had a raw wound on the inside of his right thigh. Monday it was a little spot; by Wednesday it was a big raw sore. I dipped into the expertise given to me by Greta at the wound clinic (who doesn't appear to be there anymore) and have been treating it with Xeroform sheets and surgical bandages. It was bleeding on Friday night and looked ugly, like raw hamburger, and looked just the same when the nurse and later the doctor examined it at Urgent Care. (BTW, Urgent Care was slammed. I'm surprised it only took us five hours.)

They gave us more of the prescription antibiotic mupriocin ointment which Greta had once prescribed, and told me to just keep doing what I was doing with it (putting a barrier between the wound and other flesh so there would be no friction)! Also that we were smart in deciding not to take any more of the medication, since all these side effects had boiled up the moment he'd begun to take it.

(They told me not to put anymore Xeroform on it, but I did anyway, as an extra barrier. By Sunday it had quit bleeding copiously and was just leaving small patches of blood when I cleaned it three times a day. The mupriocin is truly a wonder drug.)

I suffered the same fate as James, and never received a reminder from the county to renew my car registration. I got the car inspected last month and just got online Sunday morning to renew it. Still find it funny neither of us got a reminder, but Alice, who lives up the street, got hers fine.

Labels: books, Christmas, crafts, decorating, excursions, health, medication, sickness

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 11:09:00 PM

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You've heard of 1001 Nights? This week was 1/3 dozen doctors. (And, to be honest, 1/4 dozen doctors, since physiotherapy doesn't really count.)

The tally:
Last visit with vascular doctor.
Podiatry.
Pre-sleep study consultation (in Decatur, no less).
Also, physiotherapy.

So doing housework on Monday was actually sort of relaxing. 😉

So James' fistula appears to be healed properly. Not sure if it's ripe yet. The doctor keeps asking "When are you going on dialysis?" Well, not yet, I hope. It's not like anyone's told us. James has no symptoms: he's still urinating fine, the urine looks normal, he has no loss of appetite, edema, nausea or vomiting, or shortness of breath. (Dr. Kongara keeps asking.) On the steroids Dr. Salazar gave him, he lost five pounds.

Since we were at Glenlake anyway, we went to Merchant's Walk and checked out the new Barnes & Noble in the shopping center where the Borders used to be (the B&N is in the old Bed, Bath & Beyond). The new store is...quite trendy. The bookshelves curve and "float" around the store so you are led in a certain path around it; James didn't like it, said they didn't have enough stock. I thought it was kinda cool (but, yeah, all the bookstores can use more books!) In fact, I found a cool book about Josephine Baker's spy work there, and bought James Travis Baldree's new book. I also had to get Victoria Finlay's new book, Fabric. "But, Linda, you hate to sew." Why yes, I do, and I can't tell one type of cotton fabric from another (except flannel). But I love Victoria Finlay's writing, and this book is no different. It starts out with barkcloth and tapa, both made out of the inner bark of palm trees, and she travels to New Guinea and other South Pacific islands to meet the few Polynesian craftswomen who still practice doing the fabric the old way. She also uses the book as a way of assuaging her grief after the deaths of her parents.

We also went to Trader Joe's, where most of the Christmas stuff is out. Where are the Candy-Cane Joe-Joe's? All they had were the chocolate-covered ones.

Wednesday was Doughnut Day Physiotherapy. It was a warm day, like the previous one, and James was still in minimal pain due to the steroid treatment, so we took the rollator instead of the chair so we could use Butch and take him by the cheap ($15) inspection place. Everything was okay, and then we went on to what was a very extensive workout, and yes, the doughnut. On the way home we stopped at Publix to do the weekly shopping.

Thursday we took a box to Goodwill, dropped off our good duds at the cleaners after their appearance at Neil and Emilee's wedding, then James got his feet inspected and a good pedicure at Kaiser before we went on to Lidl and two different Publix stores, since the Scufflegrit store on Wednesday had none of my favorite yogurt flavor (chocolate hazelnut). (They had plenty of that nasty coconut almond, though!)

Friday was our 33rd wedding anniversary. (Rodney pointed out that in March we would now be an LP!) We celebrated by having to get up at a hellacious seven a.m. to drive out to Decatur, as James has not had his C-PAP vetted in a long time. The only way to get this done is have a new sleep study, and when you're on Medicare you have to have a neurological exam before the sleep study. So this was the exam part, at 10:30. At the Emory sleep center. Off North Decatur Road. (What I call the "old neighborhood" since if you drive a few miles and a couple of turns and you're at Clifton Road and CDC headquarters.)

It was cloudy and rained most of the afternoon, which made it a PITA with the power chair, but we managed to have a good time. We found the building in one shot (thanks, Waze) and the exam itself was anticlimactic (James' opinion was "I had to drive all the way out here for that?"). I'd seen there was a Whole Foods across the street, and the last time we ate at the Whole Foods in Kennesaw they had a killer salad bar, so I said, "Let's go there for lunch."

Mistake. It is (or at least at that Whole Foods) no longer killer (no more of the delicious cucumber/tomato salad!) and there wasn't a darn thing on the hot bar I could eat without risk of (1) eating something spicy or (2) eating something that didn't give me massive indigestion even with a Protonix. They had clam chowder, but it was watery. I just had a salad while James found meatloaf, tikka masala, lasagna, and something else. He brought half of it home and the darn lunch cost $34! We could have gone to Tin Drum for less and gotten better food.

We did get some nice chocolate tarts for an anniversary dessert and two chocolate bars for other desserts.

There was a Half-Price Books across the street with a JoAnn next to it, so we took refuge out of the rain there. I got lucky in HPB and found another John Douglas book; also a hardback of Stephen King's On Writing and a "Bottom Line" book for $2 (we already had it, but I wanted to make sure!). James got some cool Lego Christmas sets (polar bears, a snowman, and a train) in JoAnn. I just bought a yard of good flannel...in case we get another bird. I cut off part of Snowy's cage cover for a shroud.

Anyway, James has become addicted to his new air fryer. We went from a 2.5 quart to a 5.something quart, so he's been making everything in it: warming up burritos in it if he has frozen burritos, making egg/cheese/ham/etc. egg dishes, cooking drumsticks and thighs, etc. So instead of putting it back on the dog's crate after using it, he's just left it smack in the middle of the kitchen counter, pre-empting prep space. We have very little kitchen counter as it is.

So Saturday I did a little cleaning in the kitchen pantry closet and cleared a space wide enough to put the two clear containers we have for English muffins and for Toufeyan wraps. If I then moved the tea machine next to the toaster, there was enough room to put the balsamic vinegars, the air fryer, the Magic Bullet, and the two-level lazy susan against the back wall next to the refrigerator. This means the entire counter got clean, and also the other counter. It was a long afternoon's work, but it worked out.

Finally on Sunday we went to Costco, as we were running out of probiotics. We've been taking them for three months and it has really helped my lower GI problems, and I think they've made James more "regular." Bought toilet tissue, almond flour crackers, and a few other things, too, then dumped all the stuff at home and went to IKEA.

I remember when you could get a decent lunch at IKEA; now all they have are the meatballs, veg meatballs, or chicken strips. I had a salad that there was no dressing for, and a kids' meatball dish (four with mashed potatoes). I was famished when I got home. Found a cool light to plug into my desktop that will throw light on anything I'm copying from, a clip-on light for my side of the bed, and a cheap squirt bottle to use when I iron creases in anything. Also got some ginger cookies. IKEA's new self-checkout screens are terrible. They're not sensitive to the touch at all and take you forever.

I'll tell you, though, that I'm so glad we moved into the current house when we did. IKEA has gone back to their "roots," which means plastic bucket chairs, ugly square sofas, lots of blond and white woods, and other junky 60s-looking crap. I'm glad we got all the Leksvik furniture when we did, as there's very little I would buy there now, except for the Billy bookcases. It didn't help that they are remodeling the entire bed/bedding department.

Labels: anniversary, books, cooking, crafts, errands, exercise, food, health, shopping, sickness, weather

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 12:47:00 PM

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Well, we had some Big Events this week (and none of them involved goddamn Urgent Care).

The Friends of the Library book sale was on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, and it was the first time that I've gone that I did not go first thing on Friday morning. I still fret about James and I didn't feel like getting up early to boot, plus I know I'm not going to find the stuff on my want list at the sale (it has happened, but not often enough to be a pattern, like when I found Time Out for Happiness). I ended up going on Saturday instead, to kill a little over an hour before Jessie's birthday party at Mellow Mushroom. And, yes, I still did manage to find books, including Michener's Chesapeake and Alaska, a compendium of Agatha Christie's books, a book of British mystery short stories that includes one by the late Christopher Fowler, My American Revolution about the war in the Middle Colonies, and Ronald Kessler's The FBI. Also grabbed four books for James including a P.J. O'Rourke and a first edition Book of the Month club version of Victory Through Air Power (from 1942).

Ironically, James was going to go to his club meeting and only I was attending the birthday party, but he discovered the meeting was next week, so I followed him over there only to find out Jessie had a problem and could not attend her own party. There was a nice crowd anyway and we enjoyed ourselves.

Instead of the book sale on Friday James and I went to Home Depot, which was absolutely filled with Christmas trees! Doesn't anyone make a decent-looking tree under 7 1/2 feet tall? I simply cannot decorate one that big without getting on a stool! The small ones have mixed branches which are absolutely repulsive.

Anyway, we were at HD to get light bulbs. I've discovered I like their "bright white" bulbs (3000K), since they are brighter, but don't mess with my eyes. I got a box of four clear 60-watt equivalents and one of 100-watt equivalents. For the living room I bought two bulbs which you can adjust from "warm white" to "daylight." I have left them on "true white" for now and am crossing fingers they don't irritate my eyes.

We also went to Lowes just for the heck of it, and...more Christmas trees. Same heights, too.

Had lunch at Hibachi Grill—oh, God, are they now in this oversalted hell, too?—then finally returned the pair of slip-on shoes I got for James at Walmart and bought up sugar-free candy, and picked up some things we hadn't gotten at Lidl during the big shopping trip on Thursday.

On the way up the stairs with the groceries, I whacked my right elbow good on the woodwork of the stair rail. Oh, my God! I bang one of my elbows at least once a week and it's horrible and painful, but goes away in a minute. Today I had to run to the fridge and put ice on it for twenty minutes and it raised a big purple bruise and dear Lord it hurt! I was afraid I'd broken or chipped something. After the ice I wrapped it in an Ace bandage for the rest of the night, and by shower time it was fine.

All I could think of was: if my arm is broken, how will I cath James????

Something nice happened to a friend of mine on Saturday that I was very happy about. Rupert Holmes was signing his book Murder Your Employer at the Deptford, NJ, Barnes & Noble store. Our friend Emma goes there all the time! I was practically jumping up and down in the truck seat as we went to James' physiotherapy I was so excited as I texted Emma the news. She was able to go and have MYE and also her copy of his novel Swing autographed by Rupert, and he told me how nice it was to meet another "friend of WENN" (Remember WENN, that is).

We didn't go to the Apple Festival on Sunday because both of us got too little sleep and it's a 75 minute drive. I did manage to format a new piece of fanfic for upload on Thursday, though.

Something sad did happen on Sunday that was of little consequence, but was still a bummer. I signed up for Twitter a couple of years ago so I could read posts from a few people I liked, including Susan Branch, Sam Neill, J. Michael Straczynski, and Vincent D'Onofrio. The latter, especially, would post neat views from his apartment of the NYC skyline, or his unusual little "poems" which are by turns funny, inspirational, and sometimes downright melancholy. After Elon took over Twitter, D'Onofrio mentioned he might quit, and Sunday afternoon he just pulled the plug. It will be sad not waking up to a funny video (like the one he posted a couple of weeks ago of him and his daughter cleaning the carpet in his apartment!) or a pretty view or a poem).

Labels: books, Christmas, errands, food, friends, injuries, shopping, social media, writing

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 11:20:00 PM

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James had a really good surgery followup on Wednesday; I guess the fistula is "maturing" okay. It will take several months to be completely functioning, and then it will be ready when James needs it.

Am I just being desperate hoping that he won't need it for a long, long time?

Afterwards we went to Barnes & Noble. I bought two "buy one, get half off on the second" books, and also a nonfiction book called The Murder Room, about detectives and forensics experts who get together to solve cold cases.

We have found something interesting to watch on Apple+, For All Mankind, which is an alternate universe story (you see, it's not just for fanfiction!). The Soviets landed on the moon before Apollo 11, so the Space Race is still going on. Things are the same—Neil and Buzz still land on the moon—but there are fictional astronauts, and now some of them are women because on their second moonflight the Russians sent up a female cosmonaut, so of course the United States had to have female astronauts, too. The ERA gets passed in this universe and Teddy Kennedy doesn't go to the party on Chappaquiddick—but once in office he is having an affair with Mary Jo Kopechne. Some of the social advances still seem kind of quick, but it mostly jibes.

Friday we got things done: took our clothes to the cleaners to be ready for Neil and Emilee's wedding, brought the boxes for donations to Goodwill; after physical therapy we grabbed some quick food at Krystal to go on to Kaiser for James' Procrit shot, bought gas at Costco, then finally picked up some craft supplies before going home.

Saturday I did a lot of tidying, and also finally put all the fall decorations up. In March, I had just left the winter decorations I had taken down in a box because I wanted to go through the rest of the winter decorations to get rid of some of them, the ones I didn't put up last year. So I went through the winter box and gathered a dozen or so things that "didn't spark joy" anymore and put them in a donation box. Then I finally put the rest of the winter decorations away.

I guess the truth is that I have been in kind of a funk most of the year from James' different falls and the wretchedness of summer. This makes it hard to be enthusiastic about decorating or crafts; I just want to brood. When it gets at its worst I can escape into my stories, but it doesn't do a lot for my wanting to do anything else. It got so cool over the weekend we could ride in the truck with the windows down and I felt like taking a longer walk with the dog. It's such a relief not to sweat because the moment I do my rash flares up again.

Maybe once it gets cooler permanently—but that's always such a fluctuating thing in a Georgia fall and winter—I will be in better spirits. At least I hope so.

Labels: books, chores, decorations, donations, food, health, mood, television, weather

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 10:58:00 PM

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