James had dialysis two days in a row this week. Since Christmas fell on a Wednesday this year, and they obviously didn't want to take the dialysis patients away from their own celebrations, they scheduled James for Monday and Tuesday dialysis. Monday went fine. I bought last minute foods at Kroger and made gravy with boneless pork ribs for Christmas Eve dinner. James watched Landman and Battlebots on his tablet.

Tuesday seemed to go as well. James had dialysis. I did some last-minute grocery shopping. We had spaghetti and pork ribs and watched The Homecoming and some of Midnight Mass.

We had plans with friends for Christmas which went down the drain on Wednesday morning. After making and eating breakfast and post gift opening, James suddenly got lightheaded and giddy. It happened twice. His blood pressure was something like 83 over 45. I looked it up and this often happens after consecutive dialysis sessions. So we rustled the emergency turkey out of the freezer, paired it with Yukon Gold potatoes, and a cucumber salad, and had a Christmas dinner on our own after giving James some salt and more liquid, and we both had a nap. Then we watched this year's Call the Midwife special, which was fabulous; there were several intertwined plotlines, including a tense but sweet incident involving Reggie, the young man with Down Syndrome.

Before bed, it was time for The House Without a Christmas Tree. A quiet ending to a quiet day.

Thursday we had a better day: James was feeling much better and we drove out to Books-a-Million and then had lunch at Brooklyn Joe's. We got a large pizza and once again brought half home. [Later: We had it as another meal several days later.] On the way home we stopped at Barnes & Noble.

Early Friday morning we got a call from DaVita. They were shortstaffed and couldn't accommodate James at Bellemeade that day. They had found a seat for James either that afternoon in Hiram at three or Saturday in Douglasville at 10:15. We chose Hiram even though it was a chilly, wet day because Douglasville was just too far to drive. However, getting there at three meant James wouldn't be out any earlier than 6:30. It's only fourteen miles, but it would be in the dark. I wasn't driving back that distance in the dark. Driving the two miles to the one near the house had been bad enough. So I basically packed up the laptop and planned to spend most of my time in the lobby waiting for James.

We got there and they were slammed. Two ambulances delivered patients that they weren't ready for yet. One of the ambulances would have to wait until 3:45 and they were expected in Douglasville at 4 p.m. and the driver was fit to be tied. Anyway, after 45 minutes they finally called James back.

I took the truck back down a mile and gassed up at Sam's Club. I have never seen that Sam's gas station when it wasn't five to eight cars deep at each pump! Today, only ones and twos--maybe the damp, chilly weather? Next I went to the next shopping center over, got some candy and a cool gift at Five Below, then went to Michael's.

If you're not looking for anything on clearance after Christmas, Michael's has to be the most depressing place on earth. I did get James a storage box. Went next door to PetsMart to get cheered up only to find all their budgies gone and one poor little lone conure left; I feel bad that I didn't stay longer and keep him company.

Finally I bit the bullet and went to Walmart because I was out of yogurt soon, then went back to DaVita. The Hiram location is in an area with all doctors' and dentists' offices (except for a gym) and parking was wide open.

The waiting area at the Hiram DaVita had a lot comfier chairs, at least (Bellemeade has nasty bucket chairs). They had a sofa, but there was no electrical plug at either end, and my laptop is old enough that the battery only lasts about an hour. There was a plug at a chair next to the Christmas tree, so I sat there. (No one turned on the Christmas tree, either, so I did that, too!)

James got home way after seven, at which time it was raining lightly. We stopped by Dragon 168 and had Chinese for dinner.

On Saturday we didn't do a blessed thing except I made a meat sauce so we could have spaghetti for dinner and Tucker got his two daily walks. Watched season one of Law & Order on Hulu (this began on December 16 and I've been looking forward to it, because as many times as I've seen the show on USA, WEtv, Pop, BBC America, and Sundance, I've never seen them in order and, indeed, have actually never seen some episodes at all, as first season proved), and then the final three episodes of Bull. I liked this series pretty well; it was enjoyable watching most of the characters grow and change, especially Chunk and Dani and Taylor. Jason Bull himself wasn't the most likeable character, but Michael Weatherly made him fun to watch. My absolute favorite character in the series was Geneva Carr's Marissa Morgan. It was nice to see her get her due in the final episode of the series.

On Sunday we found out that Jimmy Carter had passed away. Of all the presidents, I think he has had the most notable post-presidential career, and was just all around Good Folks. God bless, President Carter. You're back with Rosalynn at last.

Labels: Christmas, errands, events, food, health, outings, sickness, television, weather

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 10:52:00 PM

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Well, what to do about the faucet problem. Despite the fact that I was washing dishes in the bathroom and filling pitchers of water there, James used the kitchen faucet a couple of times and it didn't explode. However, it did need to be fixed. So while scrolling the internet, I found a company called "Steve's Handy," a handyman service. Steve had all five stars from people who used him.

So I called him and he was supposed to come Monday afternoon, but the previous job ran long. We made an appointment for 10:30 next morning, which was neat because now James could talk to him. He showed up promptly, then showed us some faucet options. We picked a Glacier Bay with a spray unit in the faucet head. He then went to Home Depot to pick up the faucet while I cleaned out under the sink. He came back with the faucet and installed it.

Well, I've had this "punch list" of small things that had needed doing for years, like the light in the bathroom downstairs. I asked Steve to look at the items. Folks, he took care of all of them.

* We haven't had a light in the downstairs bathroom in years. When James tried to fix it, back when he could still climb ladders, he could not get the light out of the cowling it was in. Steve was able to fix it—it turned out when James tried to replace the light bulb that burned out, the glass cover on the fixture was so tight he actually pulled out the whole fixture, which is why he couldn't get the light bulb out—Steve was able to get the clear cover off and just screwed in the light bulb.

* Steve used a special needle-nosed plier and got the broken light bulb base out of the overhead ceiling fan light in the library. This has been out of commission almost as long as the bathroom light, and it now has a bulb back in it! The cover is even back on it and the pull cords for the fan and the light back on. The screws that hold the cover were lost, but, since Steve had to go back to Home Depot to get a plug to cover the spray hose hole, he also picked up some generic screws so the cover could go back on. (It's not bright enough for the library, but I didn't have a 100 watt equivalent bulb that would fit.)

* I finally got our "Wizard of Speed and Time" poster reframed in the better frame I bought for it at least five years ago and Steve re-hung it in the foyer.

* Best of all, he got up on a ladder and was able to move our Leaf indoor antenna up as high as it would go (another four feet to the west and higher by at least 16 inches), and now we are getting Georgia Public Broadcasting again and Ion TV (I think we may have lost the better signal on "the Loop" which shows old black and white TV, though...oh, well). I re-scanned the television only two days ago and came up with 80 channels; scanned it again today and got 95. I've only reached 92 scanned channels previously, during the winter when the leaves are off the trees. Usually, once the trees leaf out we lose GPB completely.

Steve is definitely getting five stars and more from us!!!!!

(Also, he's a theater person and tech-y and knows the Atlanta Radio Theatre Company!)

So if you're in the area (Cobb County, Georgia, from Smyrna north to Acworth) and need some work done, check out Steve's Handy! These are all the things Steve does, per his Yelp listing:

Handyman assembly
Circuit breaker installation
Electric installation or replacement
Wire installation
Faucet installation
Garbage disposal installation
Handyman installation
Outlet installation
Handyman painting
Plumbing repair
Sink installation
Switch installation
Toilet installation
Water pipe installation
Handyman caulking
Electric inspection
Electric repair
Wire repair
Faucet repair
Garbage disposal repair
Light fixture repair
Outlet repair
Plumbing installation or replacement
Handyman repair
Sink repair
Switch repair
Toilet repair
Water pipe repair

Well, all this high had to have a downward slope, didn't it? It's the way things go these days. When James went to dialysis Wednesday afternoon, the PA looked at his fistula wound and thought it was getting infected. They put antibiotic on it and sent a tube of it home with him, and gave him IV antibiotics. They also said if it was worse by Saturday we would have to go to the emergency room.

Yes, I freaked. I did notice it was a little red on Tuesday. We have been doing just as the doctor ordered since the surgery: soap and water washing only, pat dry, a little Mupirocin on the incision. No bandaging necessary, even though the wound would rub against his shirt.

Well, it's going to be bandaged from now on, until we see Dr. Coyle next week (James called her immediately). So at night we are cleaning it out with wound cleaner, covering it up so the shower doesn't wet it, then re-cleaning it, putting Mupirocin on it, and bandaging it. DaVita gave him more intravenous antibiotic on Friday as well. They said it didn't look any worse and, since the doctor said I was treating it the right way (we sent her photos), just rebandaged it. (I hate the way they rebandage it. They put tape on his arms that pulled off some skin.

In good news, we got some stuff done on Thursday, and then on Saturday took a long drive up to Cumming to celebrate Jessica Clerici's 31st birthday. I loved seeing our friends, but Mellow Mushroom sat us outside so there was room for all of us to sit together. In the sun. In almost 80℉ weather. I had a migraine that kicked in immediately and with the glare and the heat, I had to retreat to a shadier seat.

Juanita had bought the coolest candle for the cake. It looked like a flower with long yellow pistels, but they were wicks. You lighted it in the middle and all the wicks ignited and the "petals" fell open and rotated while it played "Happy birthday."

We were in walking distance of a Barnes & Noble, so we walked around it for a few minutes and I bought a Christmas romance and something called A Werewolf's Guide to Seducing a Vampire for Hallowe'en reading.

The moment we got home we both took a nap. Sun takes so much out of us. Sigh.

Today I did a bunch of little chores including cleaning out the cart where I have all his bandages and medicines. With grim irony James calls it his "crash cart."

Steve left a tool here and is supposed to come back to pick it up. Maybe he will put up the new light bulb I bought at Home Depot on Friday. I walked in there and came face-to-face with Christmas! They had nearly two dozen Christmas trees (they're all so tall; what happened to six-foot trees?) and I actually liked a slim-line one, but I don't think it would fit all 200 of our ornaments. I suppose I could get rid of some...but I love them all.

Labels: birthdays, chores, Christmas, events, friends, health, home improvement, home repairs, illness, medication, purchases, television

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 10:13:00 PM

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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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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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Labels: dogs, DragonCon, dreams, emotions, events, exercise, family, food, friends, television

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

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James had his first week of dialysis.

It was ultimately frustrating, at least for me; as I ended up in Kroger every single time (DaVita and Kroger are in the same shopping center, about two miles from our house) and if there's anything I loathe, it's grocery shopping. The temperature was sizzling. And because the shopping center is popular, it's a pain in the neck to find parking. But I picked this location because it's close to the house and, if there was some type of emergency with the cars, James could actually ride the power chair to dialysis and back. Friday night was kind of the last straw; I thought my third visit to Kroger was my last, and then the roll of Glad Press'n'Seal (which enables James to take a shower with the permacath in him until they get this stupid fistula business worked out) fell into the toilet.

Tuesday I took Oliver back to Dr. Bostick. She says he is better, but not much, and she prescribed another medicine. As you can imagine, he hates that. It's an anti-inflammatory. And she wants me to have the vaporizer on for him.

James' in house physiotherapy coach came this week: José, a young man originally from Puerto Rico. He has James doing a walk back and forth holding something in his teeth; when he breathes only through his nose it expands his diaphragm and circulates more blood to his lower extremities. We also have an occupational therapist, Shanté, who came on Independence Day.

We had a quiet Fourth. I found the Bristol, Rhode Island, parade online again and had that on, and then we watched 1776 as usual, and then in the evening watched the Boston Pops concert and fireworks from the Esplanade on the Charles River via Bloomberg television. I noticed that the people running the cameras finally got the message and there were no shots of the crowds working the fireworks this year, just the fireworks! It was a good night, not a lot of smoke accumulation.

James finally got to do something fun: I took him to his club meeting on Saturday, then went by Sam's Club to get Press'n'Seal (good deal, two huge rolls). James' meeting ended early when one of the guys passed out from the heat inside the Union Hall—the air conditioning wasn't working—so we picked up some gasoline at Sam's Club. On the way home we got stuck in a gullywasher of a rainstorm, to the point that my clothes were soaked (and still wet on Sunday morning!). By then I was so exhausted all we had for supper was soup.

Labels: events, health, holidays, Independence Day, shopping, sickness, television

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 11:56:00 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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It began with a win: we had to get Disney+/Hulu with the ESPN package because there was no Disney+/Hulu duo at the time. Neither of us likes sports, not the type that ESPN covers, anyway. Now they have the "Disney Duo," so I contacted Disney+ and asked how to change. A very nice person named Ariadna helped me cancel the Trio and then I signed up for the Duo. It was quick and easy.

Wednesday it took James an hour to get a blood test because the suits at Kaiser Town Park decided to have a staff meeting and leave only one person in the lab. Not cool.

And on Thursday James had the tip of his right pinky toe removed. This is the toe that turned up in January with a sore on it. However, the sore had not healed, despite all sorts of different treatments that never worked. He had an X-ray, then an MRI, then he had another X-ray just lately. The last X-ray showed that, although the bone was not yet infected, it was showing signs of becoming infected. So Dr. Conway took the tip of his toe off. It was outpatient and only took a total of ninety minutes. James was even able to go to get his Procrit shot later in the day.

In the meantime, back in March I lost one of the nosepad stalks on my only-year-old eyeglasses. This was my own fault; I should know better to buy glasses with long thin nosepad stalks; the last pair of glasses I had with long stalks one of them broke, too. Well, I had this weird workaround with a Kleenex and superglue to keep the other one from breaking, and I was tired of it. So Friday I jumped in the car to go to Costco to get a new pair of glasses.

The car wouldn't start and the dashboard lights flashed on and off. So I went in the truck, only to find my prescription only lasted a year and I couldn't get a new pair without a prescription. Luckily I called up and I got in next Wednesday.

The stupid car will need to wait so long as we have the truck for transportation; there are other things that need taking care of first.

Labels: cars, health, sickness, television

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 10:31:00 PM

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Sort of an interesting Holy Week in making some old progress. Back in 2022, I stopped listening to the Colonial Williamsburg podcasts (I was busy writing, and I can't write and pay attention at the same time). I had caught up on all the Gretchen Rubin podcasts, and need to catch up on "A Way With Words," but wanted to get to the Williamsburg ones, too. This week I started listening to them again and hope to keep up with Rubin and catch up with both the others.

Most of the opening of the week was chores. James did have an MRI on his toe on Wednesday. His right baby toe, the one that showed up with a sore in January, is still not healed. It doesn't look infected, but skin isn't growing on top of it and healing it up, so the doctor wants to make sure the bone isn't infected. (Got the report later in the week; it's not.)

Thursday James' Procrit shot was scheduled early, although we tried to change it. So we went by Lidl on the way home, and I got both chicken drumsticks on sale and some boneless pork ribs, so I made cacciatore for supper and also made gravy for later. And we had a nap, too!

It was a quiet Good Friday: we had to run out to pick up meds, but I did listen to the BBC Lent Talks.

On Saturday while our low-sodium ham was marinating in pineapple, we went to Barnes & Noble and to Hobby Lobby. In the evening I watched the spooky movie Stir of Echoes. Kathryn Erbe is in it, just before she did Criminal Intent. It was pretty creepy, but turned out to be a little of a murder mystery, too.

And Easter was quiet. Unfortunately I had to wash towels since we were out of facecloths. I watched my two Easter favorites, Here Comes Peter Cottontail and The Easter Promise, and we had ham and potatoes for dinner, and then...dark chocolate Lindt bunnies! Yay!

Labels: Easter, food, Good Friday, health, holidays, movies, podcasts, shopping, television

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 10:59:00 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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The highlight of this week was the second annual occurrence of Marietta: The Gathering. This is a fannish event held on the Square in Marietta. No celebrities or anything, but there was a "dealer's room" in booths out on the street—I found a new kitsune pin! and James bought me the cutest fox pin—and a Star Wars presence and lots of attendees (and their dogs) in costumes or t-shirts. We stayed an hour or two, also went to the candy store to get James some sugar-free candy and to the British store. Discovered a new Italian market/café is going to open downtown!

The preceding day was cold and rainy, so we stayed in all day and James made biscuits in the air fryer. They were so good! I spent the day reading Barbara Feldon's book Getting Smarter, some about her time on Get Smart, but mostly about her relationship with Lucien Feldon, who turned out not at all what he portrayed himself to Barbara. I was surprised that she believed some of his wilder stories.

In other news, I posted the conclusion of a fanfiction, finally put up the knife holder I bought for James (we mounted it on a cupboard door, having no other space for it), and went to Sam's Club and bought some nice sirloin steaks.

Labels: events, food, shopping, television, weather, writing

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 11:24:00 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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"Doggedly I continued." And finally today, Sunday, January 21, it is all put away in the closet and I vacuumed downstairs to boot.

It took a while, although there was a Monday rush: I had to get everything downstairs removed and stored because we were going to have a severe cold snap (lows in the teens) this week. I didn't want to freeze my feet off downstairs. So Monday, between chores, I took down everything in the library and the airplane tree in the hallway. Happily, the foyer stuff was already down. On Tuesday I took down all the dining room decorations and the Christmas village and the board it sits on over the mantel shelf. The latter killed my back, so I spent Tuesday evening watching Killers of the Flower Moon, which I was so interested in seeing after reading the book. I found it turgid and overlong, and wondered why Martin Scorsese chose to center the narrative around Molly's useless husband Ernest, played by Leonardo DiCaprio, and his larcenous uncle, played by Robert DiNiro. It was gross watching these two slimeballs plotting the deaths of Molly's family so they could take over their oil shares, while Ernest professed to love Molly! Oh, the cinematography was great: there's one haunting scene where Molly is dying because blockhead Ernest is slowly poisoning her via her insulin, and there's a fire outside, and her sickroom is lit with flames as she burns up with fever.

It doesn't help that I'm not a DiCaprio fan at all; I would have liked to seen more of the Native Americans and also of the FBI search for the culprit instead of Leo as a lazy horse's ass.

The cold came rushing in on Wednesday; I wore my "Rhode Island weight" winter coat to physiotherapy—finally, already, Kaiser!—and to Publix. The wind had a blade edge. Compounded with this, our internet service was dead all day. It's not like we didn't have stuff to watch, and we both ended up hotspotting on our phones and could get on the internet, but it was still frustrating. It was very localized, too, just in our neighborhood; I suspect that some idiot with a backhoe or a ditch witch severed the fiber line and that's why it took so long to restore.

Thursday we had a big fat dose of reality. James goes to podiatry every six weeks to get his feet inspected due to the diabetes and get a proper nail trim. Pretty much every night I rub lotion on James' legs and feet and treat any injuries on his legs where the skin is fragile. Today the doctor found a sore on the right side of his right baby toe, about 5 millimeters in diameter, with evidence of penetration under the skin. I put the lotion on from the left side and usually check his feet and toes, but this got completely past me. James got an x-ray to see if there is infection down to the bone—there is no pus but the toe is faintly redder than the others—and I have to keep Mupirocin on it with a covering of Mepilex AG, and we have to come back in two weeks.

James thinks it might be because he's wearing the Skechers instead of slippers and they are a little narrower, and the wound came from the shoe rubbing his toe. But he's been wearing them around the house since October and the raw spot was not there when he went to podiatry six weeks ago! I'm just appalled that I missed it in the first place and am kicking myself. The tests came back by yesterday and the infection is not in the bone, but he does have staph. I hope the Mupirocin works.

I took the Christmas tree down on Friday, to the accompanying scream of my back, taking solace in Lassie episodes. There has been a "Lassie channel" on Xumo for a month or two, but they were mostly repeating the Jeff episodes and the transitional episodes over and over and not in order. Well, the same channel is now a Roku Live Channel, and they appear to now go through eighth season. So seventh season Lassie took my mind off my aches and pains on Friday, and when we got done at Lidl, Publix, and Kroger on Saturday, then had a nice trip to Barnes & Noble, I lucked out when we got home and "Lassie's Odyssey" was just starting! Solid gold Lassie, my favorite story from when I saw the original broadcast in February 1962. (Of course the asshole chimpanzee story "Casey" came next, but one can't have everything.)

I wish I could say "now we can relax" but starting Wednesday we have a marathon three days of doctors' appointments (and of course it's going to freakin' rain) and then another spate of them starting Monday the 29th. ::groan:: And I still need to bathe the dog and change the bed.

Sunday I got all the Christmas stuff back into the downstairs closet. Yay!

Labels: Christmas, Christmas decorations, internet, Lassie, movies, sickness, television, weather

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 11:29:00 PM

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Found myself struggling this week: first it was putting up the Christmas decorations, now it was taking them down.

It didn't help that I was distracted by other tasks that needed doing. For instance, James has been having trouble turning left out of our street. There is some kind of waxy-leaved bushes that were planted out front when they built the neighborhood, which are now taller than they were eighteen years ago. He can't see the cars coming up on his left on the main road. So Monday morning after my dog walk I marched up to the front with my hedge clipper and took down about half of it. This should have been a quick and easy job, but evidently the battery is not charging properly and I had to keep unlatching it and plugging it in again. Very frustrating. I came home and ordered a new battery. Zounds! It's one third the price of the hedge clipper!

I also had to do all my regular Monday chores—sorting meds, washing towels, and cleaning our bathroom—and also go to Kroger, since I was out of milk. So, didn't get anything done on Monday.

Tuesday is laundry day. I got out the boxes for the decorations, but that was about it since I had to go to two Publixes. Last week when they had Smart Balance on BOGO they evidently get any in stock: we went to two different Publix stores and they were out. Tuesday was the last day of that BOGO, so I went to the East-West Connector store for some and the Smyrna store for the rest, stopping at Big Lots in between to see if they had any gingerbread pizzelles left. Yes, they did, and they still had Christmas bows and paper on sale, too.

Wednesday was shopping day this week since Kaiser still hasn't gotten off their tuffets and re-upped James' physical therapy referral, even though he asked them before Christmas. By the time I get done shopping and dragging all that stuff upstairs to put it away, I'm generally done for the day. I also cleaned out the hall closet some: we have too many party things and I took away half the bowls and relocated some of the light bulbs.

Thursday James had to get his blood tested for his Procrit shot, then we had to buy a storage box for the Christmas village since I broke the old one bringing it upstairs. Instead of one big box which is hard to bring upstairs now because of the chair lift (that's how it broke), I bought four small boxes. We had lunch at Top Spice, but I'm discontent with their pad thai. Next time I'll get the other pad dish and not that one, even if I like the peanuts in the pad thai.

We finished watching Echo this week; it was only five parts. Not much for Vincent D'Onofrio's acting chops, but Alaqua Cox is mesmerizing to watch. I loved the way Maya's family, even her resentful grandmother, came to support her, especially her goofy cousin Biscuits. Graham Greene a delight as always.

The darnest thing also happened on Thursday after we got home. Our trash gets collected early Friday morning. Usually when I walk the dog Thursday morning I will try to put the can at the curb early because I have forgotten to put it out on Thursday night before. This way if I forget, all that rolls over to the next week is one bag of trash.

About twenty minutes after we got home, I heard a great thumping outside and looked out the front window. There was a garbage truck marked "Waste Connections" and the garbage guys were manhandling my Smith Sanitation trash bin. They emptied it, then slapped a "Waste Connections" sticker on it and put it back in place.

I was confused and questions raced through my head: Did Smith change their name? Get bought out? Is trash day now on Thursday? And WTF weren't we notified of anything happening?

Later that night  I went to my online Smith Sanitation bill. They had sent a note back in November that they were not going out of business back, but competitors were passing around a rumor that they were, so not to believe them. I responded to the note telling them what had happened with these Waste Connections people.

So Friday morning we're up early because James has a 11:30 appointment. I wasn't up ten minutes before a very flustered lady from Smith called me, having just read my note. Apparently this Waste Connections is a competitor and they are just driving around slapping their stickers on competitors' trash cans! She said when she got off the phone with me she would call our driver, explain what happened, and make sure the rest of the trash got collected. (Trash was collected at 8:23 am.)

I immediately flashed on all those Westerns where the cattle rustlers would take the herd before branding time and rebrand the cattle with a different mark and brand the calves, too.

Now we have garbage rustlers? Unbelievable!

Friday was a suck-ass miserable day, 43℉ and a steady, cold rain. James is always cold these days due to the anemia, but I was cold, like someone dumped ice water between my shoulder blades. I couldn't get warm and felt so bad the nurse at the infusion clinic gave me a warm blanket, too! I was in my fleece hoody all night. We watched the season finale of For All Mankind. (Yes, of course Margo got arrested, but I think an America prison is a much better place than being dead or ending up in the Gulag! And the bitch that got her into that situation probably ended up either of those ways so that makes me happy.)

James did his club meeting on Zoom this afternoon, while I finally puttered around enough to put away the porch and foyer decorations, the 12-Days-of-Christmas tree, the woodland tree and the table it was on, and boxed up the candoliers and the pillows. I also put out the winter porch and foyer decorations, and sorted the bows I bought at Big Lots. In the evening we watched the heist movie Lift (yes, Vincent D'Onofrio was in it; why do you ask). If you turned your brain off at the beginning, it was a fun movie. VDO had some good scenes at the beginning, then his part just dried up. The other stars were fun, especially the daredevil woman who was the pilot. I didn't understand the "charisma" of Kevin Hart's character Cyrus. He was supposed to be a charmer who kept this group together, but I didn't understand why they threw their loyalty in with him. I was quite amused at the eventual villain: portrayed by Jean Reno, who, in the crime series Jo, discovered that lethal Nicole Wallace, Robert Goren's occasional nemesis on Law & Order: Criminal Intent, was actually alive. So now Reno and D'Onofrio are connected by two things.

Sunday I finally got the Rudolph tree, the spare room decorations, and our bedroom decorations down, and the box downstairs.

Labels: chores, Christmas, Christmas decorations, events, food, health, movies, organizing, shopping, television

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 10:44:00 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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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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Well, finally! Tuesday was Hallowe'en, so now that all the Fright Night/Spooky Season stuff is over, there will be better stuff in the stores. Watched It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, of course, and the Hallowe'en episode of Law & Order: Criminal Intent, "Masquerade," with a very troubled Liza Minelli playing the mother of a little girl who was murdered years earlier, but whose attacker, a spaced-out child molester, was just recently escorted by Goren and Eames back to the United States; they soon begin to believe he was not the murderer. Would have watched other things, but James just discovered there were new episodes of Forged in Fire, so we got on Philo and he watched those instead.

The other "event" of the week was the weather: it was cold enough on November 1 to wear my Vermont sweatshirt. In my world, this is exciting!

Otherwise it was nicely routine, with no falls, the usual physiotherapy for James on Wednesday followed by our weekly doughnut treat. Also tried a new breakfast/lunch place with Alice and Ken, Eggs Up, in the shopping center at Brookwood near Hobby Lobby. There was also a trip to Barnes & Noble (finally the November/December "Yankee"!), and I put up the Thanksgiving decorations while James was at his club meeting on Saturday.

The fly in the ointment: it got hot over the weekend, into the 80s. It was disgusting. At least there was a nice breeze so that things didn't sizzle. How ridiculous to have beautiful leaves on the trees and the scent of autumn when the air smells like a heating pad.

And we are happily back to Standard Time, where the clocks need to stay.

Labels: decorations, friends, Hallowe'en, seasons, standard time, television, weather

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 10:53:00 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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We have discovered the best day to go to Costco: Tuesday. Oh, there's still a crowd, but it's a smaller crowd, and parking spaces are more available. In fact, we ran into a friend there: Alex Lucyshyn was there on his lunch hour. We bought toilet paper, which was a relief, because we were down to three rolls. James has been hankering for a new air fryer because ours was so small, so we bought one today. Alas, he made wings in it the first time and burnt the sauce. I ended up throwing up by bedtime. (But the wings themselves were cooked perfectly.)

I am determined to get more junk out of the house, so I made up two boxes of items we don't use (the old rice cooker, a sander I never used and now I don't make furniture any longer, etc.) to go to Goodwill. The box didn't go anywhere this week, though.

On Saturday, we took a few things to electronics recycling—the notice for it popped up unexpectedly on Twitter a few days ago—then went to an event in Acworth called the "Time Traveling Book Sale that had popped up on Facebook Events. This took place at the Acworth Community Center, and while there were a few booksellers, most of the dealers sold other book-related items. James bought a couple of dice from a vendor, and we saw the neatest keyboard at one vendor's table. It really does click like a typewriter keyboard!

We also went to the Crazy Book Lady bookstore. I found a neat book about numbers in literature and science, a book called Indian Time to read next month, and, finally, James Michener's Creatures of the Kingdom, which is all the collected nature and animal shorts from the beginnings of his books like Centennial, Hawaii, etc.

We ate in a spot off state route 41, Capo's Pizza/Ristorante. The service was very good and the "garlic knots" were to die for, but the spaghetti sauce was much too sweet. We didn't need dessert afterward.

Anyway, James has been wanting to see the film Greyhound for ages, but it's only on Apple+. Best Buy had this special offer for new subscribers: three months' free membership, so I got it. We watched Greyhound on Sunday and we both really enjoyed it. Laughed at some of the reviews, which complained there was "no character development." This was basically an action film, a war action film, about American destroyers escorting supply convoys across the Atlantic and being trailed by U-boat wolfpacks. Except for the first five minutes in the hotel, it is nonstop shooting and battle, and it's so well done I enjoyed it immensely. I didn't care if there was "no character development"--it was perfect as it was.

Labels: books, decluttering, errands, events, food, friends, shopping, television

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

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Poor James—he came down with a thump late Tuesday. Monday after the supposed dose of steroids during his surgery he had no pain at all and was walking tall and easily until bedtime. He even forgot his cane several times because he really didn't need it. Tuesday he had a little pain, but was doing okay. Wednesday the pain came back with a vengeance, especially after we went to physical therapy. Karen didn't have him do any arm exercises; just leg and hip and he was pretty miserable that evening, even though he told me he was "okay" at Publix. Thankfully, this let up a little by the end of the week and we could go on to have some fun.

One other doctors' appointment this week: his Procrit shot. Apparently it's raising his iron levels well. And he got some comfort food: after doing the shopping we picked up chicken and dumplings from Cracker Barrel.

Since we weren't going to DragonCon, on Sunday we made our monthly trip to Canton. Picked up three bargain books at Books-a-Million, including a World War I-set story about nurses by Lauren Willig and a rom-com that I didn't realize until I started reading it that it was set in Rhode Island! We had lunch at Uncle Maddio's Pizza, of course, then stopped at BJs on the way home for maple syrup and mandarin orange/pineapple tidbit cups.

In the meantime I finished a piece of fanfiction and have continued watching Law & Order: SVU. Again, some spectacular guest performances, but I'm watching Richard Beltzer having less and less to do, and Ice-T getting one or two interesting performances (Ken Briscoe disappears completely) while the meat of the stories go to Benson or Stabler. One funny thing I noticed that in the first two seasons Benson is the rookie and it's Stabler who's the big victim's advocate. By the end of fifth season you can see Benson taking over the role of victim's advocate and it's firmly in place by sixth season, while Stabler is just the guy who is always angry and yelling at the perps. His character seems to just quit growing by sixth season, as if the guy had to be the one to be angry and constantly struggling for control (it doesn't help that the Stabler character is separated from his wife in this season as well). I wonder why the shift? It was rather unique to see a man so firmly in the role of victim's advocate in a squad where the primary crimes were rape and child molestation—Stabler could be quite empathic to both rape victims and children when the series began; all of a sudden we are back to the "empathic woman figure" advocating for rape victims and children. Did the powers that be decide it was "more natural" for a woman to take this role?

Labels: books, fanfiction, food, health, shopping, sickness, television, writing

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 10:44:00 PM

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