I am exhausted. I’ve been dealing with insomnia for almost a month now - until last week, I could fall asleep, couldn’t stay asleep. Then, last Wednesday, I was bitchslapped with some kind of congestion nonsense. Blowing my nose did nothing, so I’d sniff. Then I’d cough. And cough more. And then cough until I vomited. The pressure is miserable. So add insomnia to the cruds and you have a woman who has not slept in more than two hour increments in almost a week. Even walking is a struggle, as my legs feel like they weigh 100lbs each. I can’t get in to see my doctor for a week, and urgent care doesn’t like dealing with me (due to the kidney failure - they just push me to the ER, and this is NOT ER worthy).
My dad’s a tenor, but he increasingly sings the bass part for the Hallelujah Chorus. Or just lipsyncs. After all, when does he usually get asked to sing it? At the end of an hourlong church service which has had any number of other high notes. So it’s not like he has any voice left anyway–and usually there’s another service or two to go afterwards.
It’s not as problematic for me-- I’m a soprano. Sopranos generally outnumber tenors in our choir by quite a lot. So if I skip the too high notes (Gs, As, and sometimes Fs), someone else will get them. Except during Saturday’s rehearsal, when all the sopranos either stopped singing at once, or slaughtered at least one jump.
I do have to admit that the service was a little anti-climatic without the big finish, and listening to a couple of people talk about their memories of singing/hearing it sung over the years made me a little more understanding . . .
But I still maintain that singing it a capella was not an obvious choice.
I sang first and second soprano for it. There’s parts I still like. I like going to those huge sing-alongs where I can get in a large group and holler along with the quiet knowledge that at least I know the parts, even if no one else does. 
My rant for the day: people who travel 20 or miles less than the speed limit on two lane freeways for absolutely no reason other than they just don’t care. Or they’re too old to drive. Or they didn’t notice that we left the city limits 15 minutes ago. Or who the fuck knows. Why? There’s never a really safe place to pass. I don’t mind if it’s farm vehicle. I don’t mind if you need to pull in somewhere. I’m not going to ride your ass, because your head’s already up it. By why are you doing this? I am going to have a stroke. It shouldn’t matter, but it makes a simple errand take twice as long and I just can’t find my zen.
We live about an hour out of the nearest city that has supermarkets and stores and hospitals and such. And jobs, did I mention jobs?
There is one reasonably well maintained two lane road that gets us there, usually. There’s also a few back roads that are bumpy and narrow but tolerable in the summer and pretty crap in the winter but do have the advantage of very little traffic. Normally.
A month ago a culvert on the main road failed and closed the road completely so now the only alternatives for everyone are the crap back roads.
So now the normally crap back roads are mega crap from all the extra traffic which includes tractor-trailers, fuel trucks, fully loaded dump trucks going to and from the construction site and soon; there’ll be those wonderful bus sized RVs because the road that’s closed is the only way to get to three major tourist attractions in the area.
The hour commute is now about an hour and a-half and is a nightmare of pot holes, wash-outs, traffic, disintegrated pavement and crazy narrow back roads.
Word is that it’ll be another month before the main road is usable.
Well, they had a conversation this morning and it went well. They both made their points, and everybody calmed down. So glad it happened over the weekend to give them a chance to chill.
My shoulders HURT. the left one much more than the right, but both are trying their best to make my life a misery. Sometimes, I can “crack” the shoulder causing the most pain, and at first it helped a bit, but now, not so much.
And six months before the side road is repaired.
You know, of course, the difference between a first tenor and an alto?
The tenor doesn’t have hair on his back.
Our men’s chorus did a TTBB Hallelujah Chorus. I do remember the first tenors being stretched mercilessly, basically singing the soprano part. Fortunately I sing low bass.
Just another complaint about UPS, and about Home Depot which doesn’t accommodate picking internet orders up in the store any more.
I ordered a 2-drawer pedestal file. Home Depot’s website sucks but I complained and got the charge back to where it should be. (That’s complaint #1, it should just work instead of requiring a complaint.) They ship via UPS (#2). UPS said it would be delivered sometime today between 8:30-5:00, so I stayed home all day - one reason for that is that the UPS site said that the package required a signature (#3). Then it was changed to between 3:00-7:00 (#4). Then it was finally delivered at 9:00 pm.(#5). The driver left it teetering on my steps (because I have a security gate the blocks the porch), rang the doorbell and must have sprinted to his truck and driven off, because I was 10 feet away and he was gone before I could get to the door (#6). I did not get a chance to inspect the object before accepting delivery, and I did not have an opportunity to sign for it. Lo and behold, the file had been dropped on a corner and the frame was bent (#7-9). Finally, to cap off a perfect day, their claims site is offline and I am instructed to try again tomorrow. #10, over and out.
eta: forgot to mention, I will get a refund and give the damn file away if someone wants to try to straighten it out, and buy one from Staples. They at least allow me to pick it up at the store.
Dear gut,
I understand now. You can not tolerate dairy products. I have been very nice to you for a month… today I made Kraft dinner. Had a coffee with milk and a bit too much chocolate.
I get it. You are angry at me. I’ve learned my lesson. Please, stop. You win. I quit dairy. I’m done. You win. Just stop so I can sleep.
Really? I hadn’t heard any plans to fix the side roads at all, besides the usual “fill every third pothole” maybe and put up some more “bump” signs.
Well that sux. Maybe you should Pit that.
I finally got a wacky “customer” in my shop who doesn’t trust my site because it “acted funny”. I know her personally, and she’s a bit odd, so I’m not surprised. But… come on. She works for a major federal contractor, so I would think she’d be comfortable with technology for the most part. But she reported first “pages got garbled and a bunch of weird words in another language (Russian? ) were superimposed onto of your images.” and then later in reply to my question about which product page she was trying to access, changed her story to: “this superimposed image appeared over your text” with no actual indication of which product/image/text. She said she panicked and closed the browser when she saw that.
I’ve had a 20+ year career bellyful of people who panic at shadows with computer software. I tried to help her and investigate, but if she can’t give me any useful details then to heck with her. (I did look around the site in general and saw nothing amiss.)
I was really hoping that this prick would have posted his suicide on Facebook.
I’m glad he went without cameras rolling. I’ve been really hoping that killing and/or dying on video doesn’t become a thing. “Starting now, over on 4chan…”
Speaking of assholes on loud motorcycles… I was at a 4-way stop yesterday and made a right turn behind some guy on a super loud Harley. Seconds later I almost rear-ended him because he slammed on his brakes to apparently stop and say something to three young ladies walking down the sidewalk. I went around him, as did the car behind me, except that they only got about halfway around before jerk-on-Harley decides to pull back into traffic, cutting them off. Then a block and a half later we are stopped at a red light. I am about four cars back, car at the front of the line is getting ready to make a right turn. Harley idiot passes us all on the right, squeezing between cars and the curb, then swings around to the left of the car in front and makes a right turn right in front of them and into cross-traffic without even looking or stopping.
What a freaking moron.
Those brutes already get too much attention.
Shit. Again.
Radiologist says only one spot. One is not multiple. Ergo not MS. So says the doctor logic. Seems to me MS patients have to have their first lesion sometime!?
Test for myleoma also negative.
Five months of being racked with pain daily and they still can’t say why. We are now officially chasing zebras. Anyone know of any obscure demyelnating virus I might have picked up while tromping around rural Colombia?
The guy seems to be flirting with Darwin. Hope he doesn’t take anyone else with him.
Check with Johns Hopkins. I’ve a good friend who has a (so far as I know) unidentified cause of neural demyelination, and that’s where she’s being treated. For years they thought it was fibro, until one day she had a seizure and collapsed.