Great hack!
Just heard back from the director of the museum I’ve been pitching a project to. He’s meeting with the board next week, and it is at the top of things for them to talk about. 
nellie Yay for some good sleep!
If you have those large Band-aids (y’all call them “plasters” I think) you can slap those over the itchy areas.
Be sure to avoid the adhesive going directly onto a welt - the sticky part should go on healthy skin. (That’s why I mentioned using a larger one.)
Alternately, if you can stand the extra warmth, sleep in a pair of soft mittens or gloves.
That’s my kind of cooking!
Ehrmehgawd. How extravagant … !
Hey, if you gotta Saran-wrap yourself like potluck leftovers, go with whatever works!
Classic.
We got tunder-boomers early in the morning, which was lovely but now it’s 90% hyoooooomidity and imma hafta grow gills or something!
The pain I normally have is fairly low level. It’s normal after a surgery where they’ve used shop tools to fix the problem, included electric saws and a small sledge hammer. 
That’s a lot of trauma, and I would expect some level of pain to continue for the months to come. At least it’s manageable.
Congrats on getting some sleep. I remember the relief I felt when I woke up after about 2 hours of uninterrupted sleep. Felt almost as good as the first shower I took.
I belatedly realized I didn’t respond to this. I was told to avoid using heat on the knee for at least 6 weeks post-op. I think the heat would exacerbate the inflammation around the incision, which is still warm to the touch. Ice is much better. I have Raynaud’s in my feet, but I don’t want to use a heating pad in bed because I don’t want the warmth near my knee. I’m thinking of just dunking them in hot water before bed.
Oh, and in other good news, my incision looks less ugly now. Some of the bumps have flattened out a bit, and the deep craters seem to be gradually filling in. It’s still bruised and not pretty, but I’m encouraged.
doggio, I had a sneaking suspicion what choking the bishop means but had to look it up. You are a naughty, nnaughty boy.
Afternoon all. Have been to two banks and have two slips of paper that represent a fair percentage of my total worth sitting in a secure place. Will give them to the Edward Jones guy tomorrow after some discussion. This is one of the larger transactions I’ve done, I usually tend to hoard rather than invest, but the opportunity seems good at this time. Kind of amazing that it was all rather easy, just two types of ID and at one of the banks I had to give them a code from my phone (email) to further prove I was who I said I was, and it was done. Still have a few dollars in my savings accounts, but given the low interest rates I’m not expecting a lot of changes.
Nellie, so very happy you got a night’s rest. And who am I to argue with You Tube? If it works and makes you comfortable at night, keep it up.
Cookie, can hear your frustration about being inactive, but let your body do it’s job and heal you good.
FCM, will go search out the photo (Note: did so–he looks so quiet and pensive there…HA!)
boo fae, 86F here right now, but that’s the climate I’m used to here; hang in there and I hope it cools down soon. And you’re welcome–it just came to me as most good things do.
Vroom, yelling doesn’t accomplish much except leading to more yelling. Hang in there and keep the resumes moving.
VanGo, fingers crossed for a favorable board meeting.
OK, need to replenish my belly supplies and then plan on the swimming and sauna. Take care all.
Not only is it OK, it’s practically mandatory. You’ve just been through a grueling experience. Your Mom would want you to rest and recharge now.
We are back to our usual dry weather. And triple-digit temps are coming back for the next week or so. After that, fall might be moving in; we’ll see. My first summer in the desert was not too bad, actually.
Last night was dominoes night at the clubhouse. It’s one of my favorite activities here. We play a game called Mexican Train. For the first time, I won the table (6 players per table). There are no prizes; it’s just for fun. But winning makes it more fun. 
Hi folks - Mid afternoon here.
First things first:
Congrats to Nellie for a solution to the itch and for being able to sleep!!!1!!! Here’s hoping you can keep that streak going for a week or three. Daytime naps are also totally “indicated” as the docs say.
Wordy: rest as easy as you can. You’ve been through a lot and self-care is good care.
I read about half of today’s posts on my phone a couple hours ago, where replies weren’t practical. But hoorays and congrats and I’m sorry’s to all as appropriate.
Had a fine day here:
Up predawn, on the beach as the sun cleared the water into a nearly cloudless sky with a light breeze and a whopping 12" of “surf”. Just about ideal. Walked, dozed, and swam a bit then got hungry, so drove to a beachfront cafe a couple miles distant & ate while baking in the sun. Then more dozing, swimming, & sand walking.
Eventually around 11am I’d had enough vitamins UV & SW (seawater) to get through another day. Stopped at the beach toy store for some tidbits then home to shevel. Now that’s done, Her Ladyship is erranding, my laundry is drying, and I’m a-time-wastin’ w y’all.
Nearly 2pm here it’s 88F/31C outside with the occasional puffy. The edge is off both the heat and humidity today. We’re not 100% done w hot & a bit sticky, but it’s getting pretty intermittent.
Happy Wednesday afternoon, all! It’s nearly 2pm and I’ve gotten through all of today’s meetings, tasks (so far), and email responses (so far)…plus, both the lawn guys and the cleaning ladies have been and gone…I’m hoping the rest of the day will be quiet!
My attitude is much better today, but physically I’m still feeling a little “meh.” I only woke up once in the middle of the night, but I’m slightly congested/sinus-y. Usually, feeling like this is an indication that I haven’t been getting enough rest; I’m hoping to go to sleep early-ish tonight and kick whatever this is. So far I’ve managed to avoid COVID, and I haven’t had so much as a cold in the past three years: I’m not trying to come down with something two days before I drive to NJ/four days before a family wedding.
I chatted with my dad a bit last night, and he mentioned that he’s been binge-watching NYPD Blue. I never got into that show when it aired, and he and I don’t always have the same taste in entertainment, but after we hung up I watched the pilot episode. I’m still re-watching White Collar, but I’m up to S5 and it’s all feeling a bit familiar (I’ll finish it, though). And I’ve started re-watching favorite The West Wing episodes/arcs here and there, but it would be nice to have something new-to-me to enjoy (and 12 seasons of it!). I’ll see how far into it I get.
I rarely remember my dreams, but last night I had one that involved drinking beer for the first time since my bariatric surgery. I haven’t had any alcohol or carbonation – not strictly forbidden, but cautioned against (especially the carbonation) – in almost two years, so having a beer was kind of doubly naughty! 
All I remember is nervously preparing to take the first sip, and that I was out with friends at a happy hour or something.
The thing with alcohol is that my tolerance will be much lower now than it was before surgery, but I haven’t done any experimenting so I have no idea yet how it will affect me. I don’t drink at home, and when I’m out it’s always because I drove, so I just haven’t had an opportunity. I don’t really miss it, though: while I’m sure there will come a day when I have a little wine again, I’m in no hurry to reintroduce alcohol. Ice cream will almost definitely happen first. 
Last night’s workout was good, but I’m glad I decided to cancel tomorrow’s session in favor of prepping for this weekend’s trip. I went to the grocery store on the way home, mainly to get Gatorade and protein shakes and popcorn for the trip, and just had to take these pics for shoe…
I have bolded and italicized the mistake in your response. 
Oh, I’m so sorry. 
(November 2 will mark eight years since my mom died.)
Sounds comforting!
!
Yay!! 
The usual “start in smalls, then go to the slide” day. Of course it was hot. The red bowtie collar I bought from Da Jungle for Spot has arrived. I’ll put it on and get pics later. After a martini or 3.
If the surgeon is hacking things, phantom nerve pain may be the least of your problems. 
Yay!
Sorry the wound is weeping, Cookie.
You’re welcome, Metalmouse
Yes.
Let’s hope the board agrees to pay you for some boards.
[Accidentally posted this to last weeks’ thread, prompted by a discussion there.]
Not big on chocolate shakes, but I do love chocolate malts. My favourite shakes were the peach shakes we used to get at Hardee’s, but we don’t have that chain in this part of the country. If I’m in the mood for a shake I usually get a vanilla or banana one at the local DQ.
It’s nasty here – 85-feels-like-92 (predicted high 89) with 68% humidity, but the NWS’s heat advisory ends this evening at 2000. I’d much rather have cold and snow.
I’m sure Spot will be much more cooperative after his 3rd Martini.
'Zactly.
So, Cookie are you gonna learn a new language during your enforced idleness? Take up painting?
WANNA LEARN TO CROSS STITCH??!?
Jeebus almost six bucks per … ?
Yeah, ISWYDT.
Sitting here with my feet wrapped in my oh-so-seXAY bunion splints, finishing last night’s Arby’s … and yes, I drove back earlier today, just because I forgot to ask for horsey sauce. For one tiny slider.
No regrets. (Except, of course, for forgetting in the 1st place.)
Also, a handful of chocolate-covered coffee beans snarfed down while refilling my snack toob.
Lunch of champions!
Christ, it’s hot and humid out there this afternoon. Not as bad as many places, but dammit, I was trying to get away from this crap!
(Feel free to rub my frostbitten nose in ^^ post this winter when there’s like, five feet of snow or some shit. Everyone’s saying The Farmer Almanac is predicting a snowier-than-usual winter.)
Meant to reply to this when it went by, but that was while I was on my phone.
After the “Uuuunnnfortunately!” comment I suppose responding with something like “Yeah, I just closed at Mr. Scribs Pizza” would maybe get you extra fries or something. Or at least some sympathy.
Payback’s a bitch. Mother Nature will not forget that you dissed her in August and now again in September.
Once it does get cold there I suggest you make sure to have a couple weeks’ food (and weed) on hand, because you may be trapped in your home that long until the rescue plows can get to you.
I’m pretty much done for the day: I’ve shut down my customer laptop, and am just keeping the corporate laptop online for a little while longer in case I get a response soon to a question I asked about an hour ago. If any other new emails arrive, though, I’m gonna pretend that I already logged off.
No idea yet what I’m going to have for dinner, but there’s pineapple in the fridge for dessert and I’m looking forward to that. I bought some last night. Normally I get strawberries, but when I saw the pineapple I suddenly had a gnawin’ and a cravin’.
…and a Band-Aid or 4?
(actually, I think I like pilot’s reply better… 
)
A fellow banana shake fan! Woot! *high fives*
I prefer to think of $5.29/$5.39 as being almost five bucks per.
Howdy Y’all! We procured provisions. Since we were so exhausted after that, nappage ensued. Then I holed myself up for a couple of hours to read confidential Priest stuff and think of questions/concerns that might need to be raised. I will do this again tomorrow, as well. We have a zoom meetin’ with the assistant Bishop (her title is actually Canon of the Ordinary which sounds like she’s in charge of weaponry for the Diocese) to touch base with her before we decide whether or not to move on with the interview process. Sup got nuked and et up as well. Now the dishwasher is swishin’.
Back in the day DQ’s (or Sonic’s) banana shakes were awesome!! Now my decrepit pancreas gets one suck at the straw and the rest goes to somebody else or in the trash. So I mostly do without. Damn stoopit pancreas!
Speaking of pancreases, considering a ramen or udon for dinner. If I’m careful to quit partway through it’s not an OD on carbs.
Today was my (unrequited) last day of potential overtime evar. I’m on call for irk tomorrow morning at 7am running for my final 5 days evar. Right now there’s no open irk, but I’m real close to the first person to be called. I’d be surprised to survive Thu, and no way I’ll survive both Thu and Fri without irking.
So one more time into the breach almost for sure! And this may or may not be the final time depending on how many days irk I draw. As Yoda wisely said:
Hard to see the future is. Always moving it is.
That walker is a menace. It catches on EVERY gap between sidewalk squares. I have to lift it each time or fall on my face. No more.
It was nice getting out and about though. On bus #1, a mom sitting ahead of me turned and said, “He’s trying to show you.” Huh? Oh, her little mop-top wanted to show me something on his mom’s phone. We then played funny faces for 20 minutes. Ride #2 involved a self-described comedian with a very dark view of the world, which he shared with me and, because he was two rows away, everyone else. He also told me all about his kids, ex-wife, and failed hernia operation. On ride #3, the guy behind me struck up a conversation about Blaxploitation movies, had me read his PowerPoint for his films course, and told me all about his auntie who died. #4 was a very short ride, no conversations.
I’m now icing my knee and working up the courage to clean out the fridge.
These days, Ma Nature is too pissed off at the climate change deniers who keep roughing her up to wreak revenge on those of us who gripe about heat.
Oopsie, I am now craving pineapple.
Does that include the Holy Hand Grenade?
And a pre-dinner hello to all. Swimming and Sauna have been completed, did 1,000 yards of backstroking today, so should sleep well tonight. Also got a little surprise, I couldn’t find my ‘swimming’ glasses (spare glasses that I keep around the house) a couple weeks ago and looking around didn’t turn them up, so I figured I had lost them (still have a old spare for emergencies). So, getting out of the truck and heading for the door to the house, I glanced down at the garage floor and noticed something mostly hidden by a bunch of old construction supplies that I keep, reached down…and the glasses are back! Probably fell out of my gym bag coming back from the gym one day and I never happened to look down at that place until today.
Wheelie, hooray for the win; never played dominoes but I know they can be very popular.
Oopsie, get to feeling better soon. And you have your priorities straight; Ice Cream before booze (doggio may disagree…). Just checked the same package of Butternut Squash by Lean Cuisine here and it costs $3.79 at Kroger in N. Ali-bama.
shoe, 88F here at 5:30pm, Weather Wizards say it feels like 98F, and even if it’s more common here, I am, like you, so ready for Fall to start.
Herald and Pilot, haven’t had a shake in quite a while, now you’ve given me a hankerin’ to go get one. But that would mean putting on proper clothes and going out into the heat…maybe later.
nellie, it’s been awhile since I’ve been to a 3-ring circus, sounds like you could have one everyday if you wanted.
OK, need to get some dinner ready and then prepare for proper slothage for the evening. Take care all.
I could say something really dirty about a ‘banana shake’. Know what I mean?*
*You can make anything sound dirty by lasciviously saying ‘Know what I mean?’