Morning, mumpers! It’s currently 6c/43c with a predicted high of 8c/47f, and cloudy. Weather app says “It’s fifty shades of fucking grey outside, but not in the fucking sexy-time way. It’s in the fucking depressing way.” Fair enough, it is grey and dreary outside but I’m inside where it’s cosy and warm.
We don’t change our clocks here until the end of March so I’ve got that delight to come later, except when it happens here, I’ll be over there so I’ll be several hours adrift anyway. Oh, the confusion yet to come!
Good Mornin’ Y’all! Up and caffeinatin’. YAWN ‘Tis 45 Amurrkin out and mostly cloudy with a predicted high of 61 and partly N.O.S. for the day. I have a doc appointment at eight-thirty. Thus, when I woke up with the need to pee, I decided to stay up. DST bein’ here and all, I was afraid if I tried to doze a little more I would not wake up again until it was too late. Stoopid DST! Since I will be out and about, I shall also deal with some errands. However, I shall make up for it all later on with sloth, nappage, and day drinkin’. Sup shall be my world famous Eyetalian chikin, green beans, and hominy casserole. Have made the hominy casserole in a while, so have that to look forward to chowin’ on.
Now I need more caffeine and to feed rumbly tummy. Then, alas and bother of bothers, I suppose I must needs purtify and don attire acceptable for bein’ amongst the great unwashed. Le sigh.
Same for us, but for even more fun, we are flying that weekend for a two-week holiday in a country which doesn’t observe the changeover at all. Which means the listed flight departure time keeps jumping around, apparently depending on whether the system is consulting our local airport schedule or the airline schedule in the home country, and also whether it’s accounting for the time change or not. We’re honestly uncertain when the plane is supposed to leave the ground.
We might just need to show up at the airport four hours before our best guess departure time just to be safe, because there are so many variables.
And it’s pack-up-the-kitchen-crap day! This shouldn’t take long because it’s a tiny kitchen, but with MIL along to “help” - well, who knows…
She’s getting stubborn again - insisting she’s fine to go thither and yon, refusing to accept that she’s still a fall risk, despite the walker. Yesterday, she took a dirty dish from the living room to the kitchen. Sure, she got there and back OK… this time… But last night going down the hall towards her room, she blanked out and would have fallen if FCD hadn’t been with her. But she’s fine. She’s fine. That’s what we hear all the time: “I’m fine!” aaaaaarrrgh!!
Chilly and gusty day today. But 3 nice ones to follow - with luck, I’ll get to spend some of those nice days in the yard. But this morning is packing, then either PT or OT coming this afternoon. We need to figure how much furniture needs to be moved so FCD can arrange for movers - we’re too old to be hauling dressers and couches like we did 30 years ago. There won’t be a lot, so with luck it’ll be a minimum charge for a local move. We shall see.
Good morning, everyone! Today I go and lead a group of hungry cooks in the making of lunch at our local support club for people with mental health issues (like me). We’re having a baked potato bar and an ice cream bar! I want to get there fairly early so the potatoes have time to bake. MusicMan is off today and so he’s going to go with me and then leave and take Ms. Poodley-Poo off to the groomer. Both of them will love that trip, I’m sure.
Up and more or less at 'em. Wife’s niece was over yesterday and they went to see a play. Then came back and we went to a nearby restaurant, where the niece started feeling a bit off. Came back to the apartment where she was definitely not feeling well. By the time she got home she was vomiting and had the trots. As a nurse, she’s exposed to a lot of this sort of thing. Problem is: we were all in close proximity, especially my wife, who is a hugger. So we’ll be skipping exercise today to wait and make sure we aren’t spreading anything around.
Mornin’all. Presently ~9am here and I’ve already wasted a bit more time than I have. Totally clear skies out there, 67/19 now on the way to 77/25. So, as advertised, about 10/5 degrees colder than the last few days.
Last night I ended up stuffed from the RenFaire so just had a lazy evening at home and did 2 loads of laundry. After this post it’s time for shevelment, breakfast, and packing (more like tossing in a change of clothes) for my next 2 or maybe 3 days on the road with the sailplanes.
Mike’s housekeeper just showed up for her semi-weekly tornado through the house. I thought that was last / next week, not this week. Oh well. So now she’s underfoot for my shevelment & breakfast.
Don’t forget that you don’t greatly care about breakage or damage at this point, so a lot more stuff can be dumped unceremoniously into any given box. You’re not trying to vandalize the stuff, but it’s all going to a thrift store next. Whether they get a set of 7 dishes with one having broken 20 years ago, or a set of 6 with one broken 20 years ago and one today, matters not to them.
As to MIL & falling …
As my late wife got worse, the thing that was most frustrating to her was own bodily unreliability. Some days she was strong, some not. One day she could shower unassisted while standing, having walked to the bathroom on her own two feet. The next day it was time for me to almost carry her, plunk her on the shower chair and I did all the washing while she sat there immobile.
Unlike your MIL, she was quite communicative about her plight and it frustrated her mightily. But she did admit to the unreliability, and did deliberately submit to its limitations. Like no trying to walk unaccompanied and unassisted on a day she felt weak. She spent a lot of time pushing a walker that she didn’t really need. Because as she put it, “The only thing worse than dying of cancer is dying of cancer with a broken leg.”
Infirmity of any sort is such a gigantic bad part of the human condition. I’m sorry you’re going through it now.
Applied to your MIL, the message is
Yes Mom, you’re fine. Until suddenly and with no warning you are not. Then you’re on the floor.
You can’t predict when; neither can we. But we can say it’s gonna happen at least once a day. You wanna fall once a day? No? Then let us help every time, not just sometimes.
She won’t listen, and she sure can’t learn, but you’ll feel better having said it.
Yeah. After lotsa years working in airports, it’s odd to walk through them as a customer. There’s this invisible barrier between me and my former co-workers. I’m invisible to them, just another face in the throng and if I did try to yak with them as if I still worked there they’d be polite, but it’d just feel “off” to all of us.
After years of going to the hospital or cancer clinic at least weekly with my late wife, it was also weird to go there as a patient myself. Which I did a year-ish ago for a specialist visit that turned out to be nothing. Having the bar code sticker on your shirt and having the other patients and their healthy entourage looking at you like that is a very different feeling.
Cookie Best of luck on you and dear wife not having caught the intestinal crapola.
And here’s my catch-up from the last of last week’s MMP:
This is them: Keys’ Meads. So apparently professionals at it. I suspect licensing for by-the-drink sales was the issue. I found the great beer not long after, and although somebody else was almost certainly selling mead by the glass, I wasn’t interested by that time. And yes, if a Viking expedition was to have gotten lost, they could sure do worse than fetching up in Key West.
I did not find a Camera Obscura. This is a temporary set-up that recurs every year on the same site in a huge public park, so no buildings; all tents and portable stages and such.
Yaay! Much easier that way. Good for Mom!!
Late aged MIL did great on her own when downsizing from a big 3BR house to a series of 2 BR apartments in her early 80s.
Going from there to the 1BR at the independent living place at age 91, she struggled mightily to jettison even the crappiest of wildly excessive furniture and she kept all her linens, even the round ones when she had only square tables. After that it was game over. Her place was stuffed to the gills, nothing got used or even looked at, but it could not be gotten rid of until after she died.
So now you have a chest freezer and a stove gracing your porches? Soundin’ kinda rednecky to me. What’s next, a broken down pickup truck on cinderblocks out front?
Sari: All that drama with the dogs make me think you with your critters and that other lady with her critters should coordinate to never be at the park at the same time. Claim it’s due to the dogs’ incompatibilities although we all know it’s really the humans who can’t handle each other.
The less of her shit in your life, the happier you’ll be.
Morning all. Slept in to 8am today so off to a slow start. Will get to my shopping and sammich here shortly, it’s cool (49F heading to 62F) but dry at least. Soccer practicing gets started in earnest this week, so hope to be spending some time at the fields helping out, but still getting my gym time in. Got the HVAC folks scheduled for Thursday, so that will be an improved system and a depressed checking balance…such is life.
FCM, hope the kitchen takes less time that you think it will.
wet one, swampy, happy Doctorin’.
Sticky Buns, sounds like you’re doing better (or at least doing stuff). Take care.
Cookie, crossing fingers that the virus got lost on the way to you and Ms. Cookies innards.
OK, need to dress and head out into the great unknown. Have a good week all
Apprently the belt didn’t spring forward, because it wasn’t moving forward till 20 past start.Then it was the usual loading, and after that helping Deb on the 200 slide, since the Senior Clerk was out. Not a bad way to make some hours, except I was alternately sweating and freezing. And in the passive aggressive signage category:
Ouch. Hope the rest of the trip goes well.
Sticky, Ice cream bars do sound a lot better than poodle grooming.
Camero.
But yay for finding great beer.
Hope you and the Misses missed the cooties, Cookie
Sorry for the, uh… Huh. Very long absence. It’s been A Whole Thing.
New job’s very cool but very demanding. It’s my first really significant leadership role, as opposed to just generally supervisory. I haven’t felt overwhelmed exactly, but definitely operating at my full capacity.
Junior got very sick. I’d been noticing some weird behaviors such as a back leg limp, but I thought it was just starting-to-get-old. Turns out he has diabetes. So I’ve been scrambling to get that under control, because I will Not Be OK if he dies right now. He’s around 10 now, not young, but not old enough that I’m ready to say goodbye to him. Right now he seems to be doing ok. Not sick anymore, but still weak in the back legs. We just upped his insulin dose, so hopefully he starts improving more.
That was also a huge chunk of money in vet expenses, so I still do not remotely have my feet under me. I’m hopeful that this coming Friday’s paycheque will finally be the one that doesn’t immediately vanish and leave me overdrawn before the next one, but, ya know. I’m not holding my breath.
I had a back spasm in the bathtub last week that resulted in a, uh… A longer bath than I expected before I could get myself up. Lots of care and stretching has me almost back to 100% this morning, but not quite. I think I may be able to get back into the gym… I was doing really well with an exercise routine before that screwed it up.
Good things, though! Saw the doctor for the first time in almost two years, since I now have insurance I can actually use. Had more blood drawn in one go than ever before in my life, but - everything looks ok. Got a new scrip for my HRT drugs, so I’m not winging it with those now. One of my favorite bands, Silversun Pickups, was doing a show that I couldn’t afford a ticket for… But then they announced a free acoustic set at the Electric Fetus record store, so I was able to see them anyway! I even got my tour poster signed. It’s cool, they were the last band I saw live back home in CA before I left, and I got that poster… And now they were the first band I saw live here in MN, and I got the same poster signed. A nifty li’l symmetry.
I think that’s about it. Kept thinking “shit, I need to say hi to the mumpers” and then letting it build into an anxious stress thing and letting it go another week. Well! Cross that off the list! Love y’all lots.
I thought that’s how they all worked. That’s probably because traveling Faires are all I’ve ever known. Everything is brought in and everything leaves with the owners. That’s one of the big reasons I always find the Camera Obscura, they were never busy and I could tell they appreciated getting paying customers.
I used to model for Lord Randolph so I’ve seen the insides and back rooms of some of the portable buildings, they are very cleverly made to be able to come apart and lay flat for transport.
The free, broken, fire danger of a stove only sat on our front porch for one night. The working freezer that she has already paid and has been out there for a MONTH just moved off the porch and around the side of the house to sit by the gate next to our trash bins. I am rather grumbly about this, if she can pick up a picnic table, she can pick up her freezer.
FCM I hope the kitchen packing is as painless as possible. Would threatening MIL with a bumper ball make a difference?
I sure hope you two didn’t get anything icky from her. When Mom was a grade school teacher we all avoided her for the first couple of months of the school year because that was when she was getting exposed to all of the new cooties for the year.
Welcome back. I am so sorry about Junior, but will say that our Fred was diabetic and he tolerated the daily shots very well. The insulin needles are hair thin, I’ve stuck myself with them more than once and only knew I’d done so because I could see the needle poking me.
I hope Junior starts improving and you get your feet under yourself financially.
So, I’ve got the menu planned for Thursday and will be heading into town in a few to pick up the missing ingredients. We will have a ham and cheese quiche for breakfast, pizza for lunch with a shepherd’s pie for dinner and coconut cream pie for dessert. We take international Pi day seriously around here!!!
It’s not complete until there’s a upholstered couch on the porch. And then sit on the couch and drink beer out of a can.
Definitely nifty. Hope kitty, bank account and back all get better.
Waiting for the train which is 11 minutes late. Quelle horreur! Supposed to go to the gym tonight, so I hope the train can make up most of the delay by the time it gets to my home station.
Now the fun thing is the train app giving me updates every 2-4 minutes.
Started Typing: 1:12 PM ET
Clicked Reply: 2:04 PM ET
I live in roughly the same geographic area as FCM, and our weather tends to be similar: so it’s also chilly and quite gusty (again) here today, but the rest of this week will be in the 70s – including a forecasted high of 76°F on Thursday! And mostly sunny! I’ll be stuck inside that day, at an in-person managers summit, but maybe I’ll be able to take a quick walk outside at lunchtime…
My left thumb is no better today. I jammed it on a weight at the gym Friday evening, and one side of the joint has been swollen and painful ever since. Saturday morning’s workout – and my trainer’s attempt to straighten the joint – exacerbated it. Ice helps, but only temporarily. I’m not allowed to take NSAIDs, so there’s probably not much else I can do except give it time, but I think I’ll go to urgent care this afternoon just to have it looked at. I imagine they might xray it, to make sure there’s no fracture; I’m sure I’ll be sent home with “Tylenol and ice” instructions (i.e., what I’ve been doing). I don’t really want to go out in this wind/cold, but it might be a good idea to have the joint checked before tomorrow evening’s workout exacerbates the swelling/pain again. I’ll probably log off work in about an hour.
I started building the Lego Corvette yesterday. After assembling 5 (of 9) bags, the main chassis is almost done and it’s starting to look like a car:
I expect to work on it more – and maybe even finish it – this evening.
In the last years of my mom’s life she was a frequent flyer at local ERs and would often wind up being admitted, and I was always her advocate (I’m way better suited to that role than my brother or her ex-husband [aka Dad]). I’m also the one who takes Dad to his cataract surgeries, colonoscopies, etc. I’ve never minded hospitals – I even volunteered at a couple in my 20s/30s – and I’ve spent a lot of time in them, but I wasn’t a patient myself until my bariatric surgery in late 2021. I’ve never so much as broken a bone. It was pretty surreal to be in a pre-op area and be the one on the gurney!
Glad you and Junior are both on the mend, and you were able to check in with us!
It’s Misery Monday! Today is the day that the DST fans suddenly and temporarily recall its many downsides. Question: Why has DST been extended? It used to be that clocks changed in April and October, so six months of DST. Now it’s March and November, so 8 months of its many deleterious health effects. Now excuse me while I go kick a clock.
Heard from sonny boy yesterday, but my daughter was unable to call and will call Tuesday. I had a long talk with my brother about my SIL. She is very stubborn, so I can empathize with FCM re: her MIL.
My surprise hyacinth plant has decided to become a tree. Hey, we all have dreams. It’s 17" high now. (They’re normally under 12".) If plants played basketball, it could dunk.
Yesterday was a good stomach day, so I’m holding off on calling the doc.
This may be the best yet!
Sticky Buns, that sounds delicious and like way more fun than taking a reluctant dog to the groomers.
Has the food changed since you worked there? Hope the lab results are good!
cookie, I hope you and the missus didn’t get the crud. It’s thoughtful of you to avoid others just in case.
My mom did the opposite when going into independent living: she wanted to dump everything except a few garments. Apparently she envisioned a nuns’ cell. Luckily my sister kept mom’s sister’s paintings and some kitchen utensils.
Hey, my mom was a grade school teacher, too! For some reason, she never got sick, even a cold. The sole exception was when she got the Hong Kong flu in 1968. It was worrisome to see her so sick.
Remember, it’s not complete until you put it on concrete blocks.
I wish it was still later in the month for us. Or not at all. The timing means that every freaking year I lose an hour around my birthday!
I wish you safe and (hopefully boring) travels!
I feel this so hard. My dad goes through this semi-regularly. This time, I think he’s longer stay in the hospital has changed his mind on being fine. I hope it doesn’t take something so drastic to get MIL to realize that there’s no shame in using health aids.
VanGo, that was me going to Sunday Assembly last night. Thankfully, I wasn’t driving. (Being so short, there’s a good portion of the sunsetting that hits below the visor.) I don’t know why, but the later sun in the evening bothers me far more than the extra dark in the morning.
I really need to get my brain fixed. I read this as “9am here and I’m already a bit wasted”, which caused a serious double take because… that doesn’t seem like you!
Cookie, keeping my digits wrapped together in the hopes that you are both being missed by the ick.
Niner, I’m glad things are going well for you with the new job. Even if it does keep you too busy to visit (Yeah, I’m one to talk…) Sorry about Junior and the back spasm. As a long term sufferer of such spasms, I seriously feel your pain. This is where I consider myself really lucky yo have a husband to scream to when such things happen. I hope you don’t have to worry too much about more of those.
Most of them do but there are a few that have permanent locations. I know that Sterling Forest in New York has permanent structures, as does TennRen here in Nashville. The one in Largo, Florida 20 odd years ago used to, but last I remember, they lost their regular space.
It’s been a pretty great weekend, all told. My best friend was up for the weekend to play lots and lots of board games. We celebrated my birthday Saturday night with lots of very thoughtful gifts and cheesecake. I also got to have eggs benedict and mimosas Sunday morning. And today, our new mattress has arrived so Hubby and CtE are getting that set up. I’m looking forward to a good night’s sleep.
Not much planned for today beyond the said mattress set up. Hubby’s taking me out for sushi tonight. And I should work on some of my OT for their visit tomorrow. The feeling is getting better but my fine motor skills still leave a lot to be desired. Plus they’re helping me get my arm working again. That’s actually the biggest pain in the neck with the post-surgery stuff. Because of home health care, I have 4 different visits a week and I usually don’t find out they’re coming until the day before. It does make planning things more difficult.
These sorts of things can really get out of control quickly in a place like this. We don’t eat in the dining room, so that’s a plus. Another problem is that we can’t effectively test for COVID for another five days (if that’s what it is). We’re vaxed for all the typical ailments, so here’s hoping.
After assembling 5 (of 9) bags, the main chassis is almost done and it’s starting to look like a car:
This may be the best yet!
(Yeah, I’m one to talk…) Sorry about Junior and the back spasm. As a long term sufferer of such spasms, I seriously feel your pain. This is where I consider myself really lucky yo have a husband to scream to when such things happen. I hope you don’t have to worry too much about more of those.