(no subject)

I still don't have the official report from the mammogram and ultrasound. My sister wants very much to see it because she's done a ton of research into breast cancer over the last couple of months. Based on what I've told her, she's pretty sure the odds are good it's benign-- the shape, size, and the fact that it's moving around inside my breast are all, she says, signs that point that way.

She complained that the hospital where she had her surgery didn't do a lot of the things they were supposed to do. Nobody showed her or Mom how to clean the drains until Mom demanded it. Nobody showed my sister the exercises she was supposed to be doing every single hour. They just told her to do them without giving any other information about them at all. She was supposed to be wearing compression boots, but nobody bothered to hook them up until she requested that they be removed because they didn't seem to be doing anything.

She also told me that websites based in the US generally don't give any information about surgery for breast cancer at all. She suspects that they're afraid of litigation. Her doctor's office's patient handbook had extensive sections on radiation and chemo but nothing whatsoever about surgery and what to do and what to expect. They've asked her if she'll volunteer to gather information for that. She did find a couple of very informative sites that are based in Canada.

My mother and step-father arrived around noon, and they took Cordelia and me to Zoup for lunch. (That was the best option I could come up with. I miss Cafe Marie.) They've now taken Cordelia off with them to do... something. They were trying to get her to suggest ideas, but she wouldn't, so I have no idea what they're going to do now. The rest of the party, my brother and the five guests from France, hadn't even left Kalamazoo as of 12:30, so who knows when or even if they'll arrive. The original plan was for everybody to go to the Hands On Museum, but that may not be worth the price by the time everyone's in Ann Arbor.

The exhaust system fell off the car while Scott was driving home last night. He's pretty sure that repairing the damage will cost more than the car is actually worth. He doesn't want to take on a car payment, but we may not have much choice. He did tell me last night that, if we do buy a new car, he's absolutely going to get rid of cable. I'm not sure what his plans are for this fall when The Voice will conflict with The Flash and Agents of SHIELD (assuming everything's still on at the same times). We won't have a DVR any more. I'm also not convinced that we can get The Flash at all without cable.

Scott thinks I can get Sit and Be Fit on YouTube, but I haven't been able to find actual episodes there. Maybe I'm not looking in the right places.

Cordelia will lose Girl Meets World. I'm pretty sure Disney will only let people with cable subscriptions watch episodes on their website.

Streaming stuff isn't a really great option because our Earthlink DSL is very, very slow (but at least doesn't throttle stuff). It's okay if one person is streaming something but not as good if two people are. Apparently, we really could get service that's ten times faster if we went with Comcast or AT&T, but they have horrific customer service, screw around with their rates without much (or any) notice, and absolutely do throttle. Scott's been looking at other options, but nothing's turned up that looks good (the best of the lot took over a month to return his queries and wants us to pay business rates in order to get a static IP address. Moving my fanfic website would be a PITA but doable. Moving our other two sites would be a lot bigger deal because Scott has hundreds, if not thousands, of photos and videos from all parts of his family and needs his siblings to have posting access).

I just don't know. Earthlink has been pretty damned reliable. Almost every outage we've had has been due to trouble with the phone lines. Those that aren't usually resolve in under an hour and, well, don't happen particularly often. They've been responsive to service requests, too.

Two of the players in Scott's FATE game weren't able to come last night. The two others did come, and the four of us ended up playing a cooperative game that Scott had just gotten. I'm not sure of the name of it, but it involves trying to rescue people from a burning building. It took us twice through to get a reasonably good grasp on the rules, and we never did figure out whether or not it was all right for two firefighters to be on the same square at the same time or for one to pass through a square occupied by another. We played as if we couldn't, but we failed to find anything in the rules that said one way or the other.

I think we're going to end up posting an abbreviated Metanews this week and pushing my remaining links to next week. I will probably have some time this afternoon to work, but I very much doubt I'll get through anything near to everything. I'm still kind of wrung out, and I don't know how much time my parents are going to expect from me.

I did email my psychiatrist last night. I didn't think it was urgent enough to call, but I only have four Ativan left (I'd thought, when I saw her on Tuesday, that I had ten or even fifteen), and I have no idea if I'll need any between now and the biopsy. I expect to need one for the biopsy. My sister says they gave her valium for hers, had her take one a couple of hours in advance and one as soon as she arrived for her appointment. I don't get along well with valium. It shoots my anxiety through the roof because it noticeably decreases my ability to react if something goes wrong without decreasing my belief that something might go wrong. I just thought that an anxiety reaction as severe as what I had yesterday morning was worth mentioning to my psychiatrist. If it happens again before next Thursday, I'll definitely end up calling her to consult. I used to get them a lot when I was still working (one of the reasons I can't work).

(no subject)

I feel like swearing and crying at the same time. Last night, I purchased OS X Mountain Lion. Today, I tried to install it and had an awful time because I couldn't figure out what I was supposed to do to access the download. I actually had to do a chat with Apple's help staff.

Once I knew where to find it, I tried to download it only to get a message saying that my hardware can't support Mountain Lion. Apparently, my current system is as far as my hardware can go, and I'm stuck. That means there's no way to upgrade any of the software that ties into the OS. I can't update Safari. I can't update iChat. I can't ever use FaceTime (I supposedly have it on my computer, but it won't run under Lion).

Scott says that the dealership wants $3000 to replace the exhaust system. That's more than the car is worth. He wants me to call around to see if there's any place reputable that can/will do it for enough less to make it worth doing (he said around $1000. I think he's dreaming if he thinks we'll find that. $1500 might be possible, but... Yeah). I've gotten four recommendations, two for one particular place. I'll be calling another place first, though, because the recommendation comes from a friend who, in turn, had originally been directed there by a mutual friend. It doesn't hurt that that's the only recommendation that includes a phone number.

I'll start making calls as soon as I stop being quite so upset about the OS fiasco. (Supposedly, I can get my money back, but that requires a phone call and some hoop jumping, and I'm not sure I can handle that today, maybe not tomorrow either.)

(no subject)

I called the first auto repair place, the one recommended by people we know and trust, and found out that I lacked a bit of information that would make a huge difference-- I needed to know whether or not the catalytic converter had fallen off, too, because that adds at least $1000 to the job.

I talked to Scott a little later, and he told me that, yes, the catalytic converter fell off. So I called the first guy back. He told me that it would be between $1700 and $2000, including labor and depending on whether or not he could save any parts from the old catalytic converter. (Scott thinks not because he says he's been getting error messages from the sensors in question for a while.)

The second place I called wouldn't be pinned down to any sort of estimate except to say that the catalytic converter added $1000 to the cost, whatever that cost might be.

The third place, I got an answering machine. Maybe they'll call back; maybe they won't.

The fourth place said $1300, but I'm not sure that I believe it as it sounds very low.

And I've gotten nothing else accomplished this afternoon, no writing, no link finding, no reading even. I did do the dishes, but that only took ten minutes, so I'm not sure I count it as a victory.

Scott claims that my laptop should be able to run Mountain Lion, that it did once before (which puzzles me). I have no idea.

(no subject)

I got a call back from the place where I left a message, the estimate there is $1830 (which seems oddly specific).

Scott is working twelve hours tomorrow and at least eight hours on Saturday. He says cider season is getting started early. Usually, it waits until September.

My parents brought Cordelia home and then left immediately. The original plan was for us to all go out to dinner, but they decided they'd left their dogs alone too long (and we couldn't really argue. Both dogs are at least ten and likely older, and they'd been on their own since 10 a.m., and it's a two hour drive back to Lawton).

Scott said that he wanted to out to dinner anyway, but Cordelia really, really doesn't want to. She says she's had enough of being out of the house today already. She even says she'd rather eat chicken than go out. I can kind of sympathize, but Scott and I would like to do something nicer than pizza or Wendy's. I think we'd both really enjoy going somewhere moderately nice, probably not anywhere as expensive as Blue Nile but still. I'm not sure how to reconcile that. I know that I want to go out.