(no subject)

Apparently changing our AC setting from 76F to 77F makes my pain levels and my ability to sleep much, much worse. I nudged the thermostat about nine days ago and took it back down again Sunday night when I realized that I felt a bit better every time the AC kicked on. Also, I wanted to stand under the shower as cold as I could take it and never come out because the cold helps my joint aches.

Thursday night, Friday night, and Saturday night were all the sort of sleep where I woke every 15-30 minutes because I hurt and needed to change position. Naproxen and Tylenol didn't help, and Sunday was awful. I had trouble getting too and from the bathroom due to the pain.

Monday, I felt vastly better. I had had a decent night's sleep, and I'd gone from almost a 9 down to something closer to 7. I still spent a couple of minutes with the shower as cold as it goes. Warm/hot water doesn't make anything worse, but the cold makes things briefly better. My body temperature doesn't seem to be fluctuating at all, and nothing's red or swollen, but every joint and muscle aches.

I have a rheumatology appointment later this month. I'm hoping they'll be useful; I'm not holding my breath, but it would be amazingly nice to have any sort of map of the prognosis. I don't think they're going to offer anything at all that will be useful for the pain (my long, long list of things I can't take means coming up with a safe medication is difficult).

Also, it's at least 50% that they shrug and say, "Well, fibromyalgia. Go lose weight. Exercise more."

(no subject)

Cordelia's work has started requiring masks again. Cordelia's both irritated by wearing the mask and glad that her employer is taking things seriously.

Michigan State has let us know that they'll be requiring masks for at least the first few weeks of fall semester. They didn't commit to any end date, and I wouldn't be surprised if that was deliberate.

We need to get our house into company ready state by next weekend. Our SIL and older niece from Seattle are coming to town so that our niece can take a look at the University of Michigan campus. They'll be here less than 24 hours, but we need to come up with a place where they can sleep.

We used to put people on an air mattress in the basement, but Scott and Cordelia have ruled the basement 'too gross' for guests which leaves the floor in Cordelia's room and the floor in the living room. Probably the niece on a camping mat on Cordelia's floor and our SIL on the living room couch.

It'll be challenging because I'm used to being able to stay up quite late and then sleep equally late, so is Cordelia. Given the configuration of the house (1 story ranch, about 850 square feet), it's not possible for me to stay up while someone's trying to sleep in the living room, and Cordelia staying up while someone's trying to sleep on her floor has obvious problems.

Our rooms cluster tightly enough that light in the study, the kitchen, or the dining room means light in the living room. The two bedrooms and the bathroom have doors which will mitigate some light issues (but not all), and the doors are not quiet, not when they're all so tightly clustered. I can get from our bedroom doorway to the study or to Cordelia's room in one step. I can get to the bathroom in two and the living room in three. The study and the living room both connect to the kitchen/dining room, just at different points. (The basement stairs open between the study and the kitchen.)

I'm pretty sure that our SIL is expecting sleeping quarters in the basement. That's where we've always put them before. Of course, we don't have a usable air mattress any more, and we have a rather large number of boxes of books (I think we've got about 12 good sized boxes) that we want to donate as soon as the Friends of the Library start accepting donations again.

They're currently saying possibly the end of August, but I'm not holding my breath. Partly because I'm not convinced the reopening is going to last and partly because I suspect they'll open up and then get overwhelmed as 18+ months of donations get dumped on them in the first week.

Some of Cordelia's old books might work for either the nearby K-8 or for Skyline, but either will be a long wait for being able to donate. I don't think most of what I'm getting rid of would be useful for a school collection as it's mostly mass market paperbacks.

We don't have any good options for moving the books elsewhere. I suggested the garage, but there are two barriers there. The first is that Scott wants to be able to put the car in there every night. The second is that we'd have to jury-rig something to keep the boxes off the floor; all the rain that hits the driveway flows toward the back of the garage. We have some crude mechanisms for getting it out the back without rotting the baseboards, but that doesn't help anything on the floor.

Fic Announcement

Title: The Shadows of Their Names
Fandom: Lupin III
Rating: T
Length: 2130 words
Characters/Pairings: Arsene Lupin III, Zenigata Kouichi
Tags: Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Tricksters, Mythology References, Broken Bones, Hints of Immortality, Magical Transformation, Non-Consensual Drug Use

Notes: I wrote this for a saved prompt, but that request was for ship fic, and this was determinedly gen. Also, it took a turn into weird AU.

Summary: Lupin's plans for this job hadn't included a busted ankle. Working around that wasn't going to be impossible, but it definitely increased the level of challenge.

He'd been expecting to be able to run. Now, he couldn't even walk, not without crutches which were... difficult to disguise.

And on the other side of that locked door. Somewhere. It was a big building. There were crutches somewhere. Or a wheelchair. He could manage with a wheelchair.

Story on AO3.