the_rck

Our cleaning lady has been gone since the end of July. I'm about 95% certain she went on the Hajj. She didn't use that word, just said she'd be out of the country and praying. We gave her some money as it was clearly important-- at least at the level of a graduation or wedding-- and she said she'd use it to sponsor extra prayers for us.

I've been having Cordelia do intermittent cleaning while our cleaning lady is gone. I'm trying to get her to learn the chores, and I really can't do any of them. At this point, I can't even do the chores that I normally have done-- the dishes, the laundry, changing our sheets, taking out the trash and recycling. I can do that last one time in three. The others... Doing the dishes isn't safe. It's possible, but I'd drop things and hurt myself. The laundry requires going up and down stairs which I can sometimes manage and sometimes can't. I'm more worried about problems going down the stairs than I am about difficulties coming back up. Changing the sheets is really hard on my hands and is going to get harder as it gets colder because part of the problem is that I need thumbs for the task. Just gripping the edge of a sheet is Very Bad.

Cordelia will be taking two AP classes this year, US government and European history. She considered AP English but wanted European history more. The European history class was one of those that only happens if enough kids sign up, so we didn't know until this week that it would happen. Last spring, when Cordelia did class selection, I told her to sign up for the European history and to use AP English as her fallback because there wasn't any chance that Skyline wouldn't offer AP English.

She's getting hit by a downside of the way Skyline schedules, though. Her third trimester classes will be chemistry, physics, pre-calculus, choir, and English. She has to have two trimesters of science this year, but as chemistry and physics aren't considered sequential, they can happen simultaneously.

I'm up late again with reflux. I'm seriously wondering if this compression top is a factor. I'm wearing it tonight, and I was wearing it on Thursday night when I had trouble, and it does go from armpit to belly button, squeezing all the way. Of course, I've worn it from time to time since the surgery without reflux. I don't know-- It might simply be stress. Saturday was decidedly not fun.

I'm not sure what to do. I'd like to change and wear something else, but I can't change into a bra without help which would require waking someone up, and Scott works tomorrow, so I really don't want to wake him. Also, I have one dirty bra that I wore all Friday night and all day Saturday, one clean but still damp bra that I washed Friday evening, and one bra that I haven't ever tried on and that may or may not fit.

For the first time since the surgery, I tried lying on my left side because sometimes that helps with reflux. I expected it to hurt, but I was kind of desperate. Oddly, the incision under my arm hurt less with that pressure on it. When I lie on my side, there isn't any pressure on my breast so that wasn't an issue. Unfortunately, it didn't help the reflux in the least.

Scott's sister asked if it would be all right to put my step-father on the prayer chain at her church. I told her to go ahead. I'm not sure he'd want it because he's an agnostic, leaning toward atheist, but I don't expect he'll ever know or that it could possibly do any harm, and it makes Scott's sister feel like she's doing something positive to help out.

I go back and forth-- I don't believe that God intervenes in response to prayers. I can't believe in intervention, not and still respect God, given the state of the world and the number of people praying desperately for help that never comes. There's definitely no evidence that those who get 'miracles' are better people or more devout than those who don't. I'm of the opinion that God expects us all to work to make the world a better place. A lot of stuff happens because people are people. And the natural world works according to set rules. Sometimes, those help us; sometimes... not so much. But God doesn't send the earthquake or the hurricane or the drought via micromanagement. The system works without that.

Still, I pray.

I haven't decided whether or not to ask Scott's mother if she can come to Monday's appointment. I hesitate because I'm not sure how well she is. It's only been about four weeks since she started to recover from the pneumonia, and her doctor estimated six weeks before she'd be well. I just don't know what she's actually able to do, and I don't want her to overdo things just because she thinks I need her.

There is one other person I can ask, but I don't know her very well. Her partner is a pretty good friend, but I don't know her very well. I've talked to her a few times, and I've known the two of them for decades because they were friends of my mother's when I was in high school. It's just that I never talked to her then, and she and her partner weren't together when I became friends with her partner. (They'd split up because her partner wanted to adopt a child, and the first woman didn't want to do that. The partner did adopt and has really enjoyed motherhood. I just happened to run into her and her son at the bus stop one day while Cordelia and I were also waiting to catch the bus, and she and I recognized each other. Eventually, the first woman retired and moved down here, and they got back together. Now, they parent the boy together.)

Anyway, this woman has offered to help out with whatever at any time. I'm not sure though-- I think she picks their son up after school which would mean being there at 3:10, and my appointment is at 2:30 and is about ten minutes away from the school. But he's at Cordelia's school, so maybe he could just come home with Cordelia. He's eleven, and she's twelve, and it wouldn't be more than half an hour to an hour. They haven't spent time together in three or four years, but they do know each other, and I think he'd adore our WiiU. So that might work.

Scott did the library run on Saturday. I wasn't sure it was a good idea, but I'm hopeful that no holds will come in on my account or Cordelia's until Monday. I can see why he'd want to get it done while he had the chance, too. I'm just a little annoyed with myself-- I forgot to write down the CDs that I had out before I returned them, and now that they've been checked in, I have no way to find out what they were. I remember one or two, but there were six or seven of them. The only one I remember really clearly is the one I didn't listen to because, although it didn't look scratched, it wouldn't play beyond the first thirty seconds. I tried my scratch removal thingy, but it didn't help at all.

Let's see... There was a Bob Seger and a Rosanne Cash. There was a Haley Westenra (I did not enjoy that. One song by her, I think I might enjoy or, at least, not mind, but a whole CD... No). I think there was one called Moneyland. Then there was the Doc Watson and Jean Ritchie CD that wouldn't play. I haven't got the slightest idea what the other one or two were except probably bluegrass.

I spent a while, Saturday evening, watching the BBC adaptation of Archer's Goon on YouTube. I'd only recently discovered that it existed, so I was glad to be able to find it at all. It was remarkably faithful as adaptations go. It wasn't particularly good in terms of acting or production values, and the version on YouTube was pretty washed out and occasionally hard to hear (I'm not sure I understood above half of what Fifi said). The actor playing the Goon didn't look nearly large enough next to the other characters, but I expect that finding someone that large would be a challenge.