the_rck

I'm sick today. Well, I'm having an allergy attack again. I'm 95% sure that these have all been allergy-related, and I think I've figured out what's causing these intermittent bouts of sneezing and runny nose-- Cordelia's been making a store brand cinnamon tea. I know that it correlates with the most recent two days of trouble, but none of us are sure when Scott bought the stuff, so I'm not 100% sure. But she's not making it every day, probably not more than twice a week, if that.

I'm not sure what to do about the problem. Well, no, I know one solution. It's just that getting rid of the tea altogether takes away something Cordelia likes. She's already protesting that I must be wrong.

The cinnamon pretty certainly isn't the culprit (I suspect that it's the chamomile) as I'm fine when I smell things cooked with it. Possibly there's some other cinnamon blend that she'll like just as much and that will be safe. I don't know. It will likely mean trying some different store, though, which is inconvenient.

Today's primary goal is to work on beta reading. I've got some DVDs I can put in that don't require much attention, and I'm going to close most of my browser windows (the beta is in Gdocs, so I need to keep that open).

I also need to make some phone calls to schedule appointments. I don't know if I'll manage them or not. I should try.

I dreamed last night that I'd found a book that I now really wish existed. It was an RPG supplement that consisted entirely of 2-4 page essays that summarized f/f romances written in the 1950s and earlier, going back at least a century. I'm not actually sure how such a book could be an RPG supplement, but I have the sensory image of how the paper smelled and of the weight of the book and of the texture of the cover. I know I started reading in the dream, but I don't remember authors or titles beyond that Georgette Heyer had something in there.

Usually, these dream disappointments are books by specific (dead or no longer publishing) authors. L. Frank Baum, Dorothy Sayers, Roger Zelazny, Barry Hughart, Janet Kagan. I don't recall one happening in quite a while, probably because I'm not reading quite so much. I used to have dreams about rereading a familiar book and finding it to have a different plot than I remembered.

If you try to ping me on Gchat, there's something weird going on with notifications there in as much as, at least half the time, I don't get the notification noise until I toggle to that tab.

I got word from the long term disability review people that I'm still officially disabled for another year. We'll have to do the whole thing over again in February of 2019.

I think I'm going to have to be cautious about how much ginger tea I drink. 16 oz in a day seems to be fine, but more than that has an effect on my IBS that's about equivalent to eating half a dozen raspberries. It's a pity because I like cold brewing a pitcher of Stash's lemon ginger tea and then drinking it all over the course of a couple of days.

I still kind of want to order delivery for lunch or to drag myself out to buy something. I probably won't end up doing either because I know that, in a day or three, I won't particularly want those things. Better to spend the money on something else and the time on writing or beta reading.

I'm trying a lemon ginger tea from Celestial Seasonings (is there an 's' on the end? I can never remember, and looking it up requires, you know, effort). The good news is that it's not making my nose run. The bad news is that I taste neither lemon nor ginger. Maybe I didn't steep it long enough? I went for five minutes. There's a kind of vague bite that I only really get around my tonsils and that might be purely heat from the tea not having cooled all that much.

My sinuses were too irritated last night for me to use the c-PAP, and it was pretty much the best night of sleep I've had in months. I am not at all sure what to do about that since the c-PAP is necessary to address sleep apnea which will definitely shorten my life. The thing is that feeling utterly exhausted every single day is killing me, too. At this point, I only consider myself to have awoken with a headache if the pain wakes me or if it's not gone within an hour after I get up. This morning, I didn't have that business-as-usual headache. I've got two months before I see the sleep disorders people again.

My month to date word count is almost 22K, so I think this month is going to end up with as high a word count as December. Barring anything unexpected happening, of course. Today, I came up with 2800 words of a completely new AU for a fandom I've written before. What I've got so far requires some serious world building to carry it, though, so I may put it on a back burner for a while until I figure out those details.

My sinuses were less unhappy with me through most of today than they had been for a while. Then I took the trash and recycling to the curb, and now the right side of my face and my right ear hate me again. Apparently, while my lungs are now fine with the cold, my sinuses really, really aren't.

I still haven't managed to deal with any of the phone calls I need to make. I need a couple of good days in a row in order to do the more optional stuff. Today was sorting laundry, changing sheets (past due for it), getting the trash and recycling out, and emptying the dishwasher.

I've decided to switch back to using Gel-Kam for my fluoride add-on toothpaste. The concentration of stannous fluoride is lower than the sodium fluoride concentration in the Prevident, but the stannous fluoride feels different on my teeth and seems to do a better job of limiting the sensitivity of my teeth. The stuff I found online about stannous fluoride read a little too much like advertising copy for me to take it entirely seriously, but Gel-Kam doesn't require a prescription, and Prevident does. A tube of Gel-Kam also lasts slightly (not a lot but slightly) longer than a bottle of Prevident does and costs about $2 less. It's impossible to tell how much is left in the bottle of Prevident except by weight, and having something in there does not guarantee being able to get it out. Prevident is thick enough to need several minutes to get the stuff on the bottom of the bottle to the opening at the top which kind of encourages the assumption that there's nothing left in there.

I finished assigning all character points for my UCon game shortly before I went to bed last night. I think I’ve got reasonable balance between the characters and have spent their points on things that make sense for each character. I’ve still got to assign spells to the two characters who have sorcery, make lists of 'things to remember' for each character, and write up what each character knows about the others and about certain npcs that they know well. I also need to write some explanations of the various powers characters have, just in case the players aren’t familiar with the novels or the game rules.

Scott’s sister ambushed us last night with a request that we come up on Sunday (during UCon) to celebrate our niece’s birthday a couple of weeks early. I explained that we’d be busy, and she responded that it did sound like we’d 'be too tired.' Scott and I kind of boggled at that because I’d said that there really weren’t any windows in our schedule when we could leave the convention. We have four hours on Sunday afternoon between checkout from the hotel and when Scott and I both run games, but trying to get up there and back in that window wouldn’t be easy.

Parent teacher conferences took forever. I think we were there for more than two hours, trying to see three different teachers. We saw the orchestra teacher within ten minutes of arriving, and that made me hopeful that the other two would be as easy, but they weren’t. Nobody had anything bad to say about Cordelia, so that was nice. The orchestra teacher did say that, if Cordelia goes to Community and wants to keep on with viola, she’ll have to go to another high school (Pioneer) for that class. I overheard some parents talking about high school orchestra, and they were of the opinion that being in orchestra is like playing a sport all year in terms of time commitment and competitiveness.

The school counselor was hanging out in the hallway to talk to parents who were waiting to see various teachers. He talked extensively about high school options and encouraged everyone to apply to Community because it’s easier to say no after applying than to try to get in later if one hasn’t applied. He also said that they’re planning to have people from the various schools visit to talk to the eighth graders and that he will put together some information on the options so that parents can look at it all.

The walking involved in the conferences left my foot aching pretty badly. It wasn’t as painful as Sunday’s experience, but it was painful.

Scott and I got Chinese carryout for dinner. He had just enough time to shower between ordering and needing to leave to get the food. We didn’t end up eating until after 8:00 because our next door neighbor stopped by to talk about a letter she’s putting together to send to the city about the parking situation in our neighborhood. She wants the city to limit how long people can park on our street during the hours between 7:00 a.m. and 9:00 p.m. That would still accommodate school drop off and pick up and would make it easier for the nursing home around the corner. I suggested that she mention that having trash pick up at the same time of day as school drop off is kind of dangerous because, due to the number of cars parking along our street, it’s very hard for the robotic arm to safely grab and lift the bins.

I called UHS (the clinic where my doctor works) yesterday. When I talked about tendonitis and pain, they said they couldn’t get me in until December 8th. When I mentioned the prolonged diarrhea, suddenly they wanted me in quickly. I’ll be going over there at 4:30 today (I got the last same day appointment because I called a bit more than an hour after they opened. I was up in time to call earlier, but my brain wasn’t working well enough until after 9:00). I won’t be seeing my doctor. I’m not sure if the clinician I’ll be seeing is a doctor, a physician’s assistant, or a nurse practitioner. I could look him up, but that would take more effort than it’s worth right now.

I feel like they’re overreacting because I have a pretty good idea of what’s been going on in that direction, and pretty much only the last week and a half have been illness. At least, I have other explanations for the earlier stuff. I’m not feeling bad, just annoyed at having to deal with it, so I’m pretty certain I’m neither dehydrated nor starving. I don’t have other symptoms unless the tendonitis is related. Some sort of long term, nasty intestinal bug might explain the sudden tendonitis issues as apparently certain infections can do that even after they’ve passed, something called 'reactive arthritis.' I’m fairly dubious that that’s what’s going on, but it’s possible. And there’s something really bizarre about getting tendonitis, at the same time and in the exact same place, on both hands.

I’ve already gotten about thirty emails from various political lists urging me to go and vote and telling me all about looking up my ballot in advance and finding my polling place and who to call if I need help with transportation. I know it’s important, but I’ve already done as much as I can do by sending in my absentee ballot. I’m kind of tempted to temporarily stop checking that email address. I could go in tomorrow and do some mass deletion…

I’ve tried a couple more tea samples in the last three or four days. Stash’s breakfast in Paris is a black tea with bergamot, lavender, and vanilla. I wasn’t sure I should try it because I’m allergic to the scent of lavender. I could definitely taste the bergamot, and at first, I could, I think, taste the lavender, but the lavender vanished rapidly. I’m not sure that this is one I’d go back to. It wasn’t terrible, but I don’t think bergamot is my thing.

I tried the other sample this morning. It’s Stash’s fusion breakfast green & black tea. I didn’t expect to like this because there’s nothing but black and green teas of various types mixed in together, but this reminded me a lot of tea at Chinese restaurants which is sort of a nostalgic thing for me. I might consider getting more of this one just because it’s something I could pretty reliably drink.

I’m working my way through a couple of different kinds of 'apple cider' teas that we’ve had for a while. I’ve been cold brewing those, mostly. I just want to use those up so we have more space for things that all three of us are likely to drink. I suppose I could offer these to our cleaning lady, but I kind of enjoy them. Not enough to buy more but enough not to mind drinking them. One is something we bought because Scott had gotten it before and liked it. The other, I bought because I knew Scott had liked the first one and this one was cheaper but much the same flavor.

I think I’m going to lie down and try to nap. Getting up at 8:00 was really hard, and I’m still dragging pretty badly.

I actually did a little writing last night. I think it was only about 150 words, but it broke through the block I had on that story.

I had trouble falling asleep last night. I think it took me two or three hours. I also woke every two or three hours, needing to visit the bathroom.

I gave away two boxes of mint tea to our cleaning lady yesterday. I still have two boxes of other types of mint tea that nobody’s going to use. I need to weed out the other teas that nobody’s going to use. There’s a ginger tea Scott bought that’s just plain nasty to me. I don’t know if anyone else would like it, but there’s a lot of it. Stash’s decaf chocolate hazelnut tea isn’t worth keeping, either. If it was caffeinated, I probably would, but it’s got all of the black tea flavor I don’t like without caffeine.

Scott tells me that, as of yesterday, work wasn’t planning to run anything this weekend. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that that’s true because it would be really nice to have him home all weekend.

Cordelia says she wants to dye her hair. She has long, dark brown hair, so I’m not sure how feasible it will be without destroying her hair. She first said that she wanted rainbow colors in the lower half of her hair. Then she said maybe purple instead. Anybody have any suggestions?

I took yesterday's Zoloft around 1:00, and I took today's right when I got up. Barring unexpected side effects, I'm going to keep taking it in the mornings.

The headache is gone now, thank goodness. I got up a little after 10:00, so I guess I got another three hours of sleep, more or less.

Cordelia did a movie night with her friends last night, so Scott and I had the house to ourselves. Scott suggested dinner out. I had a headache with nausea, so I asked for something mild. We ended up with carryout from Wendy’s. I think that that meal did more to kill the headache than any of the medications I took yesterday. It’s just frustrating because I don’t see what’s so magic about that meal as opposed to the other things I ate yesterday.

We finally got around to watching a Netflix DVD that we’d had for a while, so that was nice.

Scott mentioned an app he wanted me to be sure to download, but, of course, since he didn’t write it down, I can’t remember the name. I’m trying to decide if it’s worth texting him to ask or if I’m just going to wait until he gets home.

I wrote a bit more than 400 words yesterday. I was hoping for more, but 400 is a lot better than none. With luck, I can manage a good bit more today. I know where I want the story to end up, but I’m not actually sure how to get there right now. I also worry that the ending I have in mind will be too open to be pleasing.

I’m drinking some raspberry zinger tea right now as part of my effort to clear out the teas that we have very small amounts of that are taking up a disproportionate amount of space. It’s a little too acidic for me in a way that lingers for minutes after a sip. I can’t remember if I’ve tried this one before or not. We had a never opened sample bag with three teabags in it. It might be that I never tried it, but it might also be that I remembered trying it and not liking it much. I’m pretty sure I bought the samples so that Cordelia could try them. Except that that doesn’t make sense because they were mostly zingers, and Cordelia decidedly does not like hibiscus. If I bought these before we figured that out, they’re at least five years old.

I’ve got three library DVDs that I’d like to watch today. I think I’m giving priority to the lecture series (two DVDs totaling six hours left) because I can write while it’s on because it’s 80% a guy standing there talking. The other DVD is subtitled, so I’ll have to give it my eyeballs. Both can be renewed, so that’s not a factor. I’ve got two movies and another lecture series waiting for me to pick them up from the library, and we’re watching the library copy of Star Wars: Rebels season 2 as a family. That has another week and can’t be renewed, so we need to work on finishing that as quickly as we can. I think we have nine episodes left plus the extras if we decide to watch those. I would like to, but… I don’t know if we’ll have time.

As far as library books go, everything I haven’t finished can be renewed. I’d like to finish some of them by tomorrow, but I don’t know if I will. The times when I have mental focus enough for reading, I’m mostly writing instead.

We still don’t have Comcast internet. As far as Scott can tell, they decided we only wanted TV after all. He had two hours last night, between getting home and having to go to bed, so he really didn’t have time to call them. Tonight and tomorrow will be as bad. He might not have time until next Monday. He thinks that getting together the information necessary for me to call wouldn’t work because I don’t know which bits of hardware are which. So I’m going to have to listen to him rant about it for the next week. I’m not sure he realizes what him being that cranky does to my anxiety.

I wrote about 1500 words yesterday on two fics, mostly on the pinch hit.

I tried coconut oil in coffee yesterday. Maybe it would work better if I’d been able to find our immersion blender than it did with a whisk, but the oil didn’t do anything about the parts of the flavor that bother me. I tried adding stevia on top of that, and the combination was better but still not something that I can drink. It’s not even a question of just getting used to the difference. My body simply announces to me that, If I drink that, it’s coming right back up.

People who know tea— If I make tea with 3/4 of the cup filled for steeping and then add cold water to fill the cup after the steeping’s done, will the resulting tea be weaker than if I did a whole cup of hot water for steeping? Adding the cold water makes a huge difference in how long I have to wait before I can drink, but it’s not something I’ve ever done with tea, just with instant coffee. This morning’s chai took twenty minutes to cool to where I could drink it. My goal is to finish my caffeinated drink within the half hour window after I take my morning medications because I can’t eat during that time and might as well be doing something toward getting ready to face the day.

My first goal for today is a shower. My second is to finish a library book that’s due on, I think, Friday and can’t be renewed. I’m a bit cranky with myself for not having finished it yet because it’s by Donna Andrews, an author I usually really enjoy.

Other things I need to do today— fill and run the dishwasher, gather the trash and get it to the curb. I think everything else is optional, so I’ll see how much energy I have and go from there. I still want to do work in the basement, but in order to do anything down there, I have to do something with the suitcases and boxes Scott has piled down there because I can’t get around them to the bookshelves. I don’t want to just move them because that would mean they would block the path to the laundry. Why is figuring out where things go harder than moving them?

I wrote about 850 words last night. Sadly, none of it was on the WIP Big Bang story. I’m still trying to find my way into the next scene and am really not sure where to start. I think I need some transition to indication the passage of time because this scene only makes sense a good bit later on than the previous one.

I’m at nearly 4000 words towards my goal of 10000 words for the month. I don’t know that I’ll make it to my goal given the amount of time left and how much trouble I’m having, but I’m doing better than I did the last time I did Camp NaNo.

Our requests for absentee ballots are in the mail. Hopefully having put them in the same envelope won’t be a problem. I don’t see why it should be, but the whole process is hedged about in rules that make very little sense.

It’s supposed to get very, very hot today. It’s not terrible outside yet, so I’m debating trying to get dressed and go out for a short walk because it’s only going to get worse. It’s about 80F right now and expected to get up to about 95F. It seems like we always get weather like this for Art Fair. There’s generally at least one severe thunderstorm during Art Fair, too, so I’ll be waiting for that.

I kind of want my library holds right now because I’ve finished the CDs and DVDs. I’m just not willing to go downtown to get them during Art Fair (not to mention while I’m still hoping that the repair technician from AT&T will come).

I definitely have to freeze more of the pulled pork. I’m simply not getting through it very rapidly. I also need to come up with different ways to eat it. Right now, I’ve got plain, as a sandwich, on a salad, and on a baked potato (with some sort of vegetable mixed in, too). I suppose I could melt some cheese on top of it, but that doesn’t seem like much of a change. Maybe mixed with canned soup? I’ve got a can of French onion soup, and that’s 90% broth, so adding something wouldn’t make too dense a meal.

After I post this, I’m going to start going through a bin of papers and assorted crap that’s been sitting in the living room for several weeks. The cleaning lady specifically asked me to go through it this week, and she’ll be back in three hours and expecting that to be done, so I’d better get cracking. I don’t think it will take more than half an hour. I’m planning to pull it over near the couch so that I can sit there while I sort. Otherwise, I’d have to either bend over the whole time or sit on the floor. Neither of those options are things I can sustain for more than about ten minutes at a time.

I’ve tried a couple of tea samples recently.

Stash’s Jasmine Blossom green tea has traces of a not green tea flavor that I assume must be the jasmine. I suspect that the water I made it with was too hot because I ended up with more bitterness than I expected, not as much as if I’d used boiling water but some. I only had one bag, so I can’t experiment to see if it’s better made differently.

I also tried Stash’s salted caramel mate herbal and black tea. I didn’t sweeten it, and I think it might have been tastier if I had. It wasn’t terrible as it was, but nothing makes me want to try it again except the realization that I’ve got an entire box that I have to do something with.

The single bag samples I have left aren’t really things that appeal to me for various reasons. Some of them are things I’ve tried before. At least one is something I’m allergic to. One is a mint green tea blend, and I’m not sure mint is wise for me given the reflux. The others are various pure black or green teas that will all taste pretty much the same to me as any other black or green tea.

I think I’m going to focus for a while on using up some of the boxes of tea that have been sitting around. I’m not actually sure what all is buried in the pile of boxes next to the stove or hidden in the cupboard. I’m probably going to use up the stuff that isn’t caffeinated first. I’m not tired enough most of the time to think that adding caffeine will do anything (and when I am that tired, I don’t think the caffeine actually does anything except checking off a box on the at-least-I-tried list), and I don’t think that I want anything that will dehydrate me in this hot weather.

Tried another Stash sample— This one is guayusa tea with lemon. I have no idea what on earth guayusa is, but apparently it contains caffeine because I recognize all the other ingredients (mostly lemony herbs) as not containing caffeine and the packet clearly says, 'Contains Caffeine.' I steeped it five minutes, as recommended on the packaging. It was a little more bitter than I quite like (I didn’t try sweetening it, so that might help), but it wasn’t undrinkable. The lemon flavor was fairly weak and more in aftertaste than anything. I suppose I should look up and see how much caffeine the stuff contains. The fact that I can drink it unsweetened, even if I don’t love the flavor, is a point in its favor.

Hm. Google claims that guayusa contains 'the same amount of caffeine as a cup of coffee.' I’m not clear as to the amount of guayusa that’s required.

The Caffeine Informer says sixty six mg of caffeine in an eight ounce cup when starting with two grams of guayusa tea and steeping for four to six minutes. The site also says that this can vary a good bit, depending on the batch. I had to look at other sites for information on coffee, but it looks like that tends to run between ninety mg and two hundred mg of caffeine per eight ounce cup with instant (what I use) tending toward the lower end of the scale.

Cordelia sees the orthopedist again today. She tried to talk me out of making her go because she thinks it will be boring. Which, well, it will be. Right now, my intention is for us to take the bus to get there and then to wait for Scott to come get us after work. The appointment’s at 3:15. Scott will likely get off work no later than 4:00, and it’s a half an hour for him to get to the hospital to pick us up after that. I don’t think we’d end up waiting longer for him than for a cab. The bus we’d need for getting home is chancy at that time of day. It might be fine because there aren’t many students, but… I think most of the crowds on that route are people who work for the university rather than people attending classes.

I have an appointment of my own tomorrow, and I’m debating whether or not to take the bus to get there. The appointment’s at 10:00, so I’d need to leave here about 9:00. That bus tends to be crowded in the early morning, to the point that it really sets off my anxiety and to the point that there’s zero chance that I could get a seat. 9:30 is about when things settle down, so I might be okay. I don’t know.

I’m not, so far, too stressed about either appointment. It only just occurred to me that maybe I should take Ativan to prepare for today’s appointment, and I slept mostly okay (I had disturbing dreams about being ill, but I don’t think there’s a connection).

Last night, someone from the other side in Ingress came through the neighborhood. They attacked a lot of portals and did a lot of damage but mostly didn’t bother to capture anything. They very specifically went after mods on the portals. When they attacked the church, they left it in our hands by the barest sliver, and I really can’t think why. They got it to the point where they could have knocked it out by breathing on it and then just stopped. Even a level one burster would have finished the job.

We got a copy of Kung Fu Panda 3 yesterday and watched it. I enjoyed it a lot. I hope that they don’t try to do a Kung Fu Panda 4, though, because I don’t see where they could take the main character. He could work as a supporting character in someone else’s story, but he knows who he is now, very firmly. I liked very much that the movie didn’t shove Po’s father aside in favor of his biological father or make Po’s father either too gracious about the interloper or hostile beyond reason. He clearly feels threatened, but he tries very hard.

I wrote a bit yesterday. It was even the Narnia story. I don’t know if I’ll manage more today, given the appointment and that we expect to have people over in the evening. Tomorrow’s iffy, too, because of that appointment combined with the cleaning lady coming in the afternoon. Maybe Gdocs on my phone…? I got the writing moving by throwing out several paragraphs. Those contain some key information, so I’ll have to figure out another way to include it. The new stuff is more active while the old stuff was more summary. There’s information about Lucy and Edmund that will matter a great deal, long term, but that my POV character only sort of notices. That’s going to be harder to work in when I’m in her active POV.

I woke this morning with a migraine because we lost power repeatedly last night which means than none of us got much sleep. Between 3:00 and 3:25, the power blipped on and off four or five times. At about 3:25, the power went off and stayed off. It didn't come back until just before 8:00 this morning. This means that Scott only got about three hours of sleep last night, and that there were about four hours when I didn't sleep.

DTE has called three times since 10:00 to give me different estimates for when our power will be restored. The most recent one said that they have no idea when it will be. Which... We have power, but the calls don't give a stop calling me option.

It started raining and kind of vaguely thundering about fifteen minutes after the power went out. I've heard that other parts of the area had heavy thunder and lightning. DTE says the problem was 'trees on private property,' but the outage area, looking at the map on their site in the early morning was pretty large.

We had a scare yesterday afternoon. Everything worked out fine, but... The younger brother of Cordelia's best friend missed the school bus after school. When that happens, he's supposed to come here, and he didn't. His sister didn't realize he wasn't on the bus until after it was underway, too late for her to get off. All she could do was call their mother. She, in turn, called me because someone had told them that the boy had been seen walking toward the city bus stop at the bottom of the hill. He's nine or ten, and he had no money. He's also never ridden the city bus alone, so even if he'd had money, getting home that way wouldn't have been sure. It requires taking the Plymouth Rd bus outbound and then getting off at a particular stop to transfer to the route that actually goes near their home. The routes have all changed in the last month, so what he remembered might not have been valid any more.

As it turns out, he got a ride home from a friend's family and it's just that no one thought to let his mother know.

But I sent Cordelia out twice, looking for him on her bike, because we were afraid he was trying to walk home which is three kilometers as the crow flies (looking at an Ingress portal near where they live) and involves crossing some streets that are very, very busy. I told his mother that, if we didn't find him in the next ten minutes or so, it would be time to call the police. Fortunately, it didn't come to that, but... If he had been trying to walk home, he'd have been on Plymouth Rd for a very, very long way, so finding him there should have been easy. We were mostly worried about him getting exhausted, getting lost, or getting hit by a car.

I went for a longish walk yesterday before the school day ended. I twisted my ankle relatively early on, but it felt okay after a few steps, so I went on. Then, twenty minutes later, while I was on my way home, it started to hurt. Right now, it's okay when I walk, mostly, but aches when I'm sitting still or lying down. I wrapped it about an hour ago. I'm not sure it's helping. It hurts to walk with it wrapped, not a lot but noticeably, and I'm constantly aware of the pressure from the bandage at other times.

On the plus side for the walk, I managed to find an easier route into the science and nature center. The route I knew involves climbing a steep hill along a long path with absolutely no shade at all. I haven't been willing to do it in the last few months because I'm afraid that climbing that hill will wear me out enough that I can't climb the hill I need to in order to get home. This route is a path through the woods. It's entirely shaded and a good bit shorter and with a gentler slope. It lets out right by the community gardens, on the same level of the park as most of the Ingress portals.

In the evening, cherydactyl came to visit. She hadn't been sure that she was going to be able to, but she ended up coming after all. We ended up just sitting and talking for a couple of hours. That was really nice.

I need to eat something healthy now. Because of the migraine and all of that, I've mostly had very sugary things so far today. I'm not feeling bad from that, fortunately, but something healthy would be very nice. I also need to get the dishwasher running before the cleaning lady comes (in about an hour and fifteen minutes). I've moved the things I have to move, and I put away most of the clean laundry. Apart from eating and the dishes, most of what I need to do is to find a bag or box in which to put the rest of books that we plan to send to Scott's parents' yard sale. I've got one full bag already.

I tried a new to me Stash tea today. It's an herbal blend, chocolate orange. I didn't actually like it. I couldn't taste either flavor, just some bitterness. Fortunately, I only had one bag of it, so nothing's going to go to waste.

I've got thirty messages in my email inbox right now. They're all things I want to/need to answer. I have no idea if I'll get to them.