Category: Health

famjam inbound

Forecast for Sunday is partly cloudy and 21 degrees at this point, which seems favourable for a picnic. So unless that changes, the famjam is ON for 4pm Sunday.

THIS FROM ALEX

WE ARE GO FOR FAMILY PICNIC ON THE BEACH ON SUNDAY

I’ve got a *tiny* red spot/bruise in the crook of my left arm. The phlebotomist was very good. I always donate on the left. It felt weird the other day to have a nurse check me for track marks. I don’t feel off but I’m not 100 percent perky again yet – I had another very solid and reborative (*not* rebarbative lol) sleep.  Yesterday I ran two loads of laundry and made tuna salad for a late lunch (ingredients, tuna, real mayo, capers, scallions and artichokes all chopped into the tuna, over iceberg lettuce salad and I’ll thank you very much to nod when I tell you it was good) and watched a fair amount of TV – two episodes of Elementary, can you believe we started a rewatch again so soon after the end of the last rewatch? We did a shop in the morning and bought no chicken, pork or beef. I watered the dogwood and the cedar hedge. Kim the Landlord had the cedar hedge put in and she’s attached to it and I try to help keep it healthy.

Now I know I’ve been mentioning mascarpone cheese a lot, because we’ve been eating it every week. I got it for myself as an eating treat for the first time about six months ago and now it gets used for any number of wild purposes, like being added to Indian food to take the heat down or being used as dip for crackers. My current favourite treatment for it is to chop pecans and dried apricots into it and add home made chocolate syrup and whomp it up and eat it like a parfait, but mostly I just put it on bagels, a truly lovely application, especially for a sweeter bagel like a blueberry bagel. I have converted Jeff into a mascarpone fan. The other day he referred to it as ‘massacre pony’ cheese and I thought I was going to die laughing, because it sounds exactly like the kind of mishearing I applied to many things when I was a kid.

I have learned – directly from Katie – that she anticipates the birth of a boy child. The happy couple is fine either way. “I’ll raise strong men and get awesome daughters in law” she said and I laughed.   I don’t have facebook or I would have known a couple of days ago. She calls me on the land line, all apologetic, because I don’t have a cell phone or she’d have texted me. Isn’t modern parenting wild?

Now I got myself all wound up over mascarpone cheese, so I toasted a blueberry bagel, and one half of it is on Jeff’s desk for when he comes back from looking for something downstairs and the other half is being consumed with tea, Yorkshire Gold, hot, by yours truly.

Did I ever tell you guys that for months and months I could hear what sounded like somebody tunnelling under the house, but it’s stopped? I don’t know what it was but it kept me awake LOTS and now it’s gone. Hopefully their ‘extra space for renters’ or ‘panic room’ or ‘torture chamber’ or ‘sex dungeon’ or ‘man cave’ is all finished now. Still I persist in wondering. I figured it couldn’t be real since Jeff couldn’t hear it. Maybe it was particular power tool oriented rats?

Still no envelope of suitable size and robustness for ontie Mary. I need to get up off my ass and go ‘into town’ (lol less than ten stops on the 123 bus more like) and get some.

Did I ever tell you guys that like most people who are on the spectrum and or have ADD I have tons of sensory issues around food and drink? because I grew up in a household where ‘suffer in silence’ was actually a family motto I’ve long since learned to power through the overwhelming majority of them (not painfully or ruining my day, just as a going to the dentist kind of powering through it), but one thing that has stuck with me since m early teens is that tea is supposed to be as hot as you can make it and to be drunk just shy of scalding; I sometimes reheat tea five times if I keep forgetting to drink it when it’s the right temperature…. the spectrum makes me need it a certain way, the ADD prevents it, it’s like there’s two witless mofos trying to control my sensorium all day. Spectrum makes me want to be upstanding and meet my commitments or SHAME of GREAT SHAME will ensure; ADD says fuck ya, smokes weed and ends up hitting the twangy box in the guest room while Jeff flees to the safety of his EBM Dark Club Music on headphones.

 

leafhopper earrings from @kanakirisuzume1’s twitter feed

Yesterday I

– loaded and ran dishwasher

– tidied kitchen

– showered and brushed teeth

– policed up my picks, they end up everywhere so I had to round up the herd

– practiced

– ran a load of laundry

– gave blood

– lunched with Paul

– STILL NO FREAKING ENVELOPE FOR MARY’S LETTER and I could not wait fifteen minutes on the phone for a doctor’s appointment so I’ll try again today and also the Visa issue still isn’t straightened out, and it’s annoying because apparently I can use my card on line but not in person? like what the hell, people.

Paul called around ten and asked if I wanted to donate blood. He arranged it all, since we normally go together, or with another family member and I hate the blood.ca website with everything in my gristly heart. I pounded fluids and ate lightly, and I felt fine after the donation (I drove home) until bedtime, when I felt a little woozy and highly strange. I’m more or less fine this morning, but sore (not at the donation site, more in my joints, which is weird). It takes even longer than usual to donate blood with all in-person questions and on screen questionnaires! It took about half an hour to process me, and even longer for Paul, likely because he couldn’t stop joking around with the pretty intake nurse (just my speculation, but definitely classic Paul), but I only had to wait about twenty minutes in the car while I hosed back 400 ml of mango juice and a mini oaty chocky bar, and Paul (who was driving, much against my wish) managed to find a lovely spot in the shade.

Made the unwelcome discovery that the CD player is no longer functioning in Paul’s Toyota; he only ever listens to CBC radio anyway so it likely would have been another year before he noticed a problem.

After, Paul declared himself desirous of a shrimp banh mi and I thought, “It’s the Pho Hong, there’s gotta be something there I can eat even if I don’t want banh mi,” and realized as we entered that they had been closed back in May/June for renovations. The Pho Hong used to be an Italian restaurant and when the first owners moved in they didn’t touch the decor; wish I had pictures, the walls were festooned with classic Italian tacky shit, as were the rickety booths, and there was a dropped ceiling.

The next renovation cleaned up the walls. All the character was gone, but the food did not change.

This renovation is all black melamine plates and dark woodgrain plastic booths and no more fabric anything (this will be a feature, post pandemic – only the most luxe places are going to have fabric anything, because otherwise everything is a ring tailed bastard to sanitize for fomites) and the ceilings are higher. ALSO, they are competing with Pho Boi further down the Kingsway toward Metrotown and they are open all night – yup, I have a 24 Pho place a five minute drive from the house now! If I was feeling energetic I could walk there in about an hour.

I remembered you’re supposed to have something salty so I had a small number 15, no noodle, extra veg, and (ripping swears) it was good! Paul had veggie spring rolls as well. It was most pleasant.

Now, one thing you have to know about the Pho Hong is that the women’s bathroom is designed for Vietnamese women, and not traditionally sized settler ladies. The stall is narrow AND compressed; doors swing inward AND JUST BARELY MISS THE TOILET I mean they clear it by a couple of cm, no, I’m not exaggerating, and actually I think it would be pretty funny to hang a camera at the top of the stall and video me getting into and out of the stall, because I collected bruises on many surfaces as they impacted the wall, the tp holder, the door and the toilet, so I was collecting whatever substances and materials previous occupants had left in a right jolly way, mostly with my ass. To say this is not an accessible washroom is the understatement of the century. I mean it’s not the ‘worst toilet in all of Scotland’, but it’s fucking small, is all. I wriggled out of the stall and contemplated how they could have, during the renovations, moved the fucking stall door one foot that away and fixed the worst of the problems for fat able bodied people, but these days I look at everything through a “What would a fat disabled Indigenous trans person say about this” lens and believe you me the least you’d get is an eyeroll and sigh of disgust.

Then I drove us back to my place and we parted, with many kind words of thanks and expressions of pleasure at the company, and I basically collapsed and went to bed early. Called mOm to tell her I’d given blood and to hear her talk about how wonderful Jeff is. I mean, I know, but it doesn’t get old.

Woke up after five am, which is marvellous, since I only remember waking once at ten o’clock to have two very sad and odiferous consultations with the john, got up and made tea (there’s already tons of iced tea in the fridge but I want hot tea) and an everything bagel with mascarpone cheese. Buster wanted to be brushed and wasn’t in the mood to train, so I gave him treats anyway and brushed him.

Not much is happening with writing; song writing continues, always, in the background.

I keep telling myself that I’m not a useless eater if I can donate blood. Paul said I was being too hard on myself. Also, this is ableist thinking on my part and must be expunged, but how? Out of all the horrific bigotries I carry it’s the one that is the most thoroughly internalized. I have to work on it; I have to work on it as I get older and more disabled; that will be difficult, for sure.

Long time fans of Paul’s driving style may be amused to learn that he doesn’t wildly change lanes or speed any more, and he doesn’t bolt out from behind buses and trash trucks or burn out from traffic lights or tailgate or apply the brakes as if he’s trying to flip the vehicle like he useta. His devil-may-care attitude toward centring his vehicle in a lane remains unchanged.

And sometime over the next while, a house filk and a family picnic. Life is not going back to normal. But some things from the before times will return.

Today I am going to see how I feel later this morning and try to find some envelopes of suitable size and robustness for Mary’s letter.

I am comfortably lazy

So much so that I’m wondering why I agreed to a father’s day hike with Paul. It’s supposed to be unbelievably hot today and I am still in spring mode.

Yesterday Jeff and I ate in a restaurant (last time we went out we ate outside) at IHOP and said HI to Lorna since it’s been a year and then we ran some errands since the ants are back and we needed ant traps.

I’ve been opening Scrivener files that aren’t finished and fixing typos and sentences in a desultory way.

We’re watching an Icelandic supernatural noir called Katla. It’s very creepy, without being full of jump scares, which I loathe.

I get my molar crown stuck on tomorrow.

Today I think I’m going to make a big pot of spaghetti.

It’s possible this mood is migraine related. I just feel kind of stunned and obtunded.

good news

I’m eligible for my second vax as of Monday

MORE GOOD NEWS

Paul has had his second jab! he did what he said he was going to do which was go to the vaccination centre at the end of the day and ask if they had any jabs left over. So he’s fully vaccinated!!! yay modern medicine.

What do you call feeling wiped out after your vaxx PFIZERS ON STUN lol

AND

I made mac and cheese and Katie came by for a brief visit and I gave her some to take home. SHE ATE IT mOm SHE ATE IT.

Also she’s walking okay, and she took time off, and it’s just one of those things and we should all be glad she was wearing her Dickie’s!! (Heavy work jeans).

So happy to see a friend

Jeff and Mike and I – having all had our first vaccinations although Mike wasn’t quite to the two week point yet – sat out on the back deck day before yesterday in the glorious sunshine and I pointed out one of the crows I freed (Curvebeak, he’s the most obvious one). I’m feeding them to the end of June until they crop off their babies. I’ll feed crows through the breeding season next year too.

We drank beer and talked in a low key way about various unimportant things, and Mike pulled out his Cordoba half-size nylon string and played some Paul Simon, and some soundtrack from Skyrim, and that really beautiful theme song from that Cantonese language gangster show (I actually have him singing it in a digital file here someplace).

He’s given up on cheap 3d printers. I’m very glad of that. As he said you don’t calibrate a hammer.

He left some beef soup and I traded him for the pork and barley soup I made the other day. IT was aMAZing to hang with a friend.

There’s still plenty of mac n cheese, and roasted veggies too, we have good food choices at the moment.

Monday’s news: The trip to the endodontist was nominal. I was really worried about it but it was fine on the day. I’m not even sore in that tooth, although I did what the receptionist said and took painkillers before the freezing was out.

stormy night

Feeling MUCH better today; so far I’ve finished a letter to pOp; emptied the dishwasher and tidied the kitchen, brushed Buster, watched another “Debris” (I’m doing a rewatch for a particular reason), and finished the shrimps I ordered yesterday and had another piece of halibut AND a bowl of cereal and a cup of tea. NOM

After the dentist warned me that this top left back tooth would be sensitive, and that the filling is in “Jeez Dave how do you hold your head up” territory as regards size, I’m happy to say that my bite was better than when she started with it (she appears to have trued up my jaw, which may help with my grinding problem) and there is no more than the usual soreness you have after getting a dental dam jammed in your mouth. And this is less than a day later, so I’m pleased.

Reddit is packed with lightning pictures from last night, in east Van – I didn’t hear or see a thing, being restfully sleeping at the time.

I’m so irritated. I printed the letter to pOp out backward, but the printer just barfed on it, and I sighingly reverted to printing it right way about. So my evil plan to make pOp read one of my letters in a mirror did not come to pass!

strange days

Had a panic attack at the dentist today. I was okay during the cleaning the other day but having two people in my mouth at once completely overwhelmed me and I was having trouble breathing. Big damned cavity, too.

I promptly spent a lot of money on delivery, after I walked home (more or less to demonstrate to myself that I was fine now, and also to help walk off the freezing (she gave the exact amount)) so yeah I was worked on by two total strangers after having dr. katz for like 20 years…. I just lay there and cried for the first five minutes and I don’t recollect doing that since the first time I had a root canal.

Today, the ducts get cleaned

We haven’t had anybody in the house who wasn’t part of our pod for …. a year? I guess? So I think Jeff and I are a leedle stressed at the moment.

I’m going to run a load of laundry and then get back to shoving stuff in corners in my room.

Are dogs self-aware? Some more so than others.

I have a dr and dentist appointment.

As soon as the duct person leaves I’m mailing biscotti to my mOm and Jan G OR making a beef stroganoff pack from M&MMeats OR going for a walk with Paul. Life is turvy right now, topsy

Hives continue

Lost a good chunk of sleep last night to them. Topical creams help a little but it was kinda rough.

I’m going to try not to doomscroll today, even though Horgan is doing his best to try to kill me.

It’s possible that what I’ve got, hive wise, is actually a mild and late reaction to the AZ shot. If so this will slowly pass. Sigh.

Jeff’s doing a timmy ho’s run and then we’re going to watch Time Team in our LA-Z-BOY CHAIR. Did I tell you folks that we set it up? I had to mess with my half, but it sure is comfy.

RIP MICHAEL COLLINS. You were, as Phil Plait remarked this am, the ultimate team player.

still covered in hives

I am miserably uncomfortable and I have absolutely no idea what’s triggering them.

It’s not as bad at night. It gets worse when I get up and put clothes on. I recently changed laundry detergent, so it’s a possibility in the hopper of tree pollen, cat dander and general porousness of the building envelope that we’re dealing with.

Anyway, off to the shower, maybe that’s all it will take. (wrong, the heat of the shower made it worse. WHAT IS IT? ALLERGIES? VIRAL? A NEW MIGRAINE SYMPTOM (I’VE BEEN GETTING TRIANGULAR RAINBOW DRAGONS FOR DAYS NOW) wat wat is it

Weather was SO GLORIOUS yesterday, we had a lovely walk in at Deer Lake. Paul is being rather stiff and formal with me as if he’s expecting me to outburst on him, but all I did yesterday was tell him that not putting the mask over his nose isn’t a good look.

The crows telling the raven to sod off was pretty funny.

The frogs were out but not talking.

We heard a waterfowl that we’ve never heard before, could have been a hooded merganser; they certainly appear in the park.

Katie took the day off yesterday, and I had a brief and bracing phone call with Keith when I tried to stealth-check up on her.

Allergies

I’m getting hives, probably from the brazil nuts, heavy sigh.

Just ordered doubles and Chicken Roti and Shrimp with Rice from D Roti Shak.

SO DAMNED GOOD

Here’s a funny pic, courtesy of Liz M. shows two old people in a really old car in front of a building called St. Luke’s with a JUST VACCINATED sign like a just married sign.

here’s another funny one, it spells ACAB in cherry blossoms and is apparently from this week in Portland