Mother Of Spiders

The title isn't as bad as it sounds. I do not have millions of spiders, the arachnid kind. My spider plants are makin' babies! So many babies!!!

We're having a whole discussion on our work slack channel for plants/gardening and someone said she could not keep a spider plant alive. 

I told her I have the opposite situation. That's the only real success I have! My spider plants are prolific. In fact, the one that I culled 33 babies off of last year is now sprouting dozens more.

I pondered why a spider plant creates so many offspring. Am I under-watering so it is sending out babies? Is this just a thing it does?

My colleague said she can't keep them alive and was looking for advice. Someone said to fill her water container a day or two in advance and let the air get to the water and purify it. Someone else said they were watering too frequently. But she said she waters only 1x a wee.

I told her that if in the long run, should she kill her plant, let me know. I've got babies for days. 

I'm not sure what I'm doing "right" with that situation but. It is. I have so many. I am the Mother of Spiders. Hopefully she figures out what's up with the plant, but I told her ... I got babies for you. 

Anyway - overall, I had a kind of rough day. Something that should have been so easy turned out to be an absolute fail. I am expecting fallout from it. My colleague told me there was nothing I could do, this isn't on me. But you know me. I feel like I had everything in place, it should have worked and no. It did not. And so I take things personally.

"I'm not making a joke, you know me I take everything so personally..."
-Indigo Girls

Never has a song lyric resonated so strongly. 

So immediately after the thing failed, I had an appointment to take Phin to the vet for his well baby checkup. Instead I found myself sending out an almost tearful slack to the team about the fucked up thing, and asking my colleague to keep an eye on replies because ... vet. 

Luckily, well, so far, as of this writing,no one has flipped the motherfuck out and come at me. But. I kind of feel like it is inevitable tomorrow? My colleague and I had a huge long discussion about what didn't work, and he said repeatedly it was not my fault. But. I'm in charge. Then we talked about what's for dinner and I was making French Onion Soup so we had a good talk about dinner stuffs. It was 7pm. I told him to get lost. It would all work out in the end.

Behold. Spiders (and snakes!) That I'm the mother of! 

digits

exercise: I missed out on 3 hours of the 12/12 of 250 steps. Meetings.

blood glucose:
9:30am: 166
4:30pm: 155
10pm: 201

food:
coffee, water
12 noon: metformin
12:30: tuna w/mayo & diced onions mixed with romaine and cherry tomatoes
5pm: 🍷 (i've had a stupid day, so I broke my school night rule. Don't judge me.)
6pm-ish: triscuits+hummus while cooking
7pm: metformin+jardiance. French Onion soup w/ 1 garlic french bread crouton, swiss cheese
9:45pm: english muffin w/peanut butter & butter because still hungray.

A Journey into the Office

Oh hello. 

I write you today from a very shiny new laptop. I don't have a personal laptop. Well, I do - I have two. A windows laptop with a keypad that I hate, and a mac my sister gave me as a hand me down. I should switch to using one of those, to be honest. 

Life is just easy when you work on one machine. All your stuff is there, you never have to open up two or three machines to get to what you want. 

Anyway.

To get this shiny new laptop, I had to go to the office. So I got up this morning, early. Drank coffee, showered, blowdried and styled my hair (yes I did) found a blouse and dress pants. I sat down at my laptop to let the team know I'd be out of pocket while on the metro, and started to do a file transfer of my saved documents and images. I was a smart person. I put them all into one folder. 

Basically fell over sideways when I saw the time it would take to move the files into Dropbox. 15 hours. 

Oops. 

Now, I coulda been proactive. I could have purged/deleted/organized the screenshots and saved images, everything that I'd been saving for 7 years. But I just put it all in the folder. I figured eh, I'll purge it later.

But a 15 hour wait, oh that could not happen. Daunted, I closed up my laptop and headed to the office. I figured IT could help me. 

They were indeed super helpful, it took them about an hour to migrate the content onto my H drive, which I am not sure I have access to when I'm not in the building but, I'm not mad about it as long as the stuff is there. I just searched for a PDF document for someone, and found it in my drive. 

I should come back, log in, and just spend time deleting content, you know, if I can't do it at home. I hope I have access to this drive. We'll see. We'll see.

In the meantime, I had a nice meeting with our trainer Holly, I answered tickets. A colleague who lives in Brooklyn is here for her first visit, so I got to spend time with her. And another colleague who was working at a client location got a job offer for a job here, and we had a wonderful chat. Super happy he'll be on board. Such a great thing to hear today. 

Everyone keeps things secret at work anymore. When our office was in Boston we were all incredibly transparent. I wouldn't say we were all a bunch of gossipy hens or anything, but if there was news to hear, it was shared. So now I'm sitting on a secret and it is making me crazy. I can't wait for them to announce it.

Anyway. Lots of steps today, lots of walking. And that's a log of hours to transfer shit into the universe.

exercise: Walking. Walking. 

blood glucose:
8am: 166
7:30pm: 144
9:30pm 190 (too close to dinner really but I'm going to bed)

food:
coffee, water
10:00am: handful of peanuts
12:15: Roast beef & sauce on ciabatta w/pickle
1pm: Metformin
7:45pm: salad, 2 cluckpucks with shredded cheese
8:15pm: metformin+jardiance

O Brave New World...

On Saturday, Doug and I met up with our friends M&M to go to Bethesda to see The Tempest at Round House Theater.  Adapted from Shakespeare's original by Teller (of Penn and Teller fame) and Aaron Posner, you may know it very well for the line "O brave new world that has such people in't."  

In case you need a rundown/reminder of the story, it is the classic tale of the deposed Duke of Milan Prospero, and his daughter Miranda, shipwrecked for years on an island with a "monster" called Caliban and a spirit Prospero holds against its will to do his bidding named Ariel. 

Prospero learns that a ship full of those who did him wrong will be coming by the island. Among those on board are his brother, his dick of a brother, Antonio, who stole his dukedom, and the King of Naples, Alonso. Prospero causes a storm, the "Tempest" of the title, and he has big plans for them. 

Shenanigans ensue, from Prospero manipulating what the shipwreck victims see and experience thanks to his sprite Ariel. Caliban, the monster who believes the island is his by rights and Prospero has stolen it from him, meets up with the ship's kitchen crew, Trinculo and Stephano. Caliban discovers booze thanks to Stephano and then and there decides he will no longer serve Prospero, making Stephano his lord and king. The King of Naples and his brother (Sebastian), the false duke Antonio, and Gonzalo (Gonzala in this performance) are looking everywhere for the King's son Ferdinand. They finally decide he must have drowned and is gone. Antonio convinces Sebastian that they should kill the king (and Gonzala) so Sebastian can become King of Naples. 

And Ferdinand and Miranda fall madly in love. 

In the end (no spoiler alert on a play that is hundreds of years old) all the chaos pulls together. There is a beautiful magical wedding, Prospero reveals himself to the shipwrecked, he forgives his jerk brother Antonio and the King of Milan, is reunited with Gonzala, the only person who showed him kindness when they were sent into exile. 

He reveals Ferdinand and Miranda are now married, and then everything is put right in the world. 

Prospero fulfills his promise to release Ariel, and it is presumed everyone lives happily ever after. Huzzah! 

This production was tremendously done, with an added element of actual magic tricks courtesy of Mr. Teller and executed wonderfully. The magic was perfect. Ariel's lines are interspersed with card tricks and flinging cards all around when frustrated. The wedding scene includes a wonderful floating Miranda on the altar. When Ariel presses Prospero for their freedom, Prospero puts them in a barrel and spins them around, twisting the spirit's body around like a wet rag. Classic magic tricks abound, and the visual presentation mixed with the story were outstanding. 

One of the things I loved was the references to Prospero's staff. In all the other versions of the play I've seen, Prospero has a huge stick, sometimes adorned with a crystal ball at the top with scarves looking like seaweed. Here, it is a simple magic wand. I really liked that.

Another thing I loved was the band they had playing. The music and the two vocalists singing were just amazing. It was like watching a Shakespeare Play, magic show, and witnessing a Decemberists concert all at once. 

The video below features the actor/magician who played Ariel, and he was just spectacular. So good. 

I would tell DC area folks to go see it but today's the last performance. You can get it on Streaming video if you want, I believe until February 9th if you visit the Round House Theater page.  And you should do that. 

If you are so inclined. 

After the show we walked over to a restaurant Doug had picked for us, since M&M live in Frederick, and aren't too familiar with a lot of spots yet. Bethesda is a little upscale, and has tons of restaurants. I was slightly disappointed in the craft locals on draught, they had lots of bottles and cans though. We had a fantastic meal, and it was a super fun night out. 

On the way home I suggested to Doug that we try to go to the brewery that opened really close to our house, about two and a half miles away. The place was packed, hugely packed. But they have a beautiful outdoor space with fire pits, two or three groups were outside, it was an almost perfect night. Inside we got a table luckily and had a couple beers before heading home. The beer was alright - not the greatest, but the space is pretty nice. I'd like to go back when it is less crowded. I guess that's what I get for going to a small space brewery on a Saturday night. 

Today is a big nothing day, I slept late, and now Doug is napping. Geoff went to the market, and there is football to be watched. 

Digits below. This is the external mural on the brewery. Kind of cool the way the window is in the midst of things so you can look inside. 

digits

exercise: pfth.

blood glucose:
11:30am: 125
5pm: 162
10pm: 173

food:
coffee, water
12pm: burned pizza cheese thanks to geoff's pizza bagel (so yummy)
12:45pm: metformin
3pm - banana bread, maybe more than 1 piece (3 to be exact)
6:30pm: bowl of chili w/ shredded cheddar, fritos, sour cream

Never Trust a Fart

(forgot to post 1/28 before bed)

I don't know who reads this blog, and I honestly have no way to tell. I turned off anonymous posting of comments because I'd get 2 real comments and 20 spam. So hello, if you're reading this. I'm about to say something very uncomfortable. You can leave, I'm not offended.

This has not happened to me for a long time, maybe 2 years? I know I've mentioned it in the past.  But today, I pooped my pants. And it is not the first time.

Let's look back in time, shall we? 

Once, I believe I was pregnant with Geoff, I walked Jess out to the bus in the morning. Bus drove away, I turned and caught the sunlight in my face and had to sneeze. I pooped  my pants. I figured it was because I was pregnant, but I waddled my fat ass into the house, showered, threw my clothes in the laundry and decided to never think of it again. I was 29.

Once, DWG and I were driving in NH up a mountain or something in the late fall, like you do, to go look at vistas and stuff. Suddenly, I had to go. I had to go badly.  We were not going to make it to the top of the mountain, I expressed my panic and urgency to him. I think we were halfway up. So he pulled over, I ran into the woods and I didn't quite make it. I used my underpants, what parts of them I could, and cleaned myself up. He brought me some napkins and handi wipes that were tucked into the door of the jeep (wonderfully, thanks Past Me) and I got cleaned up relatively alright. Luckily my teva sandals did not take a hit, nor did my shorts. But. I didn't stink, and I buried my favorite pink underpants, the napkins, and handi wipes in a small hole I'd managed to dig with a stick, and rolled a log on top of them. 

Oh by the way - On that same trip, our jeep overheated before we got to the top. I think we were literally around the bend and one rise away. We pulled over at an overlook, pulled the camping chairs out of the back, opened the hood, sat and ate the apples and snacks I brought. We waited for it to cool down, and really nice people all stopped to ask if we needed any help. Doug waved and said "nah, this was a little too much on the old thing, so we're just waiting for it to cool off." Doug insisted on us making it to the top of the mountain because we had made it that far. So we did. And we hiked. And we had a lovely time. Then we rolled down the mountain letting the air cool the engine. We got to the ranger station at the gate right before they closed. Ranger guy helped Doug put more water in and measured things, and gave him a container of coolant, just in case. It was a chilly day and he told us probably as long as we were moving, not stuck in traffic, the air would cool everything and we'd be okay. He was right. We did have to stop for a while due to traffic, but Doug pulled into an ice cream place, I'll always remember because it was their last day. 

Once, or twice, working from home I have ignored my body's signals. Absolutely ignored my belly telling me "we gotta go." I just want to finish the email I'm working on, or, I'm in an actual meeting. I really should just tell the person I'm meeting with, I gotta go. And I actually have.

The past couple of weeks I've had some incredibly close calls. And I'm re-examining my diet. I think over the past few, I've not done enough fiber or leafy greens. So I'll be making adjustments. 

That said, I'll leave you with a thought from my friend's uncle. He was a Rabbi in Connecticut, exactly the most wonderful of people you could imagine. One day he told us, and mind you we were in high school "When you get to be over 50, never trust a fart." 

He was right. And I think of him any time I'm feeling trusting of what I think is gas, and I head to the bathroom. 

digits below. Tomorrow's entry which you'll also read today because I forgot to publish this Saturday, concerns going to a play. 

digits

exercise 8 of 12 250 steps

blood glucose:
10:30am: 162
xpm --- we were at a play did not get a reading
10pm: 208

food:
coffee, water
12:00: english muffin w/peanut butter; Metformin
6:30pm: salad w/shrimp/beers 🍻🍻
10pm: some slices of turkey 

I hope that helps!

I know that I've said it before. But, I am not a morning person. 

Some of my team members have kids and they are morning people, because kids have to get to school, and kids wake up early even if they don't have to go to school. Technically I believe we are supposed to start our workday at 8:30am but I typically start at 9 or a little after, and I work later in the day. I don't just cut out at 5. I have a rough time just getting going. Today however, we had a 9am meeting. Which meant I wanted to be up, showered, dressed, normal, like a normal person, by 8:30. Cheeks in Seat as it were.

2 minutes before the meeting is to start, the organizer canceled. Then my 10am was canceled. I felt cheated, I could have started much later but there I was, workin like a chump.  

This was okay, I had QA Work that had to be done today so I put my face in that. One of the clients messaged me about jobs in our org that were just posted, and with some great news that his wife got a teaching job at a Boston Charter School, where I have friends on staff, ironically. Naturally. I know this is kind of weird but I seem to just know people places sometimes and I love making those connections. They're flying to Boston to look at neighborhoods. We had a long long chat about where the school is, and where they should think about living. 

He's going to have to change jobs so oh, okay ... apply for one of these! Big long conversation about that. 

Then, a lunchtime meeting for caregivers focusing on taking care of our parents. The topic has come up a lot lately with my sister and me, so I felt I should attend. They're going to bring in someone to talk to us about Elder Care things like the Ducks In A Row binder, passwords to things, medical/health proxies, that kind of stuff. Stuff we all know and we avoid.

I had a meeting at 1. I had a short break and a 2pm. I realized I forgot to take my metformin and I didn't eat, because I went to that noon meeting. Shoot. My blood sugar was high this morning and still high at 4:30. 

Feeling tired, I plodded through the QA tasks, did a meeting with a someone to show her how I did something that she couldn't figure out how to do. She said "I did that! It didn't work!" And she recreated the steps I did and sure as fudge, it did not work. Register a bug with the devs. Why can I do it and she can't? Mystery. 

Got a snarky helpdesk ticket from a client who I haven't heard from in a super long time. 

Feeling annoyed I basically sugar coated my reply with smiles and "I hope that helps!" dripping off every letter. It's exhausting.

Geoff made dinner tonight. I tried to nap and missed the 6pm steps thanks to that. I almost had a whole week of all the days. 

Hoping for a good night's sleep tonight. We have a date tomorrow to go see The Tempest, and I've been waiting for months for this. I need to be awake aware and alive!!! 

Oh, and for my picture today, Microsoft Teams has a weird meeting view and I had to capture the view so you could enjoy. It is so ridiculous that I just had to get it. Digits below. 

digits

exercise

blood glucose:
8am: 200
4:30pm: 200
9:20pm 190

food:
coffee, water
2:30pm: metformin; 3 celery sticks w/peanut butter
6pm: chicken Mexican style a la Geoff
8:30pm: metformin+jardiance 

A day of carbs?

Tonight I made linguini and pasta sauce, and meatballs from scratch. And garlic bread. And my blood sugar is also a little high but oh my god am I a good cook. 

Anyway. 

I also spent time pouring half and half beers for Doug and Geoff. 

A little too many carbs for me today I think, but I'm in such a good mood tonight. 

It is okay to be happy. It is absolutely okay to be happy. 

digits

exercise:

blood glucose:
8:45am: 198
5pm: 188 
10pm: 152

food:
coffee, water
10am: protein shake
11:15am: small ramekin of mac&cheese w/ground beef
11:30am: metformin & another ramekin of mac&cheese (not enough to put in the fridge, so, I finished it).
7pm: meatballs. linguini. sauce. metformin. jardiance. beer. 🍻

Putting Christmas Away

It is almost February. 

It is time to put away Christmas. 

Geoff took our little tree down to storage and I've been slowly de-stringing lights. I have a giant string of white lights that I want to add more to, and string through the living room if Doug will go for it. I'll pitch that to him tomorrow. 

Today in between meetings (yes, I had a couple!) I spent time boxing up the wee angels that Doug has had for many years. 

The angels range from 1976 to 1986, I do believe, and are a numbered series. Price tags on the boxes is about 9 bucks to 14 bucks, depending on the year. They are made by Goebels. And by the looks of it, they aren't super duper appreciated in value all these years. 

They are little ceramic bells, and they tinkle ever so gently. You can hang them from hooks and put them up on your tree as ornaments, but we like to just put them on the table or a shelf together.

I'm exceptionally careful with them, I look at each one, and their instruments, and wings. I loved having them out around the tree, they were so cheery and colorful. I'm bummed to put them back in their corresponding boxes, to sit in the dark until next Christmastime.  

Thanks sweet wee angels, you sure are lovely. I wish I spent more time with you this year. But I'm happy you were here with me. 

Oh - and we also have this Snoopy ornament from 1977. That was the only ornament I put on the tree. So Snoopy is in the box with them, and will keep them company. 

Digits below.

digits

exercise: 

blood glucose:
9am: 177
5pm:156
10pm: 215 (boo. big mistake with oreos)

food:
coffee, water
12:15: metformin
2pm: protein shake (i forgot to drink at lunchtime)
5pm: mouthful of trail mix; 2 thin slices of ham
6:30: chicken cordon bleu, peas 5 pierogies
7pm: 3 oreos, metformin+jardiance

How's This A Thing?

 

Look at that. It's not often that this happens. Empty. I had an empty schedule today. Wow.

I am usually 6 hours of meetings a day. But I knew something was weird when my daily alert didn't ding at 8:30am to tell me to look at the schedule in Slack. I slept straight through to about 9:15 or something, the dog woke up and I thought oh no. What If I overslept a meeting at 9. 

I opened the Outlook app on Slack and the reason why an alert didn't chime was, well, obvious. Then, I thought it was broken. We always have a 10:30am check-in with the team. Nope. That was canceled for today. Wild. Not even that happening.

So there I was, surrounded by no meetings. 

It's actually kind of good because we have a site launch happening next Tuesday and while the client thinks they're prepared, I'm discovering they are under prepared. Drastically. We had a meeting yesterday and she said she knows they have work to do but the thing she has to do is get everyone off of the old platform and force them into this one, because they are not doing the work. Fair. Good strategy. Take the crutch away and make them move forward. 

I have a feeling next week is going to be a challenge for us, and for her, because of her staff. They're probably all going to freak. 

I may have to have a training session for them, or a "Be calm, be brave, it'll be okay" meeting. 

It isn't like they produce a lot of content. But they have some strong feelings. 

I doubt I'll see another empty day like that screenshot above again for a long bit. 

So for today, focused on her, her site, their needs, what needs done to be launch read. I'm  thankful that we have a week to clean up. I'm thankful for this day with no meetings. 

In my heart of hearts also, I'm thinking of my father in law Gary, who went to college where they are based. In the meeting yesterday she had on a sweatshirt from the college, I think we have the same one somewhere. It was his, and Doug's mom gave it to Doug because she didn't have the heart to throw it away or donate it. So it's ours now. It actually also makes me think of my friend Rob's dad. "Mr. Buckeye" as Rob called him. And a different sweatshirt, as told of here. 

Anyway. It was a great day of no meetings. And I loved it. In other news... I put in for my vacation for March & April. 7 days total but it's approved and wonderful and I'm insanely happy. I just bought the plane tickets. Cannot wait. 

Oh, and here's the cleaned out junk drawer because I know all y'all are dying to see it! so empty! so light! 

Digits below.

digits: 

Exercise: 12/12 of 250 steps. 

blood glucose:
9:15am: 177
5pm: 260
10pm: 129

food:
coffee, water
12:30: metformin
1pm: protein shake
7pm: metformin+jardiance; 1 cheeseburger (2 slices of american cheese); salad (romaine, cherry tomatoes, cucumber, red onion, caesar dressing)
3 glasses of wine, 2 white 1 red. 🍷🍷🍷

One Two Three - It's Doug's Birthday

 Today is Doug's 55th birthday. 

He decided he wanted to go to a restaurant we went to  exactly 5 years ago.  He liked it but we have not been back since. You know, the pandemic got in the way and it is DC and parking is a pain. 

It's primarily an oyster restaurant, one of these "it's fancy but they make it look like it's not, but it's actually kinda fancy" joints. Not like the oyster house we have been to down in the Wharf which we really love but that's a chore to get to. 

I wanted to go out over the weekend, but he has a thing about going out on your actual birthday. Geoff had class tonight and missed out, which was my only complaint. G made mac and cheese for himself for dinner, and left for school. It stresses me out to put the dog in his kennel, but he went semi-willingly and we got out the door. 

Doug and I then ventured out to  his restaurant of choice. 

We scored a parking spot right out front which is unheard of.  The place was very full and I was afraid that we'd borked it by not making a reservation, it being DC and all. But they were able to seat us, thankfully. They asked us if there were any birthdays today (which I found a bit odd) but I pointed at Doug and said "yes." Doug wanted oysters and Mondays are half price, so he got a dozen and was very happy.

We had a wonderful dinner, and at the end they brought us two glasses of champagne and Doug ordered a hot apple crumble with cinnamon ice cream, and it was delightful. No singing, no nonsense, just kindness from the staff, and an extra big tip from me for those extras in the form of champagne glasses.

All told, great dinner, great night out. And a very happy birthday to my number one, my ride or die. Here's to all the future birthdays. 

digits:

exercise: 10 of 12 hours of 250 steps

blood glucose:
9:30am: 163
5pm: 160
10:00pm: 224

food:
coffee, water
12:00: metformin. Ham, havarti, mayo, 647 wheat bread
6:30pm: grilled shrimp; beer (3 total 🍺🍺🍺) scallops over risotto with fancy sauce. some hot apple cobbler with cinnamon ice cream. Metformin+jardiance
9:30pm: babybel cheese, pepperoni slices

Work Email Weekend

(forgot to hit publish on 1/22. This is Sunday's entry). 

Tomorrow morning I had my alarm set for 7:30 so I could get up and help move a site off of our content management system.  On a lark, I did something that I have stopped doing over the last month or so in an effort for work/life balance. 

I checked my work email. 

I had emailed the client on Friday morning to let her know I was poised and ready for her for 8am. I welcomed her back from her honeymoon (imagine coming back from your honeymoon and that Monday morning having to do a giant juggle of transition first thing in the morning!) 

She emailed me back very late on Friday night to let me know the migration was postponed. She apologized for forgetting to let me know, but the launch was moved to Wednesday at 9pm. 

Good thing I checked. Now I can sleep until my usual time, and I'm happy to help them out with the launch on Wednesday at 9pm. No harm, no foul. 

But now I know why I look at my messages. 

I finished cleaning out the junk drawer. I have no idea why my family puts beer bottle caps in the drawer, let's just say... there is a lot. Maybe I should think of a craft project to make with them. I could be crafty. And about 2 dozen packets of duck sauce and hot mustard were pitched. I kept the soy sauce because the little bubble packs are easier to deal with than the industrial sized bottle we have. 

I am keeping the bottle caps. Maybe I will make something after all.

Things are far more organized. no more searching for potato peelers, church keys, corkscrews. Bliss. 

I didn't take a picture, the shadows were too weird. Tomorrow should be sunny so I'll show proof of success. 

Still have the head cold. Today I made a lot of tea. When Jess moved out, they left several tea related things behind including 2 cute little teapots. One has a cup under it, and the pot rests in the cup when not in use. Today I used that for some Celestial Seasonings Peach Healing tea. Very good. And I thought of Jess a lot. I really miss having them around a little more local. When we lived in Massachusetts, Jess was a few towns away and I could just say "oh hey would you like to have dinner tomorrow for your Dad's birthday?" and we'd meet somewhere in between. 

Now not only is it Doug's birthday tomorrow but I have no idea where to go for dinner. I'm going to allow him to pick but around here, especially since the pandemic, things are closed on Monday and Tuesday and you invariably need a reservation for anything. 

So I'll have him decide, I'll make the reservation, and we'll go celebrate him. Geoff will be in school, so he can feed himself. 

Anyway. Disjointed, still spacey with the cold, if I didn't have some really important meetings tomorrow I'd call out again. Thankfully the arm does not hurt anymore from the Shingles vaxx. And if you're over 50 I still want you to get one. 

Here's the teapot. So you can like it too. 

digits

exercise: another day of not feeling great = no

blood glucose:
11am: 149
5pm: 152
10pm:182

food:
coffee, water, tea
10:45: a couple scoops of mac & cheese with ground beef - mostly for the huge amount ground beef.
1:15pm: Metformin
1:30: protein shake
6pm: 2 chorizo sausages in tomato sauce and mozz cheese. 
from 6-9:30: about 7 Oreo Cookies. 4 glasses of white 🍷

Hot Tea, Cold Wine

My head is all stuffed up, my throat is sore, I am sneezing. Like, 4 or 5 times in a row. So unlike me. Usually I sneeze twice and am done for it. Today I woke up to sneeze. My body woke me up and said "hey, you gotta sneeze."  

After dinner tonight, I wanted a glass of wine. Sort of. Mostly I wanted something ice cold. Not water. But we didn't have any seltzer or anything I could drink, so wine it is. And I wanted hot tea. I wanted hot tea against my throat. I got both. And sat down to watch football. 

Alternating freezing cold wine and hot delicious Sleepytime Sinus Soother Tea, I thought about cookies. We still have oatmeal cookies. We have Oreos. 

But wonderfully my blood sugar was pretty great at 4:30 and so I didn't want to mess that up. So wine. tea. wine. tea. 

Doug's birthday is Monday and he is not going into the office. I am going to try to figure out where to go for dinner. For my birthday I didn't care so he picked a place. I'll see if he has a preference, or if we're just going to find a place. I actually think Geoff may have class at 7:30 in person, so we may have to kennel the dog. 

Not very interesting today. Sorry!

digits

exercise: none! didn't get the 12 hours of 24 steps. got like 2 hours. 
Most days I'm getting 4000 to 5000 steps. Today? less than 2k. And an hour nap.
i told you I don't feel good. sadness.

blood glucose:
10:30am: 177
4:20pm: 118 (hey now!)
9:45pm: 158

food:
coffee, water, herbal tea (sleepytime sinus soother), wine
12:15pm: protein shake, metformin
while cooking: handfuls of trail mix (w/some chocolate chunks in there)
6pm: buffalo chicken dip (roasted chicken, bleu cheese crumbles, cream cheese, red hot, bleu cheese dressing, cheddar cheese), some tostitos scoops, celery sticks
7pm: metformin+jardiance
8:30pm: wine 🍷
10pm: 2 oatmeal craisin cookies
(edited for honesty: 11pm several oreo cookies)

Sore Throat

Perfectly acceptable, I think I've got a cold. Sore throat, runny nose, achey. I am not happy. Not much of an entry today because I do not have the energy for it. I hope this goes away fast. meh. taking tylenol pm a benadryl and hitting the hay. 

zzzz

digits

exercise: 12/12 for hours of 250 steps. 

blood glucose:
9:30am: 177
4:30pm: 145
10pm: 185

food:
coffee, water
12 noon: protein shake; metformin
6pm: Buffalo wings, celery, bleu cheese; metformin+jardiance
7pm: trail mix (with some chocolate bits in there)

Junk Drawer

Doesn't everyone have one? A catch all drawer in the kitchen where you throw all kinds of stuff? We only have two drawers in our tiny kitchen - we sacrificed 2 and 2 cupboards to get the dishwasher. One is for flat utensils (do not put spoons in there, they'll get super stuck!) and the other, well, it's a shit show. It's the junk drawer. 

Since we only have two drawers in our house, having one that is a huge mess isn't smart. My parents always had one junk drawer, but they had 6 drawers. One was a great big deep drawer and that was for bread. The junk drawer was the very bottom of a stack of four drawers.  Top drawer was silverware, next was mixing cups and spoons, then the giant bread drawer which I think had small electronic kitchen gadgets like the can opener and a mixer. The bread actually lived in a bread box on top of the dishwasher across the room. And at the very bottom there, the junk drawer. Mostly twine, and scissors, and twistie ties. We always had a ton of twistie ties. 

The other day Doug needed a corkscrew. Normally, we're all about the big black box of wine, but he bought a nice high-end beer that was in a corked bottle. He went to the junk drawer, where the bottle openers and corkscrews live, and could not find one. 

It's kind of a hot mess in there. 

I pulled it out and declared it reorganization time and set it on the dining table. 

Honestly. Who needs old duck sauce? I mean, I always feel guilty throwing these things out so for quite some time, they have just landed here. I don't use them. Doug might use the hot mustard but. Not really, no. When we order chinese food, I tell them every single time "No duck sauce or hot mustard, no white rice" but they send it all every single time.  I will use the soy sauce packets, but never the duck sauce or hot mustard. Ugh. It's all going out. Also note the fortune cookies. They actually stopped sending fortune cookies. Wonder why, it's one of my favorite parts of chinese food orders. Not sure who didn't want/eat those but. Goodbye. 

And the bottle caps.  A long time ago, my sister was going to make a birdhouse crafty thing she saw on pinterest which needed wine corks and bottle caps,so we saved her a giant assortment of bottle caps. Geoff has continued to save them, even though we gave her enough to make 2 or 5 bird houses. I am not planning on making a birdhouse. They can go. 

Then, there's the other stuff. The Las Vegas bottle opener is a good one, it's supposed to have a magnet on it but the magnet fell off. I can find a hook for it, and put it somewhere prominent in the kitchen. Cabot cheese slicer, okay. Keeping that. The little glass ramekin of can tabs, my neighbor collects them for some charity thing, so we can get those into a ziploc bag, and get them to her. Goodbye done okay. 

Plastic pre-wrapped utensils. Also from the chinese food. They send them even though I've asked them to stop. I have a small bag of them in the glove box of the car. They've come in handy in the past! 

And then it starts to look normal. Once I get the bulk of the sauce packets out of there, it'll start to become a drawer again! I can have a place to put the mixer beaters and some other things. And, the corkscrews (which were under all the shit). 

Goodbye everything. An after picture to come, I'm sure. Digits below. 

digits: 

exercise: 

blood glucose:
9am: 198
4:15pm: 160
10pm: 216

food:
coffee, water
11am: 2 eggs, a ton of spinach, shredded cheese... messy scramble.
12:30: turkey and 2 slices of bacon w/mayo on 2 slices of 647 wheat bread. Metformin
1:15: 2 pieces of cold bacon that Doug didn't eat for lunch. 
5:45pm: 3 pork chops, green beans, fingerling potatoes. Metformin+jardiance
6pm: 3 oatmeal craisin cookies
9:30pm: 2 babybel cheeses

A Zero Day, Kinda

I didn't sleep at all well. Both arms were sore, and when I'd roll over it would hurt, wake me up, and I'd say "ouch." 

Phineas heard Geoff in the kitchen at 6:30, so he got out of bed to see what was going on, and he stepped on my leg. Another audible ouch. 

I got up to pee, I let him out and fed him, and when he got back inside he couldn't quite jump up on our bed, so he and I went in the guest room to get a little more sleep. Also, I knew Doug's alarm would be going off in a few minutes and I like to be out of his way for getting ready. 6:30 is too early for my brain

I slept very soundly for the next couple hours, which was nice. Had some crazy dream where I was an some office that wasn't mine, it was like a barn but it was still an office. A really cool office. There were a bunch of people I knew (like Lyn the bartender at a local craft brewery in DC) and we were watching Marco Benevento put on a rock show. 

They did a cover of Simon & Garfunkel's "America" that was all jazz funked out, with a crazy huge jam in the middle. The bassist Karina Rykman was like ... unreal. She always is. No one is more fun to watch on earth than Karina. I always say I wish I was as happy doing my job as she seems to be doing hers. 

Check her out with her Quarantine Quartet, she's the blond in the middle. Doesn't she look happy? Every time I have seen her play I just walk away with such joy. And she makes the bass guitar a primary instrument on a lot of her performances. It's nice to see. Really. And this is her scaled back in a little space. 

Anyway, I hit snooze for the entire 8am hour, until my phone got to the "no more snoozes allowed" setting (I think it's 6 times) so I knew I either had to wake up and reset it, or wake up and call out. I really debated whether or not to do that.

At my office today there was a concert with Indigo Girls. We had to enter a lottery last week, and I got a spot. And now I feel like a limp cold noodle under blankets. Instead of basking in the glow of the greatest female vocal/folk duo of all time.

By noon, I figured hey - I'll probably feel fine, right? But. No. 

I emailed the organizer to let her know I'll happily give up my spot for someone on the waitlist today. I'd hate knowing there are people on a waitlist and I'm holding a spot. 

And I missed the part in the communication that said they'd be live streaming the show. So. I could have watched from here but ... details. pfth. Missed it. I've got something to look forward to when it is posted online then. There's that. 

When people hike the Appalachian Trail (or basically any long hike) a day off is called a Zero Day. You don't hike, so there are zero miles. Well, I would say this was a zero day for me. 

Except I baked oatmeal craisin cookies. A double batch of the little stinkers. There's that. That's not a zero activity. I pondered if I should bake peanut butter cookies, but. I wore myself out and then it was time for dinner. I'll mix that up tomorrow. Geoff's days off of school are Thursday and Friday, so I'm thinking I can convince him to do the baking if I do the mixing. 

Digits, below picture of my cookie fest. It's a lot of cookies.

digits

exercise:

blood glucose:
9am: 188
5pm: 192
xpm publishing and going to bed. don't want to wait to stay up to test and blog. Will update tomorrow.
10pm: 230. Thanks, cookies

food:
coffee, water 
11:30: apple w/pb, 2 good yogurt, english muffin with pb. metformin
3:30pm: Oatmeal craisin cookie
6:45pm: Metformin+Jardiance
7:15pm: chicken parm
8pm: 2 more oatmeal craisin cookies 
10pm: protein shake

Got them Shingles Vax Arm Pains

Got that shingles vaccine and the pneumonia vaccine too. 

Gotta go back in 2-6 months for part 2.  My arms are both sore. Ouch.  I was supposed to go get bloodwork done but the lab closed at 5 and it was ten minutes til, so .... another day. 

I am supposed to go into the office tomorrow. Trying to decide if I want to enough to actually go do it. We'll have to put Phin in the kennel, so I'm feeling a little sad and stressed about that. I'm only going in because there is a thing happening tomorrow that I absolutely want to see, and I'm not sure I want to go down first thing, or, leave here around 10:30 and then turn around and come back after the thing. 

We'll see how I feel in the morning.

I didn't eat a lot today, just too busy and not interested in anything. We needed a grocery trip and Geoff was in classes so I went over after the doctor. I am hungry now, but it's 10pm and I should just hit the hay.

Not much else to report. Just wanted to post the digits and whatnot. So ready for bed. zzz.

exercise 12/12 for the 250 steps. Grocery shopping should count as the dedicated 10. ha. 

blood glucose: 
9am: 221
6pm: 191
10pm: 201

food:
coffee, water
11:30am: tuna on toasted brioche; metformin
2:30pm: protein shake
7pm: metformin+jardiance; 2 cluck puck chicken patties w/sliced cheddar on lettuce tomato salad w/mayo

Operation ATM

Forgot to post before bed on 1/16

We did nothing fun with our weekend, but Doug reminded me that we have Christmas checks to deposit. He wanted to go drop them in the ATM and take that stroll around our downtown. 

Geoff said "I think the lobby of the bank is only open when the bank is open. The ATM is locked when they're closed. 

Doug said "well that can't be right..." and looked it up online that it is a 24/7 lobby. 

He went to do something so I called Geoff over and asked if he noticed a slot by the door for your card, to unlock the door when the bank is not open. 

"I noticed it but I've never used it."

"Okay well then yes, the lobby is locked but your bank card is the key to get you in to the lobby when the bank is closed. That's what it is there for." Another thing that I swear I had no idea my kid didn't know about. How to go into the ATM when the bank is closed.

We talked about ATM and lobby etiquette. If someone is in the lobby using the ATM, do not enter until they are done (unless, the bank is open and you want to go to the counter). If you're in the lobby using the ATM after hours or on holidays, and someone enters, don't flip out, but acknowledge they are there, tell them you'll be done in a minute. 

I told him sometimes people come in because there are no laws or rules against them entering, and if it is a big enough space, don't get mad that they're in there with you - but also be aware of them, just in case. 

My mother lost her shit on a guy who entered the ATM lobby when she was banking one day, when it was a blizzard and snowing like a bitch out there. I told her "ma, he wasn't looking to rob you, he was cold. It was snowing. Get over yourself." 

She's a pill. 

So it was "Operation ATM," as Doug calls it. He calls things "Operation this that and the other thing..." all the time. He asked if he could call our trip out "Operation ATM" and I told him "you can call it whatever you want."

"That's no fun, you're supposed to get angry at me like Geoff and yell "Why's everything gotta be an operation can't we just do something without it being a mission?" Because if you tell me I can call it whatever I want, it's no fun anymore. I may stop doing it." 

Ha.

We left and headed into downtown, parked in the garage and walked a few blocks to walk over and play Pokemon on the way. We got to our bank, Doug swiped his card in the thing and the door did not open. He tried again. And again. Then I noticed a sign in the window saying the ATM lobby was only open when the bank was open. 

Holy Crap. Geoff was right! 

He pulled up the URL on the sign to find the next closest location and walked back to our car. Our "town" is so big, we'd never been to this area before. Doug realized we were super close to a cool taproom and beer store he'd read about online, so we stopped in for a couple beers, had a wonderful chat with the owner, and enjoyed ourselves. 

I texted Geoff to let him know he was 100% right on the ATM situation, and let him know we were bringing beer back from their store, and Peruvian Chicken from the joint next door. 

Operation ATM .... what an adventure. Also, strong letter to follow to my bank that their WEBSITE says the LOBBY AND ATM are 24 hours. 

Grrr. 

Digits below, per usual. 

digits

exercise: 

blood glucose:
10:45am: 192
5pm: 224
11:30pm: 197

food: 
coffee, water
11:30am: pbj sammitch on 647 whole wheat bread. Metformin
3pm: 🍻🍻 buffalo wings
5:30pm: peruvian chicken, black beans, cilantro rice, lots and lots of spinach, ceviche (doug ate most of it)
2 chocolate chip cookies
6pm: metformin+jardiance
Football: 🍻🍻
8:15 2 babybel cheeses

An antiviral exorcism

It's wild wild wacky super wildcard football weekend so we didn't go out to do anything fun today. Or yesterday really. Watching the Miami/Buffalo game, I thought about so many friends I have who love either team, 

Geoff suggested chinese food for dinner so we ordered that. Doug has been a wee bit out of sorts today, upset stomach, cranky. I didn't let that stop us. Got a bunch of chinese food, and some soup. 

Dr. Bobby called me this morning and said that on Thursday he really wanted to talk me into coming down to visit after I told him it probably wasn't a good time. 

He's not contagious, the shingles virus lives inside us, so it wasn't like I was going to catch it from him breathing on me or me touching the kitchen counter. 

But he thanked me for opting out. He feels like he's been hit by a truck. He feels worse than when he had covid. 

He said everything hurts, he's itchy, he's cranky, all he's done is sleep 12-14 hours and be up for a little while then nap. Food tastes like shit and his stomach is killing him. 

He said he thinks the medication they gave him, the antiviral, is knocking him on his ass.

"Well, yeah," I said. "That medication is working on getting that demon spawn out yer body, son. It's performing an antiviral exorcism on your ass. Don't stop taking it. And this time next week you're going to be all better so, just fight that nonsense with sleep and if nothing else, tea or hot water and lemon. And more sleep. Let it do the work." 

He thought the concept of a medical exorcism was a riot. It kind of is. But, it's what we've got, right? Take your meds and fight your germs. 

We'll get together another time. 

Alright. Football, Laundry, watching my friend Pete Kilpatrick play a little concert on Facebook. He's doing 90s covers. I love it. 

No picture, digits, as usual, below. 

digits

exercise: nothing official but 12/12 on the 250 steps on the fitbit.

blood glucose:
9am: 177
5:30pm: 160
11pm: 224

food:
coffee, water
10:30am: left over eggs/milk from making geoff some french toast; 3 pieces of bacon
2pm: metformin; olives, cheese, salami, cherry tomatoes (snack laid out by doug)
2:30: leftover chicken thighs (about 1.5 of them total, Doug's dinner from the other day that he didn't eat)
5:30: chinese food: general tso's chicken w/broccoli, shrimp lo mein, spring roll, 1 beef on stick, 3 peking ravioli. 🍻🍻
6pm: metformin+jardiance
7pm: 2 chocolate chip cookies

We were so blessed now

I suggested to Doug we go up to see his mom since our trip to Williamsburg was called off. My suggestion went in one ear, and out the other. Doug didn't respond. Thousand Yard Stare out to the Middle Distance. 

This morning, she called  to ask him questions about her computer. 

Geoff and I left for the post office and Target (side note: All the cookies have been shipped! WOOOOOOOOOOO!) and when we came back, he was socked out on the couch. 

I played on my phone quietly in the bedroom, and started to snooze a little bit myself when his phone rang. Mom again. 

Two hours later, they are finally logged into her Gmail, he sent her a test email. She said she's never used the laptop we helped her buy, and has only logged into Gmail on her phone. But she can't read the messages if there are attachments. So now, she can. Huzzah. 

So we probably really should have gone to see her this weekend. There was a lot of  Doug saying "okay, on the screen right now, do you see the Google Logo? Do you see.... this thing, that thing, the other thing? A place to put in your password? Click 'forgot my password' and let's get you a new password. No, it'll come as a text to your phone because you can't log in and that's your rescue method. A text. Text. A message..."

She got really frustrated, and he was very patient with her. She said she was going to give up and just forget about it and all that. He said "you're frustrated because you've never done this, and I don't expect you to know how but you'll learn."

Saint that he is. I sat here sighing because honest to God we should have just driven up there and he could help her. Also, where's his sister? why isn't she there helping with this when she lives 5 minutes away?

Doug finished with her, and it was cocktail time. He earned it. 

I also did some kindness today at the post office. While my boxes were being labeled (all about 7 dollars more than I needed to spend, cause I got those damn flat rate boxes! doh) a man came to the counter at the window beside me with three Christmas gifts to ship, which should have been in shipping boxes. He just had them in his hands, like. That's not how this works. 

The woman at the window was really rude to him (it's the post office. Color me shocked) and he didn't understand what he was supposed to do.  

"Get a box to put them in!" she yelled at him and pointed at the boxes for sale. 

I was just about done, so I paid, and as he stood there looking at the boxes, holding his three presents in his hands, I touched him by the shoulder and said "here, let me help you get this figured out. You need a box to put those in to ship them. Let's go over here..." made sure not to take him to the FREE flat rate boxes, but to the boxes that cost a buck or two. 

"We should pick the right size for these," I said. He told me they were going to two different places, to his grandchildren. "Awesome. Then we need two boxes. You have to buy them. Is that okay?" he said yes. 

We went into the lobby because they don't let you lean at the thing that looks like a counter in the middle of the room to write on things. They yelled about five times at people filling out forms and leaning on that "divider" counter that isn't a counter so don't you use it for resting anything on or writing anything.

Out in the lobby, there were no forms, no pens, no tape. It was a wasteland. 

But oh! There's a roll of tape! Just sitting there! 

He starts taping his box, and he didn't have the flaps right so it wasn't working, so I helped him close the flaps right and we taped the bottoms shut on both boxes. A young man, teenager with his mom, comes over and says "Oh that's our tape. I left it here on the counter." 

The man hands it to him and I said "ya know, I could use a roll of that little shipping tape myself, so I'll buy one and you can be the first to use it." 

I smiled and started to turn inside to the bubble wrap, boxes, and tape display, and the mom said in kind of English "oh no no, you can use, you can use." She gestured to her son to give him the tape. The boy handed it to him, slightly confused, and I walked back and said "thank you so much! When he's done I'll bring it inside to you, you'll be on the line, right?" They both nodded and I smiled. They went to stand in line.

We taped the boxes closed. Put the presents in the right ones. I asked if he had a pen, and he said he dropped it somewhere. I got the sticker he needed to put on the boxes, and I said "Well, maybe there is one inside there that they'll let you use." 

Another woman was filling out a form to ship something to France. She came over to me and said "excuse me, what is mean 'Sender?'"

"Oh ma'am, you are the sender. You are mailing this package, yes? You're the sender!"  

I showed her how to fill out the customs form, declare what is in it without giving away all the details if it is a gift, the approximate value, then over here, this is the destination... by the way, can he use your pen?" 

She smiled and said "oh yes!" and handed him the pen. 

Gosh. They were both so cute. I went to head out, he thanked me profusely.

"Sir, I hope that's the hardest thing you have to do all year. ALL YEAR! ya hear me!" He laughed and the lady said "oh we were so blessed now." The man smiled and nodded. 

Part of me wanted to go in and get on line with him, just in case the counter employee was mean again. Listen, lady. He's doing his best. Just help him an ounce with no yelling.

The post office needs a human in the lobby to just be like "oh okay! let's address that. I will show you how." 

"Oh that box isn't the right size. Let's hook you up with a new one." 

"Oh don't take the flat rate box, unless you have something super heavy to ship! Otherwise your cookies will cost 17 dollars to send and 2 dollars to make!"  (I wish that helper person was there when I got all the wrong boxes...)

I had sent Geoff out to the car because I only put one quarter into the meter, and I don't know if the town actually busts on people with parking tickets. 

But wouldn't that just be something, me there helping an old man box up gifts for his grandkids and some lady who doesn't speak good English to get her customs form all set, getting ticket for being in the post office an extra couple minutes. 

So while we're not in Billyburgh right this minute at a tavern having cocktails with my Bobby, we're doing what we're supposed to do. 

No picture today, made bad food choices today like mac & cheese, and cookies. But. tomorrow's another day, eh? digits down below. 

digits

exercise: 12/12 for 250. Long walk around inside Target but I wouldn't call that my "walk" for the day. Still, lots of steps on the fitbit.

Blood glucose:
9am: 186
5pm: 191
9pm: 180

food: 
coffee, water

9am: protein shake
11am: a couple wee pieces of chicken thighs left over from the other night
12:45pm: slider burger roll w/ pb (about 16 carbs); metformin
2:30pm: 2 chocolate chip cookies

4:30pm: about 10sourdough pretzel bites w/pimento bacon cheese spread
5:30pm: bowl of velveeta mac & cheese with habanero salsa; metformin+jardiance
vodka tonics 🍸🍸🍸
9:30pm: celery+peanut butter

Shingles Doesn't Care

This weekend, Doug and I were going to head down to see my friend in Williamsburg. We've been trying to connect since he moved there for a job in 2020. It's been a challenge, schedule wise, to get in the same place at the same time. This weekend was gonna happen. 

Finally.

I emailed him Thursday afternoon to get his address so we could plot our journey down, and he called me immediately. 

"Rockyyyyyyyy...." he says. He calls me Rock, Doctor Rock, Rocky Rockasaurus, all from a nickname from high school that he gave me, Clifton D. Rocker, or Clifton Duck Rocker, I have no real idea how we got to that name, but my initials were CLF back in the day, which he turned to Cliffy, which turned to Clifton. Which... you get it. 

Anyway, I say back to him "Doctor Bobby, what's uuuuuuuuuuup." He has a Ph.D, and he doesn't go by Bobby, but. Similar. Nicknames evolve. 

"Rocky, I'm at my doctor's," he says. "I think, I got.... da shingles."

"Tha SHINGLES?!" I say. "That Guy? Fuck that guy!"

"I KNOW! FUCK THAT GUY!" he exclaims. 

He tells me the saga, that on Monday he had a bump on his cheek, which turned into 3 bumps, like zits but not zits, and then his face got itchy and swollen. And then, it moved into his eye. 

"YOUR EYE! WHAT THE ACTUAL FUUUUUUUUUUU...." I yell. 

He said he called his mom and started to tell her about it, and she said "Go to the doctor right now. You have shingles."

"When did you go to medical school!" He yells at her.

"She has a Mom MD," I replied. "Just because she's like ... 80 doesn't mean she's a Retired Doctor Emeritus of Mom Medical. She knows." 

He called me back after he was seen by the doctor.

"Rockyyyyyy. It's true. It's da shinglez."

"Uuuuuugggggh,"

They made him an emergency ophthalmologist appointment for first thing in the morning to get his eye checked out. They gave him a prescription for an antiviral. He checks out okay, but. 

We're not going to go visit.

I've never had the chickenpox. And I have not had a shingles vaccine. I'd be in super danger if I go there for a visit. And I'm sure he could clean his house, and the doctor says he isn't contagious but ... no.

Well, let's back up. My mom says I've never had the chickenpox. She said I had an incredibly mild case, like one or two pox on me. She said my sister had it twice. Like the Chickenpox Fairy came to the house, and went to her room instead of mine, twice. Hmmm. 

Anyway, I'd probably die from Shingles. If I got it. So I made an appointment for a vaccination. In October my PCP suggested it, as she gave me my Covid Booster, and then said "not today though. Not both of these at the same time. It'll ruin your weekend." 

On a Tuesday, she says this. Ha.

So I said yeah sure I'll schedule that appointment. And completely forgot.

Cut to TV commercial jokes:
"I am gonna go see my friend Bobbert who I haven't seen for 12 years since Pittsburgh!" 
"Shingles doesn't care."

sigh.

Bobbert, a true inspiration to me. Looking forward to not getting Shingles because ... Aw fer cryin' out loud.

digits:

exercise: Dedicated 10. 12/12 for 250 steps

blood glucose:
9am: 170
5pm:192
9:30pm: 182 (one finger tested 354, which is crap. so I retested. taking the lower reading, with grumpiness)

food:
9:30am: 2 good yogurt
12:30pm: metformin; apple
1:30pm: 4 celery sticks+peanut butter
2:45pm: 2 chocolate chip cookies (aye, i am a weak and hopeless person)
5:45pm: chicken thighs w/1 low carb wrap, and sour cream, cheddar cheese, avocado spread
9pm: 2 babybel cheeses

Unheard Of

Doug has been leaving the house to go to the office this week at about 7:30am which is too stupid early for me to think about getting up and being normal and working or even just sitting here watching the news. 

I'm a big fan of one more hour of sleep. 

Yesterday morning he came into the bedroom after his shower and turned the light on. Sonofabitch. What are you turning the light on in my face at 6:30 for?! Open the curtain. You don't need to turn the light on, which is on my side of the bed, and pointing at my eyes, honey. 

Phin and I rustled, and he jumped off the bed meaning "time to go pee." I too had to pee. I let Phin out, went to pee, went to the kitchen, fed him, put the craisins in a bowl to soak (see yesterday's entry), let Phin back in the house, and we went to the guest room to catch that extra sleepies. 

It has been kind of cold, not normal cold for DC, so the guest bedroom door has been shut. Opening the guest room door was like opening the door to a walk in refrigerator. Thank God for flannel sheets. Phin followed me in, we snuggled up, and went right back to sleep. I didn't even hear Doug leave.

My alarm goes off at 8:30, and Geoff leaves for the gym right about then, so I heard the front door close. 

I was awake, but, still. Cozy. 

I have been known over the years to hit snooze several times before finally getting up. What usually gets me out of bed is the need to pee, but I'd already done that! So I snoozed. hitting the button a few times, until it was a little after 9. I checked email and slack (from bed!) and nothing was happening. I got up, put the 10 toes on the floor, went to find pants. 

And the dog stayed in bed. 

And he continued to stay in bed until well after 10am. 

Unheard of!

Phineas hates to be alone. If I go in the bathroom, he stands at the bathroom door with his nose pressed against. If he is asleep on the couch, and I get up to go to the kitchen to get coffee he's right up, after me, my shadow. My hemorrhoid. 

So I went back to check on him a couple of times, to make sure he was alright. He was snoring away. I walked in to get my phone, which I left on the bed. He slept right through it. 

He was a little surprised when he woke up. Found he was alone. Came out to find me in the living room. "Oh Hi, little buddy!" I let him outside, and he came back, slightly confused. Maybe relieved. Happy to be in with me. 

Here's a shot of the bean, zonked out. 

digits:

Exercise: Dedicated 10+20; 12/12 hours of 250 steps

blood glucose:
9am: 191
5pm: 177
10pm: 186

food:
coffee, water
9am: protein shake
10am: oatmeal cookie
12: metformin
12:30: tuna melt on 647 english muffin (not the most awesome meal). 
2:15pm: apple
5:45pm: 3 thin boneless pork chops; peas & carrots; mashed cauliflower
6pm: Metformin+jardiance
8:30pm: baby bell cheese

Cookie Fails Are Still Delicious

Today I successfully whipped up Oatmeal Craisin cookies using the Quaker Oats recipe on the inside of the lid of the container, just substituting craisins for raisins!

One of the things I like doing is putting the oats in a food processor and pulverizing them, and then making the recipe to the Toll House specifications, with the oatmeal as flour substitute. Doug told me recently that he does not like that. 

Since I anticipate him eating about 90 more cookies, I thought I'd make them to his liking. 

Or hell, maybe I should make things he hates so he won't eat them. Case in point, my family knows if I am not going to eat the Triscuits, buy the weird flavors and not the basic old school Traditional Triscuits. I mean, gross. Do not want. So yeah - Habanero spiced almonds? No thank you. So maybe if I made them in the fashion he doth despise. Well. Next time. 

I also read on the internet that one can/could/should soak their raisins in water for a couple hours to plump them up. Then, drain them, and then blot them dry, and then mix them in the dough. Never occurred to me. So I got up early and put 2 cups of craisins in a little bowl of water. And went back to bed. 

My morning was meeting free, so whipping up that Quaker Oats recipe, and doubling it to send lots of cookies to people, yielded a whole lot more than I expected. Those all got baked off, set aside to cool, and I did a bunch of work, had a bunch of meetings from 12:30 to 2pm. After that 2pm, I was supposed to have another meeting but she canceled. SoI mixed up basic Toll House to replace the ones that were already in the boxes with the Christmas cookies. Everyone got 2 of those, and some of them broke. My friend said he got his box and the Toll House were busted but delicious. So. Fresh. Let's make fresh ones. Doug and Geoff ate all of the ones I took out of the boxes last week. Mission accomplished.  

I doubled the recipe on the back of the morsels bag, but I did some miscalculations somewhere along the line, and I did a bamboozle on myself. I mentioned yesterday that I have that recipe memorized but maybe my memory isn't right or I was multi tasking by swinging back into the living room because I heard  slack notification. After I mixed everything up,  I looked at the batter and decided to do a 6 cookie test run because maybe things didn't look 100% correct. 

They were a mess. So glad I did the test run instead of having 18-20 cookies that were just jiggling discs of melted sugar and butter. 

I added a cup of flour (fun to mix in when all the chocolate chips and walnuts are now in the batter) and that test run of 3 cookies was better, but still not right. 

I know I didn't forget to add flour. But where did I go wrong? I added another cup of flour and did another test run. Much much much better. Maybe I didn't scoop right? I don't know. But then, I had so much batter. 

Everyone likes Toll House, right? 

Dang. 

And I was going to bake more Peanut Butter, because one of my coworkers is allergic to chocolate, so I was going to give her extras of the other two. I went to make the dough, but we are out of brown sugar. I could have sworn we had 1 more bag in the cabinet. Hmmm. Maybe send Geoff out for some in the morning. We're going to need more milk, I would like some Romaine for salad. He has gone to the market every day this week after the gym, he earns his keep around here. And he always stops to get beer or something, on my dime, so. Do what I ask of you, kid. 

I also think the Gas company is going to call me and ask if we have a leak, because the oven has been on all. freaking. day. "Hello, Mrs. Lady at the house? Are you in danger? We detected a large amount of gas usage today..."

Uhhh yeah. 

And, please note: I did all this intermixed with a busy but also easy going work day. When you plan things right, some free time to mix dough first thing in the morning (15 min max), and bake 2 trays for 8 to 12 cookies each throughout the day for 12 minutes per tray, you've got it down. It works.

I usually bake this much when I've been drinking, playing music, having a kitchen party of one. But today it was just all about getting it done and the desire to get it done. I tell you, when I get in a mood to do something? It gets done. 

Boxes are packed, ready to be taken to the post office. 

Also, I'm a dope. I picked up medium flat rate boxes, not realizing they are a fixed rate. The other boxes all cost me about 10 bucks each. These will be 15 each. But. I am completely out of wee boxes. Gotta order more wee things from Amazon all year, I guess.

Here are pictures of the action. Spot the failures! Digits below the pictures!

digits:

exercise: Dedicated 10+21. Put a guster album on Youtube, walked in the house. Also, I walked a lot today between kitchen and couch! You can put miles on if you're tracking it! 12/12 hours of 250 steps

blood glucose:
9am: 186
5pm: 191
11pm: 246

food:
coffee, water
10:30am: baby bell cheese
11:45am: leftover tuna casserole with extra tuna and extra soup mix.
Noon: metformin
throughout the day: cookie dough here and there. Not too much. I promise. 
6pm: metformin+jardiance
7:30pm: leftover beef stew. had several small potatoes in it, 2 small dinner rolls. 
9pm: 2 cookies. One of the Toll House Fails and one Oatmeal Craisin. 
10pm: 2 baby bell cheeses

Midday Cookie Bake

Back on my bullshit, as the kids say. 

I had about 3 hours uninterrupted today and a light workload. I decided I'd return to the cookie project, and do the peanut butter and fresh chocolate chip toll house cookies and get the boxes done. 

I found a recipe on the internet for peanut butter cookies. I don't know one by heart the way I know chocolate chip, so this seemed reasonable, and I dug in. 

They came out lovely, I got about 3 dozen. Set them on the rack to cool, each of my friends should get 4 peanut butter cookies, and some to spare. 

Doug came home and ate about 10 of them. Right off the bat. Ten Cookies. 

Whelp, each of my friends will be getting 3 peanut butter cookies. 

I could whip up more tomorrow, I want to make oatmeal raisin with the craisins we have. We have a crazy bunch of craisins. So I'll make those too. And Doug will eat half of them. Of course. Very glad I double the recipe.

No picture today. I should have taken a cookie picture but failed. Maybe tomorrow!

digits

exercise: Dedicated 10+20. Good struttin' round the house time while cookies baked. And unfortunately, my streak of 12 hours of 250 steps was ruined. Doug put on a movie, and I missed the 7:00 steps. I looked at my fitbit at 7:20 and said okay yeah, get up and do your thing in a minute... 

Stupid distracting Steve Martin.

blood glucose:
9am: 171
5pm:195
10:30pm: 185

food:
coffee, water
10:15: apple+peanut butter
12:15pm: turkey & 2 slices of cheddar, mayo, on 647 bread; metformin 
3-4ish pm: baking cookies, so I had some batter that came off the spoon. no whole cookies but, cookie dough
6pm: taco salad; ground beef, a couple of tostitos chips w/ melted cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, avocado spread, sour cream. 7pm: Metormin+jardiance
8pm: 3 peanut butter cookies
9pm: baby bell cheese

Banana Bread

I had high hopes for today. 

Doug had to leave to go to work at  about 7:30. I made sure he was up, getting a shower, and I went back to bed. Not that it is my responsibility to make sure he's up and getting ready, but still. I feel responsible in making sure he gets up and gets ready. My phone alarm clock has been the thing that gets us going in the morning. 

I heard the front door close, he didn't say anything. I had hoped he'd lean in and say "Okay! I'm off!" but he did not. The dog and I were cuddling and having extra sleeps. 

Part of me had big dreams about today. I had one meeting in the morning and a very light meeting schedule in the afternoon. 

I wanted to vacuum. Maybe tackle the Yoga thing again, now that I have a mat. I did neither. I did, however, bake a banana bread. I should have done cookies so I can finally send the last 7 boxes out to my friends who are waiting. I decided to make fresh chocolate chip cookies, so I went through the bags and removed all the ones that were in there. 

Maybe tomorrow. I think I need more butter. Maybe more flour. I have everything else. Doug also has wanted some oatmeal cookies - so I'm maybe going to get those going too. 

The banana bread, was so awesome that I had a slice, too close to when I'd be taking my reading so my blood sugar is a little high. 

I got my dedicated 10 in, put on a Guster mix and went for about 15 minutes and then Doug came home, so that was something? 

Doug is going in tomorrow too, so, I'll see what I can get done beyond banana bread!

digits:

exercise: Dedicated 10+5. Doug came home and I had to turn off the music that I was fancy struttin' round the house to. 

blood glucose:
9am: 163
5pm: 220 (thanks, banana bread)
10:30pm: 173

food:
coffee, water
10am: protein shake
1:30pm: 2 low carb wraps with turkey, avocado, cheddar, iceberg lettuce, avocado; metformin
3:30pm: 2 small pieces of banana while peeling off 3 bananas for banana bread
4:00pm: slice of Banana bread.
5:45pm: strips of grilled chicken seasoned with tajin & lime, sour cream, shredded cheddar (passed on the low carb wrap because my blood sugar was a little high. 🍷
6:15pm: metformin+jardiance
8pm: slices of banana bread
10pm: baby bell cheese

Tomorrow is a new day

Tomorrow, Doug heads into the office for actual work in person. 8:30am, by the orange elevators, meet the new boss to be escorted to your new office. 

He started looking for a new job last June, found a job he felt perfect for within his own organization, contacted the department to ask about it and found out he was missing a certification that they wanted. They told him "Darn. We'd hire you right now if you had that certification." 

Challenge accepted.

So he took the test after several weeks and lost weekends of fun, filled with study and sample tests online.  He passed the test, got the certification, called them back and said "I see the job is still posted. I'd like this job please."

He wanted to start the day after he and Geoff got back from their super trip, but they had to do paperwork, and you start at a certain point in the month to click with the pay cycle. So tomorrow is the day. 

This morning he got up and washed his favorite dress shirt, and tried on his dress pants, everything fits. He got his dress shoes out, they were under the side table in the living room from one of the last trips he took to the office, to get a booster vax, and make a short appearance at a meeting in person. They still fit. He got his clippers out and trimmed up the stache and beard, didn't want to do a haircut, thankfully. I hate cutting his hair. 

Everything in place for departure at 7:30am.

According to the work plan, his direct manager goes into the office three days a week. She wants him to join her in office on those days to start. They'll then look at alternating days, a wfh hybrid mix. I told him I had plans to go into the office on the 30th, if he's supposed to be in that day I can switch to Tuesday the 31st, and rearrange Phineas' doctors appointment/well baby checkup. He'll run it past her once they meet. Hopefully it won't be an issue. I have a colleague who lives in Brooklyn who is making a visit to the HQ and she asked if I'd be there, and if she could hang out with me. And then, of course, cocktails and dinner. Honored. Yes please. 

Not only is he already feeling really good about who she is and this department on the whole, he noted to me that everything he complained about in the old position, everything he asked for that he was told "no, you can't have that," all the people who will be taking on his tasks are now demanding for themselves. The department head, the reason he left, the person who drove him to want to leave and never come back, is flummoxed. Doug wasn't being difficult, or asking for anything unreasonable. The things he asked for make a difference in how the job is done, and he was right about everything. Everything.

The last 4 days he got things done and showed people how to do things, and now, they're all pretty much dead to him. Except for his co-worker who direct supervised him and whom he adores. She's not going to be sticking around much longer he thinks. Maybe. Not sure. 

But as for him? Done. Don't call me. Lose my number, and keep my name out of your mouth. 

And I may not have mentioned but this job pays 20k more per year than his old job. Nice, right? 

He loses no vacation time in transferring, he keeps that tenure on his record so he has the years earned for his retirement. He did not want to quit working for the institution, he was so happy working for his old boss but that guy had to go move to California and he found another job. Jerk. 

So I'm super happy for him. And I hope this is the job he wants to stay at for a good long time. 

Realizing that while he's out I can vacuum. Isn't that a joyful thing! 

Geoff starts school up again next Tuesday so this is his last week of break. With both of them out of the house on certain days, I'll be mindful of appointments and out of house needs for myself so Phin won't have to be put into a box. This is Geoff's last semester. It's pretty chock-full, with in person classes and then in March another clinical assignment and he is hoping they put him back where he was for his last clinical. He liked the place, and he liked the people, and it was on the metro... a perfect setup for him.

Keep him in your heart and prayers over the next 5 months. 

Wordle 568 2/6
🟨⬜🟨🟩🟨
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

Also, if you play Wordle, just wanted to throw in a humblebrag there. I've never got it in one, but today nailed a 2. ha. 

no picture today kids, sorry.

digits

exercise: Dedicated 10 solid in the house, I'd say +3 but I stopped to move laundry around and load the dishwasher, so I accounted for those pauses. "Freebird" is a remarkably good song to get steps to, honestly.

blood glucose:
10am: 156
5pm: 156
10pm: 150

food:
coffee, water
10:15am: chicken salad left over from the other day (before anyone else could eat it), approx 2 cups.
12:15: Metformin
1:45pm: 2/3 mcintosh apple w/peanut butter
3:45: protein shake
5:30: cheesesteak meat w/ cheese, onions, mushrooms (no roll); vodka tonic 🍸
6pm: metformin+jardiance
7pm: very thin slice of geoff's birthday cake
9pm: 2 baby bell cheeses, small stack of pepperoni