It is a soft pants kind of day

There's a lot to say about the Guster concert at MGM.  I'll save my complaints for a letter to the venue. 

My girl C and my kid Jess came down and stayed at the hotel with us. We went to a meet & greet that I put together which I worried that there'd be ten people there but there were upwards to over 30. Lots of great folk, and new people. 

C sent me pictures that I need to download and go through, but we had some fun shots of Boston and walking around before going to the venue. 

This was the third time I got to see the "We Also Have Eras" tour, and by far it was the best. They did an amazing song that the drummer Brian sings, about how Guster has never won a Grammy. And it is cute and funny, but this time, they raised him up into the sky and the audience went bananas. 

Someone designed this and I have a feeling stickers will be on sale soon. 

After the show we connected with Sara, Sean and Henry. It was time to go stuff eggs for the next morning's egg hunt. I found out there was an after show party, sadly, no one invited me! But that is actually okay because I had egg hunt things to do! Someone else had a pizza party in the lobby of our hotel and didn't check in to see if we wanted in... that would have been good because hey - I could use a slice! But there were eggs to stuff. 

I posted on Facebook that we were in our room and a random guy messaged me and said "what room are you in?" So we told him, and he and his husband came and helped us stuff eggs. 

These two darlings stuffed a bajillion eggs, and we had wine and laughs. They went to get Ramen or something, and Lin and I crashed out. 

The title of this entry comes from a discussion Linda had with one of our friends this morning on the phone. We were talking about getting ready for the egg hunt and I said "I'm wearing yoga pants all day. Mel said something about also not wearing pants pants. And linda said "It's a soft pants kind of day." 

Which is perfect for the kind of day it was.

We got dressed and met the crew in the lobby to hide eggs. About 15 kids came, and we had enough eggs for them to all get like 20 each at least. 

It was mayhem and joy and we had a blast. What a great stupid fun idea this was. 

We went out to lunch after, and had a blast. And it was time for folks to head in all different directions. Lin and I gave someone a ride to Attleboro so they didn't have to be subject to the train schedule. And we got to mom's at about 5:15. We had a takeout turkey dinner from mom's fave restaurant, and then we headed over to the hotel to crash out.

More later - I got my food schedule all messed up and I forgot to take my lunchtime meds or blood sugar. Doh. I'll be back in an orderly way tomorrow. I was going to take the entire day off, but my good good coworker is having unexpected surgery tomorrow so I'll step up and be helpful. Here's evidence of mom. Digits below.

exercise: 12/12 hours of 250 steps. No specific exercise but tons of movement. 8300+steps by bedtime

blood glucose:

8am: 189
xpm: n/a in the car
10pm: 191

food:

coffee/water 
8am: several slices of cheddar cheese
Mimosas during egg hunt insanity
2pm: Tasty Burger patty melt; tater tots (note: forgot to take metformin)
6pm: turkey dinner w/stuffing, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, corn; white wine
7:30pm: Metformin
10pm: Metformin+jardiance (even though too close to the one I took at 7:30. Want to stay consistent and not miss meds. 

Just the stats

No time for an entry. Goodnight.  

exercise: 10/12 hours of 250 steps. No exercise but climbed 4 flights of stairs at the concert. 8500+ steps for Saturday

blood glucose:

9am: 129
5pm: 198
xpm: n/a

food:

coffee/water 
11am: metformin
1:30pm: chicken tenders
5:30pm: 2 beers, quesadilla, meatball, 1/2 linda's hamburger; Metformin+jardiance
8pm: truly seltzer

Brooklyn Guster "I want to know what love is"

I got a huge cramp in my right foot and leg at about 6am. Dehydration. It happens when i travel because I under hydrate so I don't have to pee as much. And this is the price paid. My foot looked mangled. It was kind of wild. I'm soaking it in the tub in the hottest water I can stand and massaging it. Eventually it calmed the hell down and I was able to go back to sleep. 

Linda has to take the dog to the vet this morning, and then go back and work for a while. I decided I'll work this morning. I asked what time check out is, and the girl told me noon. "Do you need a later check out?" 

"Sure? Maybe that's a good idea."

"How's 2pm."

Wow. 

"Would you prefer 3pm?" 

Uh no - 2 is more than fine. That's amazing. Not that I'll be staying here that long. I'm sure Linda will be getting me sometime after noon. We gots to gets to Brooklyn! 

I slept in a little after the foot cramp fiasco, and listened to doors slamming up and down the hall. Listened to kids excited to check out the pool and moms (loudly) telling them to stop running in the hall. Listened to men talking on the phone about how they're going to the airport. And then listened to the housekeeping staff cleaning the room across the hall from me. Vacuuming. Okay. I guess I am up. 

Went down to the lobby starbux, they don't have the egg bites there anymore but the kid behind the counter whipped me up two egg whites with melted asiago cheese and bacon. Close enough for jazz. 

Another thing that happens when I travel is I can't always control what I'm eating because of what's available. So this was nice to get, to combat the higher blood sugar I'm seeing (yeah, beer and yeah, banana bread...) Getting a good start to the day is important.

At work this morning, they do something called Sprint Review where all the dev teams talk about the last 3 weeks (the sprint) and the next 3 weeks (the next sprint). Our team usually attends because we are "stakeholders" in these activities. I put the Zoom on and did helpdesk tickets, listening far more closely to the happenings for the teams I am associated with. I went for coffee twice. I took a shower when it was all said and done, and I've done my steps up and down the hallway (one full walk down the hall is more than needed). 

We got to our hotel, and I will write more later. It's well after midnight now. But the show was outstanding, even better than Baltimore. So much fun.

I need to go to bed Hahhahahahha ugh 

exercise: 11/12 hours of 250 steps.  over 10ksteps by bedtime.

blood glucose:

9am: 194
4:45pm: 184
Midnight+: 154

food:

coffee/water 
9am: 2 egg whites w/asiago cheese and bacon
12:30pm: metformin
2pm: egg bites from Starbucks w/ gruyere and bacon (ha, finally got them!)
5pm: wine
5pm: buffalo wings. more wine
7pm: metformin+jardiance

No Sleep 'Til Brooklyn

I'm glad I didn't take today off but am working until it is time to leave. I have one colleague on Vacation, another got super sick around 11am and had to sign off. That leaves me, a first tier support human, and our manager. 

And, today is QA deadline day. 

Thus far today has been bananas busy. The other day, I started looking for a place for Guster fans to meet & greet around Fenway before the show. Someone local to the ballpark suggested a spot. I emailed 5 places and this place was the only one that got back to me. Score. 

The egg hunt planning goes well. We just need on Saturday or tomorrow to go get mimosa makings. Found out the dunkin donuts we were going to get cups of joe from is closed (you bastards) so I'm going to see if someone coming on Sunday can make a side quest. 

Work also was busy. It got in the way of me calmly and sweetly communicating on the Guster fun front. Like, I had to actually WORK WORK. 

I had a 10am with a new person on our team who is lovely. I met with clients in Pittsburgh and loved on their accents, they are mad but cooperative and came up with good plans and suggestions. 

And then QA. It shouldn't take a soul two hours to test 4 things but it did me. I missed my colleague. He actually got admitted to the hospital. And I'm heartbroken he is sick. This is unexpected.

Oh, and I whipped up a banana bread in the middle of all this. And it was delicious. Thankfully, it's tremendously easy to whip something up and throw it in the oven for 55 minutes. And it came out so hella good. 

I realized at about 1pm that I had not eaten any real food.  We are out of peanut butter, and I didn't want cheese because it sometimes makes me poop a lot. I opted for one big piece of banana bread. sorry, universe. But it is the only thing I think I could stomach. 

When I get ready to travel, I get anxious. I shouldn't. I've done this one million times. I took a break at about 2pm to finish packing. I did that thing where I pack every single pair of underpants that I own, and forgot socks, so I ... got socks. I've got three blouses and a dozen t-shirts. One pair of sweatpants for bedtime, a pair of yoga pants. I can't find deodorant. I think we are out but that's ok. we'll get some in NY. I washed my pits well this morning. 

We got in the car at 5 and I was at the airport before 6. And found my flight delayed. Jebus. So I went to the wonderful Flying Dog Taphouse and got settled in anticipating to do work but nothing new was incoming, and I didn't feel like doing the two things I needed to do. 

Beer. Steak tips. Broccoli. Hell yes. 

Flight delayed. Flight delayyyyyyyed. More beer. I should eat more protein. More beer.  Honesty two sides, one of broccoli and one of steak tips. Hopefully this offsets that banana bread. 

That was better than I expected even for such a small chunk of food. 

And I was ready to go. The flight was uneventful but bumpy. They didn't let us out of our seats, no beverage service. Probably a good thing. Linz got me at 10:30 and I got checked into my hotel safe and sound. 

Tomorrow. Brooklyn. Cannot wait. Digits, below.

exercise: 11/12 hours of 250 steps. Missed 10am due to a meeting. 10k+ by bedtime

blood glucose:

9:30am: 164
4pm: 311 (I told you, so sorry for the banana bread...) 
11pm: 271

food:

coffee/water 
1:30pm: Metformin; big slice of banana bread (sorry bloodsugar, you gonna hate me)
6pm: steak tips & broccoli. 3 Beers (at the flying dog taphouse at BWI) 
7pm: Metformin+jardiance
11pm: hotel chicken parm (didn't eat the spaghetti, just the big piece of chicken parm)

Alternative Routes

A bridge was hit by a ship in Baltimore yesterday. The bridge collapsed, and well, that sucks. 

It sucks for a lot of reasons. One is that six souls are missing. Six people who were just at work. Doing their jobs. It could have been much worse, of course. It could have been during rush hour. The bridge could have been loaded up with hundreds of vehicles. But luckily, it wasn't. Sadly though, folks are lost because of this. 

This bridge also is incredibly important because it is the above-ground route of transit used by tractor trailer trucks getting past Baltimore. Since Hazardous Materials and most trucks cannot be brought through the bores of the Ft. McHenry tunnel, these very important vehicles have to take the bridge.

If you look at this screenshot of Google Maps, you see the huge distance of around the way to the west they'll have to whip to go north to south. 

Additionally, the channel is closed. Nothing can get in or out. Ships are stuck that were waiting in line behind the Dali, and folks can't get in. 

Not to mention cruise ships. It may come as a surprise to know you can cruise out of Baltimore Harbor, and go to Canada/New England or the Bahamas and Caribbean. Nice. But not until further notice. Not until there is a channel to get out of. 

Companies are scrambling to get their goods shipped via truck now, to get them to other ports like Norfolk or up in Delaware. 

It's going to be wild for a while in the Baltimore area. 

My mom called me the other day and said "oh you've got a real mess down there, don't you?" Well, mom, it doesn't really impact me that much but yes, it is a mess. For a lot of people.

"You won't be able to drive north anymore." 

Well, mom. There are a lot of routes. A lot. Usually when I drive north, I go up through the City of Baltimore on 95 and through the tunnel. In fact, I've only ever gone over the bridge once, and that was when there was a horrible accident in the tunnel. There are ways. 

There are Alternate Routes. 

In fact, every time I talk to her she brings up a bridge in the Providence Rhode Island area that is closed. "I don't know how you or your sister are going to get here, you can't drive through Providence Eastbound." 

Well, the GPS can help us get around that. It isn't going to be a problem. There are a lot of roads. A lot. But she doesn't seem to get it. She used to always go one way anywhere when driving. She'd take all these convoluted back roads to get to the ferry out east on Long Island so she could avoid going through Riverhead or other towns. She would always be adventurous about alternate routes. But now, there's one way, that's the way you go, and no other roads exist. 

It's going to be a mess for a long while for a lot of people, yes. But it will all work out. And alternatives are being discovered and worked on. Folks are resilient when they need to get places. 

Digits, below.

exercise: 12/12 hours of 250 steps. no walk, in or out. Pouring rain. I almost went to the gym though. 4500+steps by bedtime

blood glucose:

8am: 195
5pm: 170
10pm: 199

food:

coffee/water 
10:45am: bowl of mac&cheese w/bacon and a left over pork chop
11:15am: Metformin
1:30pm: chicken patty (pattie?) on potato roll with mayo
6:30pm: 2.5 italian sausages w/sauce and cheese, 3 dinner rolls with butter
7pm: Metformin+jardiance
red wine

Prognosis Negative

Got the diagnostics video from the Mini Dealership. She's a goner. Sorry Mini. 

The battery, the onboard computer (over 2k combined for repair/replace), and urgently, the Water Pump. another 2k. And then, a gasket and another thing. more k. The cheapest thing on the list was a front end alignment for 400 bucks. 

All told, all the things together come to about 6k. 

And this car has over 135k miles on it. So putting at least 6k into it, and then what, something else happens. Sorry kid. 

Doug is going to go up to the dealership and see what, if any, deal he can make for the car to be traded in as a piece of shit. Can they replace all the things for so much less and then resell it. Maybe. Who knows. 

I'll be out of town, unless we go up tonight or tomorrow and look. He's on their website scoping out opportunity and mad at how much cars cost. 

I've been saying to him that it's great that he loves to just buy cars and drive'em til they drop and not have a bank make a penny off of him in interest. I am all for that, to some extent. He very much refuses to finance anything. He spent 10k on this car a year ago and he's mad that it is dead. "I should have gone to the guy I bought the dodge from. That was 5k, and it is going strong, and that guy was great."

Yeah. But roadside dealerships, dude. No. Go to a for real grown up dealership maybe sometime, because they have a reputation to uphold. His argument is they charge you a fuck ton more money. Maybe. But they'll back up their vehicles. 

I'm getting too old for this shit. I don't want to be on the side of the highway and breaking down. I don't want to be stranded. 

We will see what happens next. But. The poor little domino. I liked you. 

Digits below.

 

exercise: 12/12 hours of 250 steps.  No dedicated 10. 4500+ steps by bedtime

blood glucose:

8:15am: 177
4:30pm: 178
10pm: 231

food:

coffee/water 
10:30am: 647 English Muffin w/pb and low sugar jelly
11am: metformin
2pm: lil travel container of cheese and itty bitty crackers
6pm: big piece of chicken parm w/sauce; white wine
7pm: Metformin+jardiance

We Also Have Eras Tour, Take One - Baltimore

I'm going to keep the secrets, just in case anyone finds the blog by searching, until after the Boston Show this weekend. But the Guster "We Also Have Eras" tour show we saw on Saturday in Baltimore was hilarious. 

You, poor reader, know I love this band and I have gushed about them for years. This show takes concert attendees on a beginning to now journey of the band's evolution. From Tufts University to the new album coming out in May. In between songs, they performed skits about where they were stage by stage, "era" by "era." 

I hate General Admission shows where there is nowhere to sit, so you know I have to really love someone to go stand for three hours to put up with the crowds and the annoyance of humans. 

This was worth it. 

I'll just post pictures for now, none of the show or band. We were super far away from the stage, way in the back by the sound board, but a perfect spot. Oh, and near the bar, very very helpful. 

Left: Bob with me and Linda. It was our first meeting with Bob.
He was delightful. 
Right: Dennis from Philly, Lin, Mel from Maine, Faith from Eastern Shore, Me.

The crowd from the pre-show listening party

Our very own living mascot, "Spicy V." with Linda

Left: Me and Jeff from Huntington High. Second time we've seen Guster together. Jeff goes to A LOT of shows. I'm happy he likes Guster enough to fit them into his Go-See schedule
Right: Me signing the flamingo from the listening party meet up

Brunch Skunks. With Momosas. 
counter clockwise: Me, Sara, V, Mel, Sean, Henry, Linda, Faith

Walking back to the hotel after Brunch, we found a landmark that V and Sara/Sean/Henry thought was hilarious. the BIG BROWN CABOOOOOOOOOOSE! 
So we took our selfie. Yelling Big Brown Caboooooooose!

I stole this picture from Dennis, just to have one from the band. He was on the second floor doing the audio taping of the show for the fans on archive.  If you're at all interested in listening to the recording, here it is! 

I honestly hope this was recorded with video across the country at each location, into a DVD Experience. I'd buy 100 Copies. 

Digits, below. 

exercise: 12/12 hours of 250 steps. Indoor walk - 19 minutes; 6200+ by bedtime

blood glucose:

9:15am: 177
5pm: 199
10pm: 188

food:

coffee/water 
10:30am: left over guinness beef stew+shepherd's pie mixed together
11am: Metformin
12:30pm: 647 english muffin w/pb and low sugar jelly
6:30pm: one cheeseburger (no bun), some sour pickles, a handful of potato chips; metformin+jardiance
7pm: 4 tiny chocolate donuts
white wine
8pm: ramekin of cashews

Home from Balto

More substantial entry tomorrow. 

Saturday:
I didn't accurately track Saturday digits. I did get over 10k steps, with 2 10 minute walks, and danced at the guster show. So that was a lot of movement. Breakfast was 2 eggs sloppy scrambled with goat cheese and spinach, 3 slices of bacon in a low carb wrap. No real lunch to speak of, some crab pretzel and cheese dip at the album listening party (approx 5pm?) No real dinner to speak of, ate 1/2 henry's hamburger because he finished and didn't want the rest. Thank you Henry.

After the Guster concert, approx 1am, one slice of white pizza with broccoli and spinach and lumps of ricotta. Should not have had it but. Linda bought it and it was very tasty the way 1am pizza can taste. And Baltimore is not Pizza Jail, for as close to DC as it is. They have decent pizza. I don't understand why we can't just a few miles south.

Sunday:
Slept in, called the front desk for late check out and got to getting me and Linda awake by 10:30. Showered. Met up with Team S&S and Henry and our friend V from Boston. Took a walk over to a brunch spot to find it had a 90 minute wait. Walked a block west and found a very nice place called Blackwall Hitch where they accommodated 8 of us easily with about a 10 minute wait. I've mentioned before, I don't wait for things. And sometimes, if you don't wait, you find something fun and better.

The food and company were fantastic. 

We spent a great deal of time there, had the world's best waitress, and lots of laughs. 

I drove Linda to the airport and dropped her off. Sadly, but, just four more sleeps until we get to rock again. 

I'm saving my review of the concert for after everyone gets to see this run. No one likes spoilers. Suffice to say, it was a lot of fun and they did a great job. Truly an epic story, told with humor and grace. And puppets.

I have a ton of pictures but I'll post those tomorrow. For tonight, there's this. The mimosa queen with the "bucket of bubbles." Digits below.

Sunday digits 

exercise: 9/12 hours of 250 steps. Missed 3 hours, 9am slept in, 2pm, sat in the restaurant, 4pm in the car. Still managed to hit 8k by bedtime

blood glucose:

10:45am: 188
5pm: 290 (eep)
10pm: 182

food:

coffee/water 
11am: metformin
1pm: brunch! several mimosas w/cranberry juice and/or oj; chicken & waffles (big huge waffle and 3 chicken tenders) 
6pm: mac&cheese w/hamburger
7:30pm: Metformin+Jardiance, mini cheese/nut snack pak from the road trip. 

Chirp Chirp Chirp

The birdies. Oh the birdies. 

They are just being spectacularly happy in the morning right about now. The other day, sun was kind of sort of thinking about getting ready to shine, I woke up and went to the bathroom. I could hear all this scraping and noise, unsure of where it was coming from. It sounded like it was in the wall or under the tub. Unable to solve the mystery, I went back to bed, and could hear it coming from above my head. 

A few hours later, in the shower, I looked at the bathroom window. Our bathroom window could stand to be replaced, that's for sure. It's a 1950s style crank open thing with frosted glass. The crank doesn't work, it's been painted over a million times, so it is never opened. 

On the north side of the house, we've got a lot of ivy growing. I love it, it is beautiful. I have been told by many people to rip it out, get it off the house, it damages the mortar between the bricks. But it is pretty. Doug cuts it when it gets up to the gutters, so it won't overgrow and clog them. 

Standing there, I could see the source of the scraping and banging. There were little birds all in the ivy that goes across the glass (it doesn't cover it, just a few tendrils go). The birdies are all in the ivy, having fun. And pecking on the glass seems to be a rather good time. So that's what I was hearing. 

I stood there thinking of the old hymn about "He keeps his eye on the sparrow," and here is the sparrow attempting to keep an eye on me. 

I worked all day today and so did Lin. She didn't intend to but we both had a lot to do. Doug took the afternoon off and I think he thought we'd fold up and go have fun but, that was not my plan. Had we talked about it earlier this week I bet I could have done something to get the time. 

Remarkably productive though, so I'm glad I worked.

We went out to a restaurant north of us and one of the chefs used to be the chef at my office so it was fun to see him and catch up. He had quit because the hours he was putting in at our cafeteria were killing him. Now he gets to work at night instead of show up for work at 3am. Can't say as I blame him, but it was so nice to see him. 

Anyway. Off to bed. And tomorrow off to Baltimore. 

digits 

exercise: 12/12 hours of 250 steps. No exercise (this week has been lame). 4600+steps by bedtime

blood glucose:

8am: 163
5pm: 154
10pm: 238

food:

coffee/water 
11:30am: metformin
11:45am: pbj (low sugar strawbs); 647 wheat bread
6:30pm: warm goat cheese salad (spinach, goat cheese, beets, walnuts, cukes, tomato); Shepherd's pie (mashed potatoes, ground beef, veggies); 1 cider, 1 beer

Found Her

I had a whole entry started but chucked it. No. Nothing matters.
This is all I got.
Digits below. 

digits 

exercise: 11/12 hours of 250 steps.   Missed 2pm in the car picking up Linz. 6k by bedtime

blood glucose:

9am: 174
xpm: n/a
10pm: 197

food:

coffee/water 
11:45: metformin; turkey & cheddar on 647 bread w/mayo
3pm: 3 beers, chicken sandwich and fries
more beers, 3 pierogis, a pork chop

Never Saying "I'm sorry to hear that"

Today I messaged a colleague on Slack to see if he and his wife were going to see Guster on Saturday. He wrote back "Sadly, no. But have fun."

My reply was "oh that's too bad, it would have been nice to see you. Maybe at a future gig." 

He wrote back, "Actually, Guster is more of my wife's thing. I'm not really into the band. We're in the process of splitting up. I'm not your target audience for this kind of question." 

And I thought. "Eeeek. Wow." Uncomfortable. 

I didn't quite know what to say. I wrote back "oh. Thank you for the update. Wishing you the best." and left it at that. 

I didn't want to say "I'm sorry to hear that," because what if he's not sorry it is happening. What if she's not sorry they are splitting up. What if this is a good thing for them, I don't know from my vantage point and position. What if he's mad, she's mad, they don't need some stranger having feelings about their divorce. 

Still. It is a reaction we all have to say something like that when we hear... something like that. 

"My dad died."  
"Oh, I'm sorry to hear that."
"Don't be, he was a fucking monster."

That kind of a situation. You don't necessarily know what the other person is going through. It could be the best thing that has ever happened to them. In this case, I'm not sure. they seemed nice. I had only met them together once well before the pandemic. And a lot of life has changed since the pandemic, hasn't it? 

Perhaps I can say something like "I'm sorry you are going through this right now," as an option. 

So many of you are going through a thing right now. And I'm sorry you are.

Today at work I was very busy. It was our CEO's goodbye party. So I tuned in on Zoom and it was very nice. 

I then got a horrible headache. Just supremely horrible. So I tried to go offline from work and got pinged to proofread some comms for an email that had to go out. My boss didn't notice I had posted in the team slack that I didn't feel good and was going to lie down. 

Geoff got home and I had started dinner and he took over so I could go rest again. I love that about him. I did 80% of the work and he drove the car home. 

Oh, speaking of cars, our Mini is not able to be repaired by the garage. We have to get it to the dealership. The computer that runs the ignition has failed. They aren't sure if it needs to be rebooted or replaced, but we'll have to arrange for another tow. 

I've tasked Doug with picking which dealership we'll go to. The thing with AAA is you get one free tow a year, so, this next one will cost us whatever it costs. Based on yesterday's post, it's not a big deal. We'll get it done. 

I'm relieved that I planned on flying to NY to meet up with Linda instead of planning on driving. Now I have to talk to Doug about whether or not I just take the Dodge to Baltimore on Saturday for the overnight, or go with Sara and Sean. I like having our own car in case we decided to go toodleaboot before going to the airport on Sunday. I don't want to impose on Sara and Sean for us to get Linz to the airport and all. 

Well, the headache is still here, I'm going to take my tired head to bed. I did get vacuumed and tidied up, and tomorrow morning will do the kitchen. I have one meeting tomorrow and I may just call out sick for the day with this headache. And what with needing to do car things. As long as my colleague with Covid feels like he can come back. 

One sleep 'til Linda. This time tomorrow. Hanging out here. Can't believe it is time.

digits 

exercise: 12/12 hours of 250 steps.  no exercise, but, I vacuumed and moved a bunch of things around. 5k+steps by bedtime

blood glucose:

8:30am: 195
4:30pm: 178
10pm: 165

food:

coffee/water 
11am: Metformin
12:30: 3 bowls of chicken salad (I regret this, even though it was one chicken breast, and it was huge and I should have stopped after 1 bowl and saved the rest)
6pm: small bowl of spaghetti w/meat sauce, 2 pieces of garlic bread 
7pm: metformin+jardiance

Wish we had this money when we were younger

Doug informed me that he has to go to the office tomorrow for his annual review. In person. He got to read it in advance and he's super thankful for what everyone had to say. And, they get bonuses, AND he may be eligible for a 5% raise. 

We each get paid every other week, and I feel like we always have money. I think about 2008, and losing the house to those ... bastards at that Bank, and how if we had been making the money we make now none of that would have ever happened. We'd have the place paid off. We could have gotten tons of work done. We could have paid for Jess to go to college and stay in college. 

I said this to Doug and he agreed. "I am just as smart now as I was then!" he yelled. "I had so much more energy! Think about what we could have done with this kind of money at 35. Think about it!"

Yeah buddy, I think about it. I think about taking the kids on vacation where we didn't have to roll quarters to put gas in the subaru and pray to God that we made it home with the amount of gas we had. I think about how stressful it was with Jess, and how I wanted to give them the world. Geoff's been easy - in fact my mother in law now has a 529 plan that none of the kids are using because they just don't want to go to college or they're done. Jess can't afford to quit working and go back to school. Geoff goes to / has gone to community college and it is easy for him to pay for and she questions if he's serious when he tells her that tuition is only 1700 bucks. 

Doug pointed out we're going to need as much money as possible when we retire. He's right. We will. 

But it doesn't help me think of how lopsided things are, were, have been. And how life would have been so different, ya know? 

Anyway. 

Doug will be at work tomorrow, Geoff will be at work, I will have the place to myself. Well, Toffee and I will have the place to ourselves. 

Today I cleaned the tables and swept. Not much else because of how busy things were. But I'm making progress on that list. 

More to come tomorrow. And, here's another picture from Sunday. Digits below.

digits 

exercise: 12/12 hours of 250 steps. No exercise today. 5200+steps by bedtime

blood glucose:

8am: 188
5:30pm: 180
9:45pm: 205

food:

coffee/water 
noon: left over mac & cheese with a lot of ground beef from nachos; metformin
2pm: pbj sandwich, 647 bread, low sugar strawbs jam
5:45pm: bowl of chili a la Geoff, sour cream, shredded cheddar (no fritos because Geoff forgot!) 
3 beers
8pm: bowl of pretzels w/portwine cheese

Storyworth

 Last night, I drank too much. 

We were out of wine, we were out of beer, and I wanted a drink so I made gin & tonic. I had three, glasses filled to the top with ice, so that always makes it so I won't get drunk so to speak. That's usually well enough.

It was the fourth one, the fourth one was the big mistake. While I was making it I said, it's late enough, you should just not do this. You should just go to bed. But, I didn't listen to common sense. 

And, we were out of ice. So. Extra stupid because I pour a stiff drink. 

I paid for it. I went to bed, and was spinning and dizzy. I ended up puking. I had the enough of a right mind to get the bucket, and sit on the toilet (because, you know, sometimes when you throw up, you poop at the same time and that's no good). I threw up repeatedly, cleaned the bucket, cleaned the toilet area. 

Even completely drunk, I'm cleaning house. 

I got back in bed and brought the bucket to the bedside, just in case. 

Doug was still awake and said "all emptied out?" 

Yeah. Yes. I am. Thank you for dinner that you made for us. It. Is gone. Said goodbye. Sorry. That must be insulting. Hi I threw up the dinner you made because I'm dumb. 

I fell asleep and slept all the way until 4am, no other issues. I got up to go to the bathroom, and double checked my cleaning. 

I would have called out today, but one of my colleagues is on vacation and another got Covid (again, the poor dude). I muddled through. 

One big thing we had to take care of was getting the car towed to the mechanic. The mini stopped working a couple weeks ago, and we were having work done on the Dodge at the same time, so the Mini has been sitting there waiting for some love. I called the garage this morning and they said to bring it in, so I had to call AAA to get it picked up. 

It was a challenge - the Mini is missing the tow hook, which goes where the license plate goes and the driver pulls the car up on the flatbed. The driver said on some Mini models, there's a box in the trunk that contains all the stuff you need, like the jack, the tow hook, or a tow-bar that is super awesome. Because he had no way to hook it onto the draggy thing to pull it up on the flatbed, he had to improvise and eventually got it to work. I reported this lack of thingie to Doug who is ordering one for us for the future. 

The rest of the day was rather dull. I didn't get any cleaning done (felt kind of like shit, see above) but got a lot of work done for work. Seeing as two people were out, I was impressed with the amount of stuff I got done. 

Doug took Toffee for a walk at 4:45 and I was still in the thick of it. I regret not going. I was going to step out while he was cooking after he got back, but I just wasn't motivated. Will make up for that tomorrow. 

Anyway, my girl C got me a subscription to Storyworth, which comes with writing prompts. It is a way to record life memories so you can leave them to your people. I appreciate that very much because a lot of times, I don't know what to write here and I do want to write. So I'll write there and import entries of note. 

One of the things is that a lot of the stories will need pictures, and I may have to find some! "Tell us about your wedding day" was the first one that came up. That stung a little because my girl C is going through some rough stuff and I somehow feel horrible writing about what was the funnest day I've ever lived in a life of fun days. 

Maybe the first writing prompt should have been "get it off your chest, what's the worst, dumbest thing you have done because of alcohol." 

Last night wouldn't even be it. Thankfully I can count on one hand my super dumb things, and I'm usually surrounded by people who protect me from myself. This is a good thing. 

Here is another picture from yesterday. The sheep is not headless. It's just in shadow.
Digits below.

digits 

exercise: 12/12 hours of 250 steps. No exercise. 4600+ steps by bedtime

blood glucose:

9am: 166
5pm: 157
9:30pm: 230 (see dinner should check after midnight)

food:

coffee/water 
12:30: english muffin w/pb and low sugar strawbs; metformin
3:45pm: 2 pieces of celery w/pb
6pm: doug stir fry rice: left over chinese white rice, stir fried with veggies, soy sauce, left over chicken breasts. I added peanut butter to mine to mimic a peanut sauce.
7pm: metformin+jardiance. 3 beers

A little hike

Ugh I'll write a better entry tomorrow. Goodnight.  Here is one picture from today. It was a nice day.

digits 

exercise: 11/12 hours of 250 steps.  Missed 9am cause i slept through it. exercise: 49 minute walk, unsure of distance, good hard scramble. 7900+ steps by bedtime

blood glucose:

10am: 175
5pm: 156
10pm: 208

food:

coffee/water 
1pm: metformin; salad w/bacon (BLT style)
6pm:metformin+jardiance; mac& cheese w/ ground beef, bacon, mushrooms etc
8pm:ritz crackers

gin&tonics hayyyyy

Two-a-days

Lucky you, I decided to post the Guster JOTR post by itself earlier today, and do a separate blog for today's events (whatever, how exciting, etc) with the digits and all. 

When we went to bed last night, Doug closed all the windows. He says it is noisy outside, what with a car that goes down the street sometimes. I love the fresh, cold air. I love when the birds wake up and I hear them sing. 

It was about 2 am and I was wide awake, so I went in the guest room (which I need to clean and change the sheets etc for Thursday when Linz arrives). The window was wide open, the room was freezing, and I snuggled into bed under the sheet, thermal sheet, and comforter. I never ever use all three of these things. But it was cold, and I got cozy. I thought about closing the window, but that would mean I'd have to sit up and stuff. So nah. 

I have a to do list for now until Thursday, it is a little ambitious. I'll share this and cross things off as I go

Water the plants
Wash the shower curtains and bathmats
clean the upstairs bathroom
Vacuum
sweep/mop kitchen
Kitchen counter top 
cabinet doors wiped down
reorganize refrigerator
Guest room sheets/bed/etc (Thursday morning most likely)
dining table cleanse

We didn't take a walk or do anything. I did some things inside while Doug cut some ivy growing on the exterior of the house. I felt like baking cookies but was doing so many other things today. Doug took a big nap. I did something with a game I play where I have Cats, and they make Soup and juice and stir fry. I started a spreadsheet to track which cat had what skill and what clothing, and I've been slow at getting the clothing put back on. They get special powers based on their skill clothing and when they're all naked, you don't earn as much money. 

It was a worthy use of time but seriously, I coulda gone to the gym. 

Anyway. I was happy Doug made supper because I did a bunch of other things today and wasn't in the mood to cook. I would have preferred he grill the chicken but. Okay. Dinner. Made. I made the salad. It was very good and I loved it. Dinner was great. 

Alrighty then. Digits below. Here's a pic of me and toffee from when we were enjoying coffee time on the couch this morning, listening to birdies. 

digits 

exercise: 12/12 hours of 250 steps. no exercise. 5100+steps by bedtime

blood glucose:

9:30am: 179
5:30pm: 159
10:15pm: 156

food:

coffee/water 
1pm: metformin
1:30pm: english muffin w/pb
6pm: ramekin of fritos
7pm: roasted chicken over big salad (romaine, cucumber, tomato, celery, feta, pepitas
white wine
beer

5 AM, March 16th

Happy JOTR (Jesus on the Radio) day to those who celebrate. 

5a.m. March 16, Jesus on the radio, you took a photograph of me on your yellow bucket seat
It's too high, it's too wide, you're so low you don't know
To get through to go around 

So don't look back, there ain't nothing there to see
Was once like you, can't say I recognize that face in that picture that you keep
It's too high, it's too wide you're so low you don't know
To get through to go around
To get through to go around

What I love most about this version of the song is all 5 Gusters are on stage. Joe Pisapia (in the hat) had left the band to do other things and they brought on Luke Reynolds (all the way to the left) to fill his shoes. 

But at the Caverns at in Tennessee, near Nashville where Joe lives, they brought him on for the encore. 

Jesus on the Radio has become their encore/closer. They usually sing it at the edge of the stage or in the audience even, without amplification at all. Someone asked me once when this tradition began, and I have no idea. I just know it doesn't feel like an encore/show finish until we're all singing along with the band like a family campout.

Not me, close enough to the edge of the stage to grab this decent photo, but also not me singing along and then Adam acknowledging I nailed the harmonies and sounded great. 

If they ever get their Tiny Desk, this is the closer too. Manifest it, willing it into existence. Please.

See the Funny

I had a CT Scan today for a future procedure to remove my IVC filter that I've had since 2014. It went really well, and when they pulled me out I asked for the tech to hand me my phone so I could take pictures of the signs in the machine. 

"Why?" he asked.

"Because they made me laugh. First, don't tell me to not look at the laser. If you tell me not to look at the laser, you know the only thing I'm ever going to want to do for the rest of my life is look. at. the. laser.

Second, the icons mean "Breathe" and "Hold your breath." But I saw "Eat the bacon" and "Chew the bacon."

I explained this to him while chuckling and he said "oh I guess I see that. I wish I had a sense of humor. I mean, I know how to tell a joke, but, sometimes it takes me a long time to just see the funny around me."

I hope he takes the time to think about the stupid funny things all around us all the time. 

Enjoy "Eat the bacon" and "Chew the bacon." Maybe you'll laugh too. 

digits 

exercise: 12/12 hours of 250 steps. no exercise; 4900+ steps by bedtime

blood glucose:

9am: 174
4:30pm: 156
10:30pm: 174

food:

coffee/water 
11am: metformin; 1 oatmeal blueberry muffin (came right out the paper, unlike the ones from yesterday. hell yeah)
1pm: grilled pepperjack cheese & ham sandwich
6:30pm: teriyaki chicken, nepalese dumplings (from Aldi); 4 beers
7:30pm: metformin+jardiance
8:30pm: pretzels and spready cheese

Baking and Junk

I boxed up the wee tiny angel collection that we place under the Christmas Tree. The Tree got put in storage weeks ago. The angels? Well they were just cute sitting there. Today I opened the windows and watered the plants, and they were sitting there looking sad, ready to go rest. 

These are little Hummel angels, Doug's mom collected them the years that they were made. They are date stamped and I believe year one was 1971. They go up through the 80s. She marked the boxes with "Doug" in her immaculate beautiful script. 

All of the little angels got put up into a box and I got the plants watered. And felt happy about that. 

See you next year, sweeties. 

My 2pm meeting was canceled because the client totally figured out the thing he was doing wrong. That was very nice. 

So I took that hour and baked some blueberry oatmeal muffins. I used paper liners and the muffins stuck to them, and they were ruined. I was super pissed off about it. But. If you use a spoon and dig the fuck out of the paper, they taste pretty good. 

Doug asked me why I did it with the paper and not ust a straight up in the pan bake. I told him that I was worried about the freaking muffins sticking to the muffin tin, but look what we ended up with. Booooo. 

Tasty, but ... booooooo.

We had a 3pm meeting with all the clients that we call office hours. It went exceptionally well and it is literally my favorite meeting that we have. Highlight of the week to be sure.

Then, we had a meeting to talk about the thing that broke on Sunday. It was not as fun. I felt horrible after it was done and just shut the computer down for the day and went to the grocery store. 

Yeah ... ya gurl left the house and went to the grocery store. 

We have lots of grocery options around here and I went to the expensive specialty store because 

a) they have wine
b) they have beer

And I hate going to Target, Aldi, Giant and then having to go to the beer store. 

And your girl wanted some wine.

Doug is deep in a project that he has to have all of his data buttoned up tonight for. He had a 7am meeting, and then went back to bed for about an hour, and has been at it since. I have been poking at work and goofing off at the same time. My sister flies to FLA tomorrow, and she and Ginger are going to Orlando to see Guster on Sunday. 

Your girl, is sorely tempted, to just fucking GO. 

Anyway. Today was a challenge. But I made muffins that sucked and a good dinner and my day ended with a lot of wine. That is acceptable. 

Digits below. 

digits 

exercise: 12/12 hours of 250 steps.  no dedicated 10. 5300+ steps by bedtime

blood glucose:

8:30am: 183
4pm: 174
10pm: 177

food:

coffee/water 
11am: Metformin
noon: 2 eggs scrambled in a failure of an omelet because I made too much stuff to go in it. Mushrooms, Spinach, Red Onion, Taco meat, goat cheese. It was a hot mess and I topped it with Salsa and it was perfect. 
7pm: bowl of penne pasta with homemade meatballs and sauce. Several slices of garlic toast. White Wine. Metformin+Jardiance

A kind of gorgeous day

Oh today. Weren't you lovely? The forecast was for cloudy but 70s. And I like that. These are the days. And the next probably 2 weeks are going to be perfect. I'll then go to Massachusetts for a couple weeks, come home and it'll be intolerably hot and miserable in mid-April. I'll be intolerably hot and miserable until October. 

So I'm going to soak it in and enjoy what I can.

At about 2pm I went out and cleaned off part of the top of the patio table and worked outside until my battery was close to dying on my laptop. I took a meeting with a client in eastern Washington State who was socked in with snow, from my backyard. And I didn't hate it. 

I wore flip flops today. I walked laps around the yard with Toffee, just like I used to with Phineas. She had a big ass stick and ran past me repeatedly, whacking my calves. Ouch. But also, yay. 

It was a really nice day. Very busy but lots of fun. Got a lot done. Started thinking about getting ready to do garden junk. 

After he was done working, and Geoff was home from work, Doug decided since it was so beautiful out we should all go to the local brewery. 

I didn't want to take the dog, because it is exhausting. She needs more training. But. He wants to socialize her more. 

Okay but I'm just being the go get the beer person, you be the keep the dog semi-under control person. 

We left after two beers because it was just too much with her. We didn't think we could get sandwiches or food truck stuff and enjoy eating. I was slightly disappointed but also ready to go. The place was packed, lots of screaming children. Several other dogs, including a gorgeous golden retriever named Fern who I want to hang out with every day.

Near the train station where we park, there's a dog park so we checked it out. It is a good size, needs more shade because I can just imagine this place in June/July/August/September heat. We had the place to ourselves and she enjoyed running around and chasing a ball. 

I took a bunch of pictures there, I think I'll save them for tomorrow's entry because it is so time for bed. 

Digits, below. 

digits 

exercise: 12/12 hours of 250 steps.  no exercise really but short walks to and from the parking area to the brewery. 7500+ steps by bedtime

blood glucose:

8:30am: 189
5pm: 154
10pm: 208

food:

coffee/water 
11am: Metformin 
12pm: bowl and a half of left over doug's cream of chicken soup
7pm: meatball sub (I ate the bread). 2 beers at the brewery. Metformin+Jardiance
8pm: 2 beers at home

Doug to Office Me to Office

This morning I woke up early enough to get a jump start on the day. Doug was going into the office for meetings and I thought, "Well, I should go into the office. I think. I'm supposed to? Go into? The Office?" 

Weeks and weeks ago, I saw that there was a Tiny Desk that I wanted to go to. I even invited my friend Jeff who lives in Baltimore to come down. 

And I forgot all about that. Completely.

Actually, I knew about it I just forgot it was today. Not sure how I could forget it was today but I didn't realize today was Tuesday. I forgot today was today. 

Huh, like that. I do things like that.

Yikes. I messaged Jeff to see if he was still coming down and he said yes. 

Ope. I can't be a jerk and cancel now, can I? No. He's coming all the fuck the way from Baltimore I can come from 10 miles away.

I jumped in the shower, dressed and got ready for a meeting at 10:30, and was hoping it would not go long. My coworker messaged me and said "you know the TDC is noon, not 1pm, right?" Texted Jeff the time change and he said he'd be able to make it.

Another Ope. 

Meeting ended before 11, thankfully.  I called an Uber. I knew I wouldn't have enough time to walk to the metro, ride it, walk to my office to get there by noon. Nope. NOPE.

Jeff texted me that he was at the office at 11:30, cool, I was literally around the corner in the worst DC traffic ever. But I'll get there. And I did. My Uber driver was awesome. She actually lives in the neighborhood here, and was awesome. I kind of want to be friends.

Jeff and I went in, the line was hugely long which disappointed me because we should have been arriving for a 1pm show and first in line. But whatever. We were there. We were there. We stood on a riser in the back. It was very good. Very very good. I really like Sleater-Kinney. I can't wait to see this one when it is released. 

They were just unbelievably good. The strings. Oh man, the strings. Corin said they basically just wrote the string parts that week, that day, this was the first time anyone was hearing them. And they were so good.

Afterwards, Jeff and I  had some lunch in the cafe, I saw a lot of coworkers and friends. Even saw a friend who left our office in 2020 who came in with her husband for the TDC. I was absolutely delighted to see her. I love her. Look how cute she is. 

I miss the people I work with and used to work with. Sometimes, people are just super amazing.

Jeff is pretty amazing too. He was a little mean to me when we were kids back in middle school but we've gotten to know each other wonderfully and happily since becoming adults. And I got over all the middle school weirdness. He goes to a LOT of rockshows in the area between DC and Pennsylvania. I'm super impressed. He said his mission this year is to be the "Plus One" for people who have tickets or access to things. He'll be at the Guster show in Baltimore in 2 weeks. And I don't even need to treat him as a plus one. 

After Jeff left, I ended up working until about 3, and then packing up to head home. I knew Toffee was in the kennel, and wanted to break her out. 

I took the metro home and walked from the station. Felt nice to be out and about in the city and do the commute thing. Sort of. It isn't quite a mile walk home from the metro station, but if you count the inside of the station it probably is a full mile. 

Yeah. I'm happy I've been going to the gym and walking and doing all the things. 

I was still sore and tired when I got back though. I took a 4pm meeting after letting the dog out of her kennel (such a good sport for being in for 4 hours) Doug came home at about 5, and promptly took a nap. I ordered Indian food, and we had a heck of a delicious feast. 

Also realized Geoff bought full sugar tonic water so. Boo. My vodka tonics should be diet tonic, but .... 35 grams of carbs per serving and 3 servings in a litre and I've had 2 litres so. Damn. 

Oh well. Next store run, we know better. 

Considering that if I had not remembered today was a reason to go into the office, well, I would have been vacuuming. 

I'll save that for Friday when Doug has to go to the office again. 

Digits below this wonderful shot of the beautiful and amazing Carrie Brownstein. Goddamn she's good. 

digits 

exercise: 12/12 hours of 250 steps.  22 min walk from the metro home (approx .8 miles) 8500+ steps by bedtime

blood glucose:

8am: 176
5pm: 174
10pm: 288 (forgot to take my meds at dinner) 

food:

coffee/water 
11am: Metformin
1:15pm: chicken in a nice sauce over smashed potatoes, corn
5pm: some pretzels+ spready cheese
7pm: chicken curry, lamb vindaloo, 4 samosas, biryani rice, chicken tandoori
vodka tonic
9:45pm: metformin+jardiance (forgot to take at dinner) 

When you would rather

Today was a challenge. Thankful for my good colleagues. That is all. I told a colleague that if given the choice of working today vs. scrubbing the bathtub or reorganizing the pantry and scrubbing all the shelves, I think I would side with the scrubbing. Today just sucked.

Doug is going to the office tomorrow. In theory, I can go to the office tomorrow, but I also can throw a fit and take a mental health day. We'll see what the morning brings for my attitude.

digits below. 

 

digits 

exercise: 12/12 hours of 250 steps. No exercise etc. 5000k+ by bedtime

blood glucose:

8am: 165
5:30pm: 155
10pm: 154

food:

coffee/water 
noon: english muffin w/pb and jelly; metformin
2pm: leftover chicken fajita & peppers
6:30pm: 2 cheeseburgers, no buns. 3 sandwich pickles; 6 oreo cookies
7:30pm: metformin+jardiance
vodka tonic

Small Children, Dogs, and Our Software All Hate Daylight Saving

When Geoff was a small human he would get knocked out of orbit by falling back and springing forward. His brain couldn't deal with it. He'd pace the house, be unable to sleep or adjust for weeks after, especially the Fall Back portion of the dance card. 

My friend Sara told me her son Henry is boycotting the time change this year. "It is stupid, useless, and I'm not participating this year." 

Good luck with that there, buddy. 

A coworker told me his son was completely broken this morning because the coffeemaker had one time, the microwave and oven had another, the automatic feed on netflix matched the coffeemaker, and he was confused. What time is it really. What. Time. Is. It. My colleague had no idea his son was so in tune with the appliances.

Our dogs, who always tell time with their bellies, would always be confused. Toffee was taken for a walk today  at 4:30, which her body thinks is 3:30, and she ate dinner when she came home at 5pm, which her belly things is 4pm. She ate, but I think she's not sure we did this right. 

We have software that our clients use that relies on time. Start time, end time, what is the time. And everything is an hour off. A full hour. 

So yeah, that happened. It has never happened. And clients are .... panicking. It's kind of a bad thing, but here we are on a Sunday with no way to fix it. I thought about taking tomorrow off but I'll have to get up early to mitigate this issue and get pulse checking with the devs. Make sure this gets fixed. 

I am not on call but somehow my Slack indicated I was online, so my colleague (the same one with the little boy who was broken about the coffeemaker and microwave) reached out to me to ask for help with this product. I'm kind of the "Subject Matter Expert" on it, the SME, Smeeeee. I looked into things and for a client who was expecting to see X, they were seeing an hour earlier, Y. 

Yikes no. 

So he and I poked some things and talked about the stuff and yeah. Nothing we can do without a developer. And the developers were not responding to me knocking on the door at 1pm on a Sunday. 

It'll have to be looked at on Monday. Here's a work-about to keep things looking decent. Have a nice day. 

After my colleague and I got things mostly settled down, I went to the gym. Doug was napping, so I was bored. Got up. Went out. Gym was not at all crowded at 4pm. Got everything done that I wanted to get done. I went to Lidl, got Geoff some Mac & Cheese, and some parsley and scallions for a marinade for dinner tonight that I had started.

My house smells like soy sauce and ginger. 

Doug was kind of a lump in the road this weekend, usually I am the lump in the road. I have no reasons to be mad at him or anything, we are all entitled to our lump days and weekends. Especially with hating Daylight Saving.

All told, a pretty great day but not a perfect weekend. They can't all be perfect, right?

digits 

exercise: 12/12 hours of 250 steps. 1 mile on the treadmill, 26 min registered on the fitbit. Full circuit room. Hell yeah. 8000+steps by bedime

blood glucose:

9am: 174
5:30pm: 210
10pm: 150

food:

coffee/water 
10:30am: english muffin w/pb and cherry bonnie maman's
11am: metformin
1pm: piece of bacon; bowl of mac & cheese with bacon
6pm: vodka tonic; metormin+jardiance
7:15pm: salmon (marinade: tbsp brown sugar, soy sauce, sesame oil, garlic, parsley, scallions, lime juice); tiny baby potatoes roasted in olive oil, s&p
8pm: oreo cookie imitations from Aldi. So Lame. Vodka tonic.
9pm: mixed nuts

A Nothing Day to Lose an Hour of

 First thing this morning, someone was at our neighbor's house to pick her up. And they laid on the horn. Again and again. 

In this, the year of our lord 2024.

Get out of the car and knock on the door. Might you have a phone? call her maybe? 

Eventually she came out, she never ever does not come out when someone comes to give her a ride somewhere. But I was ready to go out, and throw recycling at the guy's car. 

Today was a washout. It poured all day. We had talked about going to a brewery for an event today but Doug was full of "meh" about it. I did my steps each hour instead of taking a nap but he and Toffee crashed out hard on the couch. 

I would have gone to the gym but I'd have to open the door and disturb them (more ... disturb her). 

Doug went to the market at 4 because he had a hankering for a meal. I thought I'd head to the gym after he got back and while he cooked dinner because it wouldn't be ready for a while. He was making a soup from scratch and it would need to simmer for about a half hour to cook down the carrots. 

I went to put my sneakers on, and the sky opened up and we got a heck of a thunderstorm. It was wild. So we didn't leave the house. Toffee wouldn't even go out to pee before or after dinner. She does not like going out in the rain. I think she went out twice today. Unlike Phineas who went out every hour or so. He hated going out in the rain but he'd come right back in. She turns around and "nopes" her way back into the house. 

I thought about doing steps in the house but. I had a little of the "meh" that Doug had. So we take the loss for the day. 

Happy to head to bed even though we did absolutely nothing today. Oh, and don't forget to turn your clocks ahead that don't turn themselves forward. And don't forget to explain it all to your dog. They'll be confused. 

Here's Toffee, with her ball from maniac playtime. I kind of love how big her lip is over the ball. Hilarious.

digits 

exercise: 12/12 hours of 250 steps.  No dedicated 10 or exercise; 4800+ by bedtime

blood glucose:

8:30am: 153
4:15pm: 164
10pm: 210 (sorry, blood sugar)

food:

coffee/water 
11:30am: english muffin w/pb & low sugar strawberry preserves
12: metformin
3pm: several slices of turkey
6pm: 2 bowls of cream of chicken soup, homemade by doug, from scratch. 2 slices of lovely big bread
6:30pm: metformin

Buttoning up

I spent a little time today nailing down some of my travel for the end of the month. I had to get the permissions from work to have time off, and when I asked a few months ago, I was driving up. So full days off changed to 2 hours off as I picked late in the day flights. I had to run it all by Jonathan and get things on the calendar.

I now just need to get a hotel for Baltimore and for Brooklyn, and our entire Guster tour tour will be all set. 

This afternoon I had a mammogram, the last round of things found the blocked ducts and resulted in me having a procedure to ... unblock them by removing a scoop out. I've got the scar to prove it. I got there early, was ushered in early, and finished at the time I should have been getting started. 

So I went to the gym for a bit because I actually had blocked off 2 hours for this visit. Did about 15 minutes on the treadmill, with half the circuit room. I remembered my headphones, of which only one ear bud works but it's better than nothing. I put on a 45 minute podcast episode and got through almost all of it by the time I started hearing a lot of dings from my phone for work alerts. Shoot. I looked to find that there was stuff going down, so I left and headed home before finishing the circuit room. 

My team is really great - I can be away from my seat and they run with things. For years and years I was the team so I'd never be able to take an actual doctor's appointment much less tack on a little trip to the market or the gym for that matter. Seeing "J and I are sending out the comms now on this" made me extremely happy, I didn't have to worry about rushing back. They handled it perfectly. I did help test a few things to confirm that X was broken but not impacting this over here. 

I'll check the situation in the morning, but I'm not even on call so in theory I don't have to think about it or wonder how things are going. Maybe I can become that person who doesn't think about work during non-work time. Mayhaps?

Doug took Toffee for a walk while I was on the phone with C, I think he wanted me to come with but I waved him off. And I got the grill going and made dinner. They got home just as I was going out to bring it all in. The grill has only been used once a month, or less, this winter. It needs a good cleaning so I'm hoping to get Doug to do that sooner than later. It was kinda gross but not too gross for me to grill, and I wanted dinner grilled tonight. 

Got the mammo results via email (fast!) and everything looks fine and dandy. Come back next year, blah blah blah. 

Here's a toffee pic for you. I had Cheezits, and she was very very interested. I don't know if you can tell. She's actually looking right at my face, but I positioned the camera to her left to get the shot. She doesn't enjoy having her photo taken. She'll turn her head or walk away. 

But Cheezits held her attention, I tell ya. Digits below.

digits 

exercise: 12/12 hours of 250 steps. treadmill 15 minutes, approx 1/2 mile. 1/2 circuit room. Had to bail to head home. 7500+ steps by bedtime

blood glucose:

8:30am: 154
150pm: 170
10pm: 151

food:

coffee/water 
10:30am: bowl of mac & cheese; metformin
1pm: pbj on 647 bread w/ low sugar strawberry preserves
6:30pm: grilled chicken thighs, peppers & onions, 2 low carb wraps, cheddar cheese
7pm: metformin+jardiance
9pm: ramekin of cheez-its

point one

 The doctor's appointment went well. I like my doctor. I never feel like she is rushing me out the door or doesn't have time to hear me out. 

She sent me downstairs to get the bloodwork done, it's been since October that I've had my A1c tested. Only three people were waiting, what a blessing! Usually there are 100 so I hate waiting and I leave.

Got the email with the results, it only went from 7.6 to 7.5. I had really hoped it would be much lower. We talked about changing my medication, well, I asked about changing my medication. She said to keep going, increase the gym time, and let's retest in three months.  

My blood pressure was fantastic though. So. Ha. That's nice. 

I went to the gym afterwards for just a little bit, 20 min on the treadmill and then no circuit room due to the bloodwoork and me not wanting my arm to get messed up. I went to the market and got some things for dinner and headed home. Doug was out for a walk with Toffee and Geoff wasn't home yet, so I got dinner started. When Geoff got home he continued cooking so I could go back to work. 

Not a totally bad day. At least it went down point one instead of further up. That's my positive take-away. We can only get better. 

Tonight was the state of the union address. We didn't watch. We watched documentaries on the Panama Canal and the tech behind Cirque de Soleil's "O" and I think I'm happier for it.  

No picture today. Just the digits. 

 digits 

exercise: 12/12 hours of 250 steps.  20 min. on the treadmill. No circuit room. 6700+ steps by bedtime

blood glucose:

9am: 160
5:45pm: 154
10pm: 154

food:

coffee/water 
10:30: turkey sandwich on 647 bread
noon: metformin
1pm: apple w/pb
6:30pm: nachos w/ground beef, cheese, chips, etc. Metformin+Jardiance
white wine

An hour missed

It had been going so well. 

I schedule my meetings at 5 min past the top of the hour so I get some steps done time. Today at 1pm, I attended a meeting I knew would be over at 1:30 so I wasn't worried it started at 1. Then someone urgently needed me for a zoom at 1:30. At about 2:20 I realized I had only gotten a few steps for the hour, and I missed the 1pm time slot. Oops. 

Damn. 

I took the dog for a pokemon walk today and my fitbit didn't measure the steps and the time, because the left hand is the leash hand, and that hand is flush to the body. So ha. I got ripped off for those steps and that exercise. But I did do it. Just. I'd rather Doug walk her so I can swing my arm right and count them steps! 

Doug had a meeting at 5pm, and around 4 she starts to get wild. Doug usually takes her for a stroll at 4:30-4:45 and she knows how to tell time. I usually get dinner started. Sometimes I go with, but not usually. 

I played rope with her and let her out to run around. It was too early to feed her (usually between 4:45 and 5 after getting home from the walk...) so she needed her walk. She's used to doing this but I did not take her for the long walk she is used to and wants.

It tempered her down, I got dinner in the oven while Doug was in his meeting. Geoff came home and dinner came out about 6:30pm. Ate too many carbs and I'm sure there was sugar in the BBQ sauce on the ribs but. Overall a good carb day.

I have a doctor's appointment tomorrow at 3pm. Foot check for diabetes, and a basic review of everything. I had hoped to beat these last 7 pounds before now but, here we are. And because it is a 3pm appointment, I'll head to the gym for a bit after. Since I didn't get a measurable exercise today I'll get it tomorrow. 

I'm going to ask about different meds, if she thinks what I'm on just isn't cutting it. When I had my last bloodwork done my A1c was still 8.2, I'm exercising more than before and yes I could be doing better. My blood sugar reading at the appointment was 140 and I thought that was pretty good, pretty good. But she said over 130 is "uncontrolled diabetes." So tell me what to do. Am I going all salad all the time and nothing else? Heck, I feel like if it is under 180 I'm scoring. But I guess I'm not. 

So. I'm sure I'll have an update tomorrow with things. Wish me luck. Say little prayers, etc etc. 

here's some Toffee. The only sweetness I'll overindulge in. 

 digits 

exercise: 11/12 hours of 250 steps. Missed 1pm due to a meeting. Took a brisk 8 minute walk with the dog, 5300+ steps by bedtime (low even with a walk. booo).

blood glucose:

9am: 154
4:45pm: 144
10pm: 154

food:

coffee/water 
11:45am: BLT Salad
12:30: Metformin
2:30: pbj sandwich on 647 bread w/small amount of bonnie maman's cherry. (couldn't find the open jar of low sugar smuckers.) 
6pm: metformin+jardiance
7pm: Lloyd's BBQ Ribs, mac&cheese scoop
white wine