Another zero day for doing anything. I set my alarm for 9:45 to get up and do steps but hit snooze, and missed the 9am hour by a couple steps. Made up for it with an indoor walk.
Another rainy day, dark and gloomy. Toffee does not like to go out in the rain, so she went about 13 hours without going outside, which is bananas. I just forced her to go out - it is kind of drizzling, and she went under the bushes to get away from the rain and got even more soaked because of how wet the flowers all are. I gave her a thorough rubbing with a towel, and I think she really liked it.
We talked about doing something. We need to go to the bank, and thought a drive about would be fun but neither of us got motivated, and Doug realized he needed to head to the market and I was going to be playing D&D with Matt and the gang. I wanted to go buy plants this weekend, but with all this rain it's just gross and unmotivating.
Speaking of D&D, tonight we had a blast. A few times, Matt was stumped and said "we are entering into uncharted territory here," because of how crazy our plans were. I think we end up playing once a month, maybe twice, and it is honestly the funniest time. We have done 2 campaigns and we're all kind of in the mood to kick some major ass in the next one. The last two sessions were mostly shenanigans and how we get out of a really sticky mess. We all did well, and hey, we rescued a lion who now is part of our party.
It's very silly, I know. but we honestly have just the best time and it is a happy two hour escape. Hot tea at hand.
Doug recently got a St. Louis cookbook out of a little free library and tonight made dinner from it. It was like mac & cheese but a cheesier, creamier sauce, and meatless. It could have used some chicken for ya girl who needs some protein to balance out the carbs.
No picture today since life is so blah and dark and gloomy. Hoping to start feeling better soon. Sleeping 13 hours a day sounds nice but.
And no, it isn't Covid. I checked.
Anyway. Digits Below.
digits
exercise: 11/12 hours, missed 9am by a couple steps. Indoor walk while Doug was at the market, about 16 minutes. 5600+steps by bedtime
blood glucose:
10am: 196 4:30pm: 162 10:15pm: 171
food: coffee/water/hot tea 11am: metformin, 2 slices of 647 toast w/pb 6:30pm: a doug concoction, pasta w/mushrooms and broccoli in a cheese sauce (1 bowl, tempted to 2 but.) Metformin+jardiance 8pm: a couple scoops of no sugar peanut butter, some edam cheese red wine
First, it rained. Poured. Just. Meh. We almost put the heat on. That cold.
Second, I've got a cold, and I am useless. Absolutely useless. I took two naps today, timed my steps for the end of one hour and the beginning of another, so I didn't miss. Well done.
Doug cut his hair today, and that's like it. That's it.
Not very exciting. No picture. Just digits.
digits
exercise: 12/12. 30 min. indoor walk while Doug cut his hair and showered. 7k+ steps by bedtime
blood glucose:
9:45am: 207 5pm: 130 10:30pm: 194
food: coffee/water/hot tea 10:30am: chicken salad; metformin 7pm: two unreasonably huge bowls of tuna casserole (comfort food while feeling sick, is always good). Metformin+jardiance; white wine
I am struggling with a cold today, all clogged up in my head and sluggish in the body. I can hear Doug downstairs coughing. Yesterday I wore a sweatshirt, socks, and bundled up under a sheet on the couch. If I'm feeling cold, you know I'm sick. I even took a 90 minute nap after work yesterday, which you'd think would ruin me for sleep for the night, but no. I was out cold at my close to usual bedtime.
I may have a fever, not sure. I can't take my temperature because somehow I can't find any thermometers and the 3 I found are clearly labeled DOG, meaning they've been thrust up some canine's butt and we want to make sure no one thrusts that into their mouth, ya know?
Heavy sigh.
The thing about WFH and being sick is I have no real need to actually take off. I'm up. I'm doing steps. I'm drinking coffee. I'm making chicken salad. I'm doing all the things - I can answer helpdesk tickets and not burn an actual sick day or sick couple of hours. I just checked my accruals, and I have 39 sick days. Thirty Nine. I'll save them for when I am actually sick.
At about 3pm I tapped out for the day and went for a lie down. Somehow, I still managed to wake up just before 4:55 pm and did my 4 and 5pm steps. I went back to bed and slept until I heard Doug and Geoff making dinner at 6:45. Got up.
They made mac & cheese and even though I should not have had it, I did. I was so hungry. Sorry tonight's blood sugar reading.
Geoff is working this weekend. His job requires 1 weekend a month, so this is his weekend. He worked the weekend before we went away, had his bereavement days, and now is working this weekend, which seems like a lot of days but I pointed out that he could have been put on Memorial day weekend and didn't get scheduled.
I can't believe it is May already.
Anyway. Toffee and I had some fun playing today with her balls before we both went to nap. Here's my favorite pic from that fun.
Digits, below, for Thursday and today.
Friday digits
exercise: 12/12 hours of 250 steps; no dedicated 10; 5200+ steps by bedtime
blood glucose:
8:30am: 156 6:45pm: 154 11pm: 263
food: coffee/water/hot tea 10am: english muffin w/pb and low sugar j. 10:30: Metformin 1pm: large bowl of chicken salad w/walnuts and craisins 7pm: metformin+jardiance; bowl of mac & cheese w/a couple mini-sausages 8pm: 2 ramekins of pretzels white wine
Thursday digits
exercise: 12/12 hours of 250 steps; no dedicated 10; 4600+ by bedtime
blood glucose:
9:30am: 175 5pm: 154 10pm: 205
food: coffee/water/hot tea 10:30am: english muffin w/pb and low sugar jelly; metformin 2pm: ramekin of sunchips 7pm: chicken fajita stuff w/o the wrap (too lazy to make that happen) in a bowl; metformin+jardiance 8:30pm: ramekin of pretzels
We had this group picture taken at the bar. I have to say I love that my son is smiling. So rarely do we get smiles out of Geoff. My mom is right there at the bar between Jimmy V and my cousin Joey in the Aran knit sweater. Jimmy V spent most of the day doting on my mom. "Can I get you a glass of water, do you need some of the food, would you like a napkin..." Drove her batty.
We threw the party for my dad, to say goodbye. We also threw the party for these weirdos. Because we don't get to spend this kind of time all together, in our environment. Doing fun things.
I love every single person in this picture. Blood relatives and revelers who joined us. The bagpiper, Kaycee's boyfriend, high school friends who are like family.
May we all remember this day.
digits
exercise: 12/12 hours of 250 steps; no dedicated 10. 5500+steps by bedtime
blood glucose:
8:45am: 185 4:45pm: 156 10pm: 205
food: coffee/water 11am: metformin; small ramekin mac & cheese w/bacon 1pm: english muffin w/pb and low sugar jelly 6pm: Brats & tots (one roll, 2 bratwursts, pile of tater tots, mayo/ketchup); small piece of chocolate cake that the dogsitter left. white wine. metformin+jardiance 9pm: ramekin of pretzels
When we started planning the interment, she said she wasn't coming. She didn't want to come. She didn't see the point.
We told her that her nieces and nephews would want her to be there. They'd love to see her. I didn't mention "this could possibly be the last time... you know."
She said she wasn't going to drive and I said of course you are not, one of us will drive you. All the flowers to Jess for being the Driving Miss Shirley delivery man. I'm sure it was stressful (Jess said, Indeed It Was, at times). But they got it done.
Driving back to the hotel after spending a few hours Sunday at Linda's, she looked so tired. I thought I was tired, but looking at here the weight of exhaustion was obvious.
I realized that this was a lot on her. A lot. Very taxing. She complained a lot the whole time. The beds were too high, the fan in the bathroom was too loud. Going outside to smoke there wasn't anywhere to sit. No bench, no chair, no nothing. Who is that person. Why is it so loud in here. Meh meh meh meh meh.
We make fun of her a lot, for sure, but it dawned on me that really this was a lot. And I should thank her for being a trooper, and coming and seeing everyone.
I was going to call her today, but when I thought to do it, it was naptime. And I got to working so before I knew it, time had flown to 5pm. Doug went to the market, I tried to nap. Toffee wasn't having it, she was very anxious that Doug was gone, so I got up and got things ready to start dinner.
Doug's cousin came over tonight from Virginia to talk about his mom. He's got some concerns with her being sued by her HOA, and not having the money. He thinks they're probably going to get evicted, and all sorts of things. He needed to talk and have a logical, smart person to give him some advice. He left at 10:30, stayed a lot longer than I thought he would.
So I didn't call mom. I just put a meeting on my calendar for tomorrow morning to do that. Just check up on her, thank her for hanging in there with all this.
Here's a picture of Toffee. Digits below.
digits
exercise: 12/12 hours of 250 steps; no dedicated 10; 5300+ steps by bedtime
blood glucose:
9am: 190 4:30pm: 134 11pm: 185
food: coffee/water 11am: metformin 12:30: left over chinese garlic pork, mostly veggies not much pork 6pm: steak salad 7pm: entire bag of fundraiser popcorn; white wine; metformin+jardiance
As promised, a more detailed update on Sunday. And, today, Monday.
Sunday we relaxed around the hotel. Jess got annoyed with Geoff and got in the car and drove around. Found a bagel store and got to hang out alone. I waited for Doug to get up so we could make our plan for going and seeing the dogs (and Ronnie). He slept super late - he had been waking up between 5 and 6 and being up for a while... then going back to sleep, and sleeping and sleeping. So I let him have what he obviously needed.
We got our plan figured out and went over at about 1. The goal was to eat as much of the left over food as we could, and also pet dogs. Both tasks were accomplished.
After that was accomplished, we drove back to the hotel. Doug and Geoff were in the mini and I drove Shirl and the Girls. Back at the hotel, we popped Shirley into the room, she was pooped and cranky. Jess, Linda and I sat at the bar. Linda's reservation came with two drink tokens so we had 8 tokens to use. Okay twist my arm. We got the Rangers game on the big screens in the bar and the boys were upstairs doing the same. I ordered Pizza for them, and everyone was in a happy place.
I wasn't hungry, and was worried about eating pizza at 10pm so I skipped eating. Went to bed at 12:30 after watching the first period of the Oilers/LA game.
This morning I was up at 8. Jess had already packed their things. My mom got up at 4:30 and made enough noise to ruffle Linda's feathers. So they were packed and organized early. And Linda was exhausted from sharing the room with mom. Can't say as I blame her. I'm so thankful she did.
Jess wanted to be on the road to the ferry by 9:30 and they indeed pulled out of the parking lot at that time, and Linda was right behind them.
Geoff went back to his room, I hung out with Doug who was goofing off on his phone and drinking the first coffees of the day.
We were given late checkout at 2pm because of my Marriott super high tech jetfighter status, without even asking. Ha. noice. But I knew we wouldn't need it. We left at 11:45, and the GPS sent us down through Brooklyn, across the Verrazzano Narrows, to Staten Island, breezing straight across, the Goethals Bridge and into Elizabeth.
In one hour. Unheard of.
We stopped in Maryland at a rest area to get a stretch and snack, and we were home at 4:45. We didn't run into traffic until Baltimore! So happy to be home. So happy to be with Toffee. We ate more chicken and pasta left overs. We're going to bed. Digits below.
digits
exercise: 9/12 hours of 250 steps; missed 2 hours in the car and the 4pm hour because I was obsessed with toffee. no dedicated 10; 6k steps by bedtime
blood glucose:
8am: 190 5 pm: 200 10:30pm: 220
food: coffee/water 11:a: metformin, one slice of left over pizza 3pm: 4 chicken tenders from KFC, a biscuit, mac & cheese 6pm: more chicken, some pasta, beers 7pm: metformin+jardiance 8pm: beer and kettle corn
Just throwing this up to have the placeholder and digits. Spent the day at Linda and Ronnie's. Played with dogs. More on that soon.
digits below.
digits
exercise: 12/12 hours of 250 steps; no dedicated 10; 6k steps by bedtime
blood glucose:
9am: 142 n/a pm: n/a 11pm: 201
food: coffee/water 12:30pm: metformin 2:30pm: A right proper NY bagel. Everything w/ a pantload of onion & chive cream cheese, a lot of left over chicken, some cute pastries; wine 6pm: metformin+jardiance 8pm: beer at the bar w/linz and jess. pretzels
After painstakingly searching and browsing and poking around the internet for weeks last summer, I had ordered this box on Etsy in October and had to rush expedite it, paying extra for it to be finished in time to be shipped to Linda for the original date. And then everything got rescheduled, so she had the box on her bookshelf this whole time.
A mark of how we procrastinate, it costs us, but in the end it coulda just been done plenty further in advance. Not like we didn't know he was gonna need it, right? Anyway. It is beautiful and I felt kind of shitty thinking about how such a beautiful piece would be in the ground. But it was for him. And worth it.
Linda and I got together Saturday morning and finished putting the things in the box.
Since Dad died, I've been thinking of this song by World Party. The refrain goes:
Put the message in the box, put the box inside the car, drive the car around the world, until you get heard."
But I've been singing:
"Put the dad inside the box, put the box inside the car, drive the car around Huntington, until you get to the cemetery then put him in the ground and be done."
The ending doesn't exactly fit the original but I make myself laugh. That's all that matters, right?
Linda wanted to put some more things in the box, I questioned whether we were allowed to do it, because the instructions from the cemetery were stern and bossy about not putting things in and not mixing ashes, and.... Linda said "what are they going to do, take him out and throw him out? People are buried all the time with extra stuff, wearing jewelry and trinkets from the kids, no one is going to be mad." She's right.
We took the plastic bag out of the plastic green container from the crematorium in Massachusetts. The bag was a lot heavier than I thought it would be, so it was a little surprising. It fit inside the wood box perfectly, a perfect rectangle after sitting in the original container for so long.
She added some quahog shells, dad always loved the ocean and the beaches. And she put some photos into the box in a ziplock bag. We sealed it back up and he was ready to go.
Lin, Jess, and I left early to drive dad around town. We went past our old apartment, past the shops and stores and places he used to hang out. Linda was narrating, mostly for Jess' purposes I think. We went by the hospital where he was born (and where we were born," past the house he grew up in down in Halesite, back around the fire station, they are tearing up everything back there to put in better ... something. So there was no way to get out and set him on the railing at the doc and stay for a minute. Around Mill Dam, over to the Valencia, and then over to the cemetery.
I would have liked to stop and get out at some places and take a picture of his box around town. On the steps up to our old apartment, the harbor, the bull at the Valencia, but we were on schedule and had to be at the cemetery by 10:30am. We arrived with a minute to spare.
Some folks had already arrived, which was nice. Our bagpiper got there and was ready to roll. Somehow when he and I started chatting we got on the subject of Ben Franklin, of all things. There was another service happening in another area and the funeral director was handling the paperwork and stuff there. Our service was scheduled for 11, and we started walking to the grave site in order to get Shirley situated in time.
C had sent a beautiful arrangement for the cemetery, and Linda and I hadn't really planned anything, we didn't realize how just right it would be to have something. We thought about going to the supermarket like we did in Massachusetts and just getting something whipped up to set on the ground, but this was a very nice touch.
Thank you C.
Since we were doing our tour of town, taking Dad to all the old hot spots in the Village, I reached out to our cousin Joey and asked him to stop by the supermarket on his way to get white flowers. Linda asked for carnations and after a bit Joey checked back in and said, "they're not carnations, but they're close, is that alright?" Yes. It is perfect. Bless bless, dear Joey.
They had no table, which was okay. They'd dug up the spot and put one of those green carpets over the plot so you knew where things were happening. We set the box in front of the headstone, and the priest and funeral director came over and things got started.
It was a short and very nice service. Sometimes when you're dealing with a priest who doesn't know your family, you really should have a meeting beforehand to talk about the decedent and what the family is like.
He talked about how growing up, Bart would have learned to mind his Ps and Qs, which we all chuckled a little bit at, and how over the many years he imparted so much wisdom to us. I heard some chuckles at that too. Dad was not really a wisdom imparter. But we appreciated the sentiment. He used the phrase over and over that we will be reunited, and every last tear would be wiped away.
We concluded things with the tossing of the little white flowers, and people started peeling off to head to the party. Mom walked a different route to the front of the cemetery office, which was much closer to where we were standing than the cars were.
I grabbed Linda for a little photo shoot. We wondered if we should stand there until the cemetery dudes came to put the box into the little box already in the ground and seal it up, but the Funeral director said usually the family doesn't stand there for that. We should go. So we did.
My cousin Jimmy told me later that he and his son, cousin Joey, and another friend of Jimmy's named Jimmy all had gone on a little walking tour of the family plots around the property and came back around as the urn was being placed. Jimmy's friend Jimmy (which is fun to say, like he has no identity other than Jimmy's friend Jimmy) said that he'd been carrying around a little silver shamrock in his pocket for 20 something years. He asked if he could put it in on top of the box and they told him he could.
To be honest, I don't really know this person - I've seen him at gatherings at my cousin's house over the years, but that thought took my breath away a little. What a sweet gesture for my dad. To give up something he'd basically been carrying around his entire adult life. I'm just kind of gobsmacked by that generosity. I hope to get to thank him.
Over to Finnegans, where we'd booked the place for 3 hours to just have it all to ourselves. When the open bar tab is more than the food costs, you know you're at one of our fetes.
We had a great time, the piper played indoors a few songs. He stayed and drank Guinness after Guinness (which is low ABV at 4%, so that's okay). He was talkative and friendly, and treated us to extra tunes beyond what I think we paid for.
I had a blast with my cousin' George's daughter (2nd cousin?) Kaycee, who brought her boyfriend (oh hello welcome to our family shenanigans!) and he was delightful. We had all kinds of music playing and Kaycee and I sang "The Weight" by The Band (which is my favorite song by The Band).
Our party wrapped up, I was helping clean up (like I do) and bus tables and help move things around for the start of regular business. Doug took the boy and Shirley back to the hotel. Shirley was wiped out, this was a lot on her. We ended up staying longer, time with the family is a precious commodity.
Got back to the hotel, got Linda to her room. I came up at about 7 something and took a nap. Doug was already napping but when he woke up, he and Geoff went out and got subs (didn't get me or Jess anything because they thought we were asleep for the night but. Hmm. You come back in the room, drink beer, eat subs, watch hockey and I'm asleep for the night? No.) I was a little perturbed but too lazy to go downstairs to the restaurant and order anything. So I watched hockey, and went back to sleep eventually.
Pictures below: mom and some of our ladies. Below, Tommy (the Finnegan's Manager) and my parents from a couple years back. Not exactly sure of the date. But they go way, way back as friends. Digits below pics.
digits:
exercise: 12/12 hours of 250 steps; no measurable exercise but on the feet all day and a nice walk around the block in H'ton to get some fresh air; 7k steps by bedtime
blood glucose:
9am: 160 xpm: n/a 10pm: 146
food: coffee/water times all approximate 12:30pm: 3 pigs in blankets, a buffalo chicken tender, a slice of quesadilla. approx 2pm? 2 good sized pieces of chicken francese, large helping of salad; Metformin about 6 beers over 4 hours
Yesterday morning my friend from the Guster fan group came down from her place near Baltimore to WFH and babysit Toffee. They hit it off wonderfully, and Robin later sent a picture of Toffee snuggled up to her while she was working, looking totally at peace and happy. I feel so good about this. Robin misses her dogs back home in Colorado, so this is good for her too.
We left our house around 11am and got to LI around 6pm. My husband greatly enjoys driving around North Jersey and through the Bronx over to Long Island, he becomes a different person almost. And this is right about where I start to hate the drive. Funny how that works.
I don't deal well with nasty traffic and people who drive like maniacs. I do well right up to say, Elizabeth NJ. And that's Doug's favorite.
Saw this painted on an overpass on the Cross Bronx, and thought yeah, I could use this.
We checked into the hotel and found a diner. A nice, honest Long Island diner. We enjoyed a good meal, and came back to the hotel. Linda beat us here, and had picked up beer and snacky snacks for us for hockey watching.
While the boys watched hockey, she and I sat in her room and caught up on things. I put Linz to bed and went back to my room and found Doug was already in bed, wiped out from too many snacks and beer and hockey. I was up until about midnight, just dicking around on my phone. I thought about going downstairs to write a blog entry but my pants were already off.
This morning, Linda had left the hotel early to head home to work (she stayed here because we were expecting our friend Ginger to be with us, but she had to cancel, so Linz had a room to keep). Geoff was down at breakfast already so I went and hung out with him. Drank a lot of coffee and treated myself to a waffle. So. Dang. Good. And bacon for some protein. I did some work, a few things that I needed to followup on from work, and I still have one more thing I have to do that is haunting me. But I didn't dive into it. I'll get to it.
Talked to Carrie, sat until the restaurant closed and went up to the boys. I needed a haircut, and dress shoes. So I picked a supercuts and they took care of me. I then found a DSW, got 2 pairs of shoes that I didn't hate.
Got back to the hotel and Doug and Geoff were hungry for lunch so we went to Dark Horse Tavern in Farmingdale.
Now, I'm from Huntington and usually when we are on Long Island, we hang in Funnington. But Doug found a spot that looked good, and we went. Excellent choice. Lots of local craft beer choices, and great food. Not a lot of customers, so we had some personal attention to chat with the bartender.
We were headed to Linda's so Doug and Geoff could meet the puppy when Jess called to let us know they'd made it to the hotel and delivered Grandma to her room. Linda is sharing her room with grandma, and Jess and Geoff are in the room across the hall from us.
Jess was exhausted and hungry. So we rerouted from on the way to Linda back to the hotel to gather round her for support and snacks.
I tucked mom in for a nap, figured it was a long day for her. Doug, Jess, and Geoff napped and eventually I was hungry so I ordered pizza for delivery, and breaking us out of Pizza Jail. The girl at the front desk was super sweet, recommended a place right around the corner. And she was spot on for her recommendation.
Linda was running errands and printing things, and doing stuff, and getting everything ready for tomorrow. She got to the hotel after 8:30, made mom a pbj sandwich (brought all the stuff AND lemon loaf AND core water AND powder crystal lite to put into the water).
Jess joined us and we let mom go to sleep (we kept her up after 9pm) and it was time for arts and crafts. Linda sliced the prayer cards she printed, and we compared them to the size from the funeral home last July, they were much smaller even though the template she bought was for the same size. So we think Staples just didn't print them edge to edge.
We still like the ones she made, so she sliced and sliced. And we opted not to laminate them because it would be smelly. And we were in my room, and Doug would have been mad if we made stinky stuff.
We talked about going downstairs and doing it in the lobby or asking if there was a meeting room we could do it in, and there was a giant crowd in the bar - big wedding party shenanigans happening, so we opted not to make it smelly (possibly) down there.
I walked outside with Lin so she could have another cigarette and did my last steps. When you are 500 steps from the 10k goal... well there's no reason not to do it, eh?
Plus, I gotta walk off the pizza! Also, it is so nice being out of Pizza Jail.
Digits for both Thursday and Friday below.
Friday digits:
exercise: 12/12 hours of 250 steps; took a decent walk after lunch but it didn't register as "exercise" on the fitbit. Must have been leisurely. 10,100+ steps by bedtime
blood glucose:
xam: forgot to take morning digits before brekkie 5pm: 201 11pm: 201
exercise: 9/12 hours of 250 steps; missed 3 hours from being in the car. 8k steps by bedtime (due to the amount of house cleaning/laundry/etc I did before 10:30am.)
blood glucose:
7am: 179 xpm: n/a no mid-day check in, in the car 11pm: 178
food:
coffee/water 11am: metformin, A couple forkfuls of chicken salad 2pm: burger king crispy chicken sandwich, disgusting. ate the chicken, threw everything else out. Diet coke 7pm: large piece of spanikopita, patty melt (ate about 1 slice of the bread) cheese and onions; a couple french fries. 8pm: metformin+jardiance white wine
The title of today's entry is an homage to my sister and a recent conversation she had with her boss. He was asking her to do things, and she asked him what was the priority for the things. Which do you need more immediately. And he replied that was like asking him which he wanted -- to breathe or eat.
Well, breathing is more important. You can't ever eat if you've suffocated so yes, I'm asking which one is breathing. Then I can do the eating one.
I have a very hard time prioritizing things. I will simply not do something because I can't do it before I do something else and that something else is kind of less important but, it may be easier to conquer/accomplish. So I obsess on the things. And the more important thing is backburnered again and again until I'm flush up against a deadline.
I'm reminded of a song by my friend Jim Infantino and his excellent song "Stress." I am singing this now. Only. I'm not enjoying what the stress is I've given myself.
Here's someone's interpretation of the song, which is hilarious. And I love it.
Doug took today off but had a conference call at 7am. I didn't reset my alarm after he went down, and managed to sleep in until 9:ish when Lin messaged me. Because I'd been on-call, all my alerts and noises were louder than usual.
Thankful that she did, I probably would have slept until 10 or later.
And to be honest, I would have loved that.
Got up and showered immediately because I would not have had a minute all day to do a mini-vacation (that's what I call it when I retreat in the middle of the day to the shower...) Doug had finished his meeting and was napping in the guest room when I did my steps for the 10am hour and stomped in. Oops sorry.
Several meetings, all day, important talks about important things, texted back and forth with my work buddy who is still on leave but hopes to be back next week. I sent him and his family a nice Spoonful of Comfort cookie basket. He sent me a picture of his son Om Nom Nomming his way through a cookie with his thumbs up. And he was wearing a Star Wars/Lego T-shirt I'd sent him a couple years back. It finally fits him. This time next year, it won't.
Iattended an all staff while tearing the pantry apart and wiping down all the shelves.
Why? Why am I doing that? I have things I need to do for the clients. Why?
Ants. Ants is why.
Before the All Staff, I opened the pantry to get an english muffin and well, there were ants. Everywhere. Tiny tiny itty bitty little mother fuckers. Hundreds of them. Fuuuuuuuuuck.
So I took all the food out of the pantry, scrubbed it, sprayed it with ant spray (made chicken salad so the 2 pieces of chicken we have left would not go to waste, instead of an english muffin...)
Geoff came upstairs and looked at the process and progress, and asked what the hell was happening.
What do you think, honey. What. Take a guess.
"You know. Mom is in a mood. Doing things. Sick of it all. Just fucking doing it. Going bananas. Hi honey! HI!"
I was feeling a little manic, a little hyper. I thought to myself "I wonder if this is what Geoff's brain felt like when he was in Elementary school..." Things made more sense to me about him at that moment.
Had a 2pm meeting but the client didn't show up. I called him at 2:10 just to check on him and he was so sorry! So Apologetic! Give me .... 5 minutes, I'll jump on zoom.
Oh honey, to be honest, you've given me a gift. I had three big emails to compose, I am supposed to do something for a client that is so far overdue I almost cried in a meeting with them (they were understanding but Jeeesh I gotta do this thing). Another email got a response and the client was unbelievably gracious.
I turned to my team to ask them to pick up the baton on that issue - someone please come up with a solution for this because I cannot.
Another client has hired an SEO consultant, which is nice, but the guy has questions and good God I do not have time to answer him. I punted him to my manager.
I had a 1:1 with my manager today and confessed that I'm not my best self for thinking and doing. My quality time management is way off kilter. He said after this weekend it'll probably open up space in my brain, and heart, and I'll feel more normal again. I believe he diagnosed it right. I'm distracted and burdened but yes. Let's get through this weekend. Maybe I can brain again.
I did a bunch of things after the chat. Got things done, and had a 4pm call with another client.
She got on zoom and said, in a very Alabama way, "Girl. I mean, ... girl." And I laughed. I know what that means when you say .... girl.
"I almost emailed you to cancel this meeting because I cannot with all this work lately." I thanked her for not canceling, told her that we could just "easy peasy this conversation and touch on one or two things, perhaps three, of the 50 or 60 things she needs to do."
And we did. We spent the full hour and could have gone longer, but I solved some problems for her, showed her how some things can work better, encouraged, and we laughed.
To be honest, that's just the way I wanted to end the day.
I needed to cram in 2 things and got to one, and discovered a problem with a site expiring their DNS Registration and they probably have no idea. So emergency emails sent, email response received from the client, sigh of relief shed, I feel better going to bed tonight.
Doug packed most of his stuff. I cleaned the bathroom, I still need to put all the pantry things back but, that can wait until morning.
I'll dress the guest bed in the morning, strip those sheets and throw them downstairs and deal with them whenever. I need a haircut so desperately, maybe I'll find a haircuttery on Friday.
All told, I made it through these 3 days and am ready to face the next batch. Hallelujah.
Breathing and eating.
No picture tonight, I was too busy to take one. Gotta pack and get my shit going, not sure there will be an entry tomorrow. Digits below.
exercise: 12/12 hours of 250 steps; no dedicated 10; 5k steps by bedtime
blood glucose:
9am: 175 5pm: 177 10pm: 209
food:
coffee/water 10:30am: bowl of mac & cheese w/ground beef 11:30am: metformin 2pm: ramekin of chicken salad w/craisins and walnuts 7pm: chinese food. lo mein, egg roll, general gao's chicken, garlic pork, 3 peking raviolis; metformin+jardiance
