The last few days have been so incredibly full that I have not had much chance to blog. Tonight I came home and slept for a few hours and got a chance to catch up on some sleep and reflect on the past four days.
Saturday--All in all, I spent about 2 hours sitting this entire day, much of that on the bus. I left the house about 8:30, thinking I'd miss the bus, so I took my umbrella (it looked like rain) and granny cart, and headed to Liquor Barn on foot. The bus passed me as I was almost there, so I could have hopped a ride on it a block or two and saved myself the walk. As soon as I left my apartment complex it started to rain, and continued for my entire outing. I got the wine a friend needed, observing that Burgundy is not in fashion anymore as an appellation--even if it was produced there, but the grapes for Burgundy are pinot noir, so I'll know that for next time. I know this from my little guide for dummies on wine basics I have out of the library. I asked three people about Burgundy and no one knew anything, the only wines labelled as such being cheap jug wines. The very helpful clerk who looked things up for me was new and didn't even know how to pronounce Chianti. It was a bit sad. I mean, I know next to nothing about wine, but I don't work in a liquor store. He was at least new. The others were just clueless. Anyway, I got some of the best quality of what was called burgundy for cooking, as well as some pinot grigio and chianti from Italy with the dancing Etruscans on it (the vineyard is Candoni) for drinking. Unfortunately the store did not carry their pinot noir, and the chianti was the only red wine they had of theirs.
Then it was back into a driving rain for quarters from the bank and grocery shopping from Kroger. Because I had a credit with the latter, I used it for a stockpot set that included pot, lid, inner colander, and steamer, and still had enough to get some off my groceries. I bought a few things for my friend, the game snacks, and some food to have at the house, about six reusable bags full, then set back out (in the rain) for home. As I got to the apartment complex, it lessened to a sprinkle. Mother Nature was definitely having a laugh at my expense.
I went immediately out with two bags, one with three bottles of wine, the other with a two litre of soda and game snacks, and headed to the bus stop. I got over to my friend's house and visited for a bit, then he spent four hours teaching me to cook. We made a potato and leek soup, mushrooms au gratin, kugel, and a salad. I got to use the immersion blender of doom. That was really fun. But I got home about 11 pm and just collapsed, having spent hours on my feet. Cooking takes a lot out of you, I've found, at least when you're really cooking and not just heating something up like most people do.
Sunday--This was game day, of course, so I went over, cleaned house, got done early for a change, visited for a bit, and then embarked on an adventure set in an ancient Greek colony in Italy which has been quite intriguing and is proceeding at a quick pace. Then there was the normal post-game recap and commentary via phone. So I guess I was going strong from about 5:30 am-11:30 pm, and just faded at the end.
Monday--We had a big clinic, meaning I had lots of data entry sheets. I normally get everything entered AND verified, but only just managed to get everything in. Then it was over to a friend's who had had some bookshelves built to put books back on the shelves. That took a couple of hours. I really should put 'librarian for private collection' on my resume at some point. He's got many more books than I do, and I'm no lightweight in the book department. I'd say it's about 4,000. Considering the library I work in has something like 1,300 books and 30 journals, you see my point. Afterwards I got to eat the soup I made on Saturday and it was very good. I will work for nummy soup. Even though I just followed the real cook's instructions, it was nice to have things turn out well and everyone liked the food. Then I got home about 11 pm and just collapsed.
Today--Throughout everything, I've dealt with a more than moderate amount of pain in my right shoulder and arm, with a loss of feeling in my lower arm and hand. I'm sure that all that stuff I did didn't help. This has been going on for two to three weeks, now, and has only been worsening, so yesterday I broke down and made an appointment with a physician's assistant at Bluegrass Orthopaedics for this morning.
He thought my symptoms sounded like they were caused by a possible impingement derived from my neck, so they took an x-ray and it seems my fourth, fifth, and sixth cervical vertebrae are degenerating rather badly (Even I could tell that the x-ray was not normal. Instead of happy vertebrae, it looked like the discs were misshapen and outside of the normal bounds.) I have an MRI on Friday. I lobbied for an open MRI, outside of their facility, because in the past I've tried the regular one with my head and couldn't do it. I have enough trouble when my leg is in the tube, much less my head. The open MRI doesn't bother me, though, and this way I don't have to try to get someone to take me and be sedated (I really only have two people I know who might have been able to do it. One lives a county away and the other has small children to take care of, so this was better.)
In the meantime, I'm supposed to take three ibuprofen three times again to try to get the inflammation down, and return next Tuesday.
I had two packages on my doorstep when I got home tonight. One is a book I have coveted for some time, that I got via the used book dealer Abebooks for $9 as opposed to the price through Amazon of $24 and up. I found it for a friend years ago, and he has a copy, but I couldn't afford it at the time and really have wanted it. It's called Death to Dust: What Happens to Dead Bodies?, by Kenneth Iserson. What can I say, I'm fascinated with forensics and the like, and this book has all sorts of information related to death. It's a potential murder mystery writer's dream. Some of the data related to funerals is a bit old (this is the first edition, which was copyrighted 1994), but the science remains the same. The other package was Charlaine Harris' new Sookie Stackhouse book, Dead Reckoning, which I'm looking forward to reading, which I got for almost nothing through a special deal. Yay!
That brings me up to date. I'll try to get back into the swing of things. There's poop burgers (which may or may not be a hoax) to blog about. And then there's the new mushroom, Spongiforma squarepantsii, named after SpongeBob Squarepants, which is true.
Hope you have a good night. Hope you had a happy solstice. I think I'm going to go back to bed.
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