Unshelved by Bill Barnes and Gene Ambaum
comic strip overdue media

Monday, October 13, 2014

For one day, at least

I was a domestic goddess and kicked butt at work. Maybe it's because I got rest this weekend, or maybe it's because the house is clean. Or maybe it's because while I have eaten less than normal today, I feel so much better. I don't know. I got up at 6 am, started bread in the bread machine, and then finished the few things I needed to do to help get the apartment ready for inspection week. I made the bed (which given the number of shams and pillows I have, is no small task for one person), vacuumed, and took out the last of the trash and recyclables. Somewhere in all that I also burned some incense and cooked four cups of basmati rice, because one of the things I do have in my cupboard are heat-and-serve microwavable Indian dishes from Kitchens of India. So today for breakfast, I had a slice of bread and some peanut butter. For a mid-morning snack, there was yet another piece of bread alone. For lunch I had rice (for some reason, my spell-checker wants 'astigmatism' instead of 'basmati') and a chickpea and potato curry. I haven't eaten anything since then. I'm just now starting to get a little hungry. I think I'll go for just a little bread with something on it, as I'm not very hungry.

At work I spent the morning planning out what books I need to update in the library (with a grant that we will hopefully get) for next year, as well as our family resource centre updates and access to electronic resources. I worked at a good pace at my data entry job, including referrals, reconciliation of charges, putting in charges, and the like. It's a detailed-oriented job, and I managed to catch something that could have cost the hospital reimbursement. So I felt good about that aspect of my job today. But the day flew by, and I felt alert and energised all day. Usually by this time of day I'm dragging and ready for a nap.

When I got home I spent a little while caring for my indoor garden (spacing the houseplants out and taking off dead flowers and leaves). I opened all the windows. The Christmas cactus has a bud on it. Only the prayer plant is blooming right now; the African violets did for a long time. I did have to toss a croton because it had been killed off by those dratted little white mealybugs. The other croton might live; it has one leaf left. The violets have them, too, and they're hard to eradicate from fuzzy leaves. But the others seem resistant, thankfully.

I also have an ailing fish. The fish actually made it through the Time of Low Water and No Filter pretty well, but when I filled up the tank yesterday, I found that one had become stuck in the java moss. I freed it and cleared out a lot of the moss. It's pretty, but it can be pretty invasive. So since then, that fish has kept to the bottom and is slowly dying. I'm sorry for that. Fortunately it's a 19 cent feeder goldfish, but still, I feel guilty for letting the moss overgrow, and letting the water get low enough that it became a problem. That leaves me four-and-a-half fish, the betta in the bedroom's 3-gallon tank, and the goldfish in the 29-gallon long tank. Once a few days pass, I'm going to vacuum out the tanks really well and test the water. If it's doing pretty well, I'll maybe add some feeder goldfish. They're actually a nice size and pretty, and don't require an awful lot of babying. I'm used to livebearers, but they haven't done well in the tank since I set it back up a few years ago. Even with a staggered biological filter, water changes, and the addition of nitrogen-eating bacteria, I've had trouble with nitrates. That's not as bad as nitrites, but the fish don't flourish as well. I used to do much better at keeping fish, and livebearers reproduced readily. But sadly, this is not the case since the tank was set back up, and as a result, I've tended to let it get a little too dirty. So after a few days so I don't totally freak the fish out, since vacuuming means adding more new (although conditioned) water, I hope to rectify that. But just getting the filter back up and running has helped immensely. I'd had a power outage from a storm about a month ago and couldn't get the thing to pump the water up from the tube, even though it was clear, and isn't really the type that needs priming (but I primed it anyway, to no avail). This time, after being off for awhile, it started right up and pumped immediately. So I'm not sure what the deal was at the time. But I didn't mean to keep the filter off so long--I was just really, really busy.

I am very low on gas for the car, and have $1 in change to put into it tomorrow, which might get me to and from work through Wednesday. I haven't been quite this broke in awhile. I think I have a total of fifty-two cents in my checking and savings accounts combined--so that's part of the stress lately. So I'm saving the gas if at all possible. Still, I should call a friend and see how he is doing. I'm not sure things will get a lot better when I get paid, but they will get better. I called Friday and got several doctors' offices to agree to return co-pays I mistakenly paid (this is the first year I've had insurance with a maximum out-of-pocket expense amount, and I didn't realise that once I met it, co-pays were not to be collected. This came to the tune of $180. So sometime in the next six weeks those refunds should trickle in. That would help.)

After talking with YKWIA last night, I decided that my mood was a little less stable than it had been and with the shorter days and perhaps being a little further into perimenopause than I thought I was, my medicine might need adjusting. So I called the practice I used to go to a few years ago and asked if I could get an appointment. The receptionist said he would check my records and with the doctors and get back with me. He didn't today, but I hope he'll call tomorrow. The nurse practitioner I was seeing is gone from the practice now, but that's okay. I was going until the car died, and then really couldn't get there, even though it's only a short distance from my house. Now I think the connector bus does go by, but I don't think it did then. So my general practitioner has been handling my meds. I think they need a little fine tuning.

Okay, it's nearly 6:30. Time to get some of that bread and some peanut butter, I think. Or maybe spaghetti with vegetarian meatballs. Mmmmm. I have the ingredients, including frozen soy meatballs in the fridge. I've never had soy meatballs. Yeah. I could do that, and take anything left over to work tomorrow. :)

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