I didn't go to Danville today

Mainly because with the issues with the car,  I didn't want to take a chance breaking down away from home.  The car made an awful sound earlier as I turned,  for example.  That might have been the ball joint,  which along with the rear brakes,  needs replacing. My car is also running rough if the defroster or heat is on. Apparently everything's breaking down at once.

I did call my mom at the hospital,  but no one answered. I'll try again tomorrow morning.

We're not playing the game for a few weeks.  Brenda's mom is having issues, too,  and she's going to go visit her for a few weeks out of state.  She'll try to get back in time to take me to my procedure in early December.

I finished Tehanu today, and I checked The Other Wind out from the library on my Kindle,  and I also put Tales from Earthsea on hold,  since the library only has the collection of short stories in print form.

Okay,  I'm headed to bed.  Have a good night.

I have

Turned off the alarms on my phone for tomorrow; I have the day to myself and plan to sleep in. Beyond that,  I want to get the house straightened up,  as I may have people over Thursday.

Today we had the game.  I started the notes last night but got sleepy with an hour left in the recording,  and finished it this morning,  but it took two hours to finish because there was a lot of description towards the end that I couldn't skip.

My ankle has been giving me problems all day,  so A did a lot to help me with the housework. The game was interesting,  with a lot of investigation,  with murder,  witchcraft,  and heresy afoot. After the game,  I made YKWIA some food and watched an episode of 'Lost Girl'  with him.  Now I'm home,  after finding a parking spot finally,  the worst I've ever encountered in terms of finding a space since I moved here eleven years ago, and dragging in my laundry,  the laptop,  food,  and my tote bag that I'm using as a purse.

So now it's off to bed.  Good night!

Home from the Call of Cthulhu game

and two of my characters and a non-player character that I am very fond of pulled through something that could have killed them dead, dead, dead. Two of my characters were bound magically together and were threatening to merge. I'm glad everything's back to normal now. It had a 1 in 10 chance to botch, and could have gone very badly.

Before the game I watched the next-to-the-last story of 'Wizards vs. Aliens'. I will mourn it's ending. I also did my normal cleaning, and I took A to the store for a newspaper. The game itself was fun mostly Brenda trying to collect something that would ensure that the NPC wasn't fried. After the game I made YKWIA supper and we watched the first episode of 'Lost Girl' together, saving 'Wizards vs. Aliens' for another time. I am backing peanut butter bread (I know, it sounds odd. But since I'm putting peanut butter on it, it seemed like a plan. It just has flour, salt, peanut butter, brown sugar, and yeast in it. I put in crunchy peanut butter. Yay! It should be out about 12:45 am, since I"m baking it on rapid rise mode.

I must admit, I'm a little worn out and sleepy. Good night!

Home after the Cthulhu game

and it's still light outside. I went over this morning, helped clean the house, got some things at Kroger to eat during the game, and played for almost six hours. Now I'm home and I think I'm going to try to do some reading rather than just turning in for the night and maybe put some music on or something soothing to listen to. So I think I will retire to the bedroom, get comfy with a study pillow to prop myself up with, and have a quiet evening. Good night.

Found it!

It was under the laptop bag in the bedroom. Now I can take it to the library tomorrow before work, before they open, so that I don't get charged for another day. And when I get paid on Thursday I'll pay the fine. Pesky book on woodland gardening, I tell you.

By the way, someone in my general vicinity is apparently a fan of HP Lovecraft as well, for whenever I go onto the laptop, like I am now, one of the Wi-Fi connexions that pops up says 'Miskatonic'. I wish I knew which neighbour it was. I wonder if they ever heard of the Call of Cthulhu roleplaying game. Ach, well. Not all of us can be mystical ninjas and witches fighting off venomous serpent men in the Amazon. :) Good night!

A busy, satisfying long weekend

Friday:
1. Was let out of work early and spent some time with a friend on his birthday
2. Watched a couple of episodes of 'Haven' with YKWIA

Saturday:
1. Food at Masala at Beaumont's lunch buffet; lovely Indian food
2. Dessert at Baskin Robbins'
3. A trip to Barnes & Noble; I got a book with a pull-out chart on the key events in various world religions and a book for Brenda's birthday (which isn't till October, but it's nice to have things together early)
4. Grocery run
5. More episodes of 'Haven' with YKWIA

Sunday:
1. Game preparation
2. Game notes
3. An episode of 'Haven' with YKWIA
4. The Call of Cthulhu game with Brenda and YKWIA

Today (Monday)
1. Lots of sleep, finally getting going about 1 pm
2. Found what I was looking for last week, yay!
3. Watched two episodes of 'Witches of East End' with friends
4. Watched an episode and a bit of 'Rizzoli & Isles' with them
5. Watched the new episode of 'The Awesomes' with YKWIA
6. Visited and looked things up on the Internet together

Now I'm home and it looks like it's going to storm for the second time today. I am listening to Bastille's album Bad Blood and thinking about reading some on my Kindle before heading to bed. So it was a lot of rest, good time spent with friends, and catching up on TV shows. We didn't watch 'Doctor Who' on Saturday because we barely got back from the store and YKWIA and I were just plain pooped from a busy day, but both of us recorded it, anyway, so there's that to watch, too. The coming week I have four appointments after work, one for each weekday, one of my own and three of a friend's where I'm giving him a ride. Anyway, it was fun and restful this weekend, and I feel better prepared for what will no doubt be a very busy 'short' week. I hope you had a restful time as well.

So, I'm waiting for Brenda to show up for the game

We've been watching 'Dan vs.' on Hulu, and in this case Dan is against vegetables. It's quite an entertaining show. Now we're moving on to 'Mother Up!', which is pretty fun, too. This one has Rudi trying to quit smoking.

I'm blogging on the laptop, but through using my phone as a hotspot. I'm moving a little slowly today. I overslept, was late over to my friends' house, but persevered and got the cleaning done. I am also doing some laundry of mine while we wait, which reminds me, the buzzer just went off, so I need to go check on it. Hope you're having a great weekend!

Such a busy week--I can't believe it's been five days since I blogged

Sorry about that. I've been over at my friends' house a lot. I can't remember what I've done day by day, to be honest. It's kind of a blur. We've watched some 'Dan vs.', some 'Star Wars: the Clone Wars', and lots of YouTube videos, especially MadTV ones. Friday I did a little shopping at Gabriel Brothers and then went to over to my friends' house for 'Grimm'. Yesterday was chock full of errands, and I was out for 11 hours, and then got home and crashed. I didn't even do the game notes till this morning around 6:30. Today was the game, of course, and by that I mean Call of Cthulhu, although many other people in Kentucky were no doubt watching the finals of the SEC tournament. So there was the game prep beforehand as well.

A winter mix came in today, with the temperatures falling throughout the day, and with rain turning to freezing rain, sleet, and finally snow. I had to scrape my car for awhile when I went to leave because there was some ice on it under the snow. Then I started home on snow-covered streets. I'd say it's about an inch right now, and it was snowing pretty heavily. I think I did 20-30 mph the whole time. My check engine light came on, which was troubling, but I pushed on because I'd already taken out the things out of the car such as the air mattress and backup CPAP machine that I had in case I got stranded at my friends' house during the winter. Maybe that wasn't such a good idea. But once I got home I downloaded my car manual and checked what it said about the light. It's apparently something triggered by the emissions sensors, and something was off. I didn't see anything blocking the tailpipe (I thought maybe snow might be), but it was dark and I couldn't see well. They said it could just be some water vapour in the gas and suggested filling up (I'm at about 1/4 of a tank right now) with high quality gas and driving at least three times from a cold start on city streets and highway to see if it goes off. If not, I should get it looked at. We'll see.

I am getting a little frustrated with my partials. They did adjust the bite Friday morning, so it's more even. The lower ones are still a bit tricky in that they sometimes come loose while I'm eating, but the Poligrip helps with that. But it's really hard for me to get the upper ones to seat correctly...they have to clip around a tooth, and if I don't get them right, they fall out when I open my mouth to talk. I thought I was getting them in okay, and sometimes (not often), they go right in. But on most days when I have a time constraint, I have to take them in a little plastic container with me and put them in after I get where I'm going. I tried that today, however, and it was no go. I simply could not get them in well. I realise it takes practice, but it's been over two weeks. But I'll keep trying. I'm going back to the dentist on Wednesday for a crown and will address the looseness and see if maybe they can line them or something. Friday I told them my gums were sore towards the end of the day, and they said it would just take some time to get used to them. I still talk funny, too, but it's not as bad as it was, or at least not to my ears.

Okay, I have a few things to do here before I go to bed. And my 'm' key is sticking (I have this trouble on my laptop, but it always moves around to different keys). Weird.

It feels positively balmy

holding steady at 11 pm at 48 degrees, our high for today. Even the projected low, 23 is higher than most of our highs lately. So needless to say, when I got home from the game, the first thing I did was take my trash and recyclables out, then cleaned out the fridge and did some dishes. Sadly, we're going to plummet again, as tomorrow is forecast around 0 or 1 degrees Fahrenheit. Not fun. A high for Tuesday will be about 13. So I'm practically basking as I long as I can.

Yesterday we got four inches of snow, which, with the high winds, drifted quite a bit. But the streets are in decent shape thanks to the warming above freezing. We may get some rain and snow tonight, and a bit of snow in the morning, but the plunge to single digit temps for the third time this month is the big story.

I didn't get much done on my 'snow day' yesterday. I did a lot of napping, and worked on my physical therapy exercises, all of them, but didn't do so well about watching TV, although I did watch a couple of hours of the Smithsonian channel, a programme on the finding of Richard III's body and one on Sitting Bull and the Battle of Little Bighorn that were both interesting. I still haven't watched 'Grimm', 'Sherlock', or 'Downton Abbey', though.

I struggled with the notes for awhile last night, then spoke with YKWIA for an hour on the phone and returned to them, only to stall. We'd talked about something that's going on in my life that I haven't fully dealt with, and it just made me want to curl up in a ball some more. So, I went to bed and kept trying to wake up every hour on the hour, without much success. I finally got up about 6:30 and finished them shortly after 8 am. I know I shouldn't have that much trouble doing them, and it's really helpful to do them, but I just dragged this time. I am glad I brought my laptop with me, because in my sleep-deprived state I didn't manage to get the correct files into my Dropbox files for access from my phone. Overall, I didn't get decent sleep, so I find myself (after way too much soda) as still a bit pumped up by the game (in which things were resolved that had been issues, but one of my characters was suddenly nearly killed, and may still die, unless they can figure out how to get her out of a stasis) but pretty sleepy at the same time. It's been a long day of housecleaning, grocery shopping, gaming, etc. I've also recorded 'Downton Abbey' and 'Sherlock' to watch later.

Tomorrow I have physical therapy. Tuesday it's a dental cleaning in preparation for some oral surgery. At some point I've also got to go get some medicine from the pharmacy, too. And I should go ahead and do my taxes, as I have all the paperwork I need. But for now, I think I'll call it a night. Hope you had a good weekend as well, and have a good week ahead. Stay warm. Good night.

I'm getting a little tired of this whole 'polar vortex' cycle

of snow followed by brutal temperatures. We're warming up today to the 20s with an additional 3-6 inches possible of snow, and then the temperatures are going to plunge in a day or so back to the subzero range. Our homeless and warming shelters are full, the electrical grid is somewhat delicate and people have lost power. And we're lucky compared to places in the Northeast as far as the snow goes. The sustained cold really has been a problem.

I was going to try to get an oil change on the car tomorrow, but that's not going to happen. On top of the snow issue, there's a whiteout possibility as winds whip up and blow the snow. I've already told A and YKWIA that I'm not coming over tomorrow, and that we can try to do the grocery run on Sunday. The main roads were dry this afternoon; but streets in residential areas such as mine are still packed snow with a glazing of ice on them as slush froze in the cold temperatures--another few inches, or even just one or two, will make it all the more difficult to get to those main roads, which are going to take a day or so to get clear again. While I was at their house earlier, I dropped off a DVD from Netflix so they can get cozy and watch it tomorrow while it snows. My plans are to catch up on a few things here. I didn't watch 'Grimm' tonight, for example, as I took a nap, but I recorded it and will watch tomorrow. And there's 'Downton Abbey' to consider. But there's also game notes and stuff around the house I can do. I also need to call Brenda to see is she can take me for some oral surgery that's coming up in a couple of weeks. I've got it set up so I can stay with friends afterwards so they can watch me for a few hours' afterwards and then I can drive home the next day.

Last night I filled up the fish tanks as they were getting low, especially the big one. I was a little worried about the heater blowing without enough water covering it. Besides, that's gets the fish squared away for awhile. I also changed the carbon filter in the big tank. I didn't realise it, but I'm out of the cartridges for the small one, and so I need to get a pack of those from Meijer's soon. I really want to vacuum the gravel out in both tanks; I may do that tomorrow if I can get it to work. Those self-starting vacuums never work well for me--I can never get them to start right--and I'm sure not going to try to do it by suction after I have oral surgery, so maybe now is a better time.

Physical therapy is going well and I'm already finding some relief with the pain and numbness in my arm. Tomorrow I'm going to do my exercises, since I'll have time, as well as maybe a little of those workout DVDs I ordered, if I can rearrange the living area nicely for more room. I have PT again on Monday, and then have my teeth cleaned on Tuesday. No word yet on whether we're playing the game or not on Sunday; that'll depend on the snow and Brenda, I suspect. Better to go ahead and do the notes tomorrow though, just in case.

Okay, I woke up around midnight for awhile, but I'm ready to go back to sleep. Have a good night, and stay safe and warm.

It's late and I have a headache

so I'm going to take some ibuprofen and head on to bed. There's no Cthulhu game tomorrow, as Brenda had a small crisis at home to take care of. I spent today watching 'Misfits' with YKWIA and also took A to the store. Earlier today I saw part of the UK-Tennessee basketball game as well. It's been a long and productive day, and I'm hoping for a little time at home tomorrow, after I do some things over there. 'Sherlock' returns tomorrow night for season 3, for example.

I'd like to write something more profound than 'I'm tired and hurting', but I'm afraid that's all I've got at the moment. My arm hurts worse while typing, for example. So, good night, and I hope your weekend is going well.

Chrome is still acting up, and I'm losing my connexion

I was going to try to update the firmware in my router, but I can't easily determine which version of the model it is--according to a description, it should be version 1, but it's running a higher version of firmware than that. There are two 'version 2s', with different downloads depending on which it is. :(

Saturday was all about cleaning out closets with friends, doing notes, doing the grocery run, etc. Sunday was game prep, game (we finished an adventure, and one of my characters got engaged to her necromancer boyfriend, the father of her unborn child), and then 'Witches of East End'. I was up late, getting home a little after 11 pm and going straight to bed. I got a little off on my insulin yesterday and it affected my mood. Towards the end of the evening I was worn to a frazzle and about ready to blow. So I went on to bed.

Today has been good, but I've been terribly sleepy all day, despite getting a little over seven hours' sleep. I have a lot to do at home tonight, but I have to lie down for just a bit, even if it means setting the same five alarms I do in the morning to get up within an hour or so. I'll try to write later.

I did get some good news today. My orthotics for my feet will be covered due to my diabetes, so I'm hoping that will help with some foot pain I've been having since I went back to wearing my normal non-sandal shoes. My doctor said the orthotics I had were well-built, but not really ideal for the diabetic foot. He suggested a softer one that is designed with that in mind. Considering the normal expense (my current pair, the ones that are now wearing out, were $380 out of pocket), this is very good news.

Well, despite a nap, I have finished the notes

although Brenda had to cancel this week, for good reason. So tomorrow I'll go over a little later than usual, do the usual Sunday things, and visit. Maybe later in the day I can do that laundry; I'm not really wanting to do tonight.

One of the tangents we went on during the game was the costuming of the upcoming show, 'Reign', which is supposed to be about Mary, Queen of Scots in the court of the French, but which seems to be mostly, as I put it, 'teen angst in fantasy mediaeval dress'. Of course, it should have been Tudor-style. Brenda is a professional costumer and long-time Society for Creative Anachronism participant, and the game master is a gay man with a history degree who also studied theatre. Nothing was architecturally correct, the clothes were just completely Renaissance Faire, and as I (also a history degree, and lots of graduate level classes, mainly dealing with Europe form ancient to French Revolution) looked up earlier, Mary didn't go to France as a teenager for the first time--she was five and grew up at the French court. In other words, there is nothing vaguely historical about this show. There was much frothing. See for yourself:



Now there were a couple of interesting trailers we saw, also from the CW network. There's the 'Tommorow People', which originally was a British show that both YKWIA and I grew up with in the 1970s and loved, that was then remade in the 1990s (it was okay, not as good as the original), and now it's made it to America, with a much darker feel and yes, teen angst. The jury's out on that one. Here's it's preview:



Another was 'The 100', which looked interesting. It's about 100 young prisoners who did not fit into an overcrowded society in a space station sent back to Earth decades after a global nuclear war as a test to see if humanity can return. Here's that preview:

Thinking of taking a nap

It's a beautiful day, with a light breeze and sun at the moment, although it rained a bit earlier. I've been over at my friends' house for awhile. We watched a bit of 'The Vicar of Dibley' (I do love Dawn French), and we did the grocery run, so I picked up some fruit, cheese, and crackers. I really love the Milton's Everything crackers that Kroger carries, especially with pimiento cheese. I find it very filling, and I don't overeat with that.

There were two unfortunate things that happened today. The first is that I developed a fever blister, something that happens occasionally and which annoys me to no end. I used to get them right before school pictures. But I have a prescription cream with an antiviral medicine that I hope is still good and will help. The second is that I killed a bird with my car. It was a robin who tried to land on the roadway right in front of my car, swooping in rather fast. I couldn't stop in time, felt the impact, and it happened so fast I wasn't able to avoid it. It's like the poor thing committed suicide by car. But I do feel rather bad about it.

Otherwise it's been a good day. I found out we won't be playing the Cthulhu game tomorrow because Brenda had to cancel, so instead we're going to work on some character sheets and do some upgrading to my characters, something she did while I was off cleaning the apartment. I really should go ahead and do the last game notes tonight, but I think I will lie down for just a bit.

It was so nice to play the game today

and then afterwards YKWIA shared something with me from his childhood, the 'Ultraman' series from the '60s, which was a little hokey (think rubber suits, jets on strings, and radioactive monsters in Japan), but nevertheless fun. Now I'm home, and operating on about five hours' sleep, so I'm going to take a shower and then head on to bed. Tomorrow he's going to come see (read: inspect) the apartment for good measure. After all the work I put into it, I hope it passes muster. We're not playing next weekend because Brenda has a Society for Creative Anachronism event to attend. But we started a new adventure and she's getting to play a character in the past who is alive who is normally a ghost. :)

It was so muggy last night that I broke down and turned on the air conditioning

and as a result, slept really well, despite getting about 5 hours of sleep. It was very nice to wake up in a clean and fairly organised house. I made the bed, took a shower, got dressed, and now I'm munching on herb bread for breakfast, which is yummy. I was out of parsley flakes, so I used the mystery herbal mix instead entirely. I gave some of the bread as an offering along with some mead last night. Granted, I usually use red wine, but I had it on hand, wasn't probably going to drink it (I won't drive if I've had one drink--I don't handle wine well, and there's always a chance of an emergency coming up, so now that I'm driving again, I'm even less likely to drink), and didn't think She'd mind, as I gave her the whole bottle.

Okay, I'm going to eyeball the house and see if I missed anything, and then head on over to the game master's house. I'll be a little early, but since there's prep and a grocery run to do, plus I'm assuming he wants to come see, a little extra time won't be amiss.

3:58 am

I guess the question now is whether I get up and work on an ankle that, while still hurting some, is vastly improved now that I've had it elevated for several hours, thereby avoiding losing any more time (I have to get this house cleaning finished by Saturday), but which also puts me in some sort of bizarre schedule (shifting it by four hours earlier), or if I should at least go back to bed till, say, 6 am and work like the dickens. I'm not quite rested ( I've had about five and a half hours of sleep). But I am worried I won't finish in time. Plus I still have to do the game notes. On the other hand, I offered to do an errand tomorrow, and have a few of my own (shoes, post office, bank, leading office). I shouldn't be driving around on little sleep. I suppose I could just hope the adrenaline keeps me up Friday night. :) I like the motivation that this is giving me, but I'm feeling the pressure now. I don't want to miss another Cthulhu game.

It's a brand new day, and

I still feel under the weather. The game was cancelled for today sometime around noon yesterday, since I was sick, so that's just as well. I'm finally eating a bit and up, but eating is a challenge because it's hard to breathe through my nose, and I'm sneezing a lot. So I'm keeping it to a sandwich and leaving it at that. To be honest, I think I'll go back to bed, even though I just got up, now that I've got something in me. Sorry to be fairly boring this weekend. I really do't feel up to finding neat news stories or interesting tech tidbits. I'm just hoping I feel better before work tomorrow. It's kind of a good thing when you get sick on weekends, because you don't miss work, but it's kind of annoying too since it eats up precious free time. Oh, well. Back to bed for me.

Surfacing

So essentially, except for my posts here when I've eaten, I pretty much have stayed in bed and slept all day. On the one hand, I feel slightly better in the throat area; on the other it's getting towards evening and I think I may have a fever. Not fun. I just called to see if the game is on or off, and got no answer. They're probably in bed, too. I must admit I don't have much appetite tonight, so I just ate a bit of string cheese (mozzarella). In case we play, I will work on the notes, but I really do feel like going back in to the bedroom and curling up in a ball again. I may work for awhile, then sleep, then work.

Home from the game

Today started out a little rough, as every little thing was frustrating me, but it got better quickly. My blood sugar was way high this morning because I'd forgotten my pen needles yesterday so I hadn't had my insulin all day. That was a good part of the problem. I forgot them again this morning but went back home and got them. Once I took my medicine things went smoother. A and I got things ready for the game. YKWIA and I watched the Venture Brothers for awhile. Then Brenda came over for the game. I had a good time, we stopped about 8, and I got home around 9 pm after helping YKWIA with some stuff on the computer. Now, despite a lot of caffeinated soda, I am ready for bed. Tomorrow should be busy. So, good night for now. Take care, and I hope you had a nice weekend.