Random things this morning

1. When you forget to take the trash bins to the kerb the night before, and the city is starting early due to the heat, it behoves you to get up at 5:00 AM to take the trash out and roll all three (trash, recycling, and yard waste, when in Lexington, have names, in order: Herbie, Rosiek and Lenny (for Lend a Hand). This is a somewhat perilous process in the dark, without anyone's knowledge, as you are also a klutz and liable to fall. But all went well. Still, at that point, you might as well stay up.
2. I have very short hair, but I have kept all my hair ties because they are extremely useful. I mainly use them to wrangle charging cords.  However, just now, I dealt with a sagging lumbar pillow that I have to adjust every single time I sit in the chair because the strap is stretched out by pulling it back and securing it with a hair tie. We'll see how it goes, but for now, it's at the perfect height for my back.
3. So far, I have used my extra time filing papers, mainly all the information the government sends me regarding my benefits. I know they're mostly duplicates of the notices they put on the portal, but still, some part of me thinks I should keep them. I also just had to change an asthma preventative inhaler that I've taken nightly for at least a decade (Breo Ellipta) because it's not covered by Medicaid. They cover Advair Diskus. Hopefully it will work as well. The pharmacist who works with my doctor helpfully advised me that the dosing is twice a day, though, so that was nice.  I spent 29 years with the same commercial medical insurance (UnitedHealthcare) when I was at Shriners. I knew my benefits intimately, and it was extremely good insurance: $150 deductible/$1500 out-of-pocket. Even though it was an HMO, it didn't require referrals as long as someone was in-network, and I never had issues with anyone being out-of-network in all that time. Since I've left, I've been covered by two Medicaid managed care organisations (Aetna Better Health of Kentucky and UnitedHealthcare Community Plan of Kentucky), both of which use MedImpact for medications (all of them do, at least for our state) and then for two months I was on a assisted qualified health plan from Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield where the state paid about $900 and I paid $500 for a $400-$500 deductible plan (medicine did not count like it did for my commercial plan, so I never hit it like I thought I would, or I would have gone for something cheaper, although medications were probably cheaper, and the first month of the doctors' visits were cheaper; the second month everything went up, including the premium, due to me pulling some retirement income out--to pay for the premiums and medical bills. It's been very hard to navigate all the changes. I'm highly literate, great with technology, and having been to university, an expert at red tape and bureaucracy (I always said I majored in red tape and minored in line waiting at the University of Kentucky); I  can't imagine how difficult it would be for someone without those advantages.
4. Today's agenda is fairly simple:
1. Work on as many chapters as I can, proofreading a talking book for the Kentucky Talking Book Library. I am woefully behind. I got chapter 3 done yesterday, which I was sent in April.  I got the whole book yesterday...fifteen chapters to go.  Life just has gotten in the way, and I should just buckle down now and get as much as I can get done while I'm off.
2. We need to put a large shop fan together to get some air moving in the house. It's a little oppressive out there, where the central heating went out last year. I am the only one with air conditioning in my room, and there have been other barriers to putting it in the rest of the house, so we've been relying on different types of fans and using my room as a cooling area for everyone occasionally.
3. I need to pick up some medicine at the UK pharmacy today.
4. My roommate's going over to friends' tonight, so it'll give me some chance to work on the book more. It's a true-crime murder mystery from the 1890s in northern Kentucky, so it's been pretty interesting, both from an historical and story point of view. 

Those are about all I can think of for now. That's a little rambling, I know. I'm just waking up, with no caffeine (I only drink soda on weekends, and I'm not a fan of coffee or tea; what can I say? It's terrible, I'm such an Anglophile and I hate tea.)

It's very quiet in the house

Just the sounds of my fans going above my head and nearby. We finally have some relief to the heat (it's been in the 90s with little to no rain for weeks), with rain in the forecast tomorrow, but I'm hot-natured, so even though it's in the 70s now both inside and out, I keep the fans on in my room whenever I'm there. But the quiet is nice. Sometimes it's good to only hear your own thoughts.

Today  I did many things but I did not go to the YMCA and do exercises in the pool like I meant to.  I haven't given up, I just had a lot to do today.  But I did have some time to myself and some relaxation time, as well as game notes and laundry and errands.

I went to the pharmacy today to get my roommate some medicine and see if they had my Lantus, as I started on my last pen of the pack.  Turns out they'd sent a request to my doctor's office for a refill and it had been denied.  The reason? They said they had never prescribed it.

Now, I have been on Lantus for a couple of years, Basaglar before that for a short time when it was on my insurance's formulary, and years of Lantus prior to that, including quite some time of it from this office, continuously up till this past month.  So obviously there has been a mistake. I'll have to call them on Monday.  I'm hoping I have enough to last me through Monday so we can get it taken care of, a pen only lasts a few days--I get 10 per refill, and they last about 3 days each.

On Habitica, the task/productivity 'game' I play, there was a reading challenge I took up to read a book called The Halloween Tree by Ray Bradbury.  Now I like Ray Bradbury, and it's actually a children's book, so I thought it would be good to read some fast-moving fiction. It's been such a struggle to read fiction (even non-fiction has its challenges), for several reasons.  For one thing, I think being on the Internet has made my attention span that of a gnat.  I've also apparently been a little off in how I use my bifocals, and it's hard for me to find a nice comfy place to read--I can't read in bed easily, and the comfy chairs are in the study (where my friend is often watching streaming stuff) or in his room.  Reading in bed requires lots of pillows, a folding lap desk, and a study pillow with a neck bolster.  I can read at the kitchen and study tables, when it is quiet, but the chairs are wooden and really need cushions after a while.  Still, I managed to read the whole book in a very short time, maybe an hour or an hour and a half (it's 145 pages long).  I enjoyed it--I knew all the various cultural ties to the practices of Halloween, but that was fine. And I'd figured out what happened to one of the characters.  I guess the only real thing I had a bit of an issue with it--not a lot, just a bit, were that there were no girls at all in the characters, and little to no character description or development, really.  But it is a product of 1972, and while Bradbury's writing deviates poetically from standard writing styles, he shares a common thread you find particularly in male writers of the time, and especially in science fiction writers, somewhat tilted towards action and away from characterization.  (Women, by contrast, tend to over-describe and have a lot of emoting going without driving the action forward at all)--a good writer balances both.  Still, his description of the settings and experiences are very good, and this story actually needs somewhat blank characters, as they represent certain timeframes of history in their costumes and with the exception of the one character from whose perspective the story is told,  there's no real personality among the children, and I guess there really doesn't need to be.  Anyway, I did enjoy the story, and it was a little chilling there at the end, so suitably Halloweenesque.

Later, we ate dinner from Subway with a friend, who had a couple of Pierce Brosnan 007 movies on, and then we returned home and I took up finishing the laundry.  I've done my clothes and I'm working on my friend's bedding right now. I'm going to do mine tomorrow.

Tomorrow I think I'll try to get up early.  I was supposed to do a couple of shelves, pulling off the books and dusting them.  I didn't, but I can today.  I did do the game notes, which were more timely.  If I could get that and my normal Sunday pre-game chores are done really early, I might still be able to go to the Y and do some exercises in the pool and work out in general for maybe an hour, total.  Then Monday I can go back for the low-impact pool class that I took this past week.  I did really well with everything (and have been in much less pain and been able to move and bend better as a result) except this thing where you put the foam dumbbells under your knees and then balance above them.  I need something to hold on and even so couldn't do it.  The instructor suggested getting a lighter pair of dumbbells (I had the heavy ones) next time.  People were really nice and non-judgmental, though, and I enjoyed it.  The instructor was very good.  We ended with a mindfulness exercise.  So it starts out easy, gets the heart pumping, puts you through all sorts of movement, but it isn't extremely intense--just right for my level of conditioning.

I  also need to run by the library while they're open and pick up a book on hold on the zero-waste home--I've been on the list for a while.  It must have been there when I picked up The Halloween Tree earlier, but I didn't realise it was in, so I didn't look.  I also checked out CDs by Sam Smith and Rush.

Okay, I'm going to get ready for bed.  The laundry's still in the dryer, but at least I'll have my teeth brushed, etc.  Hope you're having a good weekend.

Glad that it's Friday, but

I am planning on going in to work tomorrow, at least for a few hours, maybe a half a day. The plan is to move some files (I'm going to stay in the same office, so I need to switch the outpatient visit authorisations and the surgery ones,  as the woman who has the other office said I was welcome to, so long as she knows where things are.) I also have some authorisations to document that we didn't get in today because I trained all day on surgeries and off-site imaging and testing. Finally, I'll work the queue, filling out forms and creating a running request for clinical notes that can be fulfilled by the medical records department on Monday so I can fax a whole bunch of requests then.

That should keep me occupied for quite awhile.  I'm going to run by the storage unit earlier in the morning and get out one of the folding bookcases to take in since I can park in the building's parking lot tomorrow.

On Monday, I'm training from 7-9 and then will be in the rehab department all pretty much all day, or at least till 3 or so.  I think I return to my desk then if I remember right.  Tuesday I'll train from 7-9, be in rehab for the rest of that morning, leave for an appointment, and come back from 3-5 for more training.  Wednesday and Thursday I'll train from 7-9, be in rehab from about 9-12 and then in my office thereafter.  By then I should be doing my job with my trainer nearby for any questions.  On Friday I'll be in my office all day and should be working on my own, again, with her just a couple of offices away if I need her.  Meanwhile, she's going to train my replacement on Monday and as needed throughout the week.  So hopefully I won't be doing it all for very long. I seriously don't know how she's done it for months now, with just a couple of things taken over temporarily by others.  The off-sites alone could be a full-time job.  Scheduling is difficult and can be frustrating, as you are playing go-between between families and facilities.  One she showed me today took about 45 minutes to hash out.  That's my part, the scheduling, as my replacement has already been doing the pre-auths for those and they didn't see any reason to switch, even though the others were doing the opposite section prior to this.

So I'll be responsible for getting pre-authorisations for surgery cases that are done in our ambulatory surgery centre, as well as those of our patients done at the university that have out-of-state Medicaid, and patients undergoing halo traction, which is a long inpatient stay, plus scheduling the MRIs, ultrasounds, and EMGs that are done at the university and other facilities.  My counterpart will get authorisations for outpatient visits and off-site imaging and tests.  There are some others things--reports and audits, for example, but that's the bulk of it.  For the outpatient visits, there's a lot of faxing.  For surgeries, there is more contact via phone with the insurance companies, plus, of course, the scheduling is mainly done via phone.  We will, of course, be each other's back up and help each other as needed, too.  I think we can work well together.  We're a little more isolated from the department--on a different floor, in fact.  But because we deal with so much protected health information, we each get our own offices, which is nice.  You've seen mine.  I like the setup there better as the desk is on the left facing out towards the common area and so the phone and computer are on the left.  I am right-handed, so I prefer the phone on the left so I can write with my right hand, although I have a headset, too, and that will help.

If I stay for four hours tomorrow, I'll have a total of 22 and a half hours of overtime for the two-week pay period or an average of about 10 hours a weekday.  Which is good, as I have to file my taxes still, and then pay on them.  The overtime won't last forever, but I'm trying to do as much as I can while it's approved.

Okay, I'm going to try to get some notes transcribed for the game Sunday. I'm assuming we'll do that.  It's supposed to be 95 degrees that day, and I'm not sure we'll be comfortable, but we'll try anyway. :)

Good night.

I finished the normal

Sunday chores, but it took about 45 minutes of lying under the ceiling fans to recover. Now I'm going to work on the shelves (which is technically a Saturday chore). The only other things on my list are to take some library books back, buy some glucose tablets, and get a birthday card for a co-worker. Oh, and of course laundry goes on for awhile, so I'll finish that tonight. My first load is still in the dryer. There's a second. I also have to wash the mopheads, the blanket the cat threw up on the other day, and YKWIA's laundry. I've been listening to Pandora all morning, mainly the 3 Doors Down station.  YKWIA has mainly had quiet time.  No game today because Brenda is celebrating Father's Day with her husband (I know, Father's Day is next weekend; either she is celebrating early or they made a mistake, but regardless we had a break from the game this week, so I didn't have to do notes, although we should be good to go for next week).

Hot

It's 69 degrees outside and 80.8 degrees in here--at 7 am. So much for getting up early to do chores when it's 'cooler'. Time to check the weather forecast for this week. :( No idea when we can get the air conditioning looked at, much less fixed.

Warm

This weekend we're in the 90s during the day and it's been miserable in the house even with the fans on. And because the house is brick, it holds the heat in. So wishing it would cool back down. I did go in to work for 2 1/2 hours today, so at least I spent a bit of time in air conditioning. Tomorrow I have to do laundry and chores, so I'm getting up early in the morning to beat the heat, hopefully.

But I'm the smart one, right?

So last night it was miserable in my room.  There was no air conditioning still (it's been about two weeks), the ceiling fans were on, but it was almost 84 degrees with 60% humidity and I really had trouble dealing with it, but finally got to sleep.  The least amount of cloth near me (which is, of course, what I sleep on) was almost too much.

Fast forward to this morning, when I suddenly realise that when we came home last night I utterly forgot to open my window.  So much for skipping first grade, being in a gifted and talented programme, and doing so well in school.  None of that matters if you can't get outside your own head long enough to process sensory evidence and open up a freaking window when you're hot. :)

Timeline of my ambition

SUNDAY, MAY 13^TH AGENDA

0800      Wake up. Shower. Caffeinate. Take medicine.

0915      Do cat boxes.

0930      Take out trash and recyclables.

1000      Clean the bathroom.
1030      Start laundry.

1045      Go to Supercuts.

1100      Get haircut.

1145      Go to a friend’s. Take his mom’s flowers he had me get for her.

1200      Visit for a bit.

1230      Go to the storage unit.

1245      Drop off winter clothes.

1300      Root for exercise equipment.

1330      Return home. Rest.
1430      Sweep whole house.

1530      Rest.
1545      Mop kitchen and bath tile.
1615      Wash mophead.
1630      Go to Kroger for bread yeast. -- Put off until tomorrow.
1700      Start bread maker.  -- Put off until tomorrow.

1730      Cover Letter-YKWIA

1800      Cover letter 1. -- Put off until tomorrow.

1830      Cover letter 2. -- Put off until tomorrow.

1900      Feed animals.

1915      Apply for the job for YKWIA.

2045      Read.  -- Not up to it tonight.

2115      Listen to music.

2200      Go to bed.

UPDATE: I also unpacked the exercise equipment, blew up the balance ball, and put things away.   The cat is enjoying the box, so I haven't recycled it yet. I brought in my microwave from storage as well since the one we're using is perhaps on its last legs, but then it's way over 30 years old.  Mine is only 26. :)

My job applications aren't due for a couple of weeks to a month, so I'm going to work on those tomorrow.  I'm still working on the laundry, actually.  I've done all his clothes, my clothes (and I put all of mine away from last week and today), and I'm about halfway through his bedding.  So it'll probably be a later night than 10 pm.  Also, the bread I made yesterday came out better than I thought--it had a huge air bubble in the bottom, but not in the top half so I can wait for the yeast and the new loaf.

Of concern is the heat.  Tomorrow in addition to the yeast, I am going to stop by the storage unit and get my fans, something I should have done today, but he is almost never really hot.  But he was today, and the dogs certainly were--we can put the fans in the living room and that should help, as it's the only room other than the bathroom without a ceiling fan.

Okay,  either the washer or dryer just buzzed, so I should go check on the bedding.  Have a good night if I don't write more.

Hot

It's 74.5 degrees Fahrenheit in the apartment. I don't want to turn on the air conditioner yet, so I'm sitting in front of my bedroom fan. I sleep with one going all year round, under a single fuzzy blanket, as I'm hot-natured, and the perimenopause makes it worse.

I need to take a friend's food back to him tomorrow, as we transferred stuff to my refrigerator this weekend when his refrigerator (but apparently not the freezer, although we emptied that, too, as a precaution) went out. He's been storing half and half and mayonnaise (two absolute staples) in a cooler with ice in it, placed in the refrigerator. One thing that stayed in the freezer that he shared with me, though, were frozen bananas, wrapped in wax paper. They are sweet, cold, and a great substitute for ice cream. I may have to get some wax paper and start doing that. Try it, sometime.

It is very hot out there, and I am cranky

So I went and did my errands. My blood sugar is normal, and I've been running kind of high all week, so maybe my body thinks it's low. I ate a little snack to help if that's the case. Then there was sticker shock. I remember on my way to the co-op thinking, they've got this stuff in with supplements, protein powders, and whey (the lady I called the other day let me know where it was), so it's going to be expensive, maybe as high as $14. And lo, a 16 oz jar was $14.95 before tax. I so should be on the Price is Right--I had A's order at Kroger down to a few cents last night, too. That was the smallest one in granules, the smaller ones were in capsules, and I did check the baking and bulk goods, too. Alas, it was pretty pricey. Despite being an owner at the co-op, I don't go very often, mainly because of the prices. I just don't have the money to shop there much. I usually go when I need a specialty item, like this. The good news is the dough conditioner takes 3/4 cup of lecithin at a time, and then you mix it with small amounts of other things and put it in a jar, but then you only use 1/2 teaspoon of dough conditioner per loaf, so it should last for awhile. The person who created it said each batch she makes lasts about 84 loaves. Also, lecithin is made from soy, and this is non-GMO, at least.

I stopped by Sav-a-Lot, which I rarely have gone into, because it's near the co-op, to see if they had Diet Sunkist, but no. So I drove over to the Chinoe Kroger (where I've applied for a job) and got some, 3 for $5, which isn't as nice as the $1 a two-litre last week, but still, not bad. So now I have a little caffeine in me, and I've eaten a bit, and I feel better. I was kind of lagging there towards the end. That leaves me with about $26 after my bills, so it'll be a rough week or two, although not as bad as the last two, as I have some food, and I have some dishes that I'll have leftovers from to take to work. And maybe, just maybe, I'll have a second job by then, and that will help.

I have about an hour before I have to leave to pick up A, so while it took awhile, at least I got back with a little time to spare, although not enough that I feel comfortable baking the bread just yet. Besides, I have to work on the kitchen first. Not only are the non-refrigerated things still in bags, what is in the fridge, like fruit and dairy, needs to be rearranged, because I just stuffed it in there the other morning. Fortunately there isn't anything really to throw out, except a plastic lemon and lime (the ones with the juice in it), because I looked at the expiration date and it turned out to be from about the time I moved into this apartment, so about 12 years old. Yeah. I need to pay more attention to the condiments, I guess. Glad I bought a real lemon and lime the other day.

I think I'd better go set an alarm to know when to leave, so I don't get into things and forget him, or run late. :)

I just woke up

After falling asleep while it was still light outside, in a state of hotness that had been the main concern today.  It was only about 82 degrees before the rain,  but with the heat index/humidity it felt more like 98, and I was either in the car with the windows down or at YKWIA's,  and he's trying not to run the air conditioning in a bid to save money.  I'm coming home drenched,  sticky,  icky, and it's like the heat is sapping every bit of my energy.  After the rain it was a little better,  and he had the ceiling fans on,  at least.

So now it's 3:30 am and I've had a peanut butter sandwich and did all the stuff I normally do before bed.  I'm going back over tomorrow at 11 am to do my laundry and worn on the house.  We're going to watch a movie, too.  I just hope it's cooler.

Today's word is 'hot'

H-O-T. Hot. It is 95 degrees outside but feels like 105 due to the humidity. Even the hospital was a little sticky in places, and then I got off work and went across town to pick up a friend's medicine, and didn't feel like I should run the air conditioner since I don't have a lot of gas, of which I can't get more until Thursday, so I had all four windows down (or at least the two front and the two back were half-down, as that's as far as they go). Then I went to Kroger for stamps, dropped everything off at my friends' house, and now I'm home. I don't have the air conditioner on in here, either, because I'd like the house to be clean when they come to fix it, so I need to work on that this evening. Right now I have a small desk fan that plugs up to the computer that's helping. At night I sleep near a bigger fan as well. Right now I'm eating a peanut butter and spreadable fruit sandwich with a banana.

So, things I need to do tonight:

1. Gather up the trash and/or recyclables and take them out.
2. Move everything out of the walk-in closet.
3. Dump the water that's been accumulating in a small plastic tub there.
4. Straighten up the house.
5. Review and read through chapter four of my training manual for the class tomorrow, which is on how the brain works and has a boatload of information.
6. Water the plants.
7. Add water to the fish tanks.

That's enough for now, don't you think?

I look and feel sunburnt

but except for about 15 minutes today, with lots of sunscreen on, I haven't been in the sun except what has come through the window while driving, and the most painful part is on the back of my head, where it should have been safe in the car. So I'm not sure what happened. I've been red-faced and hot all day, inside, and a little sweaty. I really used the fan my co-worker let me borrow a lot today. We had our big sports clinic at work today, too, so most people were out there. I volunteered to make the certificates (we'd already printed them on cardstock, so all I had to do was add the name and a gold seal, the latter of which weren't particularly sticky, so I found a decent glue stick and went to work with that). The good news about that is I contributed, but didn't have to spend the day out in the sun and heat (it's 88 at the moment with a heat index of 96, and that's in the late afternoon, not in the middle of the day when everyone was outside). We got a free lunch, but I don't do hamburgers or hotdogs (or baked beans with meat in them), so I had a cheese sandwich with Fritos and a fountain drink. I'm hoping to have something more substantial for dinner. I kind of wish I'd ordered a shirt, but I didn't. They're a heather blue. In the past a lot of times they were pretty much neon, which I cannot wear without looking washed out. I do have one from last year in cyan that I got after the fact when someone didn't pick theirs up. Maybe that will happen again. :)

After work I ran some errands, but didn't get my allergy shot. I'll have to get back on track on Tuesday. I paid my rent (yes, it's late), and requested a new lease be drawn up for me to sign (eighteen months and it only goes up $5 a month, which isn't too bad, and after all I've been here 10 years and would like to stay).

I'm on my own for tonight. Last night I finally got some rest, and recuperated fully from the weekend of training last week. Today I'm going to try to watch something or do some reading, something fun, rather than just go in there and crash. I may go into the pool, for that matter, depending on how I feel after dinner. I did find the glasses I couldn't find this morning (they were of all things on my dining room table, not at the bedside (their place) or the bathroom). So I could wear them over to the pool. I had a spare, older pair as a backup with me that I packed in my bag just in case I had any trouble with my contacts. On any given day my purse or bag contains as a minimum:

1. Medical supplies (a bag with my oral meds, a pill reminder box, pen needles, injection pens, and the charger for my glucometer)
2. Glucometer
3. Epi-Pen twin pack
4. Asthma inhaler and spacer
5. Ear buds
6. Phone charger
7. Kindle charger
8. Kindle
9. Bag with toiletries such as a small hairbrush, lip balm, contact case and solution, glass cleaner and microfibre cloth, fingernail clippers, mirror, magnifier, and measuring tape)
10. Eyeglasses in case
11. Wallet
12. Pen and highlighter

So obviously small purses are right out. I do have a wallet case on my phone for the absolute essentials such as driver's licence, credit cards, and AAA card. Everything else is in the normal wallet. But if I'm over at my friends' and have to run to the store, I can just carry my phone in my pocket without bringing the bag. On the other hand, I discovered last weekend that putting a key card for a hotel room near your phone is a quick way to get it not to work. I don't know if it erased or just scrambled it, but I couldn't get in. Fortunately a nice lady in the room next to me saw me and went down and asked them to key me another, since I had all those bags and it saved me a trip down. On the other hand, women who look nice but who perhaps aren't could have easily fooled the staff into giving her a key to my room, so I don't know exactly if it really was a good thing or not. :)

Okay, dinner's here. I'll write later, after I check today's news.

Today's post-work to-do list:

1. Pay a bill.
2. Go to the pharmacy for me and for someone else.
3. Drop off the medication for the other person.
4. Eat dinner.
5. Check the news.
6. Apply for a job.
7. Watch 'The Big Bang Theory' season finale. I gasped and could have hugged him!
8. Work on financial stuff.
9. Work on the game notes, if there's time.
10. Work on the apartment, if there's time.

I broke down today and used air conditioning in both the car and at home. It was 86 degrees and more humid than it had been. Welcome to spring summer!

Hot

The herb bread is almost finished baking (and smells divine), and even thought the temperature outside is merely 56 or 59 degrees depending on which application on my phone I should believe, it's getting warm in the apartment, especially since I have been going strong for a bit. I think when I move to the bedroom, I'll open the window there. I finished the dining area and solved the problem with the purses. I have two hampers, which I sometimes use for laundry but more often use for recyclables. I took the large one and put it in the closet with the purses tucked inside. The smaller one is now stationed in front of the kitchen trash, so that I have one spot for trash and recyclables. Three purses that I rarely use are going to go away, probably to Goodwill. I'm burning some sandalwood incense and listening to Of Monsters and Men's My Head is an Animal, specifically 'Lionheart'. I vacuumed as well, so all that's left is the bath, mopping the kitchen and bath, and finishing up in the bedroom, which is mostly put back together other than putting the clothes away and some things to get rid of. I'm going to wait to do all that until I have a little bread, which will be finished in just a few minutes. It's herb bread with caraway, dill, and celery seed, Italian herbs, parsley, cilantro, basil, dill weed, and a little bit of crushed red pepper and dried onion. There's also just a bit of onion and chives cream cheese. In retrospect, I should have added some garlic powder. But we'll see how it goes. It's a modification of the existing recipe, and sometimes that can be a nightmare. The cream cheese was used, along with margarine, because I realised at the last minute that I no longer had any butter. It wasn't an ideal substitution, but it might just work. We'll see.

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.

Watched

an episode of 'Rosemary & Thyme' (which I'd totally forgotten about, until YKWIA reminded me of how we used to watch it on PBS) and then the movie Julie and Julia, which was fun. I really think Meryl Streep did an amazing job as Julia Child. And of course, I can relate due to blogging, and a little bit from learning to cook from YKWIA. It was rather fitting to watch, as Nora Ephron recently died and the 100th anniversary of Julia Child's birth will be August 15th.

I have not gone outside today, only stepped out of the apartment into the hall to check my mail. It is 104 according to the Weather Channel. I have friends who went out to Joe Bologna's on the bus. I do hope that they're okay. It's just so hot.

Well, I think right now I'm going to take a bit of a nap (and no, I haven't had one today) and then get back up and work on game notes.

My evil plan

for the next 35 hours is to stay inside where there's air conditioning. It seemed a good idea, given that it is 99 degrees (but feels like 101), tomorrow is forecast to be 101, and it's just too hot to go running around without a car. No riding the bus across town, no walking or riding the bus to the store, no farmer's market. Just me, inside, with a movie or two, some good books, and the game notes to do. Thank goodness for electricity.

I say this because I ran around quite enough today, as I went to work, called the dentist once they opened and learned that they would only be there till 1 pm, made arrangements with my bosses to leave, finished a report and sent that to one boss, did all my phone calls for today and Monday's appointments, left for the dentist at 10, got there by 10:45, and got the new temporary crown put on using a different material this time. They didn't have to numb me up or anything, since the prep work had been done, and she'd saved the mould from yesterday's session. Earlier in the day I'd discovered I just had one more Novolog pen with no refills, and I don't see the doctor until the 16th, so I'd called my doctor, whose office is near the dentist's, and arranged to pick up a sample pen. So after I left the dentist I walked down the street to my doctor's office, picked up the insulin, and managed to make it to the bus stop across the street in time for the bus, just waiting about 5 minutes.

I got back about 12:30, by which time I could eat and drink. I got a small black bean burrito in the cafeteria (full of soft food) and some water, ate, and then worked like mad to get some articles to a doctor that he needed today. Then I did what I could on the data entry front, for which I was behind from having taken off yesterday afternoon for the first dental appointment.

At five I left with plenty to keep my occupied Monday, but hey, you've just got to let things go and go home, especially when you're an hourly worker.

Once I got home, a friend called and we chatted for a bit. Now I'm eating dinner and trying to decide how to spend my evening. :)

Hope you are somewhere comfortable, or at least if not, it's by your own choice. Some guy was playing golf in 100 degree weather across the street from my bus stop earlier. Crazy, but I guess if it makes him happy....I do feel sorry for the energetic guy who stands out on the road advertising for the car wash and for the folks at the car lot who had to bring cushions out to their concrete table and chairs where they camp out while waiting for interested customers to drive up. It's so hot that when I came home no one was even at the pool.

I spent a good deal of my childhood in the deep South, back before air conditioning was quite so ubiquitous. How did we manage?

I've finally cooled off

I got a little later start than planned today, as I woke up at 9 am after a 14-hour crash in which I dreamed of all the minutiae I do at work, so I didn't feel as rested as I should have. Then I got a quick shower, dressed in the coolest possible clothing, shorts and a thin shirt, and headed out. While I was at the bus stop waiting I put on sunscreen on in the hopes that it would help, especially by the time I got to the farmer's market. I went to the bank on the bus, then over to Kroger's for bread, cream cheese, yoghurt, and bananas. I got back on the bus after a ten minute wait and rode to the stop by the library. I walked over to the farmer's market and bought tomatoes (both regular and pear), a pepper, zucchini, summer squash, a couple of cucumbers (no wax!), some new potatoes, and a lavender plant. Then I trundled home with everything, melting in the process, as it was about 11 by now and 88. I stopped by the leasing office with my rent, got home, stripped off my wet things (they're still damp even now, 3 and a half hours later), got into something else, ate some pear tomatoes (very juicy and good), got a sandwich, and played on Facebook for a bit, then laid down in front of the fan in the bedroom and got gloriously cool, falling asleep for another three hours. This time I dreamed that Brandon and his mother came over to this other apartment where my mom lived, and my dad was visiting. Very odd.

Now I'm up and I just ate some cucumber and tomatoes with a bit of salt on them. It's officially 101 ( a record) and possibly will warm up further to 103. Heat index is definitely above 105. There's a chance of a storm, which might be good, but one knocked out power in Eastern Kentucky, meaning no air conditioning for me, so I'm not sure I want to even think storm thoughts. I thought about going and getting a cola from the laundry room, but it isn't worth it. I'll drink ice water; it's better for me anyway.

Okay, I think I'm going to water my indoor plants and then read for awhile. Hope you're keeping cool!

H-O-T!!!

It's 101 currently, with a heat index at about 111. Fortunately a co-worker gave me a ride home, so I didn't have to stand outside waiting for the bus. It comes about 25 minutes after I get off work. (LexTran buses run ever 35 minutes during peak times and every 70 minutes on non-peak times, except on Sunday, when it's hourly).

I'm eating a dinner of grilled cheese and scrambled eggs tonight--something easy yet tasty.

Tonight and tomorrow I have free to myself (tonight was in doubt; a friend called me about coming over, but it turned out the tech problem he was having apparently fixed itself). I want to stay in as much as possible. I'm not even sure that I, being extremely pale and prone to heat issues, should try going to the pool with it this hot. I should go get my rent taken care of (although if all else fails, I've got until Thursday to pay it), and pick up a few things at the store. Also, there's a farmer's market very close to my house I'd like to check out. But if I do any of that, it'll be early, like 8-10 am. I could go to the store before the bank opens, then the bank, then the farmer's market on the way home (well, it's mostly on the way home, with a detour of a maybe 150 yards, so not long to walk). If it's really hot already, I may just wait till Monday to get my rent and hit the farmer's market only, as I think you can get bread there, and that's the main thing I would have gotten at Kroger. We'll see. The afternoon can be used for game notes, inside, in front of the computer, with the air conditioning on. :)