I am bone tired

even though I was only at work for the first and last part of the day. I left at 12:15 so that I could catch the bus that would get me to a doctor's office in time for a 1:45 appointment. I walked from the transit centre to the office, which was by Good Samaritan (they used to have an office over near my apartment; I didn't know until I made the appointment that they had moved, and only because I asked). I made it back to work about 4:15, this time waiting for a bus to take me down to the transit centre and then transferring to my other bus. I could have walked, but I'm not used to walking several blocks since I've had the foot problems for so long, and it was doing a number on my feet and knees.

It was a gynaecology appointment for a routine exam, for which I was slightly overdue. Because it was UK, there was not just the regular doctor and nurse but also a resident, who did the exam. It's the first guy I've had do the exam and pap smear in awhile. The regular doctor did have the presence of mind to pull the blinds before I asked. We all thought it was one way glass, but weren't sure, and if not, anyone walking or driving by at the right angle might have gotten an eyeful from a ground floor window. :)

The gowns were not big enough (the arms were quite uncomfortable), but I had a nice big sheet for privacy. I tell you, the best gowns in the city are at the St Joseph Breast Centre over at Eagle Creek. Even I find them comfy, even voluminous.

Because some women only have a GYN as their main doctor, there were a whole lot of questions on their checklist that had nothing to do with reproductive health, such as vaccinations, alcohol use, colonoscopies, that sort of thing. The paperwork even asked for odd things, too, like my mother's maiden name and my father's first name. The history, of course, was complete, and that was good. The one thing they never asked, which I thought was interesting, was whether I was sexually active. They just asked if I was using birth control, and if so, if I were happy with it.

I will say they were very thorough. They took my weight, blood pressure (which was good), listened to my heart and lungs, did the actual pelvic exam, and did the pap. Apparently my cervix played hide and seek with the resident. I had no idea that it could turn away from the speculum. Who knew? Apparently mine was shy. :) I must admit, I was amused.

I arrived early, of course, but the wait wasn't very long. The bus took more time than anything else.

I'd scanned several articles for a doctor from our journals this morning. This evening I retrieved the last article from a database I'd been locked out of earlier (there's only one licence, so we get turnaways sometimes). Then I entered all my charge sheets and got that all squared away.

Tomorrow will be fairly busy because 1) I have another doctor's appointment, but fortunately it is in the morning and across the street from me, 2) I need to request several articles via interlibrary loan, fill one request from another library, and catalogue, and then the charge entry should be quite busy as clinic is very large, plus I'll get sheets from today's clinic and the OR.

Today I got my new Medic-Alert card in the mail, and also the farewell episode of M*A*S*H on DVD from Netflix. I'm excited to see that again after all these years, but I'm not sure I'm up to it tonight.

The plan is to do a load of laundry early in the morning, since my appointment means I'm leaving the house later than normal.

Do you think I could take a nap without crashing for the night? I got sleep last night, but I felt a little hung over this morning since I'd been up 17 hours on Sunday, had cleaned house, done the grocery run, and played the game (in which we finally defeated the creature that could walk through walls and phase her hand through your chest, squeezing the heart until you died). I got home at 11 and I was probably asleep within a half hour. I tried to get up at 6, but it wound up being 8:30.

So tired. We'll see. At least I'm going to chill for awhile, maybe listen to some music I have out from the library. If I don't write again, good night.

I'm cold. I'm almost never cold.

The temperature outside was already cold, but is falling, and I was having trouble staying warm even in my bed, which is unusual for me. The thermostat was on 66 degrees. I've moved it up to 68 to see if I feel better, and I put on a comfy nightshirt and house socks (they're knit socks with vinyl bottoms to them), and I've brought out the Snuggie, a sure sign that all is not right with the ambient temperature. I shouldn't complain--it's been so warm and I've had lower heating bills as a result, but for that reason I'm not used to it.

I am not doing laundry, or taking things out, in this. It's supposed to get down to eleven degrees tonight. Tomorrow it's supposed to be a bit warmer. We'll try then.

I've got to take a break before I do anything else

I just got home. It is freezing (23 degrees!) and windy. I've been running strong for seven hours, five of them out and about, and two of them on the phone with two different companies trying to sort out a mess with my flexible spending card.

First I worked on notes, getting them done early on a Saturday, which is better than normal, although I should transcribe them earlier in the week. And the batteries for the voice recorder are charging. Then someone I know from the pharmacy came and got me on his day off to take me in to work with them on the card issue. United Healthcare, which is not only my medical insurance company but also my flexible spending account company, was very helpful. Medco, which is my pharmacy insurance company, really was, well, not, although she at least admitted that she was out of her league and no one there knew what to do. It looked like I was going to have to pay $400 out of pocket and then get reimbursed. Then the pharmacy tech ran them through one at a time, and virtually all went through. Anything where I pay less than the normal co-pay, including my pen needles and one of my meds, declined, and they had been declining the whole thing. Still, it's crazy that they have to run ten meds through one at a time, especially as they get charged by the credit card companies for each transaction. So I'm not giving up, and I'll call the companies again this week. But it took two hours on the phone just to get to that point. In the end, I had to pay $60 for the things that wouldn't go through, which is far better, but the point is all those have gone through before and should continue to do so without problem. I am definitely going to let our human resources people know as well, in case others are having the same trouble.

The pharmacy was closing by that time, so we left and my ride, who had mailed that package for me, suggested trying the vegetarian oyster sauce at Good Food Co-op, but it was to no avail. At that point, I realised that I'd left my wallet and phone back at the pharmacy. Fortunately he had a key and I knew where it was, so he ran in and got it for me. Then he dropped me off at the Richmond Road Kroger so I could look for oyster sauce and do a little shopping. He was so great about taking me around.

When I came out of Kroger, the bus had just gone by, and wouldn't be back in over an hour, so I went over to Subway, because I hadn't eaten since 8 am and it was 2:30. I'm still used to checking my blood sugar and giving myself an insulin injection in public, but I think I do it fairly discretely.

Then I waited at the bus stop with several people including a woman who complained about how rude Southerners were, but was fairly, well, odd (read possibly mentally ill) and frankly wouldn't have been happy anywhere she lived, by the sound of it. She should go back to wherever she came from, in my opinion.

I stopped by the library briefly and then walked home, carrying many things and generally freezing. The one thing I had considered doing, but forgot to do at Kroger, and that's probably just as well, because it would have been a waste of money, was play the Powerball, which had the highest jackpot tonight in its history. I sure wasn't going to walk down to the Circle K station laden as I was. So now I'm in, I'm warm, and I'm thinking of taking a nap. This early in the afternoon I doubt I'll stay asleep for hours on end. Maybe. I still have a lot to do, of course. But all the absolutely vital-had-to-do-it-today stuff is done, although the laundry really does have to be done before Monday.

I stepped outside to clear my head

and it's snowing tiny, sparkling snowflakes. Not too much has actually accumulated; the walks are clear, just the bushes, cars, and a bit on the grass. But that's supposed to change.

I've been asleep since shortly after I arrived home, so about 7:00. Yes, that means once again I slept through 'Grimm' and 'Supernatural'. I so need to get caught up on them, and of course I was sure I would wake up, so I didn't set the DVR. Fortunately they have episodes online.

I just took some ibuprofen, the first I've taken since starting the Neurontin, because I'm having other types of aches and pains. I will say I woke up at 9:30, about an hour and a half past due for the Neurontin, and my legs were bothering me so much I couldn't stand to have pants on. Now they're fine, and my feet are mostly so. The odd thing is the test showed that I didn't really have any pronounced neuropathy--it was mostly normal. But it sure is helping, so I'm not going to complain, and it doesn't make me groggy or otherwise impair me, plus, considering how much ibuprofen I was taking, my stomach is likely happier.

I've taken my Lantus and done all the nightly stuff except feed the fish, which I will do when I put the lights out. I've already had five hours' sleep, so the plan is to get up early in the morning and do laundry and game notes. In fact, I'm tempted to do it now. But I'm a little achy right now, so I don't want to go lifting much.

Tomorrow's agenda:

• Do laundry
  
• Transcribe game notes
  
• Charge batteries for the digital voice recorder (keep forgetting to do this until it's almost too late)
  
• Visit pharmacy and iron out the flexible spending issue or at least get new meds and pay for them so I can be reimbursed
  
• Mail a package for a friend from the post office (which is conveniently near the pharmacy)
  
• Get some groceries, look for vegetarian oyster sauce
  
• Go to the library, download 'Where's My Water?' through the wi-fi connexion and pick up a book they have on hold
  
• Take out the trash (of which there is some, but very little)
  
• Take out the recyclables (of which there is a goodly amount)
  
• Clean the kitchen and bathroom
  
• Do housework (different than cleaning, as I have been informed that cleaning involves water, as in dishes, mopping, and scrubbing)
  
• Sew a button back on my coat, which popped off today on the bus when I tried to get my backpack off

It's a lot to do, I know, but hey, that's what Saturdays are for.

I must confess

that today I sent a DVD that I have had for almost six weeks from Netflix without actually opening and watching. It's suppposed to be a great film (it's A Beautiful Mind), but I was just never 'in the mood' for it. I'll put it back in my queue for later. The next one will be the final two-hour episode of M*A*S*H, so hopefully that will get me back into my 2-discs a week schedule. And of course, there's so much to choose from streaming when I am in the mood. There's still all those episodes of 'Downton Abbey', for example, or for shorter periods of attention span, there's 'American Dad', 'Invader Zim', and 'Avatar: the Last Airbender', and I never saw the complete series of any of those. I just wish 'Supernatural' was on streaming with the other CW shows.

Despite it snowing a good part of the day

I was warm and cozy in my library and had flowers to brighten up the place. The carnation spray on the right came from work, from recreational therapy. The plant on the left is an oxalis, often mistakenly called a shamrock, and if you look closely (click on the picture to blow it up if you have to, it's blooming little delicate pink flowers. I got it around St Patrick's Day last year from Kroger, and it was tiny compared to now. Around May I stuck it in the present pot and it just exploded in size. I'm thinking of repotting it to see if that continues. I had one co-worker who said the leaves look like butterflies flittering. I like that. :) Anyway, I brought the vase of cut flowers home for the weekend, but the oxalis will stay at work; it really likes the lighting there. You can also see part of my library in the background, just in case you're interested.

The snow hasn't been sticking, but that should change now that it's gotten dark. We're supposed to get 1-2 inches through tomorrow. I hope it's okay outside tomorrow as I'm going to the pharmacy, the library, and the grocery, plus doing laundry. We'll see.

I get the objection

but as a librarian and avid e-book borrower, it pretty much sucks.

Why can't you borrow that Penguin e-book from the library?

Starting today, if you go to your library to borrow the e-book of "Bringing Up Bebe," Pamela Druckerman's new book about parenting the French way, you'll come up with nothing. That's because its publisher, Penguin, has pulled out of its relationship with OverDrive, the vendor that supplies most libraries with e-books and audio books.

The change was unexpected, but it is not surprising. Penguin joins publishers Simon & Schuster, MacMillan, and Hachette Book Group in not allowing e-book library lending. As e-books have increased in popularity, major publishers and libraries -- who share the goal of getting books into readers' hands -- have found themselves bumping into a number of complicating factors that seem to put them at odds.

For Penguin, that issue was OverDrive's relationship with Amazon. A 2011 arrangement made library lending possible on the Kindle. Publishers have objected to the library loans being executed through Amazon's servers -- imagine walking into your public library then finding yourself at the Target checkout counter.

It took nearly an hour and three alarms

(Listening to Natalie Merchant's 'The Living')

to get me up from an almost 12-hour sleep. I was up briefly at 2, and took my Neurontin (I'd taken my insulin before I'd gone to bed, it just was too early for the other). And somewhere around 10 there was a phone call. But otherwise I slept. The Neurontin is working wonders with the foot pain, and I got some distilled water so my humidifier on my CPAP could run, so I was set and comfy. I realise now that when I was sleeping so much in the past, I wasn't really sleeping that much in all that time, because of the pain. It was keeping me in this light, dreamless sleep where I woke up all the time. Now I'm sleeping much better, dreaming again, and although I'm not quite sure where the need for the long sleep came from, it was nice to get. I'm not groggy like I used to be upon waking, either, although I'm a little congested and coughing. I've noticed I've been having some trouble breathing very deeply lately, so I'm going to ask them to check me out at my appointment Tuesday. I haven't felt sick or anything, nothing beyond the ubiquitous allergies. But it may be my asthma kicking in. I had an actual episode during the dog attack where I needed my inhaler, and that happens something like three or four times a year, my asthma is so mild. I really have trouble breathing if I bend over, but I think that's just because I'm fat.

I am not up early enough to do any laundry, so that will have to wait until tomorrow. Fortunately it is jeans day and I have just enough clean clothes to manage that. As far as tomorrow goes, we're going to try to iron out the problem with my pharmacy and flexible spending card not meshing, and the guy I know who works there is actually going to come pick me up and take me across town to the pharmacy so we can talk to the company together and then bring me back, saving me maybe three or four hours on the buses, which I really appreciate. At some point tomorrow, I'm also going to go by the grocery and get, if I can find it, vegetarian oyster sauce for a friend, as well as some groceries for me. I also need to stop by the library briefly.

Today we're supposed to have clouds followed by a rain-snow mix later in the day that should cause things to be, well, miserable in terms of getting out and the commute home. I've got a ride, thankfully. My aim today is to catalogue as many books as possible. I did 45 the other day, and I've done 149 in the last few days. It's not full-blown cataloguing--I'm using LibraryThing, where you type in or scan the ISBN and it populates it from other sources. I then put in the tags and the National Library of Medicine classification number, for that is what we use on our shelves. So it's basically copy cataloguing with a little additional work.

It's been a long week, and I think people are ready for Friday. Our accrediting agency was at the hospital for three days doing a survey, and I gather it went well. They never came to the library, but I was ready with my codes and acronyms for dealing with crisis situations, as well as what we as the library could do in the case of computer or utility failure, so I felt fairly confident if they were to come in. In the fifteen years I've been there, I don't remember a surveyor asking about the library, but it could always happen.

Speaking of work, I should probably start getting ready. Hope you have a great end of the week.

I ordered

a micro SD card for my tablet today, with a price that was much better than the phone store and also includes an adapter and USB card reader for essentially free, given the price of the other cards alone. I also figured out how to take the tablet out of the case (the guy in the store had put it on) and get the door open on the back to see where to put said card. It should be here in 3-5 days. I love Amazon, despite my earlier post. I also ordered a couple of books, Elizabeth Peters' A River in the Sky which is now a bargain book, and I have it on the Kindle, but I have all the others in physical format and wanted to add it to my collection, as well as Jack Vance's Tales of the Dying Earth, which I have never read but which came highly recommended through YKWIA. I haven't bought any non-Kindle books from Amazon in awhile.

Speaking of YKWIA, he told me a story about a friend of his today that just made me sigh and shake my head in disbelief. She was in an accident before the holidays when she was sitting at a stop light and a truck whose driver wasn't paying attention ran right into her. Since she was on the job at the time, workman's comp paid for her therapy. But they were tired of doing so, and even though her physical therapist and doctor agree she needs two more months to get her stamina back, the workmans' comp people sent her to a doctor of their choosing who didn't even examine her, only asked a couple of questions, and then filled out paperwork that got them off the hook. That's wrong. But then there was what followed...she was at home and heard the mail carrier honk a horn a couple of times and went down to the mailbox. She had a certified letter she had to sign for. Inside the envelope were two things. One was a birthday card wishing her a happy day and expressing how great it was to work with her. The other was a termination notice. Really? That has got to be the tackiest thing I've heard in awhile.

10 reasons I'm glad I didn't settle for a Kindle Fire

That's a little inflammatory, I know. Lots of people have Kindle Fires, and love them dearly. I know I feel the same way about my Kindle 2. But every device has good and bad points about them, and each one should be evaluated for what the individual needs and will use it for. I know several people with Kindle Fires, of various technological abilities. Some ordered them the first day they were available. Others got them as gifts. Some ordered them without really looking at the requirements first. I've played with three different Fires hands-on, briefly, but even before it came out I determined that they would not fit my needs and instead pursued (and finally, with my tax return,) got a T-Mobile SpringBoard, which is also a 7" tablet, is overall more expensive, although I put up less money up front than a Fire, but in my opinion, the extras were worth it. So here are the things I don't like about the Fire, with the caveat that I am comparing it to what I eventually went with.

1. Wi-fi: The Kindle Fire is wi-fi dependent. Sure you can download material, watch movies, do cloud browsing--but only in a wi-fi network. I am almost never in one, except at the public library (and then I'm usually looking for books). We have a public one at work, but we're not supposed to use it. I don't have a wi-fi network at home. I've had trouble troubleshooting Fires because there was no way to access, say, a video to see if the volume was really okay without going onto a network. One person I know ordered the Fire without realising this, and had to actually go set up a wi-fi network (or rather, have a family member do it) after she got it. Granted, I pay $20 a month for 4G connectivity, but I can check my e-mail on the bus, look up odd medical terms for a friend while he's on his computer, watch a movie via Netflix at my grandmother's which has no computer, that sort of thing. It was the number one reason I decided the Fire was not for me.
   
2. The button to turn the thing on and off is on the bottom of the device. This means that when I've been holding it against me, I've inadvertently turned it off or made it sleep. Mine's on the side in portrait view, which turns out to be the top if you turn it in landscape.
   
3. The earphone jack is also on the bottom. To be honest yesterday when I was doing the troubleshooting, I wasn't sure whether the jack was an earphone or power switch, and had to look it up in the guide. Many tablets do not charge through a USB cord like a phone, and mine is no exception. The Kindle Fire is. That's not bad, that means you just need a cable and not a charger with you if you'll be around computers, but I wanted to make sure I didn't poke the earphones into the wrong jack, and I didn't like the placement in terms of listening if you're holding it portrait up.
   
4. The carousel: I don't care for it. Give me my five Android screens with widgets and icons that I can instantly go to wherever I want rather than scrolling through whatever the most recent stuff is. This is actually something I dislike about the regular Kindle. I'd rather put my categories in order alphabetically rather than most recent first, and there's no option for that.
   
5. No text-to-speech ability. I use this feature all the time on my Kindle 2, and it's sad that it's not available. It also means the device is less accessible to those with visual issues.
   
6. No camera: I have two cameras, a front-facing one and one on the back. That means if I wanted I could Skype or videochat, which I don't really do since I have no one to do it with. But I can scan information into applications like Google Goggles, and most importantly, I can catalogue my books through the LibraryThing scanner application, something I'm using at work and at home. Yesterday I catalogued 45 books alone, as opposed to doing about that many in a good two-week period.
   
7. Its thickness. The Fire is a thick little tablet, and well, seems a little clunky next to mine, which is slimmer and just a little bigger in the rest of the dimensions. But that's solely aesthetics.
   
8. The lack of customisation. The Fire pretty much looks the same except for the cases regardless of who has it. Oh, the content is different (and I'm learning you can tell a lot from a person by what they have on their Kindle), but the look is pretty much the same carousel. I have five home screens to change wallpapers, icons, widgets, whatever I need, and maybe this is something I just haven't played with enough and I'll get a bunch of comments about how you can put a live wallpaper on a Fire, but I'd still argue that in terms of sheer ability to customise, regular Android tablets and iPads win.
   
9. Which brings us to--Amazon content. Please realise, I am an Amazon girl. I adore Amazon products and customer service. But I can get an application from Amazon (and you should look into their free application a day feature in their store) or from the Amazon market. Sometimes the market has higher versions of the same programs, but they also have many more applications. I can have Netflix on either device, but to get Amazon videos, you need Prime, at $79 a year, which isn't a bad price and comes with 2-day shipping, but I already spend $8 a month on Netflix, so why should I add it? I agree it's brilliant the way they packaged it for their content, and you can get other stuff on there through applications or transferring files, but is primarily a device to deliver Amazon content, and I feel I have the best of both worlds.
   
10. Reading ease: This is go to apply to any tablet, including my own, and is rather a comparison of backlight vs. the eInk of the regular Kindles. If you're going to primarily play games, music, or videos, the Fire's great (I don't include productivity applications--I use a lot of those on my tablet, but really haven't tested them on the Fire). If you want really just to read--get another Kindle. The eInk is easier on the eyes, although you need a regular light source (no reading in the dark in bed with a regular Kindle). But in general, reading, I think, is a more pleasurable experience on a regular Kindle, and there's that text-to-speech issue.

There you have it. Maybe they'll change some of those in forthcoming iterations. And there's lots of good things about the Fire; you just have to decide if it's right for you. There was a news story about how it topped the list of most unused gifts this past holiday season. Some people aren't prepared for it, or lack simple tech know-how. I will say the Fire requires less than a standard Android tablet, so if you're less geeky, it may be better for you. But there you go.