On Paper

Inspirational song: Whipping Post (Allman Brothers Band)

Today sucked. That's pronounced with about 14 us (yooos). I worked on a continuing education course chapter about fair housing laws that took so long it should have been its own 3 credit class. Then I switched to trying to file a 1099 for the rental on my crappy computer that I bought as a cheapo back when I first started in real estate. I do not want a new computer, even though an upgrade would be advantageous. I dislike laptops. I like tablets. I have someone offering to help me upgrade the guts of this one, so I'll start there.

I was still raging at the horribleness of tax forms when our college roommate arrived for game night. It took me too long to wind down to play Dice Forge. By halfway through the game, we were all starting to recognize we had skipped dinner, so I ordered chicken from Post, and let them add up my points while I drove for pickup. Now that we are full of fried chicken and fixins, I'm much more relaxed. 

I also managed to get out of helping put away the game, since I didn't play round two, that started while I was out. I'm happily bloating in my chair, listening to them continue to talk smack to each other. This is why we protect our Wednesday nights so jealously. They are healing in so many ways.

Can't Quit Won't Quit

Inspirational song: One of These Nights (Eagles)

These impulses come around in waves, the idea that I've been writing this blog long enough, and maybe I should let myself just stop. Usually the urge fades quickly, but only if I let it all wash over me and game out exactly what that would mean for me. I could pretend that I'd change to writing only weekly, but I know that not only would I fail to meet my own deadlines, but the people who read me for entertainment or updates would drop off to nothing. If I quit altogether, I would have a rapid decline in the skill I have developed, of being able to organize my thoughts in print rapidly, editing in real time. I would miss it, and I'd experience the feeling that I had forgotten to do something very important every night before bed. It is very possible that my emotional state would decline, because I really do use this as free therapy sometimes. And inevitably, something major would happen, and I would want to share all the details, and I would have given up my platform, with no one to blame but myself.

So I keep going. Every night, even when I'm tired. Even when I think I have nothing left in the tank. When I'm mad, sick, stressed, or anxious. When I have secrets I'm dying to tell but have to find other inane topics to keep from spilling beans. When I share way, way too much personal information, as if everyone would want to know my entire medical history. If I think I need to rest and take a night or a week off, I know I need to keep going more.

And now, I need to go wrestle an 80 pound shag rug out of the center of the bed. Wish me luck.

Studious

Inspirational song: More, More, More (Andrea True Connection)

This brain is full. May I have a fresh one, please?

I spent most of my day wading through a thick and crunchy online continuing education course. I still have two long and dry chapters to go to finish it tomorrow. But this is one more item off my "get this crap done now, stop procrastinating" list, so I am determined to get it over with. Unfortunately, it has left me with brain fatigue. I honestly don't think I could remember anything before noon if my life depended on it. I sort of remember the study breaks I took this afternoon, like when I took a shower and made myself a salad for lunch, dinner, whatever.

I failed to take my morning pills until 6 or 7 this evening, so now I am wondering if the B-12 supplement doc told me to start taking in the mornings will prevent me from powering down to sleep tonight. If that isn't a setup for a self-fulfilling prophecy, I don't know what is.

Anyway, I should suggest to Athena that we should move from the living room to the bedroom while I wait to find out if I'll be sleeping tonight.

Done Now

Inspirational song: Touch and Go (The Cars)

Maybe my recent habit of making a nice cup of hot cocoa to help me relax in the evenings is working a little too well. My eyelids weigh 45 pounds each, and my head keeps wobbling on my neck, nodding in what my pilot husband refers to as touch-and-goes. Relaxing, yes, it certainly is that. I'm about to relax myself right back to bed before I finish my nightly routine.

In order to allow me to make more progress on my year-end reports, grandpa took the kids out to the airport to watch planes again. It was a gorgeous day for it. I heard Denver hit 60 degrees for the first time since mid-December. They had a good time running around the viewing patio, and then they stopped at Mr S-P's favorite brewery for grilled cheese sandwiches and poutine. (I asked in the text thread which beer were they getting. He answered "lemon," with a photo of them drinking lemonade.)

I'm sending both electronic and hard copy year-end statements. I decided it was finally time, after an embarrassing number of years, to stop my laser printer from spewing magenta toner all over every page it prints. I bought replacement cartridges way back when the printer was new and never threw out the cartridge that came with the machine. I just printed everything in black and white for years. Getting rid of the crappy one made a huge difference. Enough that I was able to tell that yellow had been spitting on my pages too, to a lesser extent. Now both are refreshed, and that's one more bit of deferred maintenance off of my back. 

Use the Power for Good

Inspirational song: Lump (The Presidents of the United States of America)

Is the internet a marvel or a menace? I'm kind of feeling both today. For every time I get annoyed finding out how many crooks and creeps there are out there, I am delighted by how easily a short video or meme can cheer me up. I was all but ready to chuck the entire thing two hours ago. Then I had a snapchat filter conversation with my grandchildren. Mood lightened.

I had most of the day to myself. Mr S-P and our part-time housemate went up to the mountain to check on their respective neighboring properties. She was able to bully her way in through drifts of snow, and to get her previously comatose skidsteer to fire up and start plowing out the other neighbors. He tried to make a run up to where he could snowshoe in to his cabin. His 4runner took one look at the snow and said Nope.

While they were gone, I knocked many tasks off my overdue list. Housemate is a force of nature, and has helped me get on top of so much around here, that I'm able to do the icky things looming over me, like accounting and bill-paying. I took it all in small bites. I'd load the dishwasher, and take a short break. File some business receipts, break. Strip the bed and start the washer, break. It worked so well I even fit in time for a long soak in the tub, yet still got most of the stressful things knocked out.

Thanks to a goofy meme that my daughter tagged me in, for the next few days (until it isn't funny anymore), she and I will be referring to the grandchildren as Honk and Ham. As if to prove which one he is, in the first picture she sent me this evening, Dmitri gave his sister a side-eye with the hammiest face ever. He is quite the personality.

Storage Options

Inspirational song: Safety Dance (Men Without Hats)

Little man has reached an age and level of dexterity that means he is interested in investigating and testing everything he finds. If I leave something like a bottle of windex within his reach (or climbing range), in a flash he's gotten ahold of it, ready to spray on random pieces of furniture. He knows there are things he isn't supposed to have, so he will slowly approach his targets, like a cat stalking prey, and then suddenly snatch and grab, and take off with the TV remote or can of seltzer or whatever else he seized. The windex wasn't a random example. I left a bottle in the living room when I was cleaning and rearranging today. Naturally he pointed out my error.

So I decided I needed to go back to Walmart and get something I had seen two days ago when I bought that global green pothos. They had a bunch of small, pure green plastic tubs. It looked like they had just used a couple dozen of them to fill up an entire aisle, while they waited for some other shipment to come in for the garden center. They were perfect to keep my houseplant chemicals in. Smaller than my donation bin or Christmas storage. Opaque, so Dmitri doesn't know what's inside. Green so I know it's planty stuff. I will fill it with fertilizer, fungicide, neem oil, and sharp or pokey items. 

It took going to both Walmarts in town, kids, housemate, and service dog in tow. The closer store didn't have what I wanted. It was only at the big one, farther away from my house. While there, I also got another set of steel wire shelves, like I have plants on by my front window. These will go on the porch, so I have a better storage solution for my terracotta pots when not in use, and the outdoor supplies. It might even gain me a few square inches of clear space on the inside of the house to do this. Fingers crossed.

Unscheduled Slowdown

Inspirational song: White Rabbit (Jefferson Airplane)

Whoops, I don't remember authorizing a down day this week. Unfortunately my body slipped one onto the schedule. I had widespread pain, headache, and a tummy that expressed displeasure. So I did basically nothing all day. I had been just letting the pain have free rein over me, until our new housemate suggested slapping a lidocaine patch near the top of my spine to interrupt the signals below it from reaching my brain. I thought hey, why not give that a shot? Couldn't hurt to try. Darned if it didn't help. Yes, it took over an hour to really sink in, but I do feel better from shoulders down. Still have a headache, sore face from clenching my jaw, and indigestion. But I gained a new tool for the toolbox.

I stayed mostly in one spot today. Only photo I can come up with is the newly-hardened leaf on the philodendron white wizard.

Trying Something New

Inspirational song: Brand New Key (Melanie)

Of all the really important things I needed to do today, nearly none of them are completed. Best I can say is I initiated a contact with a company and did my part, but am now stuck waiting on someone else to make the next move. Everything else, yeah, it's totally my own failing that I'm not making progress.

I have come to the conclusion that I can't do anything to force a manjula pothos into existence. I've gone everywhere logical for me to try. I even drove to Boulder, after one last check at my local Lowe's. The Boulder Home Depot was another no. On the way back (when I was stopped, for the record), I checked Amazon. They had nothing. I tried the Walmart out on County Line Road, and there I made a compromise. I've heard people refer to global green pothos as "reverted manjula." So fine. I give in. I bought a global green, choosing one that had the lightest coloring and prettiest variegation I could find. I have set it next to my piano, with the last spot light from the grow light multipack I ordered. If additional light can bring it closer to a manjula in appearance, then so shall it be. I will run this one up a moss pole and see whether it gets big. Initial googling doesn't bring up a whole lot of examples of people doing this, but I haven't tried YouTube yet. Maybe it's out there. This experiment will keep me occupied until a manjula comes into my life.

It was game night tonight. I spent the hours after driving all over the county just cleaning up the kitchen and dining room so we could play games in a nice environment. Our new housemate was right there with me, so we cracked it out pretty quickly. We played Cascadia tonight, a wildlife habitat-building tile game. We just had four players, but Alfred and Athena each made contributions. Athena's was more chaotic than Alfred's. That might have had something to do with me luring her away from walking on the table by shaking cat treats. Apparently that resulted in an earth-shattering cataclysm back at the game table.

 

Checking the Racks

Inspirational song: Joey (Concrete Blonde)

When I concocted this plan to grow a Very Large Manjula, like the cool PlantTubers do, I absolutely underestimated how hard it would be to get ahold of one of these plants. I have seen every other imaginable pothos--golden, marble queen, pearls and jade, neon, and n'joy. So far the only manjula in four stores has been the $80 one in a gilded cage at Flower Bin. I had an urge to drive down to the Boulder Home Depot this evening to see whether they had one. If I hadn't been worn out by that point, I might have done.

I did go back to the Home Depot here after Rotary. They had just gotten a large shipment of houseplants, which had not been unloaded from the plastic wrapped racks they'd come in on. I peeked around the plastic and read the packing slips, and if there was one on there, I couldn't find it. I even got down on hands and knees on a concrete floor to look in the deep recesses of the bottom shelves, and struck out. Maybe I'll try Boulder tomorrow.

As a follow-up to something I hinted at a month or so ago, someone important to me has completed an exhausting course of medical treatment, and without disclosing any private information that I didn't gain direct permission to share, I wanted to give him a shout-out and say, "woohoo!" Glad this part is done!

Not for That Price

Inspirational song: Up, Up, and Away (The 5th Dimension)

There were a handful of piddly administrative tasks, mostly dealing with health insurance type issues, that had me tied in knots. I made a much bigger deal out of everything than any of it warranted. The most heinous of all the things was that one of them involved not being able to find my password to the Tricare website, and resetting it could possibly require a phone call (eeww.) Luckily, the password reset turned out to be manageable by internet, and the letter I fretted over was actually just an approval for the next round of botox. I then was able to move on and clear a few more emotional hurdles with relative ease. I still have a whole lot of other things to complete this week, but one of the worst road blocks is out of the way.

Having a sudden plug of stress pulled out put a small bounce in my step. I decided to go on a fact-finding mission. I'm still on the hunt for a manjula pothos, so I went to my local nursey to check. Bless the Flower Bin's heart. They're trying. They have a great selection of very healthy plants, but boy, they attach a premium price to them. There was a manjula, all right. It was in the locked cage where the fancy plants live, for a ridiculous price. I've been watching the plant tube videos. I know Home Depot is shipping them in their 4 inch pots for 7-8 dollars a pop. I would rather make 10 trips there in the next two weeks, watching for the right shipment to come in, than pay $80 to Flower Bin. Sorry, FB.

On my way to the Bin, I ran through @Home. I'm going through and increasing the pot size for several plants around here, and they usually have a good selection of planters. They hadn't really set out the stock yet, but I still found three inexpensive ones worth getting. Also found a couple things in the Christmas clearance section worth grabbing. I got two strands of white LED lights and a spool of glittery red mesh for a grand total under 3 dollars (incl. tax.) I'm ready to take away my winter display that seemed to transcend merely Christmas design, and put out something Valentines-adjacent. These seemed like the appropriate base for that. I probably have something pink or heart-shaped or similar to fit in the theme. I'll look around before Valerie comes over next.

Hey, locals. Can I enlist you in the pothos search? If you happen to be at a Home Depot in the next couple weeks, will you look in the 4 inch pots of random foliage plants for manjula? There will be a photo below of what it looks like. (Marble queens look similar, so check the label.) If you see it, either message me or snag it and I'll come to you and get it. If it isn't the $8 kind, just point me to the location where you saw it, and I'll evaluate my options.

Mediocre Performance

Inspirational song: Walk This Way (Aerosmith)

First run-through of service dog practice was this morning. Saoirse Louise performed adequately for a pet dog. She has miles to go before I'd even vaguely consider her to be a service dog in training. We started with a car ride up to King Soopers, so I could get the one ingredient for tonight's dinner that I lacked. She growled and woofed at dogs on the street, showing that she has now decided the car is an extension of her territory. Not sure I approve of that. I left her in the car at King Soopers, and by the time I reached the sidewalk in front of the store, not forty feet from where I parked, I heard a car horn going off. I turned around, just sure it was my car, even though I couldn't see the taillights flashing or anything. It stopped, so I went to buy a head of red cabbage, an errand that took less than five minutes. As I approached the car, I heard the horn again. I also received an alert on my phone. The horn was the motion sensor in my car as she danced between the seats. No, Hyundai, I did not leave a child strapped into the back seat on a hot day. I left an anxious polar bear in the front seat on a cloudy, brisk day. She was fine.

We growled at a dog next to the Murdoch's as we crossed the parking lot, on the way to a coffee drive-thru. The young woman handing me a drink (for my daughter, not me) asked if I wanted a pup cup. I raised an eyebrow at Saoirse, and asked if she deserved it, after threatening that dog across the parking lot. But I let her have it anyway.

It has been way too long since I took her through a hardware store, so she did a lot of pulling and sniffing at Home Depot. Two people tried to pet her. One made contact before I could say anything, and the other was reaching as they asked. I explained that we were trying to revive her training, and the woman understood and pulled back her hand. Saoirse, on the other hand, loves people, and would have happily cuddled the woman. So we are off to a very slow start.

The kids were a whole new level of extra today. I was overstimulated and a bit shell shocked by the end of the evening. They are still cute and wonderful children, but wow, am I in over my head on days like this.

Dessicated Soil

Inspirational song: Back on the Chain Gang (The Pretenders)

With how busy the holidays were around here, it seems like ages since I did major plant chores. I repotted three of my existing plants, and put all three of the new alocasia plugs into one pot this afternoon. It had been so long since I had done anything like that, the soil mix in my sealed plastic bins had dried out so much as to be hydrophobic. I soaked everything, and the pots were still dry halfway down under the surface. In anticipation of eventually finding the plant I was looking for yesterday, I washed fertilizer salts off a wide terracotta pot and drenched the soil in it. I might go ahead and assemble a wire cage for a moss pole to use once I find a manjula pothos. Not sure whether I will fill it with sphagnum moss yet, or at least soak some so it is ready to go.

I was told they do get shipments of manjula at Home Depot, and to check back regularly for it. At the same time, I have been advised that I need to take Saoirse on regular walks through stores like Home Depot to get her re-acclimated to public spaces. It looks like she and I will be regular lurkers down there in the upcoming weeks. 

That's about all I have tonight. Fewer potbound plants, and a worn out grandma. I remembered to get a few pictures before the grow lights on timers shut off.

Out of the House

Inspirational song: Keep Your Hands to Yourself (Georgia Satellites)

There has been a gift card burning a hole in my pocket for almost a month. Honestly, no one should have expected me to make it this long. It was to Gulleys plant nursery. How could I wait any longer for that? 

I asked the new housemate whether she needed an O-U-T as badly as I did. She agreed, so three of us (two humans and a service dog) loaded up and headed north. I was looking for specific plants to spend my gift card on. I looked everywhere, but no joy. I ended up grabbing three tiny plugs of alocasias (varieties that were wildly expensive not even a year ago), for under five bucks each. I still have ten dollars left on my gift card, and I had them put a note in my account to call if either of those other plants comes in. 

Since I made the housemate wander through a plant store (not her vibe at all), she said in exchange she wanted to go to a game store next for D&D dice. As if I would say no to that. She got a big handful of beautiful polyhedral dice in shades of turquoise and aqua, and I got a set in shiny royal blue, and a loose 20-sided die in a pure, clear yellow.

Our last stop in Fort Collins was Costco for dog food. While we were there, I grabbed "high value treats" for Saoirse, in the form of canned chicken (as in the kind for human consumption). We are getting serious about restarting Saoirse's training, effective immediately. Housemate has a lot of experience with her service dog, and she is showing me methods to get my puppy much closer, hopefully all the way to service dog qualified. I just realized, as I typed that, that there is a service dog emoji, that my phone is suggesting. I think my heart just melted.

Because It Was There

Inspirational song: Stepping Out (Joe Jackson)

In this installment of our long-running series, "Man, Those Are the Luckiest Kids Ever," our superstars went on an errand with mom and dad, and ended up going to a big mall full of kid attractions. There's a mall that is hanging on (somehow) down in Broomfield, that is a real throwback to a simpler time (aka my youth). It's in the classic style, with a few anchor stores that have exterior entrances, with all the rest pointing inwards to central spaces. In the area near the very large food court, there is a playground, with coin-operated "rides" and big cushioned expanses where kids can run and climb. Elsewhere in the mall, there is a train that kids and parents can ride. And our babies got to go there and hang out for no other reason than it was nearby and they would like it. This is what childhood should be all about. I absolutely love this for them.

It was nice getting photo after photo of our train enthusiasts having a blast, while I was taking periodic breaks from house cleaning. I didn't bother going anywhere today. I worked on getting ahead of the tidal wave of chores that sneak up any time I slack off for an hour or so. I even knocked out a few stupid tasks that I had been postponing for months, getting that huge dopamine hit when suddenly they were off of my to-do list.

One thing I haven't done is figure out the stupidly long password to get into my insurance portal. Why do they email and say "you have a letter," but give absolutely no hint as to what it is in the email? I've had everything from notices that offices are closed for holidays to denials of genetic testing of tumors go this way, and it is nigh impossible for me to keep up with a password that is the length of a sentence. Yes, I know password keepers exist. But I have yet to establish a single one to use between apple, android, and windows products. I wrote the last idiotic password down, in a notebook I think, and I spent an hour going through my hoard of spiral notebooks, failing to find that page. At least I found a bunch of old handwritten notes I ripped out and recycled. Is this progress? If it isn't, please do not tell me.

Light Bulb

Inspirational song: Bullet the Blue Sky (U2)

Why did I do this to myself again? I was out even longer than yesterday, grinding up my hip joints walking around on concrete for hours. Everything I'm sitting on right now is inflamed. The good news is I spent a whole lot less money than yesterday. All I had to pay was the arm and leg they charged for two adults and one little kid at 5Guys. The bad news is I couldn't find pretty much anything I wanted. I found a lot of things that were sort of close, but not close enough to spend money on. 

Today's adventure was to Lowe's and Home Depot. My primary mission was to find how the electric leaf blowers they sell compared to the cheap clearance one I saw at Walmart. (2-5x the cost, but matching the batteries we already own multiples of.) I also wanted replacement blades for my cleaning scraper, good replacement latex gloves for cleaning (only found flimsy ones), and if I happened to stumble across a manjula pothos, I have given myself special dispensation from the plant no-buy to get it. I am on a mission with that last one. Got blades, struck out on the rest.

I took my daughter and granddaughter with me. Once we had completed most of our shopping, Valerie and I went slowly through the fan and lighting aisle, so we could point at all the ones we liked. It was her idea, and I was totally on board for it. She would point at some and say, "That's the one I like; that's the one you like." I made sure I showed her what I really liked, the glittery pendants with cut glass and crystals, and said, "That's grandma's style." So naturally she copied me, pointed at another and said, "and that's Valerie's style." I love how I don't need to over-simplify things for her anymore. Her conversation is on point.

During our slow tour of the lighting section, I came across the grow lights. I had no idea they had this much in stock for this purpose. It used to be just a few LED light bars that might or might not work. Now they have all the shapes, with a rating system to let you know whether they're good for hydroponics, different types of growing, etc. I guess I just don't go to Home Depot often enough, else I might have known these were on hand before I ordered so much off Amazon. 

Catpile

Inspirational song: Lost in the Supermarket (The Clash)

Somehow I managed to spend almost two hours in Walmart, meandering in circles. I went in with a clear list of needs. I came out with most of the listed items, plus a few extras (like a box of frozen gluten-free waffles that launched itself into my cart). I should not have stayed there that long. I walked so long that I made myself sore. The good news is I found most of the things I had intended to get from Lowe's, so I was able to skip part two of my trip and just go home.

I stuck to necessities, for the most part. Needed new oven mitts after I found out the hard way there was a hole in my old ones. Got Mane and Tail shampoo and conditioner, because new housemate promises she will help bathe Saoirse and she says this will help do the job right. And I got a large jug of bubble bath, since there's always one kid or another making catastrophic messes of themselves at grandma's house.

I didn't necessarily need a new planter pot, but they have started replacing the Christmas shelves with gardening stuff, and I saw one I wanted from last year. It was the only one there, and I didn't want to risk it being just a single leftover, and miss my opportunity to buy it again. When I got home, I potted up the rhaphidophora tetrasperma top and mid cuts I'd been propagating, back in with the original plant, into the new, bigger pot. I don't think it violates my six-month no buy, as none of it is technically a new plant. I would take a photo of it where it has been set back in place in the bedroom, but I am currently buried under three cats. I'm not sure I will be allowed to move any time soon. I guess I'm sleeping in the living room tonight.

Bundle Up

Inspirational song: Cold (Annie Lennox)

Not to beat a dead horse, but jeez it's cold! All sorts of schools and businesses are either having a late start or canceling altogether for tomorrow. My house is snug and warm, and I am not sad that I don't have a reason to leave it while it is still so far below zero in the morning. It's so cold, that the church where Rotary meets has said nope, we are not even opening the building. I'll probably go shopping in the afternoon, for a few critical items that can't wait much longer, but we should be close to freezing by then. Downright balmy.

I'm feeling mostly better, compared to yesterday, but I still forced myself to do very little today. I am recognizing a pattern in which I rest just enough to feel like jumping up and continuing to do the same crap that is wiping me out in the first place. I was bored several times over today, but I deliberately focused on closing my eyes and actively relaxing my jaw (that is HARD!) 

It's probably late for such nonsense, but for the last half hour, I've been fantasizing about a cup of hot cocoa. I haven't gotten up to get one, because that would mean disturbing Alfred, who is snoring loudly on the footrest of my recliner. But if blog is done, then Annie gets to go to bed. He will have to move either way. Cocoa time.

It's a Habit

Inspirational song: A Girl Like You (Smithereens)

I was halfway to giving myself permission to skip writing tonight. I honestly thought I would. I've felt pretty crummy today, and I was sure once the chaos goblins went home that I would just go to bed. Oddly, once the house was quiet, with less shrieking and discordant piano-banging, I started to feel a little better. A painkiller helped with the unusually strong body aches. Skipping dinner and just having a carbonated drink made some of the roiling, frothing noises in my intestines quiet somewhat. I don't want to step out and go dancing or anything (not that I would in 1 degree weather), but I also am not shaking and feeling like crying anymore.

I don't have much I feel like discussing. I just wanted to decompress in the column inches where I usually do such things. Now that I let my thumbs have their before-bed stretches, I think I can take my night time pills and shut off the lights. I'll throw up a picture of little girl's post-bath ponytail, and call it good.

Bog Standard Kids

Inspirational song: Alfie (Dionne Warwick)

The bitter cold is well and truly here. It was still so cold at noon, I was worried just watching the kids walk from the car to the porch that it could hurt them. Yes, I spent two long winters in North Dakota. I know this isn't as bad as that. But these are just little kids. I'm allowed to want to protect them.

As babysitting days go, this one was relatively smooth. No major issues. Nobody fell or pinched fingers or had a major head bonk. None of the typical shenanigans. When it was lunchtime, everyone ate. When dessert came out (the last of Wednesday's chocolate cream pie), they celebrated. After letting them play out that burst of sugar energy, I took Dmitri back to chill out and watch Bluey until he fell asleep. They were sweet, and as normal as two happy kids can be.

My only disappointment of the day was later, when I was making myself a grilled cheese sandwich for dinner. I was standing by the stove, watching cheese melt, when Alfred jumped up on the stove to look at my sandwich too. I said, "Hey! What are you doing? Why are you here? What's it all about... Alfie?" And then I scooped him up and put him back on the floor. I looked at my husband, and saw that he was completely unfazed by what I'd said. I asked, "Did that really go over your head?" He had no idea that I was quoting a song, and just blinked and shook his head when I played a YouTube version of Alfie. I feel so old and dorky now.

Chill Time

Inspirational song: Royals (Postmodern Jukebox ft. Puddles Pity Party)

Hard-core snuggle weather has arrived. It has been a battle keeping the boys off of my lap. I took photos of them an hour apart, with a loop around the room to water plants in between. They were in essentially the same spots, pinning me down, stealing the warmth I radiated. The next several days will be much the same.

Saoirse and I went for a drive before the icky cold moved in. There is a house out in the  county on about 90 acres up for sale, and I've been having I'm-suddenly-wealthy daydreams about it. My puppy and I drove past it while I sighed heavily and wished I could stop there. So far no piles of cash have shown up at my door, so it's just a fantasy. Sure would be fun to give that dog all those acres to run on, though.

I will need to finish protecting my plants from bitter cold before bed. I'll close the curtains behind the Ikea shelves and my dresser. I've already pulled bathroom plants away from where they touched the window. Let's hope they don't all protest four days with minimal light. They have to choose: light or warmth. 

Vampire

Inspirational song: Joy to the World (Three Dog Night)

Is there anyone in the continental US who isn't expecting brutal cold over the next several days? It's going to be particularly awful here for the next four or five, with Sunday into Monday being stay home and snuggle with dog weather. We are practicing for it now. I have had an 80 pound lap blanket off and on this evening. It mostly goes well, until a slight noise outside sets off her perimeter alarms, and she leaps off of me to go on guard duty. By the time it's mild enough for her to patrol the back yard again, she is going to be so bored that she starts wearing holes in the floor.

Drove down to see the rheumatologist this morning. I unburdened my soul at her, telling her how l have been way more tired, sore, weak, and forgetful lately. She said the way I described it sounds like fibromyalgia is the most likely candidate for which layer of illness is intensifying. She had a couple of things to rule out (like vitamin deficiencies), so she sent me to the very friendly vampire down the hall. He drained something like seven vials of blood from my arm, making me wonder how on earth I was going to make it home (a 45 minute drive, before coffee or any breakfast to boot). I made it here, but I don't know how.

As always when someone steals my vital fluids, I was extra loopy all day. I feel all disconnected and buzzy, and I need to sleep a lot. I haven't been willing to do a whole lot of anything since this morning. I sure hope I'm not forgetting something important I needed to accomplish right away.

Whipped

Inspirational song: A Taste of Honey (Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass)

Wild times at the weekly game night. Apparently Valerie was learning the joys of canned whipped cream. I don't think anyone taught her about whip-its. I would not encourage it. 

We had extra people, including one new player and one fiancé observer. Everyone was present, although one player wasn't feeling well and stayed out of the fray completely. It's just as well they weren't playing. We spent an hour and a half just getting introduced to the new character and forming a plan how and where to march forward. The evening was loud and chaotic and a perfect introduction to the new person. They need to know what they're getting into, and this was us in a nutshell.

Big things happened before game night too. We deep-cleaned the fridge, which was about a month overdue (based on how much cooking I did over the holidays). It's times like this I'm glad I signed up for the big curbside composting bin. Gallons of spoiled food are sitting in the alley, anticipating the arrival of the collection truck in about 8 hours. Should be a frozen chunk by then. We also cooked. I made the promised beef-okra-tomato-etc dinner, and the new housemate said she liked it. I made a ton, so my daughter took home enough leftovers for three meals. I made two incredibly rich chocolate cream pies, honoring the upcoming birthday of one of our players. I asked another if this can count for his too, since it fell in the middle of all that holiday cooking.

Before bed, I need to clean my kitchen for the third time today. Yay me.

There and Back Again

Inspirational song: On the Road Again (Willie Nelson)

I watched the sun rise (right in my face) this morning as we drove out to Aurora, a southeast suburb of Denver. I watched the sun set, again right in my eyes, as I drove back from the Denver Airport this evening. Sadly, these did not bookend a single trip, but two separate events. I was on the road far too much today.

I realized Saturday that my military ID was about to expire on Sunday. I need that thing on a regular basis, even this many years into his retirement, so I jumped online and took the first available appointment to renew it. That appointment was for 0840 this morning, at the naval reserve portion of Buckley air force slash space force base. (Don't judge me for my approximation--I don't know whether Buckley is officially an AFB or SFB or JB. I only learned about the navy and marine parts this morning.) We had to be on the road by 0630 to ensure we got there on time for my appointment, which meant waking at 0545. That is smack in the middle of the most restful, productive sleep hours I get, so I'm dragging my tail now. But the ID is cool. Way fancier than all the dependent IDs I had for the last almost-3 decades. The photo is even in color now.

We came back to town, and I tried to nap before Rotary. I got a few minutes of sleep, but not nearly enough for me to make any sense when I tried to talk to all my friends. God knows what I said in my delirium. I left the meeting and headed straight back to the east side of Denver, to pick up our housemate from the airport. We tried to keep up an active conversation the whole way, so that I would remain alert enough to drive. That was just unsustainable, because we were both so tired. I was so happy to finally be on my block, but I had to sit and wait for something like 20 cars to pass in either direction before I could properly back into my driveway and plug in the car. Every second I had to wait made me more desperate. 

Immediately upon arrival, I went straight back and changed out of street clothes, and collapsed into my chair. I was away all day, which meant my lap buddy Alfred has been glued to me since I sat down, making me feel guilty for his loneliness. What was I thinking, being gone so long?

It's Good, Isn't It

Inspirational song: Feed Me (Little Shop of Horrors)

One of my favorite anecdotes was my mom's close friend saying that when her son lived close by, her husband would call him up and instead of talking, he would rev the blender a few pulses. The son knew that meant "come over now for margaritas." 

Tonight I sent a Snapchat to my daughter that was just a closeup photo of the frozen okra I just bought, with the caption "Wednesday dinner?" She laughed about how that was all it took for her to know exactly what I wanted to cook, and to say yes, make enough for her to take home leftovers.

We will be having a second housemate off and on for the upcoming school semesters, while the new person completes some classes locally to improve her computer art and videography skills. She arrived today, with a supply of food, including fresh veggies that needed to be used soonish. I had been wanting to make one of our family favorite dishes (in addition to the one above that features okra), so I immediately jumped up to thaw out chicken. I went to the store for a new tub of sour cream, and then set about making the nebulously-named chicken and broccoli with cream sauce. (I know there are better names for it, but I always forget them when I am called upon to remember one.) New housemate was impressed with dinner. I think I have proved that she can trust me when I suggest new-to-her recipes.

Just Ask

Inspirational song: This Will Be (An Everlasting Love) (Natalie Cole)

Every time I say it, and by the time it is relevant again, I disregard it. I must not run hours of errands in the morning on babysitting days. Yet I keep doing it. This time it was because we had a lot of Amazon things to return, as we went through multiple products trying to find a headset and microphone that were properly compliant with my daughter's work-from-home setup. There was a handful of tech I didn't want lingering on my bank account. Losing two days (well, kind of three) to a certain somebody having a severe intestinal illness made it imperative that we run those errands today. I paid the price for it.

I was not the active grandma I would like to be this afternoon. I spent the whole time nodding off, feeling ooky, and wondering whether that intestinal virus was indeed contagious. After the boy and I got a solid nap, I decided it was probably just fatigue and UV exposure getting me down. I felt better (ish) right about the time the kids went home.

The kids themselves were energetic and clever, as always. Our little man demonstrated new words, such as when he went up to his grandpa, sitting and working on his laptop, and asked, "ah ah doing?" He knew the cadence of the question he wanted to ask, and he knew the most important word to express what he wanted. He said that part very clearly. We are enjoying listening to him find his words.