All The Things That Are
Yesterday was pretty much exactly what we expected: rain. The weather did hold off long enough for Tipper and me to make a trip to the store for eggs and cereal. We should have grabbed another gallon of milk, but there was still over half a gallon in the fridge. This morning, there’s no milk. That tends to happen a lot around here. We’ll go a couple of days with hardly anyone touching the milk, then boom, it’s gone. So, we’ll be making another trip today.
One of the cute things about Tipper, though, is how careful she is when she’s walking with me. She watches for every uneven spot in the sidewalk, every hole I might step in, anything that could possibly trip me up. She grabs my elbow to help me step off the curb. She insists on holding doors open for me. She takes grocery bags from my hands and carries them herself. I’ve had to explain to her why it’s important for me to be the one walking on the outside of the sidewalk because she’d take that dangerous position, too, if I’d let her.
So, you can imagine her concern when I announced around 7:30 last night that I was “going walking” by myself. I had a specific destination that was not child-appropriate, so her going with me was not an option. She was napping when I left and when she woke she wanted to know, “Are they going to drive you home or? I’m a little confused. 😭” Kat and I both assured her that I was okay. By that time, I was on my way home and she was back asleep before I finished taking the dogs out. It is so incredibly precious how much she cares, though I do worry that perhaps she’s taking on an adult-sized load of concern.
I have to push myself through days like yesterday. In addition to everything hurting, I cough more, my balance is off more, and as I move between periods of sleep and awake, my cognition isn’t always as sharp as it should be. I either nap, surrounded by as many animals as possible or I’m doing something fairly rote and mundane so as to not make my head hurt anymore than it already does.
Going back through posts from 2021 and earlier, I’m noticing that not only are some videos missing (I know why) but the photo carousel isn’t working either. When I check on the photos that are missing, I also find that I don’t necessarily like how I initially processed a lot of them. Therefore, I’ve decided that I need to reprocess them and repost them as videos as that makes them more difficult to steal. I’m not sure how that’s going to look necessarily, but it’s something I can do to fill time without making my head hurt.
Last week, we enjoyed the food from Fat Cat BBQ during the race, but there’s also a nearby bar called Fat Cat as well and this past week we discovered that a dear friend is now working behind the bar there. So, as I grew restless and a bit hungry, I decided that when the weather cleared I would walk down there (hence the reason for Tipper’s concern). The bar is almost exactly a mile from the house and the biggest danger is crossing Lafayette Rd.
Kat nor I are, by nature, not the kind of people who sit in bars on a regular basis just to hang out and drink. First, neither one drinks that much (I’m not supposed to drink at all), we’re both cheapskates when it comes to how much we pay for alcohol, and finally, we don’t necessarily like people all that much. Fat Cat has been on the same corner the entire time we’ve lived here and last night was the first time I’ve walked through its doors. In fact, at one point, someone (I don’t remember who) told me to be careful, that it wasn’t necessarily my “kind of crowd.” But Jenni is a dear friend and it’s been well over a year since I last saw her. I knew that as long as she was there I’d be reasonably safe.
Turns out, any concern about it being too rough an establishment was ill-placed. I walked in and almost immediately one dear inebriated soul was happy to welcome me to the bar, introduced himself, and suggested I order a drink. There was no one there who wasn’t friendly. Bonus points: Jenni’s daughter was working the kitchen and DJ Redbone was in the house just floating about and being social. I’ve known Redbone since the days of UNZip the Runway (14, maybe 15 years ago?) so it was good to catch up a bit. I didn’t stay too long. There’s a time limit on when I need to take my evening medicine and check my glucose. I was back home and headed to bed before 10:00. I’ve not been out at night in so long, though, I really enjoyed my time there.
One side note: on the walk there, just a few houses north of us, I came across a young raptor in a neighbor’s yard. I’m not sure exactly what kind of bird it was. He had a smooth, gold head and black body with gold feathers in his tail. He had caught a mole and flew off toward the North 40 when he left. This is one of those moments when I hate how lousy the digital zoom is on my phone camera. I couldn’t get close enough to get an identifying picture. He looked really young, but he definitely knew he was king of the air at that moment.
As we celebrate Pride Month, it’s well worth noting that yesterday, a drag queen story time in Philadelphia set the Guinness World Record for attendance. This is the first such record for that category and as LGBTQ+ issues are such a hot point during an election year, I’m extremely happy that it happened and I think Philadelphia was the perfect place!
Solaris has planted himself on my desk in from of my monitor fresh from having puked up his entire breakfast. So help me, I’m pretty sure that the majority of the paper towels we use in this house go toward cleaning up cat puke.
The air outside is still damp this morning. It seems strange that it’s June and I’ll need to wear a light jacket to go to the store. What’s more strange is that it’s going to be a couple of weeks before we truly break this cool pattern.
Meanwhile, in India, people are dying from the heat as they stand in line to vote, and South Africa’s mostly-white Democratic Alliance has won the majority there for the first time in over 20 years. Oh, and get this, North Korea is sending balloons carrying trash over to South Korea. South Korea is promising an “unendurable” response. China landed a rocket on the far side of the moon while Boeing choked on its effort to launch a manned space flight. I don’t see how anyone can be surprised by either of those news items. It has to be some very brave people sitting in that Boeing rocket.
Solaris says it’s time to stop typing. He’s batting at my fingers. I guess I’ll have to find something more entertaining to do.
Morning Update: 06/03/24
I have a new alarm clock. His name is Jack Jack, our huge mane coon mix. For the past three mornings, he has decided that no, I do not get to sleep as late as the kids. I must be up at 7:00 to feed him and the band of four-legged miscreants he leads. He’s big enough that he can be standing on my headboard and still headbutt me until I’m awake. It’s a gentle, fluffy headbutt, but it’s effective. I’ll sit up and every damn cat in the house will be in the recovery room waiting for me. The dogs both roll over as if to say, “Can’t you do something about them?” And with that, we start our morning.
Nothing of significance was achieved yesterday. Sure, we went to the nearby store to get milk. G even went with us this time, running ahead, showing us the meandering path he takes when he gets off bus 37 on Lafayette. But our task was incomplete. They were out of milk. All of it. Turns out, this little store only gets milk deliveries once every two weeks. When the milk arrives, people buy multiple gallons at a time. So, they quickly run out. They won’t have more milk until a week from Wednesday. I’m thinking about trying the Mexican grocery about the same distance in the opposite direction, but none of us speak enough Spanish to communicate so I’m not sure how well that would work.
We came back home, at lunch, and I slept for the next six hours. That was the day. I fixed dinner, Kat came home, and I was back in bed by 9:30. Oh, the exciting life I lead! Fucking chemo. I feel like yesterday was 98% wasted. At least I’m getting my steps in.
It’s too early to check my glucose this morning, but I was surprised last night when it was down to 100 an hour after dinner. I’m not sure exactly what I did right considering it was at 238 yesterday morning. There’s an article on the AP website this morning teasing, “Eat Whatever You Want, Just Not Whenever You Want. That’s How Intermittent Fasting Works.”
“The theory behind time-restricted eating is that it supports the circadian rhythm, or the body’s internal clock. Spending more time in a fasting state may boost the body’s processes that govern blood sugar and fat metabolism, for instance, scientists say.”
There are multiple ways of doing intermittent fasting, one of which is to do all your eating for the day within a 10-hour window, delaying breakfast until 10 or so, finishing dinner by 8, and fasting the rest of the time. That’s pretty much how my schedule naturally works as long as I eat enough to not want a snack. Snacks are what kill me. If I’m hungry, I start browsing and there’s never anything sugar-safe available for a snack. Sugar-safe (not just sugar-free but also low carb, low fat) foods are not only hard to find but they tend to be expensive when they are available. I don’t know if this is the answer to getting my glucose back under control or not, but paying more attention to when I eat might not be a bad idea.
And now I’m hungry.
Mexico has its first female president, in case you weren’t paying attention. Claudia Sheinbaum is a scientist, a “leftist” (that doesn’t mean what you think it means), and is promising greater “continuity,” which is an interesting concept that apparently doesn’t feel threatening to the cartels. Of course, for the US, the immediate question is what does this mean for immigration and the drug trade? The greater question probably should be whether a Mexican president, regardless of who it is, effectively controls either. Mexico is a complicated situation and thinking that any president can overrule the cartels is foolish.
If you’re not paying attention to international news, please do. The Reuters homepage is full of important information and it doesn’t make any sense for me to try and regurgitate it for you. You can read. From a UN group advocating global recognition of a Palestinian state to Ukraine to the eroding relationship between China and Taiwan, what is going on outside our borders affects what happens inside our borders. We are not an autonomous body whose actions are independent of the rest of the world. We never have been (see France’s participation in the Revolutionary War for an early example). Just as Mexico is leaning to the left, France is leaning to the right and all of the EU knows that is not a good development for anyone. Stay aware.
Drink more coffee. Pet more dogs. Kill fewer people. Accept less bullshit. Think we can do that?
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