Four Days and A Trip To the Grocery Store

I had a doctor’s appointment today, to which my mom drove me.  I had to have labs first which meant I had to go to the main area and check in with the lab.  The waiting room was packed, which it usually isn’t so much.  In this clinic, there are usually around 10 doctors who are seeing patients on any given day and everybody checks in here first.  Apparently, the computers had been down earlier in the morning and they were about an hour behind checking in patients, so I had to wait nearly an hour just to get checked in and another half hour to get in to get labs drawn.  Then I had to wait until the lab results were back before the doc would see me.

On the way back home,  mom needed to make a stop to get a pair of these little slide-behind sunglasses she likes but the optical store she went to didn’t have ones that fit her glasses.  Then she took me to the grocery store because I was out of more than a couple of things.  I pushed the cart all over the store in a very devious and circuitous route because I don’t know that store very well, and got six of those little plastic sacks full of groceries.  That’ll be $89.23, thank you very much.

I left the house at 8:45 a.m., and didn’t get back until nearly 3 p.m.  And all the time I was gone, my oxygen bottle was sitting in its little trolley by the couch in my living room/lounge!  And I was walking and pushing the grocery cart, not riding one of those little scooters they have in some grocery stores.   And after I got home, I put up the groceries, changed clothes, fixed me a mid afternoon half a baked potato, made a pitcher of white chai, and sat on the couch to watch a couple YouTube videos on my flat screen TV.  Yeah, I was kinda pooped once I got home, but I was otherwise Just Fine.

But food and drink revived me, and I had a little celebratory party.  Ate a whole pint of Talenti Gelato cinnamon vanilla flavor by myself, had a little white chai.  We got pretty happy and started swinging from the chandeliers — well, I didn’t, but they were:

(It’s the opening act of “Corteo” by Cirque du Soleil BTW, here is the intro and whole first act.  It’s been said life is but a dream.  In this case, it’s death that is the dream.  Curious premise for a show.  But then, when you get right down to it, that’s not any more off the wall than the premises of their other shows. )

That act just surpassed what used to be my favorite Cirque du Soleil act:

That one’s for the song in English.  This one is for the aerial silks:

The upper of the day’s big accomplishment (nose hose free all day for the 4th whole day) soon ran into a bummer.  When I sat down at my computer, I quickly noticed that my earphone extension cord jack has a short that cuts out one whole ear.  I use the extension cord because I can’t find an earphone with a long enough cord to reach past my keyboard, under my monitor and back to the earphone jack in my computer tower (I have a desktop) which still gives me any slack at all to actually wear the durn things.  With the earphone extension cord, I can plug it into the jack in my computer, bring it under my desk from the back, tape the cord to the underside of the desk, and tape the cord jack at the front edge of the underside of my desk.  That gives me all kinds of slack in the earphone cord. I know what did this cord in.  I had it taped flush with the edge of my desk where the jack on the headphones protruded out past the edge, and I was always bumping it.  I will set the cord jack of the new cord about an inch back from the front edge of the desk, and that should alleviate that problem.  I ordered a new one off Amazon which is supposed to be here Thursday.  In the meantime, having the sound in just one ear is not conducive to the immersive musical experience.  Um, now that I think about it, I have a set of headphones with a boom mike that I used to use for conference calls when I worked from home, and it has a long enough cord.  I don’t like wearing headphones as much as I like wearing earphones, but compared to listening to music out of only one ear, I’d rather put up with wearing headphones for the two or three days it takes my new extension cord to get here.

Tomorrow, I have another doctor’s appointment to get an injection, which shouldn’t take more than an hour, round trip, portal to portal.  I have to go about 15 minutes early, because I have to drive up to Walmart and fill my car with gas first, but I have to go that way anyway to get to the cross town street that goes to where my doctor’s office is.   I’m going (oxygen) tankless, so this will be the first time since I got home from the hospital that I’ve driven without the nose hose.  That’s the only thing on my calendar until next week, when I have an appointment Wednesday with the pulmonologist who saw me in the hospital and sent me home on oxygen.  (I hope to convince him that I am fully weaned from the nose hose and can call that medical equipment outfit to come get all their stuff because I don’t need it any more. Yay!) I’m still going to be using the concentrator at night until Saturday.  But those two appointments are the only things I have scheduled until the 30th.  The rest of the time I can spend reading, writing,  and working on my knitting projects.

Light Blue Cobblestone Lace Shawl

In the knitting news, I’m almost done with the last increase repeat on the Cobblestone Lace shawl (at left) in light blue I’m making.  When I finish it, I may go on and do the center section, which has just one repeat. At that point, the shawl has 109 total stitches on the needle, which will make it nice and wide.

 

 

In the knitting news, I’m almost done with the last increase repeat on the Cobblestone Lace shawl (at left) in light blue I’m making.  When I finish it, I may go on and do the center section, which has just one repeat. At that point, the shawl has 109 total stitches on the needle, which will make it nice and wide.

Denim Blue Cable Edged Shawl

Either way, I won’t start the decreases until I’ve finished the one in denim blue (at right)  I am in the middle of the decreases on it, so I’m about 3/4ths finished with it. This one uses the old version of the pattern.  I revised the pattern because I didn’t like the way the decreases looked but, rather than frog out the entire shawl,  I decided to go ahead and finish it and give it away.

 

 

 

However, before I work on it, I will try to finish at least half of what’s left to do on the Cable Edged Shawl in the Lion Brand Heartland “Glacier Bay” colorway (at left).  Then I’ll finish the denim blue Cobblestone Lace Shawl, then finish the “Glacier Bay” Cable Edged Shawl.

 

Heartlands “Glacer Bay” Cable Edged Shawl

However, before I work on it, I will try to finish at least half of what’s left to do on the Cable Edged Shawl in the Lion Brand Heartland “Glacier Bay” colorway (at left).  Then I’ll finish the denim blue Cobblestone Lace Shawl, then finish the “Glacier Bay” Cable Edged Shawl, which will also be given away.

Only then will I work on finishing the light blue Cobblestone Lace Shawl to avoid “memory conflicts” with the change in stitch used for the decreases.  The old version of the pattern (the denim blue one) uses k2tog’s to decrease, but the new version (light blue) is going to use ssk’s.  Although now that I take a closer look at what the kfb increases look like, I may try a couple of rows using p2tog decreases, just to see if they more closely resemble what the kfb increases look like.  If they do, I’ll be revising the pattern yet again.   We’re aiming for symmetry here, as in not being able to tell the increase sections from the decrease sections without closely examining the work.

 

Heartlands “Ocean” Cable Edged Shawl with Revised Edging

I’ll change out working on the light blue shawl with the Heartlands “Ocean” Cable Edged Shawl (at right, but the body is much further along than shown, 178 of 262 stitches which means I’ve only got 42 rows to go on the body). The edging will be done using my modification to the pattern that uses Hilton garter stitch lace below the cable instead of the lace used in the original version.  (I’m calling my modified pattern and shawl “My Own Private Hilton.”)

Well, it’s late now and I want to catch a shower before I crawl into my beddy-boo.  Mañana.