Two Good Things

The first good thing is that Mom’s first COVID test was negative. (Please let it stay that way!)

The other good thing concerns this bright orange cable that had been run from an outlet in my bedroom, under my bedroom door, and around the corner to my TV. As I noted earlier, the only cable outlet in the main room of my apartment is (a) beside the front door, (b) across from one of the two large windows in the room and (c) behind my china cabinet.

In order to connect my TV to the cable and internet service, I would have had to move a large china cabinet and otherwise rearrange the furniture to put my 55-inch TV opposite two large windows, or run a cable from the outlet in my bedroom under the bedroom door and around the corner. There had been a work order to relocate the outlet in my bedroom since mid April, and I had been dealing with this large orange cable getting caught in the door to the bedroom and garishly presenting a trip hazard on the way to the bathroom since then.

Thursday, when I went down to get the mail I happened to see what looked like workmen in the hallway by the pool working on something electrical in the men’s changing room. I asked one of them if they handled moving cable outlets and explained the situation to him. He said they didn’t handle that kind of thing, but that I should put in a work order. I explained I had put in a work order months ago (April). He said he’d look into it.

Yesterday morning, bright and early, there was a plong on the doorbell. Fortunately, I was up and dressed because it was a pair of workmen come to see what the situation was with the cable. I showed them the situation, they went to get some tools and materials, and this was the upshot. They dropped a connection from the hallway through the ceiling inside the coat closet (out of frame to the left) and ran it through a hole in the wall.

Then they cut pieces of this plastic cord cover stuff, stuck it to the wall and ran the cable through it along the top of the door facing, down the side of the door, and along the baseboard until it could disappear behind the book case (out of frame to the right). It’s not the most elegant solution to the problem, but it works for me. Now if I could just get decent internet service (21 mbps download, 2.1 mbps upload, and stuttering service) through it. I’m so sick of seeing that little circle chase its tail when I’m trying to stream something. . .

Very Unwelcome News

This morning, I was knitting and listening to some Vivaldi piano sonatas (as you do), when the phone rang. It was the nurse on Mom’s wing at Carillon House calling to tell me that Mom had been exposed to COVID. Apparently, the lady who does hair at both Carillon House and here at Pointe Plaza tested positive for COVID, and Mom gets her hair done every week. They are going to put Mom in the quarantine unit for five days. She’ll be tested before she goes into quarantine and again before she comes out.

This comes on top of my BFF who lives NW of Houston having had COVID two weeks ago and being sick like a bad case of the flu. They gave her medications, she quarantined for the obligatory five days, and now she’s back to work.

Because of her severe kyphoscoliosis, Mom has significantly restricted lung function and a reduced ability to clear her lungs by coughing (which puts her at high risk for pneumonia), not to mention that she’ll be 98 this September. She’s already had a case of “walking” pneumonia this year necessitating antibiotics.

This is all very frustrating for me because I can’t do anything about it. Between my lymphoma and the chemotherapy, my immune system is a shambles. I can’t even go in Carillon House (because that’s where the COVID quarantine unit is), let alone visit her. I don’t dare. All I can do is wait and pray.

On the Downward Slope

Tomorrow is the last fluid infusion of this session. I have to be there at 8:00. So after Monday’s infusion I got home just before noon, in more than enough time for the housekeeping lady. While she was there, the maintenance guy came to say he needed to turn my shower on because there was a leak downstairs. Turns out my shower was leaking somehow (why suddenly is it leaking now and not earlier?) He had to calk it and the calk had to set, so I couldn’t use it until he came by today to put everything back together.

He said he’d be by this morning. He didn’t show up until after noon. Of course, by the time he came, I’d washed my dishes and started a pot of chai tea with vanilla almond milk. I’ve got as far as making the chai tea, which is cooling at the moment. It has to cool to room temp before I can add the vanilla almond milk. Then it’s into the fridge.

Anyway, I can use my shower now, which is good because I have to go get my last infusion for this session tomorrow, and I’ll want to shower before I go. Never mind that you don’t work up much of a sweat sitting around in an air conditioned room, I just think it’s manners if you’re going to be in a situation where somebody has to do something as up close and personal as inserting an IV rig into the chemo port on your chest, that you should have showered pretty recently. Kinda common courtesy, which doesn’t seem to be all that common any more. . . .

Saturday, my cousin’s daughter had her baby (she was due Friday), and I need to really get my rear in gear and finish stuff and get it blocked and mailed. Don’t know anything about her except her name and that she’s a healthy little newborn girl. She’s my dad’s youngest brother’s great grandchild. My dad would have been delighted. My mom got to meet her older sister. Hard to believe it’s been almost a year since they came to visit.

Mom had been transferred from the hospital to that nursing home by then and I was in the middle of getting mom moved to Carillon House to finish her rehab, and getting us both into Life Care at Carillon, but hadn’t yet started in on the estate sales and selling mom’s house and getting me moved in and settled. September 1 will be a year since I moved into Carillon. Time flies when you’re having fun, I guess.

My bank sponsoring an ice cream social this afternoon, but I didn’t go. We’ve had people test positive for COVID here in the building, and eating requires taking down my mask. Not worth the risk.

My BFF who lives outside of Houston finally got COVID. She ended her period of quarantine last Thursday and was back to work. But while she had it, she was as sick as the proverbial dog.

I gulped down Aliette de Bodard’s Dominion of the Fallen series and the adjacent Dragons and Blades duette from the same universe, which was a great if slightly grim read, and I’ve started in on a reread of the four-book Finishing School series by Gail Carriger. Carriger’s books are set during the reign of Queen Victoria in a Britain where werewolves are obliged to serve in Her Majesty’s army and vampires are arbiters of style. It’s fun and steampunk and ever so slightly silly. The finishing school for young ladies of quality is located aboard a dirigible and, in addition to the usual finishing school curriculum, includes coursework in intelligence gathering and assassination. It is the prequel, if you will, to her Parasol Protectorate series, and there are three books which deal with the subsequent careers of three of the friends the main character makes at school.

In the knitting news, I did get that little baby top started, and I’m losing a game of Yarn Chicken as I don’t think I’ll be able to finish it with one skein of yarn. But I have two more skeins of that yarn. I might do some booties to match. We’ll see. I need to get the top finished first, and fish out some appropriate buttons from my stash.

I’ve got to finish that one sun hat, though, before I start on matching booties, or a sun hat for the top. I’ve got about 15 more rows to go on the top but, except for the last five rows, it’s all stockinette, which means purling 117 stitches every other row. That much purling is a pain. It’s less of a pain if you’re a continental style knitter, but it’s still a pain. The pattern is only a page and a half long. You could make one in an afternoon if you put your mind to it.

Four Down, Two to Go

I was a bit more rested going into this one. I was actually out by three o’clock Monday since I don’t take the vincristine anymore. The oncologist stopped that one because I was starting to get numbness and tingling in my fingertips. Just the prednisone, the cyclophosphamide and the Rituxan. Found out one of the side effects of Rituxan is it makes you sneeze. I discovered that when I was looking for which one gives you blurry vision (take your pick). And thank God for Depends because one of the side effects of this chemo regimen is a marked tendency to leak. I’ve gone through eight of them in the past two days. The furosemide (diuretic) I took yesterday didn’t help matters, but it cleared the swelling out of my feet nicely. I gained almost 7 pounds of fluid from the three bags of chemo plus what I drank to keep from drying up in the heat.

Since I got out early, I stopped by Market Street on the way home to get some chicken wings and veggies for supper (since I missed lunch) and got some groceries and some more of those BodyArmor drinks I like. Naturally, they’ve quit making the peach-mango flavor because that’s the only one I like. I like it because it has electrolytes, vitamin C, is only 20 calories (2 g of sugar) a bottle and has no added sugar. I was a bad girl and got a package of microwave bacon. I’ve been craving bacon and tomato sandwiches something fierce. (Not a big fan of lettuce.) My cardiologist won’t like it, but I’m going to have me a couple BT sammies. It’s not like I live on the stuff. This is the first bacon I’ve had in months. I also got a pot pie size frozen spinach quiche, some pulled chicken, a container of their good spinach dip, two small loaves of bread, a couple of roma tomatoes and a container of cherry tomatoes, and replenished my frozen food cache. I’m trying to eat as nutritious as I can. Four little sacks of groceries was $168. (*Rant deleted*)

We do get a meal allowance of one meal a day. I’m doing the intermittent fasting thing and supper works better for that than lunch. Unfortunately, our facility hasn’t been able to get enough staff to do three meals so all we get here is breakfast and lunch. To get supper, I’d have to go over to Windsong to get it or else pay a $3 charge to get it delivered. I budget accordingly. I need to have food on hand, though for when I simply don’t have the energy to go down to the dining room to get it.

I had to go by the VA Tuesday to get a refill on the antidiarrhea medication, as that’s another side effect of chemo I tend to have. I was down to two doses, which is not enough as it usually takes three to stop an episode. Got the refill and then went to get my shot of Udenyca to boost my white blood cells back up after chemo. I finally managed to catch about two hours of sleep between potty breaks, and got about six hours total last night. I don’t have to go back until Friday for the first of the three IV fluid infusions.

The Rituxan makes the back of my neck sore right at the base of my skull, and the sneezing is annoying. So is the cotton mouth. I woke up with a sore throat, too, also from the Rituxan. By now I know what to expect, though, and I’m prepared for it.

The air conditioner that supplies the Pointe Plaza building lobby and the business offices has been out for a couple of months now. Evidently supply train issues have struck again. They were going with these big portable blower units for a while, but as hot as it’s been here lately, that hasn’t helped much. There are a few empty apartments in our building and the business offices have relocated to them for the duration. It’s been ungodly hot here, over a week of 100+ F/ 37+ C temps. Raisin weather. You’re a grape until you take two steps outside. High today is 104 F/40 C at 31% humidity. The heat just sucks you dry. High Monday was 107 F/41.6 C. It’s 98 F/36.6 C right now and trying to rain. At 31% humidity, it won’t amount to much. I guess it’s the thought that counts.

In the knitting news, there is knitting news. I’m working on some baby booties to match the little dress I still haven’t finished. The kid should be here any day if she isn’t here already. I need to get my rear in gear and send what I have finished. The dress I haven’t finished won’t fit her until Christmas anyway so I still have some runway on that. I have the blanket and a couple pairs of baby booties finished and I can finish the sun hat in a couple of hours if I’ll just sit down and do it.

I think I’ll do a crochet edging on the sleeves and hem of the dress as well as on the cuff of the booties. I have this nice green that was the “so sorry” freebie I got when Malabrigo replaced that miswound skein of Malabrigo sock I bought for the dress. I’ve got enough of the red to make a second dress for the older sister who will be 22 months old at Christmas as well as socks for her. There will be plenty of the green for what I need.

I’ve got some blue cotton thread. I might do a little top out of it. I could do it in a day if I’d sit down and do it. But right now, I’m reworking the pattern for the booties for fingering weight yarn, which is thinner than baby yarn, plus I’m using smaller needles (US 1/2.25 mm instead of US 2/2.75 mm), which means I’ve had to recalculate the gage, and that changes the number of stitches you start with and means I have to go through the pattern line by line and redo all the math. Guess what. Chemo brain + math = an uphill battle. I’ve been at it all morning. The pattern uses the Fleegle heel, and I’ve got it to the point of completing the heel gusset. I think I’m going to give it a rest for a while because the next bit is very calculation heavy. I don’t have to go anywhere until Friday, so mañana. Once I get the pattern worked out, I’ll test it with the second bootie and then I’ll put them up in Knits From the Owl Underground.

I just now printed out the pattern for the baby top. Think I’ll go hunt up a US 6/4.0 mm 6-inch circular and a bowl, find me some nice music on the internet radio app on my Kindle Fire tablet, crank up the bed and unload my feet while I knit. I’ve still got the prednisone munchies. I may have to eat a BT sandwich first . . .

Oh, here’s the green gang. Still haven’t repotted the two that need repotting . . .

Nose In A Book

Pretty normal posture for yrs trly. Except mostly it’s been my Kindle Fire. Pretty hard to have your nose in a book when your “book” has a touch screen . . . But text size is adjustable on a Kindle, so no need to get my nose that close to the book, even if I needed to. The Books Read List was last posted on 11 June, at 35 books so far this year. List just posted was at 52 books. That’s 17 books in 34 days. Not too shabby.

I’ve been pretty much doing nothing but reading these past couple of days. Finished 3 books that I was about halfway through and had kind of lost interest in. Finished another one I’d started and set down for a couple of days. Read 7 more, each pretty much at a single sitting, but spread out over the past three days.

Every time I take that whopping dose of steroids at the start of the chemo cycle it royally screws up my internal clock and in order to get it back on a “normal” (sic) schedule, I end up staying awake for extended periods of time (aka “hanging”) to try to get my days and nights sorted back out again. Just about the time I’m almost back on schedule, I have to do it all again. This will be the sixth time since February. Added to that is that I’m fighting my body’s natural biorhythm. The upshot of the whole deal is that I stay “jet lagged” all the time. It’s starting to get a little old. (ya think?)

Part of the problem is that I am basically a night owl forced to live on day twink schedules. I’d be perfectly delighted to be just left to a schedule I was happy with for 20 years, that fit my natural body biorhythms. But, one thing I learned about day twinks while I was in the Air Force: They seem congenitally unable to understand that not everybody’s body clock is set to “chicken time” (Get up at sunrise, go to bed at sunset). Another thing I learned in the Air Force is that day twinks think their way is the “normal” way and can’t understand why anybody would want to be any other way. They simply don’t get it.

Like tonight, I put my first load of clothes in to wash at almost midnight and my second load in to wash at about 3 a.m. It’s almost 5:30 a.m. right now and the second load is in the dryer. My first load was clothes, and they’re hanging on the clothes rack where they’ll stay for about 24 hours, until they’re fully evaporated and completely dry. (I’ve never had trouble with musty-smelling closets, oddly enough.) My second load was sheets and towels. They’re in the dryer now. There are only two washers and two dryers for the three wings on this floor. When I do my wash during the night, I don’t have to wait on anybody to finish doing theirs and nobody has to wait on me to finish doing mine. I’m not worrying about how safe it might be to be batting around at that hour of the night. I’m in the equivalent of a gated community. Nobody is entering the building after 8 o’clock unless they have a key or security lets them in.

I did finally get my bamboo plant transplanted to a bigger “pot” (Amazon). I had to get some of those hydrophilic balls (Amazon) to anchor it. It was in this rinky little pot with a stupid decoration. This pot is much nicer, I think. It has a dragon on, and the design is much more appropriate for feng shui “lucky bamboo” (three stems). The bamboo plant seems to like it. I really needed to get something bigger for it as it was getting dangerously top-heavy. The sickeningly cutesy vase it came in will go to Goodwill. It’s kitschy enough that somebody will want it, I’m sure.

I moved the new Windows 11 computer over to the desk. That’s it on the left. The left hand monitor is hooked to the new computer and the right one to the old Windows 7 computer. My three working brain cells don’t have enough band width to deal with anything else right this now, but at least I check my email more often.

I need to scan the bank statement and the ML statements and email them to mom, but the email on the old (Windows 7) computer, which is the one the printer talks to, doesn’t work any more because Google, so I will have to scan them to one computer and put them on a memory stick to get them over to the new computer which has working email. I ought to see if I can find a feed reader I like that works on Windows 11, but the thought of it just makes me tired.

So, I get back on the chemo merry-go-round Monday. I have to get there at 8 o’clock so I can wait in the waiting room for at least an hour before they call me back for labs. Then I see the oncologist. If my lab work is OK, then it’s off to chemoland I go. Chug 100 mg of prednisone and be awake for 48 hours because I’m too wired on steroids to sleep, Then crash and burn, etc., etc., rinse and repeat.

I’ve washed and dried two loads of clothes, schlepped the laundry basket back and forth 2x, changed my bed, and had a bowl of cereal. It’s now 6:30 in the morning. The sun isn’t even up yet. I’m going to try to stay up until 1:00 or 2:00 o’clock as they’re having something good for lunch . . .which will be my supper. Sigh.

Two people in the building have tested positive for COVID. When the housekeeping lady came by, she was obliged to announce that she had tested positive and had quarantined for 5 days. (They’re saying you need to quarantine for 8 days for the new variant de jour, which is the most contagious variant yet.) Yet another argument for being a night owl is that it keeps you away from all the contagious people . . .

Books Read in 2022

Books Read in 2022

52.	*The House of Shattered Wings, de Bodard, Aliette
51.	*Of Dragons, Feasts and Murder, de Bodard, Aliette
50.	*The Citadel of Weeping Pearls, de Bodard, Aliette
49.	*The Memory Theater, Tidbeck, Karin
48.	*Little Wolf, Cooper, R.
47.	*Lore and Lust, Nikoll, Karla
46.	*Snowspelled, Burgis, Stephanie
45.	*A Psalm for the Wild Built, Chambers, Becky
44.	*Song For The Basilisk, McKillip, Patricia
43.	*First Blood, Grayson, Eliot
42.	*Quiet House, Morton, Lily
41.	Cloud’s Rider, Cherryh, C. J. (re-re-read)
40.	Rider at the Gate, Cherryh, C. J. (re-re-read)
39.	*Lost and Found, Grayson, Eliot
38.	*The Witch’s Familiar, Nichol, T. J. 
37.	*The Alpha Contract, Grayson, Eliot
36	Whiskey and Water, Bear, Elizabeth (re-read)
35.	Blood and Iron, Bear, Elizabeth (re-read)
34.	When Blood Lies, Harris, C. S. 
33.	The Book of Atrix Wolfe, McKillip, Patricia (reread)
32.	*Captive Mate, Greyson, Eliot
31.	*A Very Armitage Christmas, Greyson, Eliot
30.	*Alpha’s Warlock, Greyson, Eliot
29.	*Lost Touch, Greyson, Eliot
28.	The Faded Sun:  Kutath, Cherryh, C. J.
27.	The Faded Sun:  Shon’Jir, Cherryh, C. J.
26.	The Faded Sun:  Kesrith, Cherryh, C. J. 
25.	*The Long and Winding Road, Klune, T. J.
24.	*The Art of Breathing, Klune, T. J.
23.	*Who We Are, Klune, T. J. 
22.	*Bear, Otter, and the Kid, Klune, T. J. 
21	*Under the Whispering Door, Klune, T. J.
20.	*The House in the Cerulean Sea, Klune, T. J. 
19.	*A Shadow in Summer, Abraham, Daniel
18.	*Fluke and the Faithless Father, Burns, Sam
17.	*The Fantastic Fluke, Burns, Sam
16.	*The Tale of Two Seers, Cooper, R. 
15.	*A Boy and His Dragon, Cooper, R. 
14.	*Time’s Convert, Harkness, Deborah
13.	*Killashadra, McCaffrey, Anne
12.	*Crystal Singer, McCaffrey, Anne
11.	*Clay White, Cooper, R. 
10.	*Ravenous, Cooper, R. 
9.	*Change State, Lee, Sharon and Miller, Steve
8.	*Bread Alone, Lee, Sharon and Miller, Steve
7.	*Od Magic, McKillip, Patricia (reread)
6.	*Spells and Sensibility, Noone, K. L. and Murphy, K. S. 
5.	*Revelry, Noone, K. L.
4.	*Fire and Ink, Noone, K. L.
3.	*Some Kind of Magic, Cooper, R. 
2.	*Wyrd and Wild , English, Charlotte E. 
1.	*The Book of Life, Harkness, Deborah (reread)
 
* Ebook

Three Down, Three to Go

It’s a slog. Nothing neat or interesting about it. Just one foot in front of the other. I made it through Rituxan #3 with only a minor bout of diarrhea which might have been as much food related as chemo related. I read, I watch TV and YouTube, I play games, I knit. I’m tired all the time. I’ve got three more to go, and I’m not thinking about it until the day, which is July 18.

I’m making a big pitcher of chai tea with vanilla almond milk. I have this heavy glass pitcher that was intended for sangria (it has the plastic insert for the ice to chill it without diluting it). I think I’ve made sangria in it once. What I make in it all the time is iced tea, either just straight tea or the chai tea with vanilla almond milk, which is as good cold as it is hot. (I’m using 3 chai and 2 Irish Breakfast instead of 5 chai, as the Irish Breakfast gives it more of a caffeine punch.)

Because I’m using a glass pitcher and I’m making the tea with hot water and tea bags, precautions have to be taken. I put the pitcher in the sink and run hot water into it. It takes a while for hot-hot water to come from the water heater to the sink tap, so the glass in the pitcher heats up gradually. When the water is fully hot, I dump the pitcher and let it fill to the rim with the fully hot water. Then I fill my electric kettle over-full and start it heating. It takes five teabags’ worth of tea, a clothespin and a cake server. I used to use a big ladle, but that went in the last downsizing. But, anything large and metal works. That’s what you pour the hot water on to absorb the heat shock.

Timing is everything. The pitcher is full of hot water in the sink until the kettle begins to boil. Then I dump the pitcher, clothespin the five teabags to the pitcher rim, gently put the cake server in and pour the water in the kettle onto the blade of the cake server slowly, pausing now and again. It’s very important to pre-heat the pitcher. (Just like you preheat the teapot before you make tea in it — or you should — for the same reason. Yes, it keeps the tea warmer longer, but it also cushions the teapot against the shock of the boiling water and keeps it from breaking because it has expanded too quickly.)

Then you let the pitcher sit until the glass has cooled to room temperature before you remove the teabags. Pour in the whole 16-oz bottle of vanilla almond mix and stir. Cover the top of the pitcher with cling wrap and refrigerate. Enjoy.

It’s important to cover the pitcher when it’s in the fridge. The “dehumidifying effect” of modern frost-free refrigerators will “dehumidify” the tea and a “skin” may develop on the surface. (Refrigerators were invented by accident. The guy was inventing a dehumidifier that worked by refrigerating the air until the moisture condensed out. Then he realized what else he could do with it — like refrigerate food. That’s why containers in the fridge develop condensation on their undersides. The moisture that has been dehumidified out of the food has condensed on the lid.)

In the knitting news, I finished the baby booties.

I’m working on the dress a couple of rows at a time as I can settle to it. I’ve got about an inch and a half of the skirt. I need 9 inches of skirt.