elainegrey

Thursday morning

Tested negative yesterday afternoon; Christine strongly positive. Fingers crossed. Do i have a sore throat this morning, i wonder. (Every morning i go through latching onto some symptom to identify myself as coming down with COVID.)

Sick of masking. I am sitting outside (6:30 - 7:30 am) and have a collection of red spots which appear to be midge bites. Fie. I'm not sure our effective thermocell mosquito repeller is working on midges, and i don't remember having midge issues before... but i may have mistaken bite sites for something else like "chiggers."

Lunch time: I'm having one of my (mild!) trimengial neuraligia flares. But is there also a sore throat? I remembered our old scan-the-forehead thermometer: i'll start using it every time i am thinking, "Fever now?" and save the sanitation sleeves for once or twice a day.

Friday morning

No fever, but some sort of right side, ear to throat discomfort. Christine's sister, who seems a day ahead of Christine with symptoms, tested negative yesterday. Christine hopes to test negative today.

Carrie seems to have made it through two nights without her muzzle wearing just "pants" to protect her leg wounds. I did tape the cuff on the leg with the healing wounds one night, and the next just wrapped the one on her ankle so the pants (damp from the wet yard) could dry out.

--== ∞ ==--

Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in the majority opinion ... He acknowledged the “fierce scientific and policy debates about the safety, efficacy and propriety” of the treatments, but wrote that those questions should be resolved by elected legislators

I have nothing nice to say about scientific debates being resolved by legislators.

We arrived in NC May 27th 2016, so have entered the tenth year here. And maybe chapter 4? The first two and a half years we were here were about clearing the overgrown property, getting a fenced area for the pets and the "orchard."  Let's call that Chapter 1. Mom had her stroke in Dec of 2018. We still had some trees to plant in the orchard, but between Dec of 2018 and Mom's death June 1 of 2022, Mom's health and Grandmámá's health and care were constant concerns. I had a trip to Europe in there, and COVID certainly affected all those concerns for health fragile persons. I'm thinking of that as Chapter 2.

With Mom's passing i became focused on my health: i had just discovered the ADHD diagnoses of family members and realized it applied to me. A year later I had had my nose reshaped so i could breath through it, envisioning more energy from better breathing. I had a hard time recovering energy after the surgery. I finally pulled myself out of what i supposed to be depression, and then i was covered with spots. And so very tired. If this were fiction, the lethargy after surgery would be foreshadowing for the ITP diagnosis, and i can't imagine why ITP isn't the explanation for that low energy sense i had that year. Perhaps this third chapter ends with loosing two of our companions for the cross country move. It ends with Christine's sister becoming a widow,  promising some change in her relationship with Christine. Part of Christine's desire to move here had to do with her relationship with D--: i wonder how it will change. I hope it's a positive change.

I realize how different our experience of the political world was when we left California. NC's anti-trans "bathroom bill" was proposed or passed  on the same day we closed on the house. Trump's position as presumptive nominee occurred  as we were driving across country. I read the Doonesbury comics that are re-running George W era strips and feel horror at my nostalgic feelings for Rumsfeld.

My work world has changed in the third chapter: colleagues i was working with before we moved have left, including leadership changes that are beginning to reshape my work life. I hope i have the privilege of keeping my job until i want to leave. Were the world to continue as it has during my working life, i would retire in six years.

I am not optimistic. I think of the huge weight that sat on me in ... 1990? 1989? ... when i watched computer and climate scientists present their models of how climate would be in fifty years and the  dreary and dim prospects they presented. Every presentation essentially ended with a list of aspects they didn't have included or that we didn't know that might make the impact less drastic. I walked away realizing i'd be in my early 70s. I did consider switching fields. I talked to someone doing acid rain research whose advice was that if you wanted to save the environment we needed advocacy and public opinion changed, not more research. He had apparently "gotten into trouble" by trying to advocate for change politically. His advocacy was used to turn against his research, implying it wasn't impartial. He was depressed and probably not a good person for me to turn to, but there it is.

I did not foresee the disaster of politics or the possibility of a tech change like generative and agentic AI.  (OK the promise of "Agentic AI", something that could be a personal assistant has been promised by speculative fiction for ages.)

It seems like a new chapter. I dunno. One foot in front of the other.

Carrie is home. We have a soft muzzle coming so that we can restrict her licking. She already licked raw part of her foreleg. It's bandaged now but they wanted air circulation.  And she didn't eat her dinner. Poor thing. Hoping we can get through the rough bit without (more) human meltdowns.

I'm not too achy and stiff from yard work. My professional work looms over me and i wish i were more rested.

Written Sunday morning:

I think i am a little numb.

Thursday afternoon i started frogging (ripping apart) a sweater i had crocheted years ago. Ravelry says i started October 27, 2007 and completed March 15, 2015. I never wore it, and it was bulky and taking space in the closet. It took hours ... about one for each year i worked on it, ha! ... to pull it all apart. I wasn't quite done by midnight, listening to an audio book as i did the mindless work.

I took Friday off, brain dead. I had breakfast with my sister, then mostly went back to yarn stuff. We brought home Edward's ashes, and Christine  and i discussed some things i could make with the forest green suede yarn. She wants a toque, and i could make Yuletide gift bags.  I started on the bags, which i can make without a pattern. I continued the sitting around yesterday. I also finally mended a shirt of Christine's with a variety of visible mending and embroidery. I hope it remains comfortable: the fabric was very worn and fragile, and the  applique patches i made were from a bulky yarn.

I am fascinated by what is coming back to me with crochet and what seems fuzzy

Late Friday night Christine heard from her sister D-- that B-- has declined more. He has a heart pump, and it alarms with low flow - which is what is happening as he dies. So it sounds like they have this challenge of when to turn it off, which will be the choice that it is time to die. "Most patients died within an hour of LVAD deactivation, and all within 26 hours." How much harder? easier?

I haven't done much more with the microscope. I flailed at Reddit trying to get references for improving technique, but finally remembered the https://www.nclive.org/ access NC libraries provide. There i found

Bain, Barbara J.. Blood Cells : A Practical Guide, John Wiley & Sons, Incorporated, 2022. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/chathamnc-ebooks/detail.action?docID=6837075.

which has instructions -- including proper use of the microscope, each step that should be taken -- plus blood smear troubleshooting images plus a list of places to see other blood smears.  I'm still fuzzy on whether the AI assertion that the scattering of purple specks beyond the edge of the smear are platelets or not is correct. The image is under the cut, and i think it's attractive in the abstract.

Also under the cut is some of my down notes. I've just (well hours ago now) had pecan praline French toast & coffee and feel more optimistic. I made an experimental loaf of banana bread using up some of my odd ingredients, almond flour and mesquite powder. I think i will get more mesquite powder as it is apparently sweeter than sugar, and functioned nicely in the bread. Because the almond flour doesn't have gluten, i added flaxseed. I should have blended the flaxseed with a little more liquid, even though i had more banana than the recipe called for. The almond flour and mesquite also absorbed liquid. The bread is a little more crumbly than i would desire.

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Bought a microscope, lancets to count my platelets.  I figure i can get a gestalt sense of "normal" and recognize when over half are gone, which is a far better signal than i have now. Encouraging results last night in the absence of a useful stain. Somewhat excited about microscopy for fun, too -- Christine is looking forward to playing with it too.

Monday at work had to deal with FMLA paperwork, and i swear someone in corporate's business office hates regulations and makes them more miserable for everyone to comply with. The company outsources compliance to a remarkably incompetent firm. It's an extractive industry, it seems: how to create the most paperwork and time to prove compliance when, you know, not firing people because they are sick should solve that.

Anyhow, after discussing with my HR colleague her advice on the best way to handle things (eg: by phone), the phone dude told me to to the wrong thing. Oh fun.

And then i wrote a late night memo for the 7 am Tuesday meeting. I had avoided solving one problem that we were going to discuss because, hard, and i saw security dragons lurking. I came up with an adequate solution (that required no development on our part) that wasn't elegant but did not roust the security dragons. When several reviews of the solution were met with confusion, the "starting from the top" explanation revealed the problem didn't exist. THANK HEAVENS i did not spend a week on that problem!

Today's goal is not to spend lots of time looking at microscope stuff.

I became exhausted by the end of last week, so took Friday off. I went through medical bills, probably too attentively and too methodically but this is all new so.... Also, there was weirdness: UNC charged me  over 10 * X for a doctors appointment that i would have expected to be X.  However,  prior hospitalization, i thought, and went ahead and paid. Then it sat there, "not yet applied" to the account. I finally got the over 10 * X bill for the hospitalization, and had to ask that the money sitting there be applied.

I'm assuming someone in accounting is fed up with how long it takes to go through all the hoops with insurance and came up with this technique to get earlier payment. I wouldn't care except it didn't seem the ... pre-charge, let's call it ... was applied automatically. Anyhow, a few outstanding bills of X i think.

--== ∞ ==--

Friday i reread the first book in a speculative fiction series, again, and concluded, again, that it didn't float my boat. I respected the universe building and the sophistication of what the author was trying to do, but i realize i have a novel type that tends towards competency porn. That's what i wanted and was missing, or at least the protagonist's situation was all about how incompetent they felt. Look, that's me at work, don't need to read someone else wrestling with similar demons.

Library has e-books of Moon's continuation in the Paksenarrion Universe and that suited yesterday.I'll want to read the 80's and 90's books which have conveniently been bundled into omnibus editions.

Also Friday was niece's performance as K Howard in SIX: Teen edition, which she handled with excellence.

--== ∞ ==--

Saturday ... i am sure i did things but i mainly sat on the couch with a brief run to the co-op to get sesame seed and had a manicure-pedicure in which long ignored cuticles were wrangled. Also, i had awkwardly cut toenails at an odd angle: that too is now resolved.

Today i have baked my buckwheat loaf, my second set of seed crackers based on https://ascensionkitchen.com/speedy-super-seed-crackers/ and roasted a bunch of roots. The seed crackers are good and today's batch incorporated figs and dehydrated lemon slices  in the pureed soaked buckwheat and flaxseed, plus poppy seed on top.  I don't know if i'll get to the orange marmalade or orange almond cake on my mental list. The collected peel and the older oranges aren't getting younger but i am feeling a little tired.

I should walk: i haven't been down the hill and back for days. And maybe i should sit outside in the sun some.

Otherwise, i suspect we are both depressed. I can't tell personally if i am depressed or tired from ITP (the platelet issue). Tomorrow's platelet measurement would be good to be up from last week's or flat, and then exhaustion is "just" depression and stress.

Christine's brother in law was in surgery on Thursday and we had a bit of whip-saw with exceptions: before it was surgery in hopes of helping him recover better from all of last year's trauma, early in the surgery my sister in law was given warnings and much lowered expectations including long ICU recover, Saturday the were back to a life expectancy in years and he was out of ICU with discharge being discussed.

--== ∞ ==--

I appreciate how one of you signs off (not public) posts with a benediction. And that feels important now. I appreciate how you all share your lives with me. I write now and hope often that you and your loved ones will be well, you will feel loved and cared for,  and that you will be free of fear and despair. I recognize how hard it may be to see some parts of that, and i hold your shared fears, frustration and pain in my arms and hope you feel space for both that and my hopes.

I am happy to see glimmerings of spines in Republicans in Congress, so i am going to celebrate Tillis' speaking out on the Senate floor in opposition of Putin and for Ukraine.

And, i was a little confused when i was sent a press release statement from this list: https://oversightdemocrats.house.gov/news/press-releases. When it said ranking member, i figured it was ranking Democrat member, but no, it's a Republican (I'm bad at remembering names):

"Ranking Member Connolly Demands OPM Withdraw Email Threat and Renounce Musk’s Latest Attack on Public Servants https://oversightdemocrats.house.gov/news/press-releases/ranking-member-connolly-demands-opm-withdraw-email-threat-and-renounce-musks"

"Ranking Member Connolly Calls on Speaker Johnson to Condemn Violence and Bar Insurrectionists from the Capitol https://oversightdemocrats.house.gov/news/press-releases/ranking-member-connolly-calls-speaker-johnson-condemn-violence-and-bar"

"Statement from Ranking Member Connolly on Trump Administration’s Efforts to Silence Rep. Garcia https://oversightdemocrats.house.gov/news/press-releases/statement-ranking-member-connolly-trump-administrations-efforts-silence-rep-0" (Ends with "I can assure you that Congressman Garcia and our fellow Oversight Democrats will not be deterred by these threats, and we will continue to fight to safeguard our democracy and protect the rights of the American people we serve.”)

--== ∞ ==--

In other celebrations i can, if attend to it, taste the orange marmalade i added to my last loaf of buckwheat bread. I also like the tofu spread i made, although i do think next time i will cut way back on the nutritional yeast.

--== ∞ ==--

I am a little distressed by the return of the ITP (Immune Thrombocytopenia) and a seemingly correlated shortness of breath. I couldn't have gone for a draw on Saturday afternoon, it turns out, and i decided to skip going to the county hospital on Sunday morning.  Off to the nearby clinic this morning (fingers crossed i can just show up there).

Exciting: Apparently pomegranates can be grafted onto crepe myrtles. I have two crepe myrtles i have been planning on eradicating, as i think in ten years they'll be considered invasive. I ordered six Salavatski scion cuttings from someone in Virginia and will try a few grafting techniques.

I hope the weather change doesn't damage these while shipping.

--== ∞ ==--

Celebrate: i picked up a good looking Kanza pecan tree on Thursday, and i got it in the ground after work last night.

--== ∞ ==--

Christine has shared her latest multimedia piece with free subscribers at 17 sounds

--== ∞ ==--

Learning about running AI on my laptop (queries stay local, eventually could apply to private documents). Rather excited about a private option.  Because it was local, i asked an instance of deep seek to help extract the email addresses people entered in the Zoom chat so we could all stay in touch with one another. Highly entertained that it refused to help me, and suggested we create a form to collect addresses. It slow running on my laptop and i was most of the way done doing it by hand when i got the final refusal.

Also spent a good chunk of the weekend and at work yesterday afternoon getting coding environments set up to use something other than conda, a python environment tool that is now verboten at work.

--== ∞ ==--

Back to behind in email, including correspondence with your comments.

I'd declared email bankruptcy at the beginning of January. The past week i've started backlogging again.

This weekend i spent much time experimenting with ChatGPT, the Airtable AI, and a little bit with Gemini nee Bard because our org's Dear Leader is all in with AI and wants us to explore. Also, i think some closer management is all <3 AI. So, i should have some clue as professional defense. Anyhow, learned some useful things including that the new thinking models are better.  Spent much of my time trying to figure out how to use the models efficiently: when to do my own research, etc.

An example is Gemini asked to compare the free models of Gemini and ChatGPT. The usual model was very hedged speculation (interesting training there), the "reasoning model with apps" has access to current search and actually did searches to get current details.

I did ask ChatGPT to help me figure out how early payments on the mortgage would affect the end date. I can't tell if the counter intuitive results are because i made a mistake or if it did. I know talking to Christine about similar topics can be ... well, let me say i might not be the most clear in expressing my mental model of financial math.

Yard work happened, with massive pruning of fig tree and before/after photos that i should record where i took them from -- the nearest corner of the elderberry bed, the neared corner of the HVAC, the south end of the top step -- and then the photo from the south looking north at the tree doesn't have a good landmark.

Time blindness and infinite project optimism continues to frustrate. At least i have words for part of what is so frustrating.