elainegrey

Still physically healthy. Yay!

Really down. Boo.

I got worried that all the receipts from travel that i had emailed to me ended up getting lost. It turned out it took some time for my email to all get downloaded to my work laptop: they were all (well, many more) there this afternoon.

I traveled on Southwest this trip. On Monday i was anxious about my carry-on baggage having overhead room from my position around the 90th to board. Worked out OK. Friday i was even more delayed in checking in, and ended up around 120th to board. I gave into the extortion and paid to be moved to the front of the line for boarding.

On Monday i wrote about my concern about boarding and then relief that it was OK.

I continued:

There seem to be fewer Masks this trip compared the flight last December, although I don't know if Southwest skews.

I spent so much time with anxiety over packing and prep [the weekend before the flight]. I know that this is all the ADHD Stuff. I travel so rarely that I can't quite remember what I successfully did last time.

The weekend was waves of stress - perhaps anxiety is more correct- would I remember what I needed, would I pack it right? I spent along time waffling on whether to check luggage. Shoes drive me nuts: what to wear for comfort? But looks professional? (At least for the lowered standards of the tech and academic world.) The first time I traveled after living in NC, my feet were so accustomed to either house slippers or boots, wearing shoes created huge blisters.

I finally decided to just wear the newly dyed blue boots on the plane. If has been a fine decision and took one thing out of luggage. I can get them off fast enough at the security scan, and get them back on reasonably.

While packing, I ended up purging almost all the small travel sized things: handfuls of chapstick, hand sanitizer that expired six years ago! It can expire? Whatever. All in the trash.

I thought about my mom's purses and the cabinets full of similar stuff that we (my sister, mainly) cleaned out after her death. There is a spiral of triggers for collecting the items. One of them -- "I know I had X but I can't find it" -- plagued me as I packed. Having many copies theoretically means that you can easily find one when you need it. (l eventually found those things i was looking for as well as other items on my lost list this weekend.) There's the guilt of waste: must use everything up. The fear of the discomfort of being without. With the skin issues Mom and I shared, it isn't just discomfort but also knowledge how irritations can trigger flares. I still think with horror of a work trip where dry skin lead to a raw, weeping rash over half my face. Be prepared with every lotion and salve!

I have so few items compared to mom but I had no idea how old, how germy, the ones I have were. So I am going to TRY to not have tons of different chapsticks and lotions, try to keep redundancy down. I threw out a bowl of cough drops at least four years old. And I threw out a bottle of suede protector that was from the early aughts. (I had to ask Christine for advice as I dithered over whether to use it or not.)

Decluttering feels a bit like wasting things. I know one of the ADHD strategies some folks have is just have lots of backup for when you misplace things. Maybe I will drive myself nuts trying to keep track of stuff. But it also felt good to get rid of the bottles of stuff that i had no memory of how long it;s been sitting around.

In the opposite direction of throwing things out, I did accept a very large bin of canning jars from Mom's effects as Dad cleaned his garage. I've bought a collection of bamboo lids for the jars - canister style. Syringes for Luigi's meds, needle tips from Edward's meds, clutter of all my skin meds are now stashed in jars. I think that's going to help ease another aspect of clutter that creates an undercurrent that contributes to me feeling overwhelmed.

I'm not quite sure What is inspiring he decluttering. So far it's just been a bit here and a bit there. There is a little more ease than before, so I am noticing the benefit.

Yesterday was packed with stimulation, and my watch has an unhappy penguin to tell me i had lousy quality sleep for 3 h and 43 m. So a little rough this morning. And i am so peopled out. I'm a little afraid i'm approaching not being able to really think through what i am saying.

There are some things i want to talk to a colleague about that are unnecessarily worrying blurts.

Talk went well. I didn't make the mistakes i did in practice, including saying "we don't care about third party cookies" when it's really that *I* don't care about third party cookies. The co-chair's project depends on third party cookies for usability and apparently the insanity that is logout also does. And i moved the mouse off the demo video so the controls would hide. Yay!

Today's MUSTS:

* I need to decide on flip flops or boots this morning
* I need to run through what i am saying at 9 am.
* I need to be at a 7am, 9am (to speak), 11:20am and noonish meeting.
* I need to wear boots and go for a walk, ideally to the Mississippi. A walk should help.
* Dinner or the 4pm to 6pm reception?


To be clear, i saw no aurora. People in Minnesota did:

* https://spaceweather.com/archive.php?view=1&day=20&month=09&year=2023
* https://spaceweathergallery2.com/indiv_upload.php?upload_id=199907
* https://spaceweathergallery2.com/indiv_upload.php?upload_id=199898

In Minneapolis. I have had a lovely long lunch with a colleague on Nicollete Mall, with the most lovely weather. Now back at the hotel where i am not making friends with the wifi, and a headache has moeved in like the cloudy front outside. I hope headache, wifi issues, and cloudy skies are temporary.

Now checking my data plan: i think we have enough rolled over that i won't have too much overage, assuming i can get on the network during the conference.

Lunch was a muchness, including a hard cider, so i am a little fuzzy headed (possibly source of headache). The walleye sandwich was a pleasure. It's been ages since i had walleye, which is a lovely mild sweet white fish. Delicious. (Hmm: https://www.americanfishmn.com/product-page/walleye-fillets-skin-on ) I outed ADHD to my ADHD colleague. I think i can trust him with that disclosure. My employer is pretty good so even if others knew, well, my track record is extensive.


I had certain travel anxiety/decision paralysis all weekend. I need to take notes about flying southwest and put them where i will find them next time.

Christine is still having migraines, which is a continuation from before the new year. Most start in the wee hours of the morning, so we look at her CPAP, only a year and a half old, with suspicion.

Her other migraine she got after cutting back some brush. When she came in and proclaimed what she had done, i was trying to figure out what she had cut down and was somewhat ungracious when i imagined she had cut down all the wild blackberries. I quickly noted it wouldn't have killed them and would have made them more manageable. Working cutting things down is hard for her because she is very aware they are alive and she had framed it as rescuing a redbud tree, but instead she was rescuing a sweetgum.

Anyhow.

Last week was hard to get through, but i did. Part of the hard is mental wrestling i have been having since October, struggling to get everything done -- "everything" is hygiene plus medication plus skin voodoo (retinol! vitamin C! H-something acid but not HCl) plus stretch-balance-walk. I'd been blaming a combination of asthma and illness and seasonal affective disorder but really -- has it ever been THIS bad while i was treating it?

Ah, late last week it occurred to me, i had never held any expectation that i would do anything other than take my antidepressant and antihistamine regularly. I tried to do other things, but didn't note when i missed them and didn't have any intentionality and certainly wasn't trying to regularly exercise. And then i learned of ADHD, realized my mother and sibs and i were all in the same challenging space when it came to habits, realized i needed to start small, and started with flossing and brushing my teeth. Woo! Magic dental experience in June!!

But i've never tried this when also dealing with the shortening of days.

So maybe there was nothing particularly bad this year -- just normal seasonal affective disorder and i'd never had a background against which to measure its impact. The absolutely critical things get done: i go to work, the cats and Carrie are fed, i make some effort for the holidays.

Welp.

Realization helped with my mental framing, and it's always impressive how much energy it takes to both give yourself lots of negative messages and to receive them.

So, i've cut back on some of the expectations in the stretch-balance-walk space, been more gentle with myself, gotten over the respiratory infection!! and mostly gotten over the asthmatic cough.

I did look at some sleep measures, since i have all this data: my watch was reporting sleep efficiencies in the low 90s over the summer, but that's become the high 80s. Edward's changed his sleeping to be close - because he's cold? Maybe that's a small disruption as well. And I'm still having more respiratory events this week than in December, despite the cough being mostly gone. So hrm.

Yesterday i did the basic walk, plus the balance and stretches, and ended up with the 8k steps and the hour of standing during meetings (partly because the meeting ran over 30 min at the end of the day.) I am delighted at my physical tone: i've been digging clay -- lots and lots on Saturday, some yesterday in the dusk -- and no (new, distinct) aches! I've some balance to get back, but it's not terribly different from October. I am back to holding on to things while dressing, but i can imagine getting better balance in a few months.

Anyhow, i SHOULD (qv RFC 2119)be stopping here, but i'll note that i have travel coming up. I was near tears trying to make the decision, because somehow air travel across time zones just seems horrible and -- but i have to do the travel for business so why would i be so distressed about leaving earlier for myself? I don't really know why it seemed so hard to make the decision to leave a day plus a handful of hours earlier.

I'll be landing at SFO around 9:45 am the last Sunday in February. I think i will be able to have coffee with friends as soon as car is rented and i can get to Palo Alto. Other than that, plans still to be made. I'll take the Monday off. Tuesday and Wednesday will be super intense work to help W3C browser folks understand authentication and authorization practices. (Hrm, maybe some of Monday will be visual aid development - i don't know that i want to carry on the plane posters of sequence diagrams, but big posters of sequence diagrams on the walls might be helpful.) Then i take a redeye on Wednesday night to arrive home after 9am on March 2, my birthday. Woo.

I am in Ohio.

The weekend after my flu + COVID bivalent jabs was rainy. I posted that Saturday morning (though the post is dated the night before). The appointment at the dealer was ... pointless? ... as we had to wait nearly an hour as the dealer wrapped up another sale. Fortunately, all our paperwork was pretty quick. We ate out at a rundown Chinese restaurant near our old university haunts. The pictures of dishes might have been from thirty years ago, but the food was delicious.

I read... web comics i think the rest of that day, and i can't really remember what i did on the 9/11 Sunday.

Monday I was jabbed by the venomous saddleback caterpillar, which turns out to create comparable discomfort to a yellow jacket sting. Fortunately for me, while both are painful, after a few hours it was a memory. I now know that there are a number of venomous fuzzy caterpillars, and will no longer roll my eyes when someone expresses alarm at woolly bear caterpillars (which are not venomous).

We've signed a contract to install solar on our roof.

The work week was intense; i didn't stay on top of exercise, and by Thursday i felt i was not getting enough sleep. I've no idea where the time went.

Friday i took the afternoon off as comp for the time traveling on Monday. I got some good work done in the yard then and on Saturday. I also was a bit of a state over packing for this trip. It felt like i hadn't been away so long before, but i had the two trips to Florida to be at my grandmother's. Dressing a whole week to see people in the office was intimidating, i think.

The travel to Ohio was lovely -- just like the June trip there were lovely roadside flowers in West Virgina. I stopped at a different water fall -- i can't decide if this trip's waterfall, deserted, is a better choice (no one is going to find me if i slip and crack my head open), or one where there are people. Because, people. Either way, the woodland wildflowers and the lovely rush of a creek over stones is a wonderful break from the road.

I made it to the Ohio river at dinner time. This trip's choice of dinner restaurant was a winner. I ordered a sushi roll, salad, and spring rolls and ate at a the tiny Tu-Endie-Wei state park watching the sun set over the confluence of the Ohio and Kanawha Rivers as towboats pushed barges up stream. (Why are they not pushboats??)

I'm staying at a hotel with a kitchen. I had imagined the other colleague staying here and i concocting dinner plans together and eating together, but so far i'm on my own. Which is OK -- there is an abundance of things for me to do (like journal, and exercise, and....). I brought food from home that i'd picked (basil, figs, tomatoes, okra), impulse purchased asparagus that was approaching a week old, balsamic vinegar and olive oil, parchment paper and a sheet pan.

When i got in last night i asked the internet what to make with asparagus, figs, and basil, and was rewarded with an image of a pizza. I picked up the needful at the grocery next door, and made pizza with asparagus, figs, basil, and smoked salmon with a blend of shredded cheeses, ricotta, and balsamic vinegar. It was incredibly good! It's an odd combination, because the asparagus is a spring veg (and from Peru) and the figs an autumn fruit -- but it worked really well.

I was going to go visit a friend tonight, but she's been caring for her mother in the hospital since midday Monday. Her mom's blood sucrose and body temperatures have both dropped, recovered, dropped. It's over 24 hours later, and there's still no bed for her mom to be admitted to hospital (even considering other hospitals in the area).

I'd bought blueberries to be fresh fruit desert, but they had that mealy quality old apples have after being in the fridge for far too long. I've raided the free coffee supplies and used a packet of sugar, of artificial sweetener, and of "creamer" (first ingredient is corn syrup), balsamic vinegar and basil to make a compote that i've eaten as is (the point was not to indulge in a big desert). The basil and balsamic with the berries worked quite well. I probably should have added pepper.

Three more days. Well, two and a half. One long meeting tomorrow, the anxiety producing one. Thursday some random meetings but most folks will be working from home. Friday meetings all morning then drive home.

( Photo - Tributary to Doboy Sound, near Sapelo Island )

The return drive home with my nephew was delightful but intense with an extended stretch of driving in a deluge in Florida and another stretch of terrible traffic in South Carolina. But otherwise we had a good time and enjoyed seeing the drama of different landscapes. We stopped in Darien, GA and appreciated the charm of the pre-revolutionary war port and thought about returning to explore the historical and natural sites. Saturday we went to the near by Sapelo Island landing which includes a small museum. We stopped in Savannah for brunch, and then at a farmer's market where i bought MANY peaches. Sunday i just rested, reading up on different ways of handling the bushel of peaches. So far i've applied lessons from these sites:

* “DON’T THROW AWAY THOSE PEACH PEELS AND PITS!” https://www.dvo.com/newsletter/weekly/2016/9-23-411/cooknart3.html.
* Tastes Better From Scratch. “How to Peel Peaches,” July 30, 2020. https://tastesbetterfromscratch.com/how-to-peel-peaches/.
* Instagram. “Old-Fashioned Peach Pie.” Simply Recipes. https://www.simplyrecipes.com/recipes/peach_pie/.
* Tom. “The Best Way to Ripen Peaches.” Tall Clover Farm (blog), July 5, 2008. https://tallcloverfarm.com/74/the-best-way-to-ripen-peaches.

The peaches are just ripening. Yesterday i made a pie. Today i will dehydrate peaches dipped in a pectin-sugar mix (Healthy Canning. “Fruit Drying Pre-Treatments.” https://www.healthycanning.com/fruit-drying-pretreatments/ and the rest of the pages on drying food are excellent summaries of other sources) and dry slices for snacking, skins and pits for tea. I've been saving skins and pits to make a juice that may become a vinegar syrup (shrub) or a base for jelly. Or hard candy. So many options!

Monday i took off and did chores and visited with Mom & Dad. The garden had a large patty pan squash and lots of okra, so i roasted the squash and tender okra and a sad russet potato from the pantry. Two thirds of the okra was tough, so i pulled out the pearls and have over a cup of okra pearls (seeds) for adding to my next okra dishes. I might dehydrate them for winter soups. I think i will have a decent crop of lima beans, and the Trombocino squash is up in crepe myrtles dangling two long sqaush.

My sister has been with Grandmámá since i left. She and her daughter E are bored. The water leak turned out to be from the water heater, and was easily repaired. I think the impact of water on the slab is being considered as Someone Else's Problem, that will go away when the house is sold. I have had waves of recognizing that the hug i received as i left might be the last hug i get from Grandmámá. Here's a video my sister took of the bats returning home. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JwIceMblnRE

( Fresh tropical fruit? No such luck. )

I was disappointed in the little outing i took today: the self service stamps one can buy from kiosks are printed on demand as QRcode-esque stickers. I'd bought some so that i could have some extra postage on hand beyond forever stamps. I was hoping for definitives. But no. I got out of stamp collecting when they went to stickers, and i'm glad.

And i also looked for fruit stands but nothing was to be found. Fie. I suppose it's NOT the growing season here.

C-- doesn't ever leave Grandmámá alone in the house, i think, but my Dad does, so i've not felt guilty in my two outings nor my walks in the evening. But now the work week begins and i need to try and work. For some reason i have felt compelled to wash my clothes. I'm not sure why -- because i can? because i don't want to hang worn clothes in my cousin's closet? because i don't want to put sweated in clothes near others? I dunno but i ran the tiny load.

And then there's the weird probable sewage leak. If i leave a towel down where the wall meets the floor it becomes sodden. And i just know it's gross. So i am washing tiny loads of towels because i can't bear the thought of those wet towels festering at the bottom of the washer. Ugh, ugh, ugh. And i won't tell Christine about the sewage issue because she will resent it on my behalf, like it's someone's fault. Dad's, i guess, for being willing to wait a week.

I did adjust the hvac, so it will be cooler at night. Cooking in the kitchen does get a bit steamy and hot. Cooking with tamarind was intriguing; and the tamarind and ginger fish curry turned out fairly well. My grandmother say she appreciates it, but she eats so little it's hard to tell if she's just being polite or really appreciating someone else's cooking. C-- says Grandmámá is like a two year old. I have never had a two year old: she seems plenty cat-like to me. Some ritual of moving from room to room, a bit of finicky eating, and much sleeping.

I finished The Monogram Murders. I did try to speed up the reading, but the accent for Poirot and the dramatic changes in volume made that problematic. Knowing that i would not get the book back in time to keep listening on this trip was part of the motivation, but i also have a compulsion to finish the story. If i was in need of audio books, i think getting this series from my library would be pleasant, although i certainly have found a number of other period mysteries far more enjoyable. Here period was incidental, not part of the story to be told.

Christine has the amazing-to-me capacity to put down a book or a movie. I've just borrowed an Isak Dinesen collection from Open Library to read the rest of this week. I don't trust myself with a novel. I am hoping the short stories will be engaging but leave me free to close the book. I would like to develop a habit of reading before bed without the risk that i won't stop until i am done or will be distracted and craving finishing the story.

I feel like my schedule went from zero to sixty. My brother's family is coming to the states this summer, and visiting our area in June. I spent much of yesterday on plans -- video calls to brief my brother on the state of COVID here and to get their plans, junket to the state park to check out pavilions for Father's Day, discussions re choices, renting pavilions, realizing i always regret not having a swimsuit the one or two times i visit the lake with family so buying a swimsuit (and almost picking wrong sizes a few times), picking out fabric dye pens and dyeables for a gift for the kids.

While i took some time off Friday and did some yard work -- and then Christine's sister was over for a film on the deck Friday night -- the rest of the weekend i was on my laptop.

I also have plans to go to the Tampa area in July to stay with my Grandmámá (and will switch off with my sister) while my Dad's cousin takes a break. Grandmámá is finally going to get a vaccine, apparently, as her county is finally bringing them to housebound seniors. (And she did get her shot on Monday.) Maybe when i'm there she will be well enough to go out. My Dad has set an expectation of basically being housebound except for during her afternoon nap.

After a year of no events, this seems like a muchness.

--== ∞ ==--

I am realizing my sister has a better insight into just how frail my father is. She's pushing to get him moved out of the current large and expansive home to something managable.... and i think i'm ready to support that. He is overwhelmed with Mom's care. It's been a very demanding two years since the stroke.

Ugh, all the stuff they have.

Southwest Entertainment: For those who haven't had the pleasure, Southwest boards without assigned seats. Since i recalled the need to check in in the last hour available, my boarding position was B60. A1-60 loads before B 1-60. So A loads, B lines up, and the call goes out for any other As? No? B begins to board. I wander over to B60 and my glance passed over that of chatting teens. A. "Are you in A?" l ask. Yes, they are waiting. They laugh at their parents who are trying to figure out the boarding state. Parents see them and explode in indignation. kids are nonplussed. "WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT?" rants the mother.

I figure I would have been grounded which ever choice, so i am totally in sympathy with the eyerolling teens.

And, as an adult, despite my crankiness at loading last - would the teens have been able to hold seats for the parents? Or would the parents have been in middle seats either way? And it's just a two hour flight.... I was quite lucky to find a middle seat near the front with plenty of luggage room and petite folks in both the isle and window seats.

I've set my calendar alarm for the return because i have a layover in Baltimore: it's going to be a long trip.

🛫🛬

Getting ready for this trip seemed a trial. Wardrobe that was professional and flexible enough for sun, rain, highs in 70s and in 50s. will the hotel be heated hot? Or icy cold?

I did cook most of the remaining tomatoes yesterday, a mix of green to red. Sauteed in olive oil they melted down and then i added a Quarter of preserved lemon and a dash of the brine. It was fabulous! the preserved lemon added just the right umami.

My brother is in town so I saw him with my parents and sister's family last night, then he stopped by this morning.

🛫🛬

I was surprised by the palm trees used in landscaping at the airport. Less by the bald cypress turning russet by the highway. Eventually the evergreen live oaks and magnolias made an appearance. I noticed a plane tree (probably American not London) wit leaves changing and a maple still green. A pine was that was unfamiliar: long needled like a loblolly, but far shorter and there was something different about the crown.

Despite my fear of humidity, it very pleasant at landing. Blue sky with ... the sun setting in the wrong direction? It took me a little bit to realize why the very flat land with no hills in the distance was so disturbing: with all the industry by the highway it seemed like i was on the Bay area's highway 101. But there should have been hills. Could i be aware of Lake Pontchartrain -- similar in scale to the South Bay -- without seeing it?

Entering the city and seeing the superdome and elevated highways brought forward the memories of the people stranded on the highways by Katrina. My eyes hungrily took in the details of urban life, and i realize how small my built environment is.

Walking around in the evening was pleasant. The grocery store, Rooses, was delightful. So many spices in the spice section! Blackend tuna and lovely French from the deli section, Parish pilsner from Broussard, and Creole cream cheese. The cream cheese wasn't what i was expecting: more runny and sour than Greek yogurt. I even drain my Greek yogurt to make it thicker. Ah well, i did my part to help protect a threatened foodway (although it's a food way that will go extinct in my diet).

I'm visiting the Ohio office this week. I feel behind, and you all have sent me so many warm comments in the past few weeks. I've been crunching during the work day, and exhausted after. Over the weekend i was getting things settled for the trip.

We've seen the fawns and doe since the deer was trapped in the orchard. We also saw a Chatham rabbit the same day the fawns showed up again.

"Chatham rabbit?" you ask. Our county, Chatham, had a history of being a source of rabbit for the table. The familiar cotton-tail is branded Chatham rabbit, and the brand has been revived to apply to a coffee shop, blog, and folk duo. I saw another this morning in the car headlights as we left for the airport. Good to know they are around. Perhaps they are what eat the violets up close to the house.

Being in cube land makes me miss my window so much!

I appreciate the responses about the intrusive contracts for adoption. Just like cats and dogs, other critters need homes, including donkeys: https://donkeyrescue.org/ When we were moving we thought about getting bigger, furrier pets, and donkeys are wonderful critters. I'm less excited about the idea these days: why do the deer need competition for forage?

This trip is relatively relaxed -- not meetings all day -- so i have enough time to really miss being home. I hope to bestir enough motivation to get out for a good walk tonight.