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Holly Doyne

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Errand Day

Holly Doyne Posted on 2022-04-21 by Holly2022-04-21

and packing – which I really didn’t even think about till after supper.

First – there was an afternoon game. I remembered to trade in my ticket prior to the deadline for an extra ticket to one of the Mets games this fall. While I was at it, I swapped out another one so that I had two seats together. Always useful that… Of course, the As managed to win today. I didn’t look at the attendance, but it should have been better than yesterday. 

I decided early that I just couldn’t afford to take off ½ a day right before a trip. (Getting to that portion later). So instead stopped by a couple of the kids homes followed by Costco so that I would have snacks (hints, not foreshadowing) 

This afternoon, we were visited by the ladies who lunch –

with up to four of them at one point hanging out on our front patio. 

I managed about 250 stitches into the Spangler Book storykeep

which puts it a bit over 1/3 complete. The fun thing is about another 10 rows and I will finally get a new set of colors as the dragooning starts to show.

And I finished the March Quaker by Heart in Hand – which means one less project to take along. 

I’ve April & May packed to go with. I should be able get April started and finished before the end of the month.

Tomorrow? My flight leaves at 0640 which means George is going to have to drop me off at the Oakland Airport since BART doesn’t start till 0500. I am just not willing to risk running for the plane (15 minutes Richmond to North Berkeley, 35 minutes NB to the Coliseum Station, ~ 15 minutes between monorail rides from BART to the airport. Then security…. Did I mention that I would prefer to check my suitcase rather than deal with the overhead bins?

It is not quite 2200 here. Suitcase is ready to go. Backpack is waiting for the electronics. I probably should set an alarm….

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Overly ambitious

Holly Doyne Posted on 2022-04-16 by Holly2022-04-17

Remember I said that I had two cross-stitches I was planning on finishing today?

Well, I really hadn’t looked at how many stitches were left on either one. The First – Galaxy Girl (Barbara Ana) still was only at 82% after adding more than 1000 stitches today. Somehow, I was thinking she was 1200 stitches – not the realistic 1821.. So this is as far as I got –

the colors are the called for DMC, the fabric is one of this year’s Sparkly of the Month from Fortnight Fabrics.

But really, there were other distractions today – the Mets lost, the Twins lost, but the As somehow managed to pull off a victory in the 9th. Changing colors a lot really isn’t compatible with screen time.

And then there was a trip to the dogs – well actually a trip out to drop off keys to Dani & Alex followed by a stop at JoaAnns on the way home. Well, it is on the way home and picking up skeins of replacement DMC 712 is never a silly idea.

I hear the hot tub and sleep calling me….

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It wasn’t our car

Holly Doyne Posted on 2022-04-06 by Holly2022-04-06  

Most of the time I just mention what I am doing and seriously resist talking about other members of the family. But this morning I just can’t resist. Since I have been home on my longest day of the year (also coincidently April fools…) I have been dragging myself out of bed in the morning and heading straight to the coffee maker.
This morning, George offered to make a latte run. Who am I to discourage such initiative? I used my handy-dandy app and order. AKA – I buy, he flies.
The next significant amount of time passed in a blur of me cleaning up, trying to find the top of my desk in the craft room and plugging in various electronics.
Finally I hear noises in the kitchen. He had gotten the coffees then walked over to Cheese Board for muffins and scones. Problems then ensued. His key fog won’t open the car door. Neither would the key. Blue VW Golf? Check. Parked on Vine between Walnut & Shattuck? Check. He looked around again. There was another VW Golf parked two spaces back from where he was.

It looked a bit tired, and nowhere near as clean. But, jackpot! The key fob worked and he was able to head home with the lattes still pretty warm.

Posted in Around Berkeley, family | Leave a reply

Puzzles & Passengers

Holly Doyne Posted on 2022-03-22 by Holly2022-03-22  

Practically speaking – I am going to have to upload photos to the server at

  1. dinner time
  2. middle of the night

 

as other options just aren’t going to be possible. As I mentioned, this is the same ship with the minimal connectivity that I sailed on last fall. I can understand it from the ship’s point of view. With 103 paying passengers, even if everyone on board bought the full package, the income wouldn’t cover the amount of bandwidth needed. And, given the particular brand of passenger, many of them don’t understand about getting off-line when not actively using wifi – much less shutting off their dozens of irrelevant apps while on limited services.

So, starting tomorrow, I will provide direct links the day after to any photos that I actually manage to get uploaded.

There are a variety of passengers. Perhaps about a dozen of us traveling solo. Several couples using the ship for their twice annual migration (England, Belgium & Portugal being the destinations I have heard so far). A reasonable mix of passengers who have been on Windstar before and new-to-the-line passengers.

Unlike last fall, there are a number of serious puzzle junkies on the ship. I brought along a couple of puzzles to contribute (one a duplicate and one that just doesn’t appeal to me).  The 1000 piece Whimsy puzzle of Mt Rainer was immediately picked up by a Brit ex-pat who is now in the Denver area. He was familiar with Liberty Puzzles and was delighted to be introduced to a new manufacture of wooden puzzles. There are several puzzles that are new to me from last fall, but the rest I remember seeing completed.  No matter what time I hit the lounge, someone seems to be working on a puzzle.

The large table we used has been taken over by the “cruise consultant” who is attempting to sell both future cruises and port tours. Considering that we may not even get our stop in Horta… it is going to be interesting to watch him. I mind only because it is the table with both 110 & 220 power points on top for easy access.

What else? Looks like specialty dining is going to be limited due to the low number of passengers. Can’t say that I blame the ship, since having more venues open when no extra revenue is generated makes no sense.

There is at least one knitter on the ship; says she is on the sock-a-day plan. Two stitchers are working on mixed media additions to large, square pillow coverings (the kind that are 2/20$ on Amazon). unzip, turn inside out, take out the three side seams and you now effectively have a blank canvas on which to stitch….

Me? I have been working on my Long Dog (now 62% complete) and “Life Happens, Coffee Helps” from Forbidden Fiber Co.

We have detoured ~170 nautical miles south of the original plan in an effort to avoid  predicted high seas and storms.

We will see!

(currently GMT-4)

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piling up

Holly Doyne Posted on 2022-03-13 by Holly2022-03-15  

Right now, it all seems to be in heaps around me. Ignore the blog spam for a few days? Come back to 867 weird comments. That even exceeds my daily amount of spam accumulated across all of my email addresses.

It certainly isn’t something that I would like to greet me on a weekend morning. In fact, it falls into about the same category as clean-up, wastebasket emptying or tackling the hundreds of “too good to toss but what the H am I going to do with them” things that are hanging out in my garage. Some of those things just possibly might have a future home, now that they have been excavated out from under where they have been hiding since fall of 2014. It might mean a road trip or two, but that isn’t all that bad.

I have also decided that all my weaving materials need a new home. If UCDavis does’t want them, I may off load them to the person receiving the sock knitter.  What else? Oh, tons of yarn, a bunch of fiber and who knows what else.

Can you tell I would rather be doing anything else other than cleaning?

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Pisces

Holly Doyne Posted on 2022-03-07 by Holly2022-03-07  

There is a cross stitch series designed by Nora Corbet called the Zodiac Girls. Not that you remember, but Aquarius was the first I stitched in the series which made Pisces the obvious second.

Rather than skip around on a number of projects today – I decided to see if I could get the stitching part completed.

x 

and here she is – with it taking me 1521 additional stitches today. Which I will admit is likely to be the most that I have ever put into a single project at once.  There is still beading to go – about 780 beads worth as well as some back stitching. But that is for the present time. 

Meanwhile, Alex is steadily doing better. Noah has moved downstairs to the now vacant apartment and the house seems terribly quiet – no feet over my head nor dogs barking downstairs. I am thinking about asking Dani for a recording that we can put on an alarm system……

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There might be turkeys

Holly Doyne Posted on 2022-03-04 by Holly2022-03-05

In the wild, but Albany California isn’t exactly wild.

In fact, I took this a few days ago  at one of the two gas stations @ Marin & San Pablo. I am thinking  that someone decided that feeding them might keep them out of traffic during the busy afternoon.

Otherwise – Alex is steadily getting better. Noah is moving downstairs, which means that he and George went shopping for a few things. And I wound up at the appliance store as the “almost new” stove @ Dani & Alex’s suddenly decided that only one burner is needed. Looking up the stove – repairing it would be not worth the time…. (and I am beginning to think we need to check over everything done by the previous owner. He might have been a good contractor for others, but I think he went on the cheap side here.)

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On Monday mornings

Holly Doyne Posted on 2022-02-21 by Holly2022-02-22

last spring and summer, I went walking with another woman in the neighborhood. The habit dropped this fall when she and her family were out of town for the fall semester. Connecting up again has been kind of chancy what with everything going on in both families, but we finally managed this morning.

The plan was to meet up at The Caffeinated Cat near Shattuck and Vine, grab drinks, and walk around a different neighborhood for a change. But both of us had forgotten a key point. Today is President’s Day in the US. It is a federal holiday which also means that schools are closed. The day was also bright, sunny, and heading toward not cold. As a result, there were students everywhere along with the local crowd doing its “work from home” at the local coffee shop.

The place was packed. As an alternative, we decided to motor over to Berkeley Bowl West, let Barbara get in a bit of shopping and grab coffee/sandwich from there. Respectful of their employees, the Bowl was closed. As a final effort, we stopped at Safeway where I had already been once to grab bagels so that she could get dinner ingredients. I got sandwiches which we wound up eating on our back deck.

So much for the walk. Hopefully next week

 

—–8-< ———

The Barbara Ana is complete – I fought through the Diamant (the metallic gold in her hair and the last key) as well as finishing her sleeves. Those last 65 stitches took a frustrating hour.

Clue #3 on the Supernatural Monsters arrived and was stitched – the summoning Sigil.

I am finding the stitch-a-longs fun – I have never seen the show. I am now worried that if I watch it, I might not want to finish the stitching.

And finally – we are apparently now in Pisces – so the next Nora Corbett Zodiac Girl got started.

doesn’t look like much, but it is a few hundred stitches starting at the top, stitched on 32 ct Vintage Country Mocha linen with the called for floss. Hello? It is DMC!

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All-nighter

Holly Doyne Posted on 2022-02-19 by Holly2022-02-20

I don’t know about any of you – but my desire to stay up all night left about when I finished school with all the accompanying last minute studying for exams. Add to that those legitimate travel times when you don’t have a choice and that pretty much is it. I certainly don’t plan on being up without it being a necessity – repeat instances of travel or some family emergency.

I certainly don’t plan on some stupid medication keeping me up all night. But then, I should have known better. (Queue – remember you are talking to an “getting older” skinny white lady here). I was reminded earlier this month by my endocrine guy that I really should consider going back on meds in an attempt to delay bone fractures. Ok, why not. Oh – wait, now I remember why not. Last week, I  blamed the meds for delayed crankiness and headaches. After all – I am a typical American – something going wrong has to be someone else’s fault right? Anyway…

I took that extra, evil table on Friday morning sort of according to the directions. (take 30 minutes ahead of anything else – stay up right, blah-de blah…) Well, I remembered a couple of hours after being up having coffee and shoving the really important things down my throat but figured that an attempt was good enough. And forgot about it for the rest of the day.

The muscles in my legs started cramping about 2100. Ok – apparently the stupid tablet was absorbed anyway. I took some more calcium and attempted to go on with whatever. By 2300, it was obvious that pain was in my future and not sleep.

So this is why, instead of telling you that Saturday was a complete wash – I spent early Saturday morning in my craft room drinking lots of water, popping calcium pills like candy and thinking that I should really go down to the hot tub since the heat might help my leg cramps. Those cramps were making me feel a bit like a pretzel. Not talking about large muscles here, but all those little ones around your feet and ankles…

But, before finally figuring that I could get some sleep after all and heading to bed at 0630 – I managed to

finish most of the fox’s head and start adding trees.

and stitch the weird looking top Dino for the letter J for this year’s Cloudsfactory Dino ABC’s

It would have been nice to get more than a couple hours of sleep. Apparently everyone else in the house missed the memo and I was provided coffee at 0830.

The rest of this day is kind of a blur…

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and no news

Holly Doyne Posted on 2022-02-18 by Holly2022-02-19  

as of COB today. Primary care provider informed us they had been asked for more information.

Why? He has two fractures in his lower leg clearly stated on his ER sheet. What else do they need to know beyond the fact that he is now a week into a three-day splint designed to be on only till the swelling went down.

And Monday is a US Federal Holiday. I want off the train track…

 

The current Barbara Ana Stitch along is not a Dreaming Girl. Or at least it is a dreaming cat. Just the gold accents and a bit of sleeve left to finish

and another 500 stitches on the full coverage. Feels good to make progress on it again. In the next few, I am thinking about recharging the words so that they can actually be read.

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and more of the same

Holly Doyne Posted on 2022-02-16 by Holly2022-02-17  

but if one takes enough meds – well, the ability to care, much less make sound decisions might just be a bit impaired.

Which is why I found myself at the Cal Women’s Basketball this afternoon. The game was a reschedule with Arizona (COVID) and, as of last evening, cancelled and would not be rescheduled. Once again, the issue apparently was with the Arizona team. So any of you bright people want to believe that giving up masks, eating out a lot, and taking strangers hands to stand in a circle singing “Kum-ba-yah” … well. The pandemic is not over.

Found by Noah fr Reddit

Back to the game. Game is scheduled. AZ is not playing. At 0400 in the morning CALState LA decided that it was worth a drive north for a chance to play another game. You have to respect that kind of willingness and dedication. Bus ride that sucks under the best of circumstances. That is 376 miles and 6 hours of driving under the best of circumstances.

1300 in the afternoon means that just about anyone who is on campus is in class. One of the solutions to getting an audience was provided by campus catering who showed up with trays of food – free to all the students. (Feed them lunch, they will come?)

By half-time there was enough left over that anyone else – staff, spectator, or band, that wanted food could eat. They had friend chicken sandwiches, a veg alternative, French fries and coleslaw.

this pretty much was most of the attendance. Empty to put it mildly. Score at the half was 53:23 Cal.

 

Otherwise –

I have Aquarius completed but for the beading

 

and figured out that this Barbara Ana Mystery 2 Part Stitch Along is not featuring another one of her ladies.

not unless a lady has ears….

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Migraine

Holly Doyne Posted on 2022-02-15 by Holly2022-02-16  

pretty much says it all – doesn’t it?

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Cheese things

Holly Doyne Posted on 2022-02-09 by Holly2022-02-10  

which aren’t scones. For that matter, they aren’t croissants either. These come from The Cheese Board Collective which is located down the hill from us on Shattuck Avenue. Those aforementioned cheese croissants come from Acme Bakery and have jalapeños.

Not sure which is better. And, if I was interested in standing in lines for a while, could probably conduct my own taste test. Right now, I am settling for what I have along with a cup of coffee.

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Stitching instead

Holly Doyne Posted on 2022-02-07 by Holly2022-02-08  

In the best of weeks, Monday’s are never my favorite.

For some, there is lightness, brightness, and the promise of excitement up ahead. For me, unfortunately, this week, there is a list longer than my arm of all that I need to accomplish. Some of it has to do with getting mailing supplies so that I can get packages off in the mail. And, while I am so busy complaining, I might as well add – it seems when I need a box, Amazon as well as everyone else is busy tossing everything in plastic bags. When I need a bag, it is only boxes..

 

Some of it has to do with cleaning, never my favorite on the best of days. And the last of it has to do with DMC 310 – aka black. It is one thing to use it for outlining, and another thing when some bright and brilliant (cough, cough) cross stitch designer seems to believe that about a thousand stitch werewolf is needed as one of the monsters in a piece. I still need to fill in his nose and mouth so that he doesn’t look so weird as well as some ground. And the rest of his body – more black

It was a bit more fun adding a few stitches to the Cat & the Cook..

and the January Quaker is complete – the balance of non-black.

 

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Lost & Found

Holly Doyne Posted on 2022-01-30 by Holly2022-01-31  

and at high risk of being lost again.

Once again this intrepid explorer braved the craft room on a mission to find that blasted clip board.

And, once all the non-obvious places have been searched, perhaps looking in the obvious places might be in order? Like on top of a side table, underneath a pile of t-shirts waiting to be embroidered? The ones that were moved from the ironing board to the side table?

Argh.

Then I spent a few minutes transferring numbers from scraps of paper to my tracking sheets and deciding that, while they were ok, they probably weren’t the best format. Do I want to spend time in Numbers or Excel playing with spreadsheets? Nah.

Instead, I “attended” the Acorns & Threads gathering on line, stitched a fair about and watched the 49ers lose to the LA Rams (US Football playoffs). I even fixed dinner (my cooking contribution for the month) during half-time. Completely wiped up, I am going to bed extremely early. 

But – there is stitching progress –

You Belong to Me – by Long Dog

 

 

And all but the 30th on the Temperature Tracker + the shelf for Feb is ready to go.

Now, where do I put these so as to not loose them again?

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Wallpaper DIY

Holly Doyne Posted on 2022-01-24 by Holly2022-01-25  

Perhaps a member of my family or Carmen can update me, but I don’t think that I have ever personally done decorating DIY. In that I specifically mean painting or wallpapering of any of the several dozen places I have lived over my lifetime. It may explain why I have a tendency to have completely bare walls once past the tape&poster portion of my life.

Since marriage, I may have said “where” on occasion, but George has been the primary person responsible for getting things hung on the wall. Wait – we were talking paint and wallpaper. And I was about to describe my help in doing something I have never before tackled.

First off – YouTube is a wonderful place to find explicit and contradicting explanations on how to do just about anything. Certainly there are instructional videos on how to hang wallpaper. None of them seem to begin with “First select your wallpaper and buy the following supplies.” Except for one who did the “check to make sure that you have ……. and listed the essential supplies.” He didn’t mention a ladder, but that one is kind of obvious. Of all things useful, we didn’t have a screwdriver.

Wallpaper sheets – check. Wallpaper paste – check. Brush&Roller&pan for the paste – check. Misc – ladder, floor covering, open windows, room lights, level&ladder& marker – also check.  Honestly, I was just there to be the second pair of hands.

After measuring over and drawing her plumb line, we added the wallpaper paste to the back of the first sheet and also a bunch to the wall, she climbed the ladder and the first sheet went up. Then we added more (I was about to say library paste – but you get the idea) paste and started the smoothing process, and adding more paste and adding more paste as we worked our way down. As it looked pretty good, we went for the second sheet.. And yes, the sheets were printed – Sheet #1 or Sheet #2 – on the bottom in an attempt to make sure that the incompetent had half a chance of matching sheets as we went.

Turns out, I am fine with operating an Exacto knife in trimming edges. After all – it is just a highly expensive and retractable scalpel. We hung the first two sheets, then decided to see if they stayed up before proceeding. The lack of hanging the rest also might have had something to do with not having a screwdriver so that we couldn’t take off the outlet cover which was right there in at the bottom of the next sheet to be hung.

 

 

I worked on a few stitching projects yesterday. Of all – this was the quick one – the first monster in the Supernatural’s SAL. I made one substitution for a Weeks Dye Works to a Forbidden Fiber Co green. Anyone with a clue as to what monster she is?

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I wish it was the last time

Holly Doyne Posted on 2022-01-23 by Holly2022-01-24

that weekend stitching would be interrupted by US football but noooooo. Two games yesterday. Two games today.

Now that the previous discussion is finished since I had, have, and will never have, a team in those particular games – what was the rest of the day?

Quiet, stitching. A bit more clean-up. More stitching and a consideration of audiobooks on sale. Then I checked with HooplaDigital (courtesy of my library) and decided that I needed no shopping.

Oh, then there was the basket. It is a normal laundry basket which has been living next to the dresser. I dumped it on the floor and proceeded to sort it out. Mostly long sleeve tops with a few t-shirts tossed in for good measure.

I almost never wear t-shirts – so all of those can go into the donation pile. Then there are the colors that I never wear. Another handful into donate. Then I looked at what were essentially duplicates, and 1 of each pair went into the going out pile. Satisfied, before I could change my mind, I moved the donate pile to the front entryway,

You know the principle? Out of sight, out of mind?  This should apply.

and went back to dealing with the endless borders of Alice –

Of which the bottom 2/3 is completely finished – leaving me the flowers in the two containers, plus the section for the Mad Hatter on the one side and the Tea Party across the top. If I can’t finish it this week, I will certainly have it done by the end of February.

 

 

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Another day

Holly Doyne Posted on 2022-01-22 by Holly2022-01-23

more cross stitch, another football game.

Wash, rinse, repeat!

In actuality, I managed to do some of the other basic life chores, like shower, make a bed, fold some laundry (note, I did not say it was put away). Dealing with excess clothes is on my list of things to do Sunday. 

Different rabbit hole than the one that I had planned. Like many of us my age, I have more clothes than I realistically need. They all fit, so I don’t have that excuse – you know the one that is all wrapped around a plan to ditch a few kilos and be young, fit and ….. you know. But I actually wear most of them. I also could get by with a lot fewer. Stuff just accumulates. I don’t see a reason to get rid of the business clothes, there is actually the rare occasion where “California Business” isn’t enough. That being defined as what ever you want to wear that is clean and covers a reasonable amount of skin. My mother’s generation (those that wore stockings and pumps to go into the city) would be appalled at the idea of jeans at the Opera or Symphony. 

Well, I am attending either of the above. First is no interest; second is no interest in sitting in a crowd of strangers. So there you go – you can, I am not.  I have actually become a bit too comfortable at home, except for cruising. I need the ocean on occasion.

Where was I? Oh, yes, the need to go through my closet, a basket of stuff, several drawers, and my closet shelf. And the business clothes. I can hang on to a couple of outfits, just in case. Maybe as insurance so that I won’t ever have to do that again? Anyway – most of the rest is serviceable and gets worn if it cycles to the top.  

This is too many decisions – I need to stitch.

This week’s Cryptid – The Death Worm (Mongolian Death Worm) can be meters long and spews acid. Not someone you want to invite home.

And more progress on the Spangler Book

 

and it will be an attempt to finish another section of “Alice” while watching the 49ers survive the cold of Wisconsin.

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Glad that is over

Holly Doyne Posted on 2022-01-21 by Holly2022-01-22  

today was ever so much better than yesterday. Not only did I know who I was, but I had more than a vague idea of where I was as well. My fever broke somewhere around mid morning, so I staggered around the house generally failing at anything I attempted to do. But hey, at least I was trying – or so I told myself.

It became obvious after the fourth attempt that this was not the day on which to start a new cross-stitch project. Especially as complicated as one of the Zodiac Girls from Nora Corbett. It is not the there are 15 (or is it 16 colors) and beads – I would love to forget about the beads. It is a matter of – no matter how hard I try – this pattern is just not going to work in Pattern Keeper. 

Which means back to the 80’s, 90’s, 2000’s or whatever. Paper and pencil. Ugh. Or Goodreader or good notes (and we will not talk about developers who don’t update apps. So I am attempting to use PDF Expert so that I can blow the pattern up a lot and mark off stitches as I go. 

But I don’t know that you really care about all of that. What is important is that I feel like I am back in the land of the living. Meanwhile, George still has his cold and sounds like he is trying to hack up a lung. I really doubt COVID – he simply hasn’t been anywhere or done anything too stupid. I am contemplating him checking in with his docs on Monday if this is still going on. Also, because I have been around him and failed to get sick (and his cold started a couple of days before my booster) lends credence to the ordinary cold belief.

Frankly, most of us have managed the last almost two years without getting even one cold. When you aren’t around a ton of people, physically you stay a lot healthier. I certainly have. So here we are, one more thing conquered and waiting for the next challenge!

 

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Ouch

Holly Doyne Posted on 2022-01-19 by Holly2022-01-19

And I thought yesterday was a disorganized disaster – today trumped that in spades then ran the table (ok, mixing metaphors here, but you get the idea). And, as attempt to write this for the third time, the fun has simply not ended. Safest if I take my shivering self to bed.

Let me explain: today was supposed to be a pair of quick check-ups at the VA. And this is the Med Center on the far end of San Francisco – yes Virginia, you can practically toss a stone in the Pacific from the back picnic tables – the only way I would be driving any further would involve a trip to Travis AFB or the Sacramento VA. Those 21 miles seem to take forever and involve city streets, stoplights, stop signs, interstate freeways, the Bay Bridge and a circuitous route through SF itself.

Anyway. First up – I failed to set an alarm so woke up 20 minutes late. The only positive thing I can say about starting late was that Peet’s had just opened so there might be coffee – at least if there wasn’t a line of 10 people. At 0530 in the morning?  It took 20 minutes to get my coffee and I was starting to get even more panicky. Obviously, I am not someone who takes being late well at all.

So there I go, Down Vine street, left on MLK, right on University heading toward the Interstate. But wait, something feels wrong when I start driving. A slub-dup that has just started. I pull over and check. Left rear tire is now flat. ARGH! A block further on the left, there is a filling station with parking spaces. Carefully crawling the car across two lanes and turning left, I ease the car into a side space. The absolutely wonderful man working in the station says it is fine to park the car for a couple of hours if someone is going to be coming to get it as he agrees that driving on a flat tire is stupid.

I call and wake George up and leave him with the challenge of calling AAA and getting the tire changed. I would do it if I had time, it wasn’t dark, and I wasn’t freezing cold. All of them together? Nuts – that is why we pay for AAA right?

I call a Lyft as there is no way I can make it on public transport in the time I have left. 10 minutes later, my driver pulls up. She quietly, efficiently, and without the use of GPS takes me to the VA by the same route I would use, Through screening and up to the waiting room.

I have my dental appointment, followed by my next appointment. I am fine, but since on the last checkup I had zero antibodies against COVID in-spite of 2 immunizations and an augmentation dose, my doc thinks a booster is in order, Otherwise, back in 3 months. Over to the immunization clinic. They inform me I am 8 days too early for a dose. Back to my doc. He puts the requirement for the early dose in my record. Back to the immunization clinic where they do the whole information and consent thing before sticking me.

Finally back home, I find that George came to the gas station (in Dani’s car) saw to the tire change. Drove it to the tire place. Walked back (3 km) and drove home. This was after getting Dani to work and Alex out to the new place to oversee the upgrade on the back yard fence.

It is now almost 2200. It is cold upstairs, at least that is what I am blaming for my chills and tremors. Couldn’t possibly be the vaccine now could it? The day has sucked. If the past is any indication, I may well spend tomorrow feeling sorry for myself.

Just glad I didn’t sign up to work any clinics for the rest of the week.

(not spell checked or edited – sorry about that…….

Posted in Home, Medical | Leave a reply

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