Hemlock B Bootsalotta

It snowed today. Rather a lot. I'm looking the weather forecast and it claims to be going above zero tomorrow so I'm trying to figure out if I can just get out of shovelling entirely. Guess I'll find out.

I got a text yesterday evening and it was housemate saying they were off to visit their partner for the weekend. I guess it makes sense? Since I'm the potentially contagious one now? Even so I opened all the windows for a couple of hours (and froze my ass off in the process) before letting myself go unmasked downstairs because I Have Been Burned Once Before.

( cut for more covid talk )

I am contemplating how different feels to have to deal with everything on your own when one is actually alone, as opposed to when there is another body in the house.

***

The last two days have been much like the first two but with a slow ebb of napping and a slow increase of appetite. Kudos to all the people who said "electrolytes" in my last post because I think you were on to something. I spotted a box of instant soup mix that had been sitting around forever because normally when I look at it I think, "Ew. Salty." but today my reaction was "oooooo, saltyyyyyy".

It was awful and I ate the whole two-person serving in one sitting.

The hospital sent housemate home today. I'm envisioning the two of us passing it back and forth for the next couple of weeks but I don't know if that's even a thing. Meanwhile, we're back to masking whenever we are in the same room just in case.

One of these days I will have the energy to catch up on posts and comments - but today is not that day. Because I think I'm gradually getting less tired but that wall does hit, it fucking hits.

Night y'all.

Woke up with a scratchy throat this morning. Could be allergies, the cats have been all over me, and I've been going down to the basement on the regular to take pictures for the contractor. (It rained heavily yesterday, so I've been monitoring the waterproofing situation.)

Housemates positive showed up 48 hours after symptoms so I'll start testing tomorrow.

***

Yesterday fucking sucked, to put it bluntly.

I got a call from Old Man's brother on Sunday saying there was something wrong with his bed. He has a hospital bed with an inflatable mattress that regulates air pressure for people who are at risk of bed sores. It cost a couple of grand second-hand.

Two seconds after I hang up the residence manager calls me. There's a problem with the bed? No no, the bed's fine, but your step-father is delirious and not responding to questions so we are sending him to the hospital.

Well the hospital sent him home yesterday and I get a call from the PSW - the bed is not fine - she sent me a photo and it looks like somebody yanked one of the electrical cords out of the motor casing. Probably with a broom or a vaccuum. And fucking left it that way, did not call me, nothing. So his mattress is completely deflated. He has nowhere to sleep.

And my brain just went offline.

It probably lasted a minute but it felt like hours. I just could not think. Everything was snow. Static. Leetle birdies twittering in a circle around my bucket.

A form of panic attack? I guess?

Then I snapped out of it, formulated a plan, called about twenty equipment rental places until I found one that had a mattress in stock, arranged and paid for the rental, called my sister and arranged for her to drop off an inflatable camping mattress just to get him through the night, called the PSW to give her an update with times and called the residence to advise them of the delivery. Once I'm out of quarantine I'll bring the motor back here and see if I can open it up and re-attach the wires. I will take photos to show to the residence manager, because this Will Not Happen Again.

So like no harm done by the brain freeze but it freaked me the fuck out. And I guess today I'm dealing with the resulting adrenaline crash, because I've burst into tears twice already so far today. Over shit like... music videos and nonsense.

***

The good news is the waterproofing is holding. So that means the contractor can close up the walls and finish up.

End result: Still testing negative. THANK YOU for all the suggestions and advice, I will keep them in my pocket for next time.

***

You would think that having a week off work would give me time to finally get caught up on all the things. You would be entirely incorrect in that assumption.

This is probably because I hit a pretty solid wall on Friday night and just went, welp no more work for me. Take-away roti and beer and video games was how I spent the last two days of my week off work.

Maybe this weekend.

***

Housemate is still in the hospital. They are now testing negative for covid but the doctors are trying to chase down the reason for all the other health problems they've been dealing with. This is a good thing, their doctor has been trying to get a specialist referral for eight months so they are finally getting some traction on that.

This is what it takes now I guess. Same thing happened with the Old Man was referred to a specialist with a two-year waiting list. He finally got the tests he needed done when the issue landed him in Emergency.

***

As for me, I think I might have actually done something to my knee - either the gout actually damaged something or I also managed to twist it maybe when it was already hurting so much I didn't notice. I can bend it fine now, but it seems like it doesn't want to completely unbend all the way? Like if I straighten it fully it legit feels like there is a twig lodged under one side of my kneecap.

It doesn't hurt and I've been walking around on it for the past couple of days - yesterday to my gf's place and today to the hospital to drop off some clean laundry - both places about a half hour walk each way. But every once in a while one of the muscles to the side or back will spasm, and that does hurt.

Very weird.

***

Builder didn't come around all last week. I told him we were plague house so he scheduled his crew to work on other sites. In theory he's back tomorrow.

This is the sooong that neeeveer ends...

So I'm the one who's not contagious right? And I'm quarantining anyway, because virus in the house and the not-zero risk of being asymptomatic and still infectious.

So guess who's not here?

Housemate announced they had to send some mail out, so off they went. I did offer to do it for them. That was three-four hours ago, and they haven't returned yet.

Oh wait, maybe they went to the hospital. They did say they wanted to. If that's the case I probably won't see them until tomorrow.

---

Kitchen boxes are unpacked. Some stuff I just said fuck it and threw it back into a box because what am I going to do with two coffee makers or six corkscrews? I'll let the housemate go through it and see if they need to take any of it with them, and then maybe whoever moves into the basement can probably use some of it. Whatever is left will go to my sister's shelter. They take donations of household items for their clients when they manage to get them permanent housing.

For my next trick, watching youtube videos about how to change the bulbs on potlights until I find somebody who is showing my specific model. It could be that the person who installed it just screwed it too tight to loosen - we had one light where we finally just had to smash the cover to get into it. But I want to be a lot more confident that's the actual problem before I take a pair of pliers to it.

Said pot-light is in my toilet and it's the only light in there so it's peeing in the dark until I figure it out. The bulb did last over 10 years in the first place.

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[ETA] They did in fact go to the hospital. Kinda surprised they were able to get admitted, but maybe the doctors want to keep them for observation for a while.

Tested negative this morning. So far so good.

I took all the pill stuff, and sprayed the stinging stuff up my nose, and dropped the goopy stuff in my eyes, and rinsed my mouth with the minty stuff. I ran the portable HVAC next to the head of my bed last night and have it sitting on my desk next to me while I eat breakfast. The biggest challenge is food prep - I've been washing my plates before I use them, but I still have to actually make my meals in the kitchen (KITCHEN!) which is right next to the room where they are sleeping on the couch. With no separating door.

This is one way that climate change is doing me a solid, I've had all the windows open during the day and it's warm enough that I can get away with it.

Meanwhile, I took this week off work so I could sort my kitchen and I figure, well, I might as well. So I masked up and threw open all the windows and scrubbed out all the cupboards and shelves. My left knee still won't bend all the way (and it's VERY unhappy about all the walking I did for the last two days) and at least once I got stuck on the floor for a while when I got down to mop out a lower drawer and then couldn't figure out how to get back up again. (I figured it out eventually, obviously. It involved some incantations of the four-letter variety.)

Today I will start opening up boxes and see what I've got in there. I gotta tell you, I have a mighty desire to buy new cookware. Especially since I suspect a lot of my old pots won't work on the induction stove.

Maybe I should have a kitchen-warming party. Bring a pot! That should work out in my favour either way, right?

... AAAAND it's covid.

The gf took me to see a production of Uncle Vanya last week. Chekov is one of our mutual passions, she introduced me to his plays and I instantly fell in love. Every single person in his plays makes me want to smack them and I can compare every single one of them to at least one person I know in real life. Masterful. And this particular production is fantastic.

The director's notes in the program referred to Chekov as soothing, and uh, I love his plays but that is definitely not the word I would use. It also made the claim that he is the second most performed playwrite after Shakespeare and that I also didn't expect. Finding commonality in pre-revolutionary times, I guess.

***

The Old Man's hospital count has risen to four since Xmas. On the plus side, he's back at home now and I saw him a few days ago. He honestly looked better than I've seen him for a while.

However, not be out-done, Old Man #2 (my actual father) has stepped up to fill that gap. My sister ran hospital duty and I've offered to run point on any appointments she can't make it to since I have a backlog of PTO and she's in a new job.

Ice flow. Just sayin'.

***

Today is a provincial holiday so I got a day off work. So today has been a dig-through-piles-of-paper, pay-bills, follow-up-on-phone-calls, make-appointments kind of day. I've sorted all my tax forms and found almost all the paperwork I need for the house sale so I'm feeling like I was productive.

I'd like to have a workout, but I'm having the worst gout flare I think I've ever had and my left knee won't bend properly. Maybe some hand weights. I dunno, I'll figure it out.

It doesn't usually last more than a week so I really hope it clears up before I have to do that charity walk. Walking hurts like a motherfucker.

***

I also took the new stove-top out for a test drive this weekend. Whenever it looks like vegetables are going to expire before we get around to eating them I toss them in the freezer and I also had a big bag of left-over turkey bones from Xmas dinner with BC. Our freezer was running out of room so yesterday we cleaned it out and reorganized everything and I put all the veg and bones into a couple of big pots and made stock. Which of course then had to go back into the freezer and filled it back up again, but one step at a time.

I had to clean the cement and drywall grit off the range before I could use it of course. And dig the pots out of the storage bin they were in. Fortunately I knew exactly which bin they were located in because Dr River Song decided to go mountain climbing one day and sent the entire stack crashing to the floor, thereby revealing their location. (Took a second stack with it as it went down, just like one of those dominoes videos. It was honestly pretty impressive.)

I honestly can NOT wait to be able to finally fucking clean in the main floor. Every surface is covered in grit and cat hair. I start sneezing the second I walk into the room. There's just no way to squeeze through all the stacks of boxes to do anything about it and it's frustrating as hell.

During one of our podcast recordings there was somebody new in the audience who asked in the chat if housemate is a hoarder because he could see the stacks of boxes and furniture on the screen over their shoulder. NO FRIEND, BUT I CAN UNDERSTAND WHY YOU MIGHT THINK SO.

Onward and upward.

Was gonna try to write a post, but as soon as a sat down I got hit by a tidal wave of tired. So instead I'm going to shower and go to bed.

I will say this though, I now own my first ever dishwasher, and it is awesome.