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.

The hospital is keeping housemate for a couple of days. They weren't able to keep anything down, including the Paxlovid, so I'm assuming the doctors were concerned about dehydration. Honestly, based on their symptoms I would have guessed Norovirus and not Covid, but hey, masking and hand-washing is good for not catching both right?

So my confirmed exposure was on Friday. My last potential exposure was yesterday. Assuming the housemate is clean when they come home and I continue to test negative, I can be around other people... Monday? That's five full days after being in the same room masked. That sound about right?

Hrm, just found this guideline that says mask for ten days after exposure. So if I count from Friday as my confirmed exposure that means I'm clear on Tuesday, or the following Saturday if I count from masked one.

*throws hands in the air*

This is the stupidest fucking time line.

In the meantime I'm running out of supplies. I need to see how much it costs to get food delivered. I know it's only $3 to get it pre-packed for me if I walk over and pick it up and that's probably safe enough if I do it during a low-traffic time slot.

You know, back when I worked with HIV I got to wear a full-ass hazmat suit. I have always regretted not stealing one. Going to pick up groceries while wearing a hazmat suit would honestly be a hoot.

***

Kitchen guy came in today for a couple of hours. He's still fiddling with a faucet that's fighting him and then he's done, hopefully tomorrow. Builder texted to say he scheduled with his crew to return on Monday and finish the drywall in the basement.

When I see kitchen guy I need to ask him for the name of the paint they used for the walls because who already put a big scuff in it by pulling the painters tape off too fast? This asshole right here.

***

I spoke to my dad on the phone today and it was really worrying how hard it was to get him to understand me. He also told me he had pneumonia last week - which means he's been sick three times in as many months. I get that it's not always possible to dodge illness, but three times since Xmas? That's concerning.

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.

Who has two thumbs and went ass over tit on a patch of ice in the wee hours of New Year's Eve?

Just a few bruises and only knocked one rib out of place this time, so... yay?

( Questions of Days )

****

Things I Need To Remember To Do, when the housemate says, "I'll do it before I leave," I need to insist they do it while I have availability to go check up on them. Because they will inevitably leave the house when I'm trapped in a meeting or something and can't go look that they actually did the thing.

This realization brought to you by having to get up early on a Saturday morning to haul furniture out of the way when the kitchen cabinets were delivered.

On the plus side, kitchen cabinets!



They are offgassing like woah - my whole house smells like glue. I'm taking a walk as soon as I'm done this post just to clear it out of my head.

***

I suspect the housemates memory drop yesterday happened because they were upset - they missed their head doctor appointment after setting three separate alarms and then sleeping through all three of them. They called the doctor's office and were told it's a $200 fee to reschedule. And like, I get that specialists are backed up to God right now and want to prevent no-shows, but that still seems unreasonably punitive for patients who are specifically coming to you to find out if they have a fucking brain injury.

***

Elderly gentleman cat weight-gain project continues. I cooked down some chicken bones to make broth and have started adding a couple of tablespoons to his breakfast. It definitely works to get him to eat more of it. My main problem now is that I have to be careful how much I give him because he such a pukey cat.

And why under my desk? Why always in places that are hard to reach? Is he thinking, "Well she needs to clean under here anyway, seriously, look at all these dust bunnies" before he lets it fly?

***

I finally found a physiotherapist for the Old Man. Arranged for an appointment. Was on the streetcar on my way to his residence when I got a phone call. Physio tested positive for Covid.

"So what's your comfort level around that?" Uh, waiting a couple of weeks until you're not a walking plague bomb around an 80+ year old, that's my comfort level. He's going to call me back when he's testing negative and we'll set up another appointment.

***

Hung out with my dad and some other family members last weekend. He really seems to snap back to normal when he's around other people so we think lack of mental stimulation is a factor in his health issues - he just doesn't have a reason to get out of his chair on a regular basis.

Sister dragged him to the local library and is trying to find book clubs and other local activities for him join. I honestly think adding some gentle routines will make a huge difference for him.

Sister has been staying with dad & his wife while she job-hunts and I think she's finding it a little frustrating. She has tons of suggestions for making his daily life more accessible and the wife is being - inflexible. We'll work on that.

***

Work is kicking my ass. Nothing new there.

( an entire month of questions )

***

I feel like I kinda fell off the planet for a few weeks there. I mean... I was busy but I'm always busy. I think sometimes I just need to go sit in a corner and feel sorry for myself about it before I can actually get down to work.

sigh. So this is me, getting back to work.

***

Toronto went from being 30 degrees for the first week of October to dropping about 20 degrees overnight. My office is freezing. I normally go around in bare feet up here, but I'm not acclimatized to the temperature yet, so it's sweaters and woolly socks and hot tea for me.

***

Kitchen has been fully insulated, dry-walled & mudded. Sanding is supposed to start this week. Mental note: throw some sheets over the electronics in the morning. They said they would hang some extra plastic but that shit gets everywhere.

As for the basement, I have no fucking idea. That pile of concrete on my front lawn that I posted on (checks notes) September 4 finally left this past Thursday. And apparently the mason couldn't come in until that was out of his way first.

The builder said he'd be back on Wednesday and would take the time to talk to me about what's going on. Honestly, my biggest complaint about this guy is his lack of communication. If he said up front "doing this part is going to tack on an extra six months" I would have made very different choices.

And he's going back under the knife in November and will be off work for two months after that. So he has a month to get the basement done if it's going to be finished before the housemate moves out and I have absolutely no reason to believe he's going to be able to pull that off.

*makes stressed noises*

This fucking house.

***

Took the Old Man to the pub for Thanksgiving. I wanted to find a nice restaurant, but wanting something wheelchair accessible, and either close by or transit accessible, and with either a heated patio or adequate ventilation - well, I might have been able to find something given time, but when he said he'd be just fine at the pub I just went with it.

"The pub" in this case is a place across the street that is huge, usually almost empty, has excellent ventilation (mostly it's a very old building with high ceilings & big garage-door windows so it's drafty as hell) and the staff are incredibly sweet to him. So fuck it. Pub it is. They have good beer, good food, and lots of both. He was entirely happy with it.

I know he's going to want to do the same thing for Xmas, so we'll see where the numbers are at.

***

Also waiting for Ontario Health to start jabbing people with the new booster. It's supposed to be available at the end of the month. Yes I know everybody else has had it for ages, but live in Doug Ford's province.

Think the flu shot is out now at least, maybe I'll get that out of the way first.

Interesting things about having disabilities that are kind of not.

I have arthritis in very specific parts of my body. In my lower spine, right above my hip, for example[1]. So bending forward from my waist is an issue. BUT I lift weights, so I also have very strong arm and leg muscles. When my back is being difficult I often have this conversation where I say, "I can carry heavy boxes, but somebody has to hand them to me. I can't bend over and get them."

And sometimes, when I'm doing lots of yoga and stuff, those muscles are good so (careful) bending over is fine.

(When the back is being a bitch I also have this thing where I can't reach a thing if it means stretching horizontally across a barrier. So living in a place where shit is piled against all the walls is A PROBLEM.)

Pat of my physio has been years of specifically building up muscles around parts of my body that are weak, so mostly now I can do things, whatever those things happen to be. The doing of thing has to be controlled and careful and making sure I'm using the correct muscle. I've had this conversation with so many physiotherapists, I never hurt my back lifting weights. When I throw my back out, it's because I fucking sneezed or some kind of bullshit like that and it means being out of commission for a couple of weeks. Do you have any idea how ignominious it is to bench press a twink worth of weight on a daily basis and then be taken out because you are allergic to lavender? Seriously?

I think about this now because I've hit the years where the medical profession is kind of eh, yes-your-body-is-going-to-fall-apart-and-we-are-going-to-pretend-that's-normal attitude. Every time my step father goes into the hospital they just... leave him in a bed and go well, he's 80+ whatduyawant. But I see how much his health & strength deteriorates without something as simple as being able to sit in a fucking chair.

So this leads me into my feelings about the whole pandemic.

Covid is kind of a perfect storm for me, because I have chronic asthma, a family history of heart issues and immune issues and I'm at the age where all of a sudden I can't assume I have a robust immune response. ALSO I have some PTSD around the fact that family were smokers when I was an asthmatic kid so I KNOW for an absolute fact that people will just... disregard your genuine physical stress if that means they get to go on doing the thing that threatens your life.

(I have. Stuff. Around that. A little bit.)

So like I do all this physio shit every day because it means that I can balance and bend and function. And I mask because I Do Not Trust other human beings not to take that away from me. (See me experience with being asthmatic around smokers above.) But also because I know that if I do hit a place where I'm hospitalized because I'm sick I have learned that there is nothing set up to help me be functional once I get home. If lying in a hospital bed for weeks means I can't walk or take care of myself any more once I get out, well too bad so sad. Fuck me.

So yeah, I'm a little jumpy around that shit.

And I genuinely don't know how to have that conversation with other people.

[1]Also my hands. I specifically had all our doors equipped with lever handles because on a bad arthritis day I can't turn a round door knob.

( Questions of Days )

***

The adjoining neighbours are not people who believe in repressing their emotions. On the contrary, conflict is dealt with promptly and with a frank exchange of views. Very very loud exchanges of views.

Apparently the issue this morning was that the teenage son wasn't leaving his room for school and both parents teamed up to express their concern about it. At one point Mr yelled "You're killing us J__" and it reminded me so much of Tommy Wideau's "You're tearing me apart!" that I've been walking around giggling all day.

***

The fan in the bathroom has started working again? Like, out of nowhere?

I have no idea.

However now the lights in the living room are out. We have dimmers on all our lights, which require special bulbs - the housemate ordered some from Amazon and apparently they sent regular bulbs instead and housemate didn't think to check - so they blew out the switch. A simple fix, I just need to get around to going to a hardware store to pick one up. In the meantime I make my coffee by torchlight.

This fucking house man.

I also found out that the contractor has been in the hospital which is why I haven't seen him for three weeks. One of his employees was supposed to tell us, which in fairness he did, but I tend to interpret "Mike will be back Tuesday!" as meaning he will be back the next Tuesday, and not some unspecified Tuesday in the future.

He made noises about being back to work next week, so I guess I'll find out how he's doing if he makes it in. I hope he's OK. He's a good guy.

***

I'm going to start insisting that if housemate is spending more than 50% of their time with their gf they start taking their cat with them - Dr River Song is very sweet and affectionate, but also very licky, and I come up all hives wherever she gets at me. I had to lock her out of my office today to keep her off me. In theory housemate takes care of all the cat stuff - but that requires them to actually be here, and the good Doctor will protest poop outside the box if it isn't up to her standards.

Which reminds me, I think his Lordship had a follow-up vet appointment but I have no idea when. I'll need to poke to make sure that's taken care of.

***

The Old Man has been calling me non-stop about his computer. We had it set up with individual desktop icons for each of the sites he visits except Windows did an update and ate them all. I tried setting them up again in Chrome - which is what he expects and looks for - but MS has downgraded Chrome I guess? Anyway I couldn't get it to work last time I was there.

My brother-in-law has remote access to his computer so he can help with tech support so I asked if he could have a look. Which I can only assume hasn't happened because I keep getting phone calls about it. And no matter how many times I explain I can't look at his computer from here, I have to do it when I am in the room with him, which will happen on Friday, only BIL has the remote access - he just calls me back the next day because it still isn't working. "Oh and your sister called me this morning! "Great, did you ask her about the computer?" "No." *headdesk*

I'll try another whack at it tomorrow with a different browser. It won't look exactly the same, which is a problem, but if I can walk him through it a couple of times he can probably get it down. Hopefully Ill be able to get it sorted for him, it's not a big problem - just an annoying one.