Gnats Update

I keep remembering to post about this when I sit down to write here, and forget every time. But not this time. The gnats in the kitchen problem has been taken care of. Two no-pest strips in strategic locations, and throwing out the table scraps container did the trick over the course of a week. Sadly, none of my sundews or butterworts, carnivorous plants which handled the gnat issue last year, caught any.

---

Slammed
It was not a good day today. Taking an almost-full vial of my high-test insulin out of the fridge, I dropped it and it broke. That's about $120. I have two left, and just ordered a 3-month supply. I shot up my usual 50 units before breakfast (banana, HB egg & Kind bar) but by about 11 am I was in the throes of an overdose - Hgl meter said 51, one of my lowest ever readings. It triggered a massive optical migraine and a headache. Luckily I had M&Ms in my cooler, and those helped. By 11:45 I was able to stumble across the street to the break room and make an egg cream and grab more M&Ms, and relax.

Meanwhile, the two projects I am working on were both being a PIA. The automation suite kept losing track of the machine it was testing, and it's a 5-minute process to correct that - when it works, which it only does about 1/4 of the time. And the link which one of the managers sent which was supposed to be to a firmware update for another unit turned out to be a cut and paste error - it was a link to something else he had put earlier in the same message. And he apparently was not online today to fix that.

And it's only a 3-day week, so I only get 3-day pay next week. Today's direct deposit was for last week's full week.

And then Kaiser called with 2 messages from the online pharmacy. When I called back, there was a half-hour wait, but they give the option of them calling me back without losing my place in line. So half an hour later (about 5 pm) I get the callback, which is a robot, and though I pressed the button for "returning a call" it gave me a rep who had no idea I was returning a call. He also had no clue why they had placed a hold on my order, so I told him they were calling to confirm the exorbitant price, but he thought it was a declined credit card, which it was not. Finally he opened my order and read my note to not hold up the order by calling me about the price. People need to learn how to read. He put a rush on the order, but that probably won't make a diff because this is stuff shipped in cold packs, which they rush anyway, especially in summer.

Oh, the two messages were because I ordered two items. At the same time. But each one triggered the high price alarm.

By the end of the day the automation was finally working - with a different unit of the same device. And my blood sugar was probably higher than it needed to be.

Home, traffic was way too heavy for a 3-day-week Friday in the heart of go-to-the-beach season. 101 at Ellis was not so bad, though. But I made the mistake of getting off at the IFH, which was a long wait for traffic and finally a detour.

Gave Spook her treats, got undressed and in bed and crashed for about 15 minutes, then relaxed in bed with the tablet for 2 hours.

Up and dressed, put up the new curtains, watered all the gardens, dinner was Boston Market pot roast & mashed with a chocolate coke float for dessert. Also finished the last of the halvah.  Refilled the hummer feeders. Added a teesny bit of red food coloring.

Instead of the usual TV, fired up the NVidia, logged in with my test account, and played 360° 4K videos and 4K@60fps videos which is what I'm testing at work. The NVidia Shield handled them perfectly, full 4K right from the start (most other devices need to start at a lower resolution and work their way up 1 or 2 notches). The 360° skydiving one is a hoot - you can look all the way around right and left, and about 180° up and down. The roller coaster lets you see the people next to you left & right.

Online project - I updated all my credit & debit card accounts with my travel plans. I have very few Euros left over from my Belgium/France trip, ought to be able to solve that with a cash machine in HEL airport. Just checked, I have no paper Euros, only about 10 coins, mostly small denominations. Hmmm.

Bought a ticket to Sunday's matinée of Toxic Avengers - the musical. They were very close to sold out.

Plans for tomorrow:
Sleep in
Kaiser Santa Clara A1C test
Coffee w/Janice followed by shopping at the new Safeway next door.
Arab market for halvah
Put more olives in the marinade containers

2nd Satyrday - Full Moon

Just saw that on my calendar - went outside to check, and yes, the moon is very bright. But my car wasn't plugged in. I would have had no battery tomorrow morning had I not gone out the see the full moon.

---

Slept in slightly - only till 9:40, Spook woke me up around 7:30 wanting treats. Did not happen.

At about 10:30 I was off to Kaiser big clinic, quite a wait for the blood test. And my co-pay, which used to be 0 and then $25 is now $35. This time I only needed one test, so kind of a waste. The whole panel costs the same. 11 pm no test results yet - of all the tests I get, A1C is the only one which is rarely reported same-day. While I was there, nipped into the pharmacy an got a couple of boxes of BD alcohol swabs. They stopped making them for a while, but the generic brands are too thin, and wrapped cheaply - tend to dry out randomly. The BD box design has changed slightly.

Next stop was O'Reilly auto parts, for two jugs of windshield washer fluid. I ran out last night, thought I had a jug in the shed, but didn't.

Home, plugged in the car.

Lunch was a cold plate of most of the usual things, but no HB egg, I had none. And diet cola instead of milk, for no good reason.

Watched another episode of the Graham Norton show. Two, actually. No matter who his guests are, the show is entertaining. The first one was all B-level stars, the most famous being one of the Hobbits who somehow landed the role of Dr. Watson on Sherlock, though he looks nothing at all like the original character. The second show was a lot more interesting, Mark Walhberg/Sienna Miller/Tom Holland/Woody Harrelson/Andy Serkis/Alison Moyet. Holland is the new Spiderman. Peter Parker. They did not ask where he parked his peter. I had no idea who Moyet is, she was the musical alleged talent. Harrelson I am not a fan of, on or off the screen. Serkis, OTOH, is amazing. Fun hearing old, tired Mark not giving advice to newbie Tom. Miller was slightly amusing and totally blonde.

4:30, off to MV to meet Janice for coffee. She agreed to drive me to/from SFO next month and I'll do the same for her in September. That was the only loose end I still had from my trip, except for Euros. BofA has a better exchange rate than the airport kiosks, but their online order form is down at the moment.

After coffee, I did 2 week's worth of shopping at the new Safeway next door (Rengsdorff & Middlefield). With a cart, it was easy to see that the way they had packed all that stuff into that small number of square feet is they made the aisles narrower - and the carts too. Two carts can just pass by in an aisle, but only because the carts are smaller.

Good customer service. One of the deli people helped me get some cole slaw when two others were being way too kind to a woman who could not make up her mind whether to buy a whole salmon fillet or the same amount in smaller pieces. Same price. Learn to use a knife, lady. And at checkout when I said I did not find magic shell ice cream topping, one of the helpers ran to get a bottle of it for me. Cashier had never heard of the stuff.

Janice's $10 off coupon came in handy.

The main purchase was frozen meals for lunch & dinner, but also got some on-sale stuff, like laundry detergent pods, Spook treats, Limes (big ones, best I have seen this year), Breyer's lactose-free chocolate ice cream, which is the same price as Lactaid's, but twice the size. And so on. Marie C stuff was all on sale, as was the small Stouffer's.

Home, put it all away.

Dinner was BBQ brisket sliders, I think they are made by the same company which makes the White Castle sliders. Same packaging, same cooking instructions, same bland taste. Cole slaw on the side. Lactaid mint chip ice cream with magic shell topping for dessert.

Watched the final Graham show of the season, a whopper: Dame Judi Dench/Steve Carell/Kristen Wiig/Jamie Foxx/HAIM (a 3-girl family band with no songwriting talent but great legs). Dench and Foxx make a lovely couple. And how ironic that it was him telling the "I am sooo old" anecdotes.

Moon seen, car plugged in, and here I am.

It got up to 99° while I was at Kaiser this morning, but cooled down to the low 80's by Starbucks time.

Plans for tomorrow:
Relax a bit, read more of the wonderful short stories of Fredric Brown. Amazing and seemingly limitless imagination, fluid writing style.
2 pm showing in SJ of The Toxic Avenger
Whatever.