All Things done

Spook did not like that I was still sleeping at 9, she was on the bed for about 10 minutes trying to wake me up, even let me pet her. No reason to be up early, so I took my time. My weight is back to below 261. Woke up shivering at 3:30 am, thought I was having a low blood sugar moment, but it was actually high, I was just cold. I should put the comforter on the bed instead of the quilt. Turns out I had forgotten my pre-dinner shot, so I gave it to myself at 3:30, and it brought my Hgl down to something reasonable.

The first two times today I visited Zoe, she was all about cuddling and wanting me to hold her. Not the final time, she was busy looking out the window. She has been using the litterbox, yay! The second time, Spook dashed into the room, but I manage to corral her back out.

Continued to look through all my 2017 photos during the day, and found 50+ candidates for the calendar. About half what I usually find. A large number of what ought to have been candidates from the Helsinki trip were either tossed for window glare, or mediocre framing. I so wanted one of the Dinner in the Sky pix to be good enough, but none told the story in a single image.

This one doesn't show what that thing is up there and...

...this one doesn't show the airborne piece.

Anyhow, the candidates are here clicky clicky. I've tagged "Yes" on the ones which will most probably make it. Feel free to "favorite" the ones you like. I'm not sure which one will be the cover.

Overnight I charged the Black & Decker battery and this morning I snapped it into the hedge trimmer and trimmed the two very overgrown hedges on the non-carport side. Filled up a green bin, and then did some weeding - Bee's Friend plants have sprung up all over the front garden, and while I love those things when they flower, they have a way of choking the other plants. So I pulled out the ones around the three rose bushes, which are struggling enough as it is. There are also some poppies coming up, the two plants look a lot alike at this stage, kind of like ferns.

The trimming pooped me out so much I had to sit on the front steps for about 10 minutes, I was seriously close to fainting. Once I put the trimmer & broom away & wheeled the green bin to the curb, I went inside and made 3 passes on the blood pressure meter. Way low. 99/51-76, 97/52-74, 96/53-72. I'll have to check it again in the morning and call the advice nurse if it is still low. My guess is the new meds have finally kicked in. One thing which is noticeable is my feet flop around in my shoes, feet have lost so much water weight, and my ankles look like ankles not sausages for the first time in ages.

Watched the 49ers squeak by Chicago by 1 point. No TDs. Lots of time in the red zone. IMHO, CJ is every bit as good a QB as Jimmy, neither of them can do much with the lack of talent around them, and Shanahan's "run up the middle" play calling. Lunch was Safeway creamed spinach with a turkey frank sliced into it.

Also watched the Raiders handle the NY Giants, the latter having replaced Eli with Gino. Both the 49ers and Raiders have beaten the Giants, and it reminds me of a Vietnam era anecdote. After the 1967 6-day war, Israel's General Moshe Dayan was asked what advice he would give the US generals on how to win in Vietnam. His answer was, "First, it helps to arrange to fight the Arabs."

The tuna salad in the fridge finally called my name, as did a loaf of Health Nut bread in the freezer. Set up a two-fer assembly line, and made a week's worth of sandwiches. There was about 2 sandwiches worth of it left in the bowl, and I needed to put the bowl in the dishwasher so the recyclable containers could be washed in time for tomorrow's garbage collection, so I ate the rest as a second lunch. It tasted great.

More chore time, all the boxes except the Roomba box (but including the outer Amazon box and the Roomba box in which the inner box ships) were broken down and bundled. Huge bundle. All the Sonos inserts went into the paper bin separately. The biggest box was the one for the litterbox.

I was about to make some PNB&J sandwiches when I saw that I was almost out of sandwich size ziplock bags. Hopped in the car and went to Grocery Outlet, where they didn't have any. They usually have all the sizes. No snack sized either. Lots of 1-qt and gallon bags and many trash bags.  On to Target, where I'd bought the original box of 300, and they had two on the shelf, both somewhat crushed on the top corner, and 280 in a pack instead of 300. Also got snack size, which I still have a month's worth. While I was there I spent way too much time figuring out which of the 37 dishwasher tablet choices to pick. The sizes were odd, and Cascade alone had five strengths in 4 different sizes each. The Target house brand, oddly, was the most expensive choice.

I usually also get Sheba meat stick treats there, but they were out. Also, they have stopped carrying coated vitamin C. They did have small Dixie plates on sale, I bought 3 packs.

Home, put stuff away, dinner was HC Beef merlot  and dessert was oranges.

After dinner, took out the trash and recycles, taped a bag of dead batteries to the recycle bin as per instructions, carried the massive bundle of cardboard and laid it against the recycle bin.

Still to do tonight:
Order meat sticks and Vitamin C online
Empty the dryer

Plans for tomorrow:
Add BP to morning drill
Work
Home
MNF (?)
Start to finalize calendar choices
Check postage & envelope inventory & order more as needed
 

It could have been boring

Up early, Spook on the bed at 7. I stuck it out till 7:30, but there wasn't much to do online so I got on the road half an hour early. Sometimes Mondays the break room doesn't get fully stocked, and this was one of them. No vitamin water, no eggs, no tangerines (small oranges instead). Found a small coconut water on a bottom shelf. Bananas were not as ripe as they could have been.

Put away the unit I was testing Friday after there was no feedback from Boss on it. Put a tiny local one in its place and ran the new set of video tests. It failed way too many of them. But it ran Netflix well, so I watched several episodes of Marco Polo. I am impressed by most of the acting, except for the title role. Reminds me of Iron Fist, the title role is also mediocre there, but so is most of the supporting acting.

Lunch was pretty quiet, no events running, but whatever had been going on over the weekend did not clean up after themselves. Tuna salad sandwich, grapes. I also brought a PNB&J sandwich but didn't touch it. Second dessert was oranges and peanut M&Ms which I really need to leave alone.

There was a note from the "stuff" department saying they did not have a machine for me. Claim they are waiting for a replacement to come from the field. Sounds like BS to me. They also claim they don't have a specific location to deliver it to, after I gave them explicit directions. For a company with their vast resources, this is a major FAIL.

My nurse called, I told her about the low BP and dizziness, she passed that to my GP who emailed me to cut the diuretic down to 1 pill a day instead of 2, she will call me later.

Home, heavy traffic until the road leading to the IFH, then it was clear sailing. Except for the 5-minute wait for the light.

Delivered was the knockoff Canon ink cartridge set. UPS says youngest sister is sending me something which weighs half a pound. T-shirt?

Watched some of MNF, Alexa tells me the Bengals blew a big lead at the end. Typical. The parts I saw there were a lot of penalties called for minor stuff. Two of them wiped out touchdowns one for each side). I think the rules need to be changed to allow the points, and enforce the penalty later. And I hate the NFL version of pass interference, college has it right.

Watched Shark Tank, mostly FFed because it was winter and Xmas crap for the most part.

Chicken soup with matzo balls for dinner. BP after dinner was back to being too high.

Checked in with Zoe, Spook waiting outside the door even though I shooed her away with water. Zoe loves the attention, for a while, climbs up on my lap and pushes her face into mine. She also purrs up a storm. But eventually she backs off and wants her own space, so I leave. I re-programmed the light in the guest room to come on with the other lights before sunset & go out when I turn my bedroom lights off at night.

Downloaded a bunch of free sci-fi books to the Kindle app. Am currently reading something called Transport by Phillip P. Peterson and Jenny Piening. It took 4 chapters to get to the point, and the characters are pretty shallow and stereotypical, but the hook is interesting and the writing flows just enough to not be boring.

Plans for tomorrow:
Work
Sync with Boss is on the calendar
Home
Refresh run on the dryer and empty it.