The complex I live in is shaped like an asterisk — * — with three wings of apartments raying out on the north side of the central spine of the building where the gym, the pool, the little snack shop and the dining facility is located, and three wings of apartments raying out on the south side. I live in one of the south wings. The beauty shop is located on one of the north wings.
Lately, it’s been hotter than a $2 pistol firing uphill and I was not particularly enamored of the idea of going out into the hot and driving to the hair salon where I usually go that’s over in the strip mall by the grocery store, so
I called and got an appointment at our little beauty saloon, where the operators are skilled in the cutting, roller setting, combing out, ratting up and gluing down of the hair helmet that the general demographic of our local population has embraced since the 1960’s. I just needed damage control on a less than satisfactory haircut.
As the time for my haircut approached, I got in the elevator, went down to the ground floor, went across to the other side, and I and several others waited for the elevator to go up. As the door opened, there was this woman’s voice in an empty elevator reciting what I immediately recognized as lines from the script of one of those AI scam Medicare calls.
It was coming from the speaker in the elevator that’s beside the “emergency help” button.
See, when you get stuck in the elevator and press the “help” button, it autodials a telephone number that calls the people who are supposed to come help. There is a microphone and speaker in the elevator panel and this is how you communicate your difficulty.
Evidently, scammers have gotten hold of the phone number for that elevator somehow and, because it doesn’t immediately hang up once it is answered, the robodialers keeps calling it. And because the AI can hear voices, it keep talking, trying to scam the elevator into giving them personal data.
As we rode the elevator up, this woman’s voice is going on and on with the spiel like it’s carrying on a conversation with the elevator. The other people in the elevator with me were rolling their eyes and shaking their heads.
Apparently, this was not an isolated occurrence. It has been happening often enough that the residents on that side are very tired of it.
The whole episode was bizzare on so many levels. . . . I would not have been surprised to hear that familiar voice . . .
I apologize for the radio silence. I have been dealing with some health and life issues, and spoons have been in short supply for a while now. I won’t belabor you with all the gory details. I had the procedure I had planned in April. It eventually succeeded but not after precipitating a broken tooth, pneumonia, two trips to the hospital and three months on home oxygen. Because of all the aforementioned health shenanigans, my dental implant procedures on the left side (plus dealing with the broken tooth) are on hold until I can get healthy enough to continue. Fix one thing and three other things break.
Then two weeks ago, the VA informed me that as of 2024, my income “is above the VA National Income Threshold,” and they’re going to dispossess my franchise. I have mixed feelings about that. What’s got the ol’ knickers in a twist, however, is that I may have to pay back whatever Medicare didn’t cover of health care expenses and medications I’ve already had for 2024, 2025, and this year, or maybe just a couple of months of 2024, all of 2025 and this year. Either way, it’s liable to amount to a good little chunk of change. The word on that is hanging on a 75-day deadline.
So now I’ve got to scramble around and find some kind of healthcare delivery system I can (a) afford, and (b) get decent primary care from that will also allow me to keep the physicians I have built care relationships with.
About three weeks ago, the minisplit in my bedroom began to make alarming noises in the middle of the night. I could not get it to turn off and called security, who was able to unplug the unit.
I spent what was left of the night on top of the covers and under the ceiling fan. The unit was apparently suffering from compressor failure, and Mighty Bud the maintenance man swapped it out for a new one over the course of the next afternoon and coolth was restored. Since they cut down my tree, I’ve got direct sunlight on my windows to the tune of 101 F/38.3 C at 23% humidity, which has been par for the course for weeks now.
I had a pair of chairs and a jicky little recliner that I donated to Habitat for Humanity. The chairs were low and hard to get out of. I replaced them with this “guest” chair with a higher seat. I also got rid of some other bits of surplus to requirement furniture. The “living room area” is not so cramped anymore and works much better. You can see the big blue box that is the oxygen concentrator behind it. I’ve been dragging the hose that goes to that all over the apartment for months now.
The pulmonologist it took me three months to get in to see sent me for tests. That’s all he did. Last week, my oncologist heard my tale of woe and my inability to wean off oxygen. He prescribed me five dexamethasone 4 mg tablets which have made a world of difference. I’ve been keeping an eye on my oxygen saturation numbers and they’ve been so good off oxygen that I’m only using it at night now. Having to drag that stupid hose all over the place is so annoying. Unfortunately, I’ve been largely housebound for the past three months and I have no exercise tolerance any more. I’m breathless on exertion but it’s because I’m deconditioned from being virtually housebound in a two-room apartment for the past three months.
My cousin is in his 80’s. This spring, he and his wife moved from New Mexico to Bandera, TX, which is down near San Antonio. They want me to come visit them. I desperately want to go. I’m thinking to wait until things start cooling down in September and hopefully I can get back in shape by then. It’s a six hour drive, pretty much a straight shot down good road. We’ll see how things go.
Nope. They’ll be passing us by. Zut, alors! If I had my druthers, it would rain a slow, steady rain from about 10 p.m. to about 6 a.m. every other night for at least a week, so it could soak in. I’m sure I’m not the only one with such druthers.
Yesterday I had to go to our University Medical Center, which is not unlike a giant lump of a metroplex with little suburbs peppered all through it. The little suburb I went to was the outpatient surgery center for my preop clearance for the minor surgery I am eagerly awaiting on the 16th. I had to park in Levelland and hike quite a bit. Very concerning how out of breath I got before I was even 3/4th of the way to the building. I got inspected and detected and shot with x-rays, got my oil and antifreeze checked, tire pressure checked and was pronounced fit for purpose. The anesthesiologist I talked to reminded me of a weird combination of my brother and a ‘stache-less Sam Elliott. Interesting man.
I went to knitting group at my LYS earlier this afternoon where we were treated to updates texted to us by one of our number who had flown to San Francisco earlier in the week and boarded a cruise ship to Hawaii today.
I exhibited more self restraint this time than I did last time, when I walked away with these lovelies. I’m thinking an autumnal shawl/scarf with a leaf lace knitting pattern, to be knitted using the Turkish cast-on and knitted from the center toward the ends: <-|-> .
I’ve been sitting at my desk since supper listening to Chopin nocturnes and waltzes and working on these two WIPs, and otherwise being peaceful, civilized and very, very chill. I do love me some Chopin and Vladimir Ashkenazy.
Something orange and strange from the oeuvre of Anne Bachelier whose art I have enjoyed for a goodly number of years. It evokes the old Chinese proverb: You cannot prevent the birds of sorrow from flying over your head, but you can prevent them from building nests in your hair. Words to the wise.
There’s that old saw about March coming in either like a lamb or a lion and going out like the other one. This year, March is going out like a fire-breathing dragon. At just shy of 6:00 p.m., it is 97F/36.1C at a humidity of 13% and we have Red Flag warnings all over the place. This is March, ya’ll. March! I sincerely hope and fervently pray that this is not the prelude to a long parching hot summer.
I have what is essentially a two room apartment — a bedroom and the other (kitchen, dining, living) room. Real estate is at a premium. I got a little table for my humidifier. (Yes, the humidifier is turned around backwards. It has %$#@#$! lights on the front.) The humidifier has really helped my sinuses. If I had known sleeping with one on would have made as much difference as it has, I would have gotten one sooner.
After much debate, I finally got a little Kindle reader. As I mentioned, real estate is at a premium in my miniscule domicile, particularly bookcase real estate. This little thing is small enough (6.2” x 4.3”) to tuck in my purse, and once I’ve downloaded the book, I don’t need to connect to the internet to read it. It has 16 GB of storage. That’s a lotta books.
The Kindle reader is just that. It only has the Kindle program and a link to Amazon’s website (so you can buy more books, of course). I have a Kindle Fire that has YouTube, Netflix, internet radio, and Chrome apps besides the Kindle reader app, but it’s a tablet (10.2” x 6.44”). I have to say, one big plus of e-readers is that you can download a dictionary to them and look up words on the fly. I’ve got a pretty good vocabulary, but I will still look words up to make sure they mean what I think they mean. (Yes, I was an English major . . .)
The slowpoke finally bloomed. I don’t think it’s a sunshine issue with the white one. It bloomed last year in that spot. Who knows. I’m just grateful for every bloom I get. Perks me up something fierce.
Monday, I got a call and I am on the surgery schedule for a minor outpatient procedure on April 16th. (!!!) Lifted my mood tremendously when that happened and I’ve been adulting hand over fist all week. Tuesday, I took donations to Goodwill, books to the used book store, and the rest of my acrylic yarn to the knitting/crochet group at the library; Wednesday, I washed and dried 4 (four!) loads of clothes (I was critically short of clean booby traps!) and have all but the sheets folded and put away; Today I shopped groceries, have put them all away, got my mail and my little table from Amazon and got it put together. Tomorrow I’m going to knitting group again at my LYS. Busy, busy, busy!
Long about half past Tuesday, I noticed I was really sucking down the liquid beverages (Crystal Light Peach Tea), looked on the weather app on my phone and noted that the humidity was 21%. So Tuesday night, I finally hooked up the cool mist humidifier that’s been sitting patiently on my counter for about a month waiting for the spirit to move me to do something with it. I’d saved two gallon bottles from my Arizona peach tea habit, filled them with reverse osmosis water (“oz water”) and emptied one of them into the humidifier. I set it up on the “bathroom” sink in my bedroom (shower and toilet are in a separate “water closet” with doors), plugged it in and let’er rip. It made a noticeable difference in how I slept. Tuesday was the last day the humidity has been above 20%. Thursday it was 11%. Friday afternoon, it was 8%. Just now it was 98F/36.6C (at just shy of 7 p.m.) and the humidity was 5%.
Raisin weather — High temps and low humidity. You’re a grape til you walk outside.
As I mentioned in the last post, I’ve been going to my LYS (local yarn store) on Fridays from 3-6 p.m. to sit and knit, and otherwise fool around. The classes are free, but. . .
Knitting and buying yarn are two separate hobbies, apparently.
Found this while I was wandering around Jigsaw Planet website looking for puzzles to do. Sent it to my BFF. (She mounted an Egyptian exhibit when she was a preparator at the Carnegie Museum in Pittsburgh back during the previous century.)
We both got a good laugh out of it. (We have both been Trekkies since the original broadcast of TOS. If you know, you know.) (Spiner is a Houston boy.)
I have my iPhone set for facial recognition, so it wakes up when I pick it up and look at it. My newest trick is to pick it up and hold it upside down and wonder why it won’t wake up. It recognizes me with and without glasses and with headphones on, but not, apparently, when I’m upside down. Sigh.
The baby Christmas cactus is growing like a weed, if you’ll pardon the expression . . . The odd orchid that my cleaning lady rescued from the trash and gave me had a major leaf drop, but now this, which is hopeful. It may have been getting more sun than it was used to, hence the leaf drop. I need to repot it once I get over my case of mañana.
Last week when I was turning my jade plant so that it doesn’t grow all lopsided, I accidently broke off a leaf, so I stuck it in the water. We’ll see what happens. If this proves successful, I may break off some more leaves on purpose. Ditto, the Christmas cactus.
Jade East joined the firm on May 17, 2024He’s grown a little in the nearly 2 years since.
There is a YouTube channel called “Retrofutura” that has some interesting videos. They’re big into steampunk. Some of their AI generated images are pretty cool. Here two from this one, and two from another one.
I’m of two minds about AI. On the one hand, the computer facilities that support it are electricity hogs, drive up the price of electric utilities, and put a strain on the infrastructure. On the other hand, the art and music that people are creating using various AI programs are amazing. I’m really heavy into the music (and images) that Kelly Boesch makes using various AI programs. You can find her music on Spotify and it’s for sale on Amazon. I’ve mentioned her music before. Here’s another stunner. Yeah, AI, but a human is making the choices (and lyrics) that result in the final product. Like this one. And one for the gingers.
After the brief blip on the radar that was February, March has finally gotten rolling after a standing start.
Last Thursday afternoon, I had just taken a shower and was drying off when there was a POP! and my lights went off. Because I have leaky drapes, I had enough light to find unmentionables, my slacks, and my phone to call the front desk to tell them I had no electricity in my apartment. None of the lights in the bedroom worked, and I could hear the beep of the battery backup unit I have my computer plugged into, so I knew there was no power in the other room either. Problem was, I had a doctor’s appointment at 2 and it was 1:20.
Mighty Bud the maintenance man showed up promptly and I had to leave right after he came to get to my appointment. He reset the breaker, to no avail and had to get the electrician down. They have a remodeling team on site as they refurbish apartments between occupants, and are remodeling and reconfiguring some of the apartments, so there’s an electrician on site most of the time. When I came back, Bud was gone. I had ceiling lights but they had unplugged everything in my bedroom, so I had to go around plugging in stuff like my toothbrush (after I reset the GFCI) and the power strip that my bedside lamp and internet radio get power from, but all was otherwise hunky-dory, and the status quo ante was re-achieved.
It was not until earlier today that I discovered what the problem was — a switch had gone out. Don’t know which one, but I suspect it was the one in the “water closet” where they had done all the horsing around with the plumbing. (There were “wall crumbs” on the floor underneath it like they’d replaced it.) Never a dull moment.
I want . . .. . . This coat!!!Clothes like this!
These are all from a video by Kelly Boesch called “Honey in the Quiet”. Why can’t I have clothes like those?!?
The old saw about the squeaky wheel is the one that gets the grease is highly pertinent to dealing with governmental bureaucracies. I got on the phone with the VA this morning and squeaked at somebody for nearly half an hour. Things may finally get moving on an underlying health problem mentioned earlier.
I exercised my constitutional right as a US citizen and voted in the primaries today (which reminded me to go peel the “I Voted” sticker off the Janis Joplin T-shirt I wore today, which I forgot to do when I threw it in the dirty clothes basket . . . ). (I have “outside” clothes and “inside” clothes. “Inside” clothes are not clothes I would wear outside my apartment, clothes I would not want to be seen in public wearing. . . .)(The world is not ready for the Boomer Goth look . . .)
My white orchid tried to bloom, but failed. All its buds dried up and fell off. Don’t know why. Its next-door neighbor is taking forEVer to bud up, never mind bloom. Everybody else is going nuts. The pale pink orchid’s flower spike put out two branches, both of which bloomed multiple flowers.
The little Christmas Cactus stub that I rooted in water with the arrowhead plant cuttings has gotten on the ball. I may have to intentionally break off some more pieces and try to root them. Go it, little guy!
I need to do some repotting and some housekeeping among the orchids, put out some plant food spikes, etc.
This was wrong . . .So was this . . .And I finally got it right!
Third time is charmed, apparently on the Azules shawl. Now I’ve finally gotten the sections in the right order. The increases needed to be on the edge that curves. I’m going to have to throw in a couple of short rows to square things off when I transition to the middle section, where there will be no overall increase in stitches. Then will come a decreasing section.
I got this little gizmo. It’s a row counter. The rings slip over your knitting needle. As you finish the row, you pick up the ring with your right needle that’s by the number of the row you’ve just started, and slip the ring of the previous row off your left needle. Is that too slick or what? They’re a little pricy, but worth it. They come in two sizes — smaller rings for smaller needles and bigger rings for bigger needles. You also get your choice of doodads on the end. (If you have to count more than 10 rows, you can put a stitch marker at row 10 and start over.)
I was going to use this color of yarnto do the knitted on edging on this circular shawl, But then I found this yarn (at right)!
The more solid red is Malabrigo Rios in the “Libra” colorway. That’s what I’m doing the body of the shawl in. The red/grey combo is Malabrigo Rios in the “Lotus” colorway. That’s for the knitted on edging. I need to get the swift and the ball winder out. I’ve got a lot of winding to do. Got two skeins of Pima cotton yarn (black and white) to do my skull cap (and probably a white one with black design with the leftovers).
I used to have to walk home from school in worse than this, — uphill both ways. . . .
Gusts of up to 37+ mph . . . .
Limited visibility? Uh, yeah.
There’s a four story building in there somewhere . . .
Under a weather advisory for high winds and blowing dust. (Ya think?) The wind is holding steady at 26 mph/41.8 kph with gusts of up to 37 mph/ 60 kph. Humidity of 19%. We’re bone dry and under a red flag fire warning. Naturally, I had to get out in it.
I saw the oncologist today and my counts were good, but the knock-on effects of other health issues are presenting concerns. I go to see the cardiologist, and I’m sure he’ll have the same concerns. Without going into too much detail, let me just say that if men were plagued with this issue in the numbers and percentages that women are, Congress would have appropriated billions to research and a quick, easy and permanent fix would have been found 50 years ago. But since it’s women, well, I’m afraid it happens to most women as they get older. There’s not much we can do. You’ll just have to put up with it. Let me pat you on the hand, you poor victim of your own anatomy. (Insert hell-fire and brimstone level rant against the patriarchy here.)
And BOTH my last two dental implants failed, one within a week and the other within two weeks. He and I are both baffled as to why. I’ve had 6 previous implants without any problems. Possibly might have something to do with the above-mentioned. I’ll go back in three months for a CT to see what kind of bone growth has happened, with the options of trying the implant again vs putting in a bridge. Stay tuned.
And not to put too fine a point on things, my internet has never been all that great. They had a server crap out on them about two weeks ago, causing some folks (not me) to lose internet altogether and when they fixed theirs, they broke mine. It keeps dropping the signal. I can’t stream anything — No YouTube, no Netflix, no internet radio. I’m having to use the hotspot on my phone to do anything. So not only am I not getting the internet I’m paying for, I’m paying for a lot of data I wouldn’t have had to use if my internet was working. This is the internet service provider I had when I spent my own money on a 5-g modem so I could get halfway decent WiFi speeds in the first place.
I’m so disgruntled by the whole situation that I couldn’t come up with a gruntle to save my life.
All is not dour and drear, though. The lady that opened the yarn store WAY on the other side of town has a knitting group that meets from 3:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. on Friday afternoons, and I’ve been twice now. My friend KC has been going, and I’ve met a fellow C. J. Cherryh fan there. They have a sock session that meets on Sunday afternoon, but I am not a sock person.
If I had been thinking and paying attention, I would have remembered there is a Wienerschnitzel across the street from the MacDonald’s at 34th and Quaker Avenue and wouldn’t have had to google for one closer than 82nd and Milwaukee Avenue, which is WAY WAY across town. (For those inquiring minds who want to know: Proper nouns are not capitalized when they are used as some other part of speech, so “Google” is the noun, but “google” is the verb.) I picked up a chili dog and a kraut dog and a large Dr. Pepper as a consolation prize for my 2 p.m. doctor’s appointment not happening until nearly 4:30 p.m.
However, I did get nearly 4 inches knitted on my Melt The ICE hat done in Malabrigo Rios in the colorway Ravelry Red.
In other knitting news, I changed horses in midstream on this shawl pattern. I started it with the m1o band on the lower edge and realized that it should be on the upper edge, around the neck. Frogged the whole shebang.
This . . .Has now become this
Had to rewrite the pattern, but it makes more sense this way to have that pretty band going up the straight edge where it will hang around the neck front and center.
I need to knit me a skullcap. I had to get out a ratty old “proof of concept” one in light grey and purple to keep my just washed hair from ending up in Dallas. It’s too hot for a full toque/beanie/ski cap. I have the yarn and chart to do a Death Flake hat. Maybe there’ll be enough left over for a skullcap. I have the chart for this one.
Shortly ago, I was eating cereal and chewing right handed when I happened to notice something hard against my tongue. When I got it out where I could see it, it took me a minute to figure out what it was.
It’s the little doodad that screws down into the socket of the post in the new implant in my lower jaw that the new tooth will eventually screw onto. It’s a “placeholder” while the bone graft is growing in. I’m scheduled to see the prosthodontist on Wednesday, but I don’t know how critical having that doodad in place is to the scheme of things. I’ll call first thing in the morning to see what he wants to do about it. Since I can’t see what I’m doing, I’m not about to try to put it back in myself. I’m just really lucky I didn’t swallow it. Not the sort of pointy metal thing I want being squoze through all 20-something feet of my internal workings . . .
Three of the orchids have at least three blooms open. The bloom spikes on the other three are proceeding accordingly. I am completely perked by their display.
I haven’t been reading much. Still on that last Liaden Universe book. I’ve been kind of fixated on knitting.
In the knitting news. Frogging happened and is going to happen.
Azules shawlHas now become thisWith a little m1o panel.
I frogged the Azules shawl as it did not spark joy. I’ve rethought the yarn. It’s going to be rectangular with triangular ends.
k1 between the m1o’sk3 between the m1o’s
The square Mare’s Tail shawl will fold on the diagonal and these rays are the diagonal. It occurred to me that the m1o eyelets are a vulnerable point in the fabric and having only that one stitch on the leading edge of a fold where it would be subject to a lot of wear was not a good idea. I rethought the pattern.
That picture on the right is a good shot of the crochet disappearing loop alternative to the pinhole cast on. It’s how you start center-out crocheted projects, but it works fine for knitted center out round and square shawls, too.
This is a new WIP. Circular, 9-bladed pinwheel. Both the square and the round shawls are good to work on while watching YouTube videos on my Kindle, which I have been doing a lot of lately. Good way to keep warm.
The Owl Underground 