The teenager is pet-sitting for our FURR foster godmother. So she’s in and out of my house several times a day.
I have misplaced Fern’s adoption paperwork, which is totally not like me. Luckily Fern went to a friend of mine so I can asked her to send me a photo.
Nala, my Goffin’s cockatoo, has been upset and stressed and plucked her flight feathers off her one wing.
It’s really sad to see the confusion in her face when she tries to fly and just falls.
Speaking of Nala, I met her a year ago today.
We had a devil of a time containing Boo-boo last night but since we did Wink and Yo-yo seem much more relaxed as parents. I think it was the right call. Video: catching Boo
And here is a video of the parakeet chicks: Budgie babies!
I also finally got a good picture of Loki:
Sir Loki Dokie Puppy Turkey
While three out of my four cats were cuddly and cute.
Back to Front: Opie, Oz, Fog
Then I headed out to work for the first day since Covid. I stopped at Dunkin for a coffee and discovered there were no more good deals. So I didn’t get my coffee.
No one explained the protocol for my return so I don’t have the proper paperwork from my doctor. I’ll try and get that started— already called the doctor— but am waiting on their end of the paperwork.
I’m annoyed— mostly because I was ready to go back but also because I don’t know if this lack of communication will mean I lose income. With it being the holiday week, I probably won’t get rapid cooperation from the medical folks. And part of that is because there are people sicker and needier than I am.
After everything I’ve been through this year, I won’t complain.
It gave me time to do some grocery shopping and cook for the other teenager.
Today is day 10 of my post-diagnosis Covid 19 isolation. I am now watching The Tudors on Netflix, struck by the similarities between the Coronavirus pandemic and the 16th Century sweating sickness.
I feel like there is so much not known about Covid-19 and I suspect many people know more than they can admit. But the medical treatments, anecdotal layman wisdom and people’s behavior remind me of these scenes depicting King Henry VIII’s medical crisis.
My symptoms are still dizziness and a dry cough, a congested head and weakness. And chapped lips.
I catch a chill easily, and sometimes the smallest actions wind me.
I think the general populace puts too much security in flimsy masks, and gives not enough thought to social distancing. I think the various government tactics to curb the pandemic cater to major corporations and starve small business.
And it saddens me that people will flock to WalMart or order from Amazon, but not mail order from a small local business or buy gift cards for small merchants.
It also saddens me that so much of society can really on DoorDash or GrubHub, but not call your favorite local restaurant and order take out.
I believe I caught the Coronavirus at work, despite all the precautions to “keep us safe.” Because despite the gloves, the masks, the nurse, the sanitizer spray, and working socially distant, the reality is there are 70 or more of us in one room at the same time, unmasked, eating and talking for each of our three daily breaks.
The vaccine has arrived. And I wish it were — what do they call it— a reactive vaccine vs a mRNA vaccine. Perhaps I am old-fashioned in my thinking.
So I suppose I am grateful to have caught Coronavirus and see how my body reacts. I have had the chance to develop my own antibodies. And no one else in my family for sick so I am also grateful for that.
I am deeply saddened that others have not had the same privilege that I have. I am saddened that people I love have lost people they love.
It is a confusing time.
So my best advice would be to do your own research, think about how viruses work and make the decisions that keep you and your family safe. And care for your neighbors and support local business in ways you can.
So I woke up a little before 10 a.m. to this message from my doctor:
I was a little shocked to see it, but also relieved. If you’ve read my blog posts this week you’ll know that I’ve been experiencing a lot of intense symptoms. It was a difficult week or forgetting my medications (Covid brain fog?), not enough sleep (thank you to the gas company and their jackhammers) and symptoms easily explained by my cerebral palsy (muscle aches and joint pain) and status as a 40-something woman (frequent urination).
So at least with a positive Covid test, I no longer fear that my body has lost more of it’s functionality. I am relieved to be sick. I suppose other folks struggling with chronic ailments and disabilities understand.
My doctor will call in about two hours. I have some planning to do, with her advice. Meanwhile it is interesting to see everyone’s reactions.
Some people offer meals or groceries which can be left on the porch. Some people call to check on my symptoms. Others offer what got them through the illness. Others calculate when they saw me last and want tests. Others know they have been around me but will watch for symptoms to get tested.
On Tuesday morning, I got up early and took the Norse Pride to the vet for a post-ringworm follow-up.
I forgot to take my medicine and vitamins. I have taken Zyrtec just about every day since this pandemic started. I am allergic to pollen, mold, dust, and just about everything else including cats.
During the coronavirus shut down I started taking my medication because spring was blossoming and I didn’t want people to think I had Covid.
Around the same time, my doctor had prescribed a low dose of Lexapro for my stress-induced high blood pressure.
So on Wednesday a.m., when I got home from work, I cuddled the animals and watched some more of the Crown. I got to bed a little after two.
Somewhere around 7:30 a.m., I heard the school bus. I rolled over to go back to sleep and — no exaggeration— a jackhammer started opening the street two doors from mine with a ferociousness that shook my house.
Thank you, UGI.
So five hours sleep.
And again because my routine is off I forgot to take my medicine.
I only picked 120 last night and I was terrified about the state of my health.
I was experiencing allergy symptoms (after all I now have 14 cats in my house), exhaustion, every muscle and joint in my body was aching. I couldn’t think. My forehead was sweating but my hands were cold. My hands and feet were tingling randomly as if they had fallen asleep.
I started the night strong with just about 40 fixes picked by first break, but at the end of the night even the ones that should have taken 15 minutes took me 30.
Every break my joints locked up and it took me time to get moving again without pain. And my numbers kept dropping.
I started to worry that maybe I had a fever and the nurse didn’t notice because I tend to have a low temperature. One thermometer earlier in the day said I was 94.5. That is impossible.
Luckily, I had some chili from a friend for dinner and a $2 latte from Dunkin.
Somehow I still managed to walk 24,000 steps but man— that brief episode of withdrawal scared me. A lot.
I came home and took all my vitamins and my medicine and slept about 7.5 hours. Hopefully that will put me on the mend.
Note: I found out later, these were Covid symptoms.
It is 1:01 a.m. as I write this. There is a kitten at my left hip fascinated by the bubbles in my gin cocktail (gin and cherry vanilla seltzer), a small cockatoo on my knee and a pile of clean, folded laundry at the end of the bed that I have no intention of moving before I go to sleep.
Clean laundry
I had a really good shift at Stitch Fix’s Bizzy Hizzy. I’m a tad bummed because I had hoped to “pick” 140 or more fixes and I only hit 135.
Working as a picker in the warehouse is like being an athlete training for a marathon— I love the challenge of trying to increase my performance every day.
It’s using muscles in my lower body that haven’t ever experienced activity like this. I spent 10 years on my feet and doing labor at Target, but this doesn’t feel like work.
It feels like a game.
My total number of steps for yesterday was around 24,500. It feels good.
I spent today binge-watching The Strongest Man in History, a History Channel series where competitive strong men Robert Oberst, Eddie Hall, Brian Shaw and Nick Best try to replicate some of the most legendary strong man feats in history.
Left to right: Shaw, Hall, Best and Oberst
Now, at first I scoffed at the thought of professional strong men in a History Channel documentary series but I have to admit; they did at extraordinary job. The show was witty, had a great historical depth, and allowed the viewer to see a different side of these athletes— and for me, it offered a chance to see just how intelligent and athletic these men are.
Just some foster kittens for company
It made me lament how far I’ve left myself go with my own fitness goals, and I could offer excuses but excuses remain excuses.
I’m sad that I finished everything series.
And I’m very impressed with Nick Best, who, at 50, keeps up with the younger men.
So after my first day at StitchFix, I will be starting full time work tonight on the 3:30 to midnight shift.
As a consequence, I’m going to have to streamline and focus my routine. Today, I got up, fed my cats, made a cup of coffee and made a list of things to do.
With that out of the way, I started the dishwasher. I also gathered, sorted and started one load of wash (which I later hung on our heated drying rack and started another to hang outside.)
Next I focused on my room: primarily running the roomba, cleaning the bird cages, and giving fresh food and water to the birds and fosters. I also totally swapped out the litter box for The Norse Pride and spent a little time with everyone.
Now it’s 10 am and I’m hoping to have a croissant and some fruit salad before my neighbor and her dog, Sobaka, stop by.
We’re going on a leisurely cookie walk to test one of the three pairs of shoes I bought for my new job.
I tested the ASICS last night. They felt so light. I got a black pair. I’ve always wanted a black pair. I also bought some glittery boots that are more comfortable versions of Doc Martens. Now in the end, they still may require inserts.
But if I’m buying inserts maybe I could go get the actual Doc Martens I wanted.
I had to face my pandemic denial today— due to the stressful nature of my last professional position, I’ve been stress eating more than I’ve admitted the last few months.
(And if you read this blog, you know I’ve been fairly transparent about my ability to each an entire Dominos or Little Caesar’s pizza. So imagine the late night bags of chips and the multiple doughnuts I haven’t told you about.)
Today I hit a new body weight high. And none of my pants fit. So it was sobering.
And I know part of that is my good intentions gone wrong.
Yesterday the morning started with breakfast with my dad and the teenager. I had coffee, a broccoli feta omelette, home fries, dry rye toast and cranberry juice.
I was proud of my choice because I haven’t had vegetables enough recently and I could bring half of my meal home for today. It was too delicious. So I decided I would skip or have a light lunch.
But then I stress ate a doughnut.
Then my dad and step mom invited me to the pub for dinner. My step mom wanted pizza so I thought I’d have a beer and a slice. I think I ate the equivalent of a whole bar pizza.
This year has not been one of discipline
It’s 7:23 pm and I’m watching the marching band rehearse so my daughter can drive home… I’ll make7,000 steps today but not my goal of 10K.
PART TWO: WARLOCK CRAFT BEER REVIEW
At Three Mugs Pub yesterday, I ordered a salted caramel chocolate Saucony Creek, a craft beer label I typically enjoy. Chocolate stouts and porters tend to be my favorite beers.
They didn’t have it. So I ordered a Warlock instead.
Warlock is an imperial pumpkin stout brewed by Southern Tier Brewing Company. It was smooth and not obnoxious in its seasonal flavor. And caused more of a buzz than I was expecting given all the food I ate.
PART THREE: CHICKEN BONE BROTH
Earlier— on Tuesday—while the teenager was still hanging out with my dad…
I finally turned off my crock pot that had been brewing the chicken bones of a whole young roaster I bought at Grocery Outlet on Saturday for $4. I made the chicken in the crock pot that day, returned the bones and skin to the crockpot and kept filling it with water until Tuesday noon.
I carefully poured it all out and squeezed all the goodness out of the now soft bones. I also started a pot of soup on the stove. The yield was nice.
PART FOUR: TRIGGERED
I started my day with coffee— fighting an unusual sluggishness and some unexpected difficulty with my menstrual cycle.
Last week, I had started thinking about my psychological triggers. I have long known that I have an obsessive attitude toward food. Not in the disordered eating way, but in a hoarding kind of way.
I don’t actually hoard food, but seeing a piece of fruit rot or having to throw out an out-of-date food product upsets me far more than it should.
It usually serves me well, but it backfires sometimes and missteps with food can make me unreasonably angry.
Let’s bring this back to that chicken— I didn’t need that chicken. I didn’t even want that chicken. But that was a huge roaster chicken for $4.
I made soup and froze it for the first cold day of the fall season. (I’m not even fond of chicken soup). I separated the white meat and the dark meat and froze that for future use. And I made bone broth.
That’s a lot of food for $4. Good, healthy protein. But… it’s not food I enjoy. So why?
But then this morning as I was drinking my coffee, I heard two people arguing. It was a loud verbal altercation. This is one of my triggers I forgot about— and it’s one I understand. My parents had a lot of verbal arguments and if I’m honest (forgive me for saying so Mom and Dad) if they had enough alcohol the fights could get violent and ugly. There weren’t that many over the years, but enough to create an even more terrifying environment than the mere alcoholism that existed in my childhood home.
So I surveyed my surroundings and couldn’t see anyone. My chest was tightening and my stomach dropping and that odd little internal tremble shook me.
These incidents were frequent when my previous neighbors screamed profanities at each other and threw objects and each other at the walls. It terrified me. They were literally on the other side of the wall, similar to my parents. When I didn’t stand there paralyzed and watch them.
I am not convinced what happened this morning, but I suspect my neighbor had some sort of television program playing in her car.
PART FIVE: THRIFT STORE
I promised the teenager a trip to our favorite thrift store. She bought supplies for her father’s birthday craft and two belts. I bought approximately three skirts, four pairs of business slacks, one pair jeans and one pair corduroys.
Since I can’t try things on, I got everything from size 7 to 10. Far cry from my normal 2 or 4, or my spare/ baggy sizes 6 to 8.
$43.50.
None of the professional pants fit. The red jeans (Old Navy low cut Rockstar 10) fit but are snug. The corduroys fit (size 8). One size 8 skirt fits, the other two did not. The medium skirt fit.
I’m sorry, guys. I also wanted to update you on Aspire to Autonomy, Lady Boss Entrepreneurs Club and some recent make-up unboxing from Dolls Kill and Target.com. But I’m wiped out and this is really long. Oh — and William Prystauk’s third novel appeared on Amazon.com today so now you can read the latest Kink Noir masterpiece and get your mystery/romance/crime/BDSM on.
The parks/trails seemed so crowded and people were from out of state, which is fine, but they seemed to be hanging out more than hiking.
A hiking guide’s idea of a mile is shorter than mine.
If land is designated as National Recreation Area, people can hunt and fish on that property. You cannot hunt or fish in a National Park.
Rhododendron and Mountain Laurel are nearly identical. Mountain Laurel grows in high elevations and has leaves smaller than the palm of your hand. If the leaves are bigger than your hand, it is a rhododendron.
Burning poison ivy and breathing the fumes can give you internal poison ivy.
Our tour guides had some interesting knowledge of the area; and our favorite had an eclectic post-college experience of accepting Americorps posts all over the country. She apparently had extraordinary prowess with a chain saw.
We learned a lot about plants, both native and invasive; trees and their insect diseases; and history— they even discussed how this area was shaped by the proposed Tock’s Island Dam project.
I find the Tock’s Island Dam controversy fascinating. Because the land was taken by eminent domain and not originally destined for National Park use, the people who had their homes seized did not have much time to move. So much debris was left behind but nothing can be removed from a National Park.
These high school students did a great job on this brief documentary explaining the project.
What is even more fascinating is that without the proposed Tock’s Island Dam, the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area would not exist as it does today and it wouldn’t be as expansive. Even one of the biggest anti-Tock’s dam activists says that the process of condemning those homes and entire towns for the dam protected the area from future development.
I grew up on the Delaware River. Much downstream from where we were today, at the start of the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area. So hearing about “Hurricane Diane,” “the (19)’55 flood,” etc., was like listening to legends about my own history, as if the river were my blood.
My bedroom faced the river, and when I find myself someone where I can hear water washing against the shore in the lazy way that river does, I close my eyes and can revisit some of the best memories of my childhood.
And of course no 65 minute road trip is complete without some sites on the road:
My blind friend, Nancy, always says that I’m the only person she knows that has a life as daffy as hers.
This morning I got up, helped the teenager med the kittens and dealt with some other cat rescue business, drove the teen to band camp for photos, and headed to Young’s Volkswagen Mazda to get my car inspected.
I originally had an appointment for two weeks ago and I had to cancel that when I was admitted into the hospital.
I need a state inspection and emission test, and the dealership will do the state inspection for free. My 2015 Jetta has synthetic oil, so it only needs an oil change every 10,000 miles or once a year. Well, thanks to corona I’ve only driven 5,000 miles this year. So… does it need an oil change?
My dad told me it needs the tires rotated. And my mileage is at 30,800 so it’s due for a 30,000 mile service, which includes an oil change and tire rotation.
And my key fob doesn’t work. At all.
Then I forgot to put my breakfast in my purse. So I had a strong cup of French roast coffee, no food and my mind is buzzing.
I get to the dealership at 8:05 for an 8:30 appointment. I start organizing the insurance and registration paperwork and I realize my insurance card expired in April.
I download a new one, screen shot it and email it to the service clerk from my phone.
He notices I am high strung and suggests I calm down.
At a previous time, I had ascertained that the oil change, inspection and tire rotation would be cheaper than the 30,000 mile service.
Gayle is on her way to pick me up so we can go for a walk in Louise Moore Park (one of my favorite spots In Northampton County. They have a kite festival. And the teenager learned to ride a bike there.)
Gayle somehow tours all of the local car dealerships before finding the right one, and she drives right by me and I didn’t even see her. And I was sitting on some giant boulders.
We had a good laugh as we both appreciate a silly mishap. We walked at least 5,500 steps on a beautiful, cool summer morning.
Louise Moore Park
We called from the park and the car was ready. Somehow we turned onto the highway instead of the car dealership and compensated for our oopsy by stopping at Dunkin Donuts for free coffee Monday and a green iced tea for Gayle.
Our discombobulation continued and we made a few more wrong turns.
I told Gayle I would be ecstatic if my car cost me $150 or less. I am unemployed right now and have no income.
When I arrived, the total was $150.53. I was thrilled. And they fixed my key fob— it had the wrong battery in it. I’m sure the guys at the dealership had a good laugh, and again, I’m okay with that.
I feel victorious as they fixed my key fob!
Zeus
In cat news, I pet little Apollo today, got Hades to take her antibiotics and played with Zeus and Artemis.
Lunch
Exhausted, I make a frozen pizza that I augment with nutritional yeast and extra sharp cheddar (which despite not being opened has somehow turned moldy— must be a tiny hole in the bag.)
The teenager would tell me not to eat it as I have a sensitivity to penicillin but after all of the penicillin-category antibiotics that have filled my body recently I don’t think moldy cheese will kill me.
Angel Ackerman 