another good-bye, salt withdrawals, and more ink

Another week in the books.  Inktober has me slacking on blogging a bit, but I'm never truly gone from here... 😇

My P.E.O. chapter lost another sister this week.  This was somewhat expected, so unlike when Tiffany died, not as traumatic.  Jeanie was 90 years old and had been in failing health for about the last month or so. 

Although physically frail, she was a total hoot and sharp as a whip.  When she'd had to go to the hospital when the problems began, the security guard informed her that he had to check the contents of her purse.

She told him, "Okay, but it's full of dope!"

Dude had no sense of humor.

She was ready, though.  After she was able to go home from the hospital, another friend told Jeanie, "I'm praying for you", and Jeanie replied, "Well, thanks.  But please don't pray for me to get better.  I wanna go!"




And she did.  She'll be greatly missed.  Rest In Peace, Jeanie. 











We spent time with Magnum's mom and stepdad today.  They live in a senior living community nearby, so we went for brunch in their dining facility.  It's a nice place, really, with a plentiful variety of food.  Gotta say, though, I was having sodium withdrawals.  Everything was so devoid of salt, and I fear I may be a salt-aholic.  The pumpkin spice pancakes were good, though - my first pumpkin spice anything of the season. 

And thank you to everyone for the tooth hole/ sinus sympathies.  I'm feeling almost normal now.  A few more days and I should be cleared to blow my nose, and I'm so looking forward to that!

Inktober continues, and me with my head still above water...

toilets, leaking snot, and some more ink

A few weekends ago, my P.E.O. chapter threw a highly successful wine and cheese social/fundraiser/auction.  It was a good bash with good food and wines, and we made double what we made last year.  I've got a hankering for cheese and wine as I type...

As publisher of our newsletter last month, I had intended to include a few photos of the shindig.  Guess who forgot to take any photos 😑.

Typical.  

So  I emailed all of the members who were in attendance, asking if any of them snagged some shots.  Nope.  Not a one.  Well, we just chalked it up to having too  much fun wining and cheesing and auctioning to snap photos.  

Similarly, this past weekend, Magnum and I went up to college town to visit with Wolfgang and Meego.  Chaco even joined us for a while on Sunday.  Photos of our activities?  Nope.

This was the only shot I got of our weekend away.  Yes, it's of our hotel bathroom:

I snapped it because I thought I'd record the strange layout.  See, I'm not a "statuesque" woman, but I'm also not a shorty.  At 5'5", I'm pretty average, with probably longer than average arms.  Gotta say, that toilet paper roll was quite a stretch.

So there, that's my weekend in pictures.

Actually, we had a nice time.  Weather was perfect.  College town has so many good restaurants and breweries.  It's a good thing it's rated platinum for bicycling, or several residents (and visitors) would be obese.

I did manage to stick to my vegetarian ways.  There is much more to the veggie life than salad.

My overall caloric intake was also probably helped by the fact that my mouth is still recovering from my tooth excavation of last week, so I ate more daintily than typical.  That portabello mushroom sammich was just as delicious eaten with a fork, though.  Wish I had a pic...

The oral surgeon told me I may get water in my nose when I drink or may have blood in my nose from the tooth hole since my sinus has a hole in it now, too.  He did not mention that snot would continuously seep into my mouth from the tooth hole, but that's been a LoVelY side effect as well that makes total sense.  It's still allergy season for me, and it's like my allergies know I have a tooth hole to have fun with.

Okay, this post has become way too much about toilets and TP and draining snot through tooth holes...

The other random update is that I've somehow managed to keep my head above water on the Inktober challenge of 2019.  I have to remind myself that it's not about being perfect or even great, just about touching pen to paper every day, so there's that.  Here are the latest.

Wolfgang is also participating, and it's fun to see his submissions.  He has fallen a bit behind, and that's because he clearly has more of a life than I do.

where's the tooth fairy when you need her?

Yesterday, it was sunny and nearly 80 degrees as I was gallivanting on my bicycle for some excuse or other.  The main excuse was that I knew today would suck.  I checked the weather app this morning and wasn't surprised

It's yucky outside as I type.  Winter is... here?

But enough small talk about the weather.  It's been another busy and productive week, and I'm a bit grateful for some weather induced downtime.  For one, I got that cursed tooth removed yesterday afternoon.

And for all the trouble it gave me in the past 6 months or so, that tooth wasn't happy about leaving.  The oral surgeon was a pleasant man with nice chair-side manner.  But when push came to shove, he pushed and shoved and drilled and twisted and drilled some more and pushed and... well, you get the idea.

Now, here I sit in recovery with a big gaping hole in my head, but I'm glad that sick tooth is no more.  Dr. had to dig up into my sinus to get all the roots out, so the sinus feels weird and needs to heal up too. Among other things, I'm not allowed to

• blow my nose
• play a wind instrument
• blow up balloons

for at least two weeks.  Darn, there go my clown plans.

The avoidance of wind instruments and balloons is pretty easy to abide, but I keep thinking of how nice it would be to blow my nose like a real person.

When under such limitations, however, I think of my friend, Bunny.  A few years ago, Bunny had carpel tunnel surgery on both wrists at the same time.  She wasn't able to use her hands for two weeks afterward, so her husband was her hands for her during that time.

Think for a minute of all the things you do with your hands...

Yeah.

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Linking up with Mama Kat this week for the prompt:
3. Write a blog post inspired by the word: sick

a rant and some ink

Welp... a while back I mentioned a strange tutee I have who calls to schedule a lesson, then I get there, and she decides she doesn't need the session after all?  To cut down on the (my) waste, when she calls me now, I only agree to meet with her online.  That way, I at least don't waste any time travelling to her college.

So here I sit.  I waited for 15 minutes.  Yup.  No show.  This is the second time she's done it.  I'm DONE.  Stop calling me!

I've given her some breaks because I know she has some anxiety issues and some ADHD and takes meds.  I get that she might be feeling anxious about a session she scheduled a week ahead of time.  But I've told her... just TEXT me.  An hour's notice is all I ask.  I want to help her out because I understand she's had "troubles" with previous tutors, and she seems to like me?

I'm thinking I either give her the heave ho next time she contacts me, or if I'm available, it'll be a now-or-never lesson. 

Anyway, sorry for the rant...

On the bright side, it's been a busy and productive week.  Schedule's been pretty full with nice respectable tutor students, plus Inktober 2019 kicked off this week!  Weee!

So far, I've managed to keep my head above water.  Yes, we're only 4 days in, but 4-for-4 counts! 

Just 27 more to go... heh.  

This challenge has really grown in recent years.  I first heard of it in 2017, so this is my 3rd year participating.  I have yet to get all 31 drawings in.  Third time's a charm?

I'm thinking the explosion in participation could be Inktober's downfall.  Most artists I know are mild to heavy non-conformists.  All this participation just might quell participation!

Okay, enough thinking in circles.  I'm out.  

Any advice on the wishy-washy tutee is welcome.

pets and painted shirts

Penny was snoozing in my lap.  Her legs were a-twitching, and I assume she was dreaming. I wonder what she was chasing.

She's actually quite coordinated and athletic, putting her moves on Merlin when they zoom around the backyard.  I'm thinking of taking her for some agility training, not that I want for her to compete, I just think she would LOVE it. 


Illustration Friday was still on "dream" for the prompt, so here's Penny the power poochkin.

And speaking of cute dogs, this is Dixie.  Dixie was my friend Tiffany's dog. Since Tiffany died, Dixie now lives with Tiffany's parents, and her mom posted this on fbook a couple of days ago.

It was Dixie's 13th birthday, and they were celebrating "in the manner to which she is accustomed".

And yes, that is a typical-sized cupcake.  Dixie is teeny tiny - not much bigger than a guinea pig.

This morning, I enjoyed a lovely bike ride and ended up going by our city's small private liberal arts college.  It's a nice campus, the college is very selective, and the students there are generally intelligent and thoughtful.

As I rode by, I noticed a bunch of t-shirts hanging, like out to dry on a clothesline.



Upon further inspection, I noticed all of the shirts had messages written on them in fabric paint. I don't think there was a specific theme.  They reminded me of those Post Secret postcards.  Some were

• confessions:  "When my brother came out as gay, I called him a faggot, and I'll regret that for the rest of my life"
• rants: "F*cking me while I sleep is RAPE!"
• inspirations: "Don't be afraid of new beginnings..."
• etc.

What would you write on your shirt?

at least the view was nice

I sat waiting for the inevitable confrontation.  This wouldn't be pleasant, but things needed to be said and acknowledged.

Things were so hopeful in the beginning, but alas, it wasn't to be.  Red flags revealed themselves early on, but I let them slide, thinking maybe we could salvage the relationship.  Maybe it was just typical adjustment period stuff.  Maybe it could work out for the long haul.

But who was I kidding?  Deep down, I knew from the start.  Something just wasn't right.  Life was good, I'd even say it was better than before. But... but...

He entered the room, and already I knew that he knew.  He looked so sad, so defeated.  He was sincerely apologetic.  He chalked it up as a loss, a loss that he mourned.  

I felt bad for him.  Honestly, I felt worse for him than I felt for myself.  

"It's not your fault", I assured him.  "I'd do the exact same thing again, not knowing the outcome.  Nothing is 100% guaranteed"...

That retrograde root canal - apicoectomy - I had six months ago?  Didn't work, long story short.

I'm now scheduled to have that bastard of a tooth extracted from my head next week.  Good riddance, I won't miss it.

I do feel bad for that endodontist, however.  

"It's not you, it's me"

bloodletting, bicycling, and bad spelling

"For people without diabetes, the normal range for the hemoglobin A1c level is between 4% and 5.6%. Hemoglobin A1c levels between 5.7% and 6.4% mean you have a higher chance of getting diabetes. Levels of 6.5% or higher mean you have diabetes."


I don't have diabetes.  I don't expect to have diabetes.  Yet, for the past 3 or 4 years, each time I've had a blood test with my annual physical, the office calls and says my A1c is high, so "cut back on your carbs, blah blah..."

Yet again, after my checkup last week, I got the similar follow-up.  A1c is 5.9%.  Honestly, I have not cared a whole bunch.  I don't think I overdo the carbs.  Oh, I eat 'em, you betcha, but nothing crazy, I don't think.  Plus, the levels have remained the same.  High, but not increasing, so forgeddaboutit.  Cholesterol's fine, but higher than I would expect too, so I started to wonder about things that can affect fasting blood tests.

Before my checkup last week, I'd gone for a lovely morning run of a little over 5 miles.  I did a bit of googling.  Well, what d'ya know?  Exercise before a blood test can mess with your numbers, so in addition to fasting for 12 hours, you should just lay around. Who knew?

I came to this google revelation just as Magnum arrived home.  I read to him:
"A workout before a fasting blood test can alter the results of cholesterol and glucose tests. In some cases of cholesterol testing, if you exercise before having blood drawn your LDL cholesterol levels may actually increase..."

"I never knew this!  Why doesn't the doctor's office tell us?" I proclaimed all Wilford Brimley.

"Maybe because most people don't exercise?", Magnum offered.

Oh, c'mon.  Well, either way.  Now I know.  And you do too.


Speaking of playing outside, we hit the mountain bike trails again this weekend.  Rode the lovely Falcon Trail at the Air Force Academy.  13 miles of wonderful scenery, dirt, roots, rocks, and trees.  This was our third attempt at this trail, and I felt I've improved over the last two.  It's listed as a good trail for "advanced beginners".  Okay, I'll take the oxymoron.

























And speaking of higher learning, in news of college academia, I came across this photo from a football game over the weekend at Meego's esteemed university.

Okay, it's supposed to say "GO RAMS", but... okay...