A little brain cobweb cleaning. I have had a nice relaxing morning at home and got a bit of house cleaning done. I’ve decided to start combing the felines with a flea comb everyday to get rid of some of that undercoat before the spring shedding spreads more of it around the house, and it will give me a heads up if I need to dose them with Revolution. Last year I did not have to deal with fleas at all, and I don’t like to dose them if it is not needed, no matter what the vet says. It was almost as if the universe said you have enough to deal with – I’m not adding fleas to it this year. Diego has twice the hair that Pablocito does. Fortunately he loves to be combed. Pablocito, not so much.
This week was intense for everybody in the world, especially the northern hemisphere, and I’m just mentioning the war in Ukraine for a reference point when I re-read this in the future. I think that it is worth mentioning as well that all refugees from war should be welcomed and helped, not just the ones from European countries. However, I’m not saying that to diminish the plight of the Ukrainians – it is truly horrible what is happening and I wish that the US and NATO would do more to help them.
We had a health scare this week – Sandy has heart problems again, although I guess that we shouldn’t be surprised since the heart is a muscle and he has polymyositis. He went to the cardiologist appointment by himself, and I am definitely going with him to the next one. He came home with a misinterpretation of his tests that sounded much more dire and he either neglected to ask some questions that needed to be addressed or he forgot the answers. Anyway, he was told to go on a low sodium diet and stop eating fast food and processed food. We’ll need to go grocery shopping with this in mind today, because he needs to learn to read labels, and he doesn’t like to cook. I don’t like to cook any more either, so this is not making either of us happy. I’m not home for lunch any more and he has to deal with this.
What really threw us is that his other lab work earlier this week came back great. His A1C is back to normal range, his cholesterol is much better, and his blood pressure is normal. But his heart is not pumping as it should.
I went with him to the pharmacy to pick up his new medication for this condition. He had been warned that it would be expensive and that his insurance might not cover this new one, but he had a coupon for the first month free. The pharmacy tech told him that his insurance (Medicare!) does not cover it. He asked how much it is without insurance and we were told a jaw-dropping $795 per month.
Another reason to move to Portugal. My god. Why are people so afraid of socialized medicine? When we are there I think that I will pop into a pharmacy and ask prices for some of our meds.
Anyway, his insurance company called and said that they would cover it yesterday but didn’t say how much the co-pay is. And he didn’t ask how long he might have to be on this medication, but my guess is that it won’t be forever if he makes some lifestyle changes.
I was going to do an alcohol-free weekend, which is normally not so hard for me, but I really want that one drink when I come home from work. I had a tough anxiety afternoon yesterday for no particular reason – I was thinking a lot about the past – and crying some – and just everything, all the things seemed to be piling up. As I neared home I could smell that Sandy was burning stuff in the fire pit, so I decided to walk down to the neighborhood store and buy a six-pack and have a beer back there. Lo and behold they had Smithwick’s down there – I was surprised! On the way back as I walked by the local bar I noticed two friends at the end of the empty bar near the door and stopped in. I have not been in this bar for years but it used to be our regular haunt. One of the friends is technically my pastor, although I don’t go to church anymore. It was nice to have a porter and talk with him. What a difference from the ministers I grew up with!
So there was a little bit of fire pit, and a little bit of front porch sitting, and a little bit of cooking, and we watched an episode of “Mom” that made me cry – dang – two sitcom episodes with funerals two days in a row! I got a good laugh watching “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” on Thursday though because of Mrs. Weissman’s matchmaking client who, upon telling her that she had a loom, was told about “after marriage revelations” and then later that they would “destroy the loom.” I never knew! Luckily Sandy married me anyway.
I accomplished some of my goals this week – made GP and podiatrist appointments and cleaned up the studio some, found places to put the stuff I brought home from the Art Center print studio. I wove. I went to therapy. I’m doing better. It is helping.
I like to make pronouncements about my plans for the weekend on Saturday and the first day is half gone. The weather is lovely so I plan to do some yard work and not hurt myself doing it. I bought some lettuce seed and will plant some and later I will have some asparagus roots to plant in the “womb” garden in the back, so I’ll get it ready this week. This coming week is spring break so there won’t be many people or cars around. Maybe I should call the yard guy to see if he will come over since there will be street parking. I need to get my lake tapestry framed and ready to hang in the TWS show in June and not wait until the last minute since I won’t be around for most of May.
A friend posted about a Turner exhibition at the Boston Museum of Fine Art that will be up when we are there so we might meet him there on the free morning we have in Boston before we fly to Lisbon that night. That would be really nice. He and I went to high school together but only got to know each other through Facebook. I’ll just have to get the timing right in case we have to get tested while we are at the airport. Everything is changing so rapidly.
Wow, I wrote a lot, and I didn’t think that I had much to say!
slowly she turned 