I’ve posted this picture before, but it sort of goes with the season, yes? It’s the John Greenleaf Whittier house in Amesbury, Massachusetts.

Well, after sleeping most of the day (hey, I must have been tired, right?) I am running the dishwasher, eating a rebaked potato, balancing my checkbook with pen and paper since my calculator can’t seem to agree on any numbers, listening to AWOL Nation, my new favorite group, and reading my Twitter feed. It’s all good. Seriously. Feeling good. The usual pain, but no misery. Nice weather, too. I don’t tweet much, usually just when I sign a petition from Move On or The Daily Kos, or some such. If you think this blog is boring, can you imagine what my tweets would be like? “On the couch. Still on the couch. More couching.” Naah. Think I’ll just leave that alone. LOL Although, I’m not actually on the couch right now. I’m at the desk. Multi-tasking. I am good at multi-tasking. So I believe. Others may dispute that claim.

Seriously. I made fish chowder. Only took me about five times as long as bi (before I got this crappy illness) but it was soooo worth it. I make the best fish chowder ever, and I didn’t even have the wine to add in. It started as my friend Beth’s corn chowder, but I thought it would be much better with fish instead of corn, and I was right. I haven’t made it in several years, and I forgot how good it is.

Had a fun day with my homemaker, and not too much pain, which surprised me after the stairs yesterday, But it’s coming along now. I’ve done just about all my before bed items, fed the cat, etc, because I was up and down making the chowder, and everytime, I got stiffer and painier. Going to watch some tv on Amazon now, and then I probably will barely be able to make it to bed. It’s all good. Riiiight. But I had a good day, so it was worth it.

We had a fire alarm. No idea what set it off, but of course we all have to evacuate. Gertrude runs and hides at any noise, not just a fire alarm, so the chances of me getting hold of her and carrying her downstairs are less than none. So I grab my cell phone and head on out.

My neighbor is out at the same time. We start down the stairs (I do NOT do stairs), and halfway down she remembers that the door at the bottom is blocked off for no apparent reason. So back up we go, down the hall, down the back stairs, which for an inexplicable reason have more stairs than the front. I am going down one slow step at a time, leaning on the cane, people passing by. One person asked if I needed help. That was nice. Made it out. Stood there, decided to walk around to the front door. No stairs to get to the elevator, which you can use AFTER the fire department clears it. Look at my cell phone thinking I will call Tess, notice that it seems to have morphed into my wireless mouse. Hmmm. They are both the same color.

I will not be able to walk tomorrow. The pain will be back, too. Oh, joy. At least there wasn’t an actual fire. Been a few years since we’ve had an alarm, and only once has it ever been an actual fire. Very small mostly smoke fire, at that. It of course was winter and freezing and pouring rain and we had to wait forever while they made sure there was no fire in the wall, and brought in huge fans to blow the smoke out. That was fun. I was holding Simon the entire time, and he was not loving me for it. So how exciting was that? Not very, I guess.

It’s vanished. I’ve had the a/c on since Saturday, after suffering through the stickies for several days. Last week I had the electric fireplace going for a bit. I love New England weather. This relates to illness in that it’s been hot and humid for several days and I have been in a lot, and for ‘a lot’ read ‘a LOT’ of pain until today. Is it humidity related? I haven’t really noticed a definite connection before, so it could be coincidental. How can you ever be sure of something like that? I suppose I could write down the weather and the pain levels every day, but I would get bored with that by day 2, or else I would just plain forget to do it. I’m very mercurial. *giggling*

I was getting pretty discouraged by yesterday. Every movement, however tiny, caused more pain, and I realized I had lost the ability to really focus on anything I was doing. Pain is very demanding. It wants all of your attention. So I was very happy when I got up at 3:30 pm, after being up all night and getting to sleep around daytime am, to not be in nearly as much pain. I could actually stand up without agony, and walk without needing the cane to hold me up. Usually the cane is just for balance. I tend to walk like I’m drunk without it. Bob and weave. Saw that in a really awful commercial on Hulu. Bob and weave.

So I’m up all night again, but actually got a couple of things done. Unload/reload dishwasher, baked something from a box, that sort of thing. Yay, me. So autumn can do a comeback any time, because if that’s really what made me feel better (the cool and dry-er ness from the a/c) I want more of it. Pain wears you down, mentally as well as physically, and when it is relentless for any length of time, it starts to sap your will to keep fighting. And the pain pills are not working as well as they had been. There’s always something, right?

On another subject, I’ve been having pc issues. So what else is new, Microsoft? I suddenly lost sound. Just gone. Messed around, looking for solutions, no luck. So I did the old shut down, unplug, plug in, restart, and there was the sound. But no internet connection. Just gone. Sound familiar? Control paneled everything I could find, googled, somehow got it back. Next time I turned the pc off and then restarted later, no internet connection again. Thought I’d try system restore. Didn’t work, got a blue screen of ‘oh shit, this thing is borked’. Almost called tech support, but decided to do some more diagnostics, disk check, etc. Everything fine. One more diagnostic. Something is unplugged. No it isn’t. Nothing plug, usb, cord of any kind had been touched. So I unplugged the cord from the modem and replugged it in a different port. Nothing. Plugged it back in to the first port, and voila! Internet connection. However, and there is always a however, isn’t there? However, I have not turned the pc off again since, so don’t know what will happen when I do and then restart. I can’t just leave it on forever, because some things demand a restart. I’ll let you know what happens.

So I googled for an image for ‘mercurial’ but all I got was shoes. Oh, well.

dont-ask-dont-tell-officially-ends

After Elton on DADT

Hooray! After doing exceptionally well for several days, including one ‘I could swear I’m a normal person here’ day where I got things done, lots of things, and I was happy, the pain started creeping back, until I spent the last three days barely able to hobble to the kitchen to take pills, and spent most of my time in bed or on the couch. Slightly better today, but still hurt. I liked the getting things done days better. Yes. Yes I did.

Tomorrow is 9/11. I have not plugged the tv in so have no clue what’s being aired about it, and I really don’t want to know. I remember the day, I don’t need follow-up reminders. It was horrible, what else do I need to know? I remember that it was an absolutely beautiful autumn day, and I can still see the images from the television coverage in my mind’s eye. I don’t want to relive it by watching whatever is being shown this weekend. I hope the survivors, those who were there, families of those who died, anyone who was personally affected, have managed to find some peace over these past ten years. I don’t think you ever ‘get over’ something like that. You can only hope something as horrific never happens again. Humanity needs to do better. Much better.

Amazing photography:

Cool bug:

Except for the fact that I am old and decrepit and absolutely terrified of this, oh, man would I love to do this:

And elsewhere. Finally, it is Autumn. In feeling, anyway. Actually, meteorological autumn starts September first, and the weather cooperated. It’s been gorgeous since the hurricane.

My really, really good spell ended with tiredness on Saturday, and pain came back on Sunday, but overall, I am still feeling better and getting things done. How great it is to be able to say ‘getting things done’. Went out with my friend Tess yesterday, and my friend Beth is coming for dinner tonight. We will order in or go out somewhere, cause cooking is NOT on my agenda.

I have some decluttering I want to get done today, more stuff for my homemaker Traci. She has two children and is always glad for any crafty things I can toss her way. She is very creative, too, has lots of small animals and makes housing for them out of all sorts of things. I’d like to get another pet, but not sure if Gertrude could handle it. I of course always want a dog, but I have to come to terms with my limitations on that front. It would be different if I had a yard, but living on the second floor in the middle of downtown means I could only let the dog out if I went out with him/her, and that is not always possible for me. Oh, well. My friend Tess has put A Yard on the list of things she is going to buy for me, but we haven’t got that far down yet. We have to get the buffalo first, although I have no idea why I ever said I wanted a buffalo. LOLOL Also, wouldn’t it be better to rearrange the list and get the yard before the buffalo? Not keeping it indoors, that’s for sure. This gives you some idea of why Tess and I spend a lot of time laughing hysterically.

Here’s a quote I like, from this place:

http://www.slate.com/id/2302344/

“Someday, they will stand together in history’s dock. Two groups of willful men who sold out their fellow citizens with their blind avarice and arrogant stupidity: the greedheads on Wall Street and the empty heads (and hearts) of the Tea Party know-nothings.”