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.