It’s a song.  🙂  But I am slowly, slowly getting a bit better every day.  Getting off Prednisone  is  hard, especially since if you develop withdrawal, which I did thanks to my rheumy, you stay in withdrawal forever according to his PA.  So I may have to stay on this for the rest of my life, because I have been trying to get off it since 2013, with no success.  Had to check blog to make sure it really was 2013, because brain is vacationing at the moment. Anyway, came across this in one of my posts.                      “I recently read something on-line, where the hero had been knocked out, and then slowly regained conscientiousness.” Cracked me up.

I am wide awake at 11:54, because I did not get up til 11:30 this morning.  Listening to Pentatonix Christmas music.  Not THAT early for Christmas music, and I love Pentatonix.

Gertrude is still a joy.  She is also why I didn’t get up til 11:30, that and I took a melatonin waaay too late. I was up in the middle of the night because she kept knocking the lamp over.  And over.  And over.  I finally convinced her that this was not one of her better ideas.  I have spoons on top of my tv.  No, I am not starting a new decorating trend, it’s the only way I could keep her off it.  It’s a flat screen and I know it would kill  her if it fell on her. Stupid cat has no sense of self-preservation.  She is really cute, though.  🙂

That’s all. I am  happy to be feeling a bit better finally, and have been singing along to lots of crap I saved on youtube.  Sounds of Silence by Disturbed. The theme song from The Detectorists, one of my all-time favorite shows.  Suzanne and Hallelulah by the late great Leonard Cohen.  There were some blooper vids from The IT Crowd, another favorite.  Hilarious, especially the internet episode.  It’s a good evening so far.  Hope you’re all having a great whatever time it is where you are, too.
The Detectorists Theme Song

Boycotting Macmillan

Libraries matter.  There are a lot of people who cannot afford books or ebooks, and libraries fill a need there.  This is strictly a profit-motivated move on the part of Macmillan, and they should be ashamed.

Trying to Out Whistleblowers

This is even more disturbing, much more.  The ability to whistle-blow, to call out the evil being done, is our right.  This administration is seeking to end that right and punish anyone who tells the truth about whatever it is.  Nobody doing wrong likes to be outed for it, but if they have the power to punish those who do, then what?  Any number of things detrimental to the rest of us can go on and we will remain clueless.  This is not the kind of world I want.  Accountability is important.  Being made to own up and have consequences for doing the wrong thing should be a normal thing.  Punishing those who blow the whistle stifles our right to better products, better government, a better life.

There are steps in place to protect whistle blowers, and it seems this administration is trying to circumvent them
Whistleblower Protection Act

Former Director of CIA

mean here I sit at the laptop, because typing does not hurt. So reading this:
Book Titles Taken From Literature, and this quote seems to sum up how I’ve been feeling for a while now. Depressed, disgusted, losing hope for humanity, mind boggled at the amount of gross stupidity that seems to be running rampant in my country. Here it is:

Matthew Arnold’s 1867 poem Dover Beach.

Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.

Picture I found with another quote:

It occurs to me that I should have called kitty Janet instead of Gertrude, because I keep finding myself saying. ‘Dammit, Janet’, whenever she is being El Destructo, which is pretty much every second she is not actually sleeping.

She’s also a pretty good humidity indicator, judging by the fact that she had a blue feather from her toy stuck to her this morning.  I kept trying to get it off, and it would just glom on to another spot, like she was a magnet.  So we now have simmering water on the stove.  See, cats are good things.

Check out my Christmas cactus.  It was given to me by my Traci (a former homemaker) years ago, and was in a small pot for a long time.  Finally repotted it into this, and it took off.  Several weeks ago, Miss G broke off a piece, which I stuck in a pot of spider plant.  It took, and they both have just gone crazy with blooming.  Not complaining, mind you.  Having pretty flowers on my window sill is a very good thing.  And Gertrude does not try to eat them. She is not a plant-eater, thank goodness.  Old Gertrude definitely was, and completely killed off a massive spider-plant I had by just continuously eating it down to the nub.  It finally just quit trying. Poor baby.

My Traci

First Gertrude. I miss her a lot. She was such a good companion.

It’s very cold out. Winter is on the way. Snow, I hope. I like snow. Later, dear readers. Have a lovely day/night/whatever it is wherever you are.

Found this online: Best and Most Popular Mystery Books and Series,
and it mentions my most favorite book when I was a child.

I adored this book, and have read it a few times as an adult, as well. I wanted to live in the box car so much. I never realized there were more books in the series until a few years ago. Duh! Have not read them, however.

I’ve read all of Sherlock Holmes and Agatha Christie many times, watched the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew tv shows, read most of Sue Grafton’s Kinsey Milhone books, and didn’t realize she had died til I read this. The rest are in my books to check folder. So many books, so little time, as they say. I am a voracious reader, have been all my life. I could not wait to learn to read, and used to eat bits of the newspaper hoping to assimilate the knowledge of reading that way. Nope, didn’t work. I am a big mystery lover, read a lot of non-fiction, and cannot abide ‘had I but known’ books. “Had I but known the cute guy was the jerk, bad guy, killer, etc., I would never have fallen in love with him. Oh, my.” Oh, blech!

I’ve been disappointed upon watching movies based on books most of the time, so I tend to avoid them now. The Hunger Games, for example, I refuse to watch. I watched the Swedish version of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, and it wasn’t horrible. The Hollywood version was, so I stopped there. The books in the series had huge chunks of tedious filler, but were really horrifying to read otherwise. Someone else’s imagination on film cannot compare to what your own mind can visualize in reading something. DaVinci’s Code was so-so, but was saved by the inclusion of
Paul Bettany, who I love since seeing him portray Chaucer in A Knight’s Tale, one of my favorite movies.

Okay, illness-wise, since I went down to 8mg prednisone, it has been all downhill, with the occasional rallying day where I can actually function. I am feeling a bit depressed about it today. Waking up in pain and exhausted every single day is something I had hoped was in the past. Fibromyalgia is a cruel trickster in that aspect, as it gives you brief respites and then comes back in force to knock you back again. I’m tired and in pain and foggy-brained and it really, really sucks big time. But it is what it is, and all you can do is wait it out, do what you can, and hope for a good day in the near future. Bemoaning your fate has absolutely no effect, and I really want to enjoy my life as much as is possible giving my limitations, so I work on not dwelling. Sometimes it’s harder than other times, however. Like when you’ve been doing relatively well and then you’re not again. Bah! Also, Humbug!

What to do, what to do???  Here’s an article from my inbox:

https://gizmodo.com/bill-gates-doesnt-rule-out-voting-for-trump-if-democrat-

(Here’s another one I just came across. This is why I think this country is on its last legs as the bastion of democracy and freedom of speech. If it ever actually was, IDEK) Censorship in Florida)

I use windows. I have a Macbook Pro. I buy from Amazon. I have shopped at Walmart recently, after years of boycotting them. There I things I need in my chronic-illness

******Alert!! Alert!! It’s SNOWING. The sun is shining, partly cloudy, and round bits of snow are falling in front of my windows. Woo Hoo, I think. Oh, now it’s done. Oh, well. LOL ******

Back to rant: There are things I need in my chronic debilitating illness life that I just cannot get without ordering from Amazon. Walmart has some things I can’t find elsewhere. I NEED my laptop, it’s my connection to the world. So what to do? I can’t boycott Amazon, or Windows. How does one come to terms with giving their money to evil, evil, evil corporations and ultimately their super-evil CEO’s. Rich people really are different, and their money is their god and is the only thing that really matters to them. Even people who are not super-rich are different. I know some of them, and can attest to that. I sometimes agonize over these issues, but I sort of have no choice here. How does anyone else deal with this dilemma?  I can’t afford to pay for a lot of shipping if I bought things from other suppliers.  Prime has a lot of benefits.  A lot.  Free shipping is but one.  But I hate myself every time I buy something from Amazon.

On the other hand, I agonized for years (yes, I am over-    can’t think of the word that means I worry too much about some shit.)  Not being able to recycle where I live.  There is no option here, and I do not have a car and cannot get to a recycling center.  This bothered me for years until I realized that a lot of people don’t care about it and my meager trash is not going to bring down the world.  I am totally amazed at how much we allow ourselves to be brainwashed into thinking that if we only stop using plastic straws we can save the planet.  1. The major polluters are a few big corporations, and they are not going to stop if it means costing them more than a nickle or two.  A bunch of plastic straws are not going to make a lot of difference.  2. It is not the planet that needs saving, it is ourselves.  We are at the top of the food-chain and are in actuality parasites.  By that I mean that nothing depends upon us for survival.  This animal needs that plant, this plant need that insect, everything is interdependent, except for us.  Nothing needs us.  We are only takers, not givers.  Our biggest contribution to this planet is the destruction of the natural world.  So if/when we destroy that natural world, we are going to have to figure out how to survive with artificial, manufactured everything.  Including food, which is already happening to a certain extent.  But hey, I’m making the big bucks here, why should I care about what’s going to be going on down the line.  I’ll probably be dead, anyway.  Right?  Bill Gates NEEDS those billions of dollars. NEEDS them.  I mean, how would he survive without having more money than god.  Or Jeff Bezos, who now has more money than the entire rest of the planet put together.  He can’t afford to pay Amazon workers decent wages with decent hours.  I mean really, he needs every penny of that obscene wealth he made on the backs of those workers.  Capitalism is evil, evil, evil, and creates evil people as a by-product.  I don’t know how to fix it.  Do you? So I keep ordering from Amazon and cringing all the while.  Hating myself for NOT putting my money where my mouth is, as the saying goes.

BTW, the snow is back, but I’m not so sure it isn’t like little ice balls floating down. Weird.  And the kitty has finally run out of steam and crashed.  I hope.  It’s gotten pretty quiet, anyway.  OMG, I’d better check.

This basket had pretty little flowers in it (fake ones)  It now belongs to her after she kept swimming in them and ripping them from the stems.  Everything belongs to Gertrude, and everything is a toy. Who knew?  Crap picture, I’m sorry.

Or, the Cat and Me.  Whatever.  She is growing.  Still teeny and cute, but not as teeny.  Exhausting.  From the moment she realizes I am awake, she is on the go.  It’s a good thing, really, because I am forced to move even when I’m in pain, and she is a lot of fun to be around.  But…she is majorly destructive.  Not intentionally, she is just so full of energy it’s like she can’t control it.  Better than she was, but still insane.  I have these two little lamps in the window.  They are really cute.  When I turned them off last night, they were fine.  Turned them on tonight, big one is broken.  Not in pieces, but broken.  Can you see the crack right down the center.  It goes down, around, and up the other side.  Cute Gertrude is cute.  Yep.

On an up note, went out with my friend Tess today.  Lunched at Olive
Garden.  Salad was really good, rest of lunch was 5 out of 10, at best.  Drink was excellent. Non alcoholic drink.  Kiwi Melon Lemonade.  Really good.

Went to Christmas Tree shop, got a few little Christmas things.  Yes, I’m ready for Christmas in the shops.  It was great to look at all the goodies.  Right next to Patriot’s Stadium is a shopping place where Olive Garden, Christmas Tree Shops, Trader Joe’s and other shops are located.  After Christmas, we did Trader Joe’s.  I love Trader Joe’s, and wish they’d put one near where I live, so I could send my shopper there instead of Stop and Shop.  Oh, well.  Had a lovely interaction with a lady who seemed to be trying to convince me to buy an apple dessert, which I did.  I even asked her was she a sales person for the dessert. 🙂  Discussed other desserts and real butter puff pastry, and it was just a nice little conversation.  I  used to be so shy that something like that would never happen, but I am over all that now, thank goodness.

When we came back, we stopped at her house first to drop off her groceries, and I played a bit with the dog and chatted with the husband.  I like him, he is a nice person and funny.  Back to mine, played with the cat, watched some Gordon Ramsey.  Now I am going to have the turkey sandwich I bought at TJ’s for dinner with some chips and a root beer made with real sugar.  Yay, me.

Tired Jean is tired, and had a lot of pain today.  It was worth it, though.  The pain is because I went down to 8mg prednisone two weeks ago, and last week the pain  startup up again in force.  I am back to having ‘ow’ come out of my mouth as soon as I wake up, hobbling around, all the fun stuff.  It’s hard not to be devastated when you have a, what?  Relapse?  But it’s happened enough that I can get through it.  It is not fun, though.  Disappointing, to say the least, when you can do things again and all of a sudden, you’re right back to NOT being able to do those things.  I am hoping that the six weeks on each level of meds will give my body time to adjust and ease up on the pain.  We’ll see.  I did fine with going from ten to nine, with just a brief wobble, nothing like this pain.  I am not going to waste energy being angry with the rheumatologist, but I have been through seven years of hell because of his callous disregard for the effects of prednisone, and prednisone withdrawal.  If my opthamologist had not been appalled when I told him what had been going on all this time, I would not have been confident enough to ask my primary care to take over dealing with the prednisone.  I am much happier about things now, thank you Doctor Fay.  My eye doctor.  Funny man.  I like funny.

Also, I seem to have lost my phone.  The fun just never ends.  🙂

Oh, wait, Tess found it in her car.  Duh!