years ago and just found here: https://bookriot.com/books-about-hackers/. This is a fantastic book, he was just so clever figuring out what was going on, and I still think about it sometimes. Check it out.

“The Cuckoo’s Egg: Tracking A Spy Through The Maze Of Computer Espionage by Cliff Stoll

This book is a bona fide classic that kicked off the sub-genre of books about hackers. It follows Stoll as he realizes the threat presented by a rogue coder named Hunter, figures out how to track him, and gets down to stopping the bad guy.”

Still very tired and weak. Some days I think I am getting better, other days I know I am not. It’s going to be a long, slow process, I think. Not looking good for getting any other services besides my two-hour weekly homemaker, but still hoping. Now taking iron supplements and yesterday just started potassium supplements, so I am hoping they will make a difference, and soon. I don’t know if it’s just the blood loss, or if it’s that anything that happens seems to exacerbate the fibromyalgia and it’s a combination of both. Whatever, I just want to feel better and be able to function again. Yesterday, walking to the door from the couch and back when my homemaker came was totally exhausting.

Got my new phone a few days ago. Been playing around with it, but have not changed the sim card over yet. Last new phone had glitches and I returned it, so happy that I had not changed the card right off the bat. Make sure everything works first. This one is a Moto Stylus, which is weird in one way, but kind of cool in another. The stylus slides up the right side of the phone and is very, very thin. My old phone is having some issues, and I really needed a replacement. Moto phones are pretty inexpensive, but they do what I want and generally work really well till I have worn them out. LOL I still miss my Nokia flip phone which was my first phone. DD2 gave it to me way back when. I loved that little phone. Of course, it wasn’t ‘smart’ but the phone part was the important bit back then. How quickly we become dependent on these little wonders. I have a reminder with alarm, voice recorder, note pad, google keep, One Note, a sticky note widget, weather apps, Kindle (Which was so handy for reading my books in the hospital. Put it on battery saver and it does not disturb anyone else with light shining, and is so easy to swipe to next page. Love it.). I have a scanner, a couple of games, and Dropbox as well. Everything I need, something that was definitely proved to me while I was in hospital.

Anyway, hoping hoping hoping to get better sometime in the near future. We’ll see how that goes. Trying to do what’s needed, eating salad after salad after salad, two bananas a day for the potassium, oatmeal, lots of water. It’s hard to eat so much food, though, I will say. Oh, and berries. Berries are apparently really good for you. I like raspberries and blackberries. In my mind blueberries are for cooking, but I’m sure I will be eating them raw as well. It’s almost blueberry season here in Mass. We used to pick them in the woods. Free blueberries. It’s a good thing.

Be safe, people.

It’s been an interesting week. Weak. I have been extremely weak and tired, and am now gradually getting a bit better. Wasn’t eating enough at first, because I was too weak to do much getting things to eat, but my friend got me some ready-made salads and things and that helped. Wednesday was meant to have the blood work to check my hemoglobin levels but there was a screw-up with the order so had to have that done Friday. Did get to see my new doctor though, and really like her. It was a total fiasco of a day; the blood work order screw up, their computers were down, they were way behind, she was late for something important that she’d already had to reschedule twice, and yet she took the time to talk to me, ask questions, answer mine and kind of just chat a bit as well. My last few doctors have been more ‘here’s a pill, I’m busy, bye’ but she was the total opposite. We were there for three and a half hours altogether, though, so that was fun.

I finally got hold of my caseworker, who had not gotten any of my messages due to a new phone system filled with glitches, apparently, but she is getting me a LifeLine thingy that is being installed today and is trying to see what other services she can get me. Then Tufts, my Medicaid insurance, called and is doing even more. I may not qualify for anything, but at least they are trying. Nice to know someone knows I am here and need more assistance than I am getting, and is trying to do something about it. Sometimes I feel like it’s just me out here on my own. I know that’s not really the case, but it does sometimes seem like it is.

My friends Tess and Ed have really stepped up, too. Helping in any and every way they can. I worry that it will get to be too much, but Tess says no, they are happy to be there for me. My friends Beth and John are great at stepping up as well when they can. I am truly fortunate with my friends. I only wish I could somehow reciprocate, but there doesn’t seem to be anything I can do back. I hope being grateful is enough for now. 🙂

It is a gorgeous, gorgeous day. My bit of the country seems to be in a good weather pocket and all the heat and miserableness give us a pass. Hope it stays that way. DD1 lives in Albuquerque, and it has been horrid there. She said every growing thing is dying because of absolutely NO moisture anywhere, and then it rained night before last. She said it rained for quite a long time, too. Not enough to fix everything, but better than nothing. I was getting pretty worried about her. I do not do well in heat, and I’m pretty sure no one else does either when it gets above a certain temperature. I try not to get angry about it, but they have been telling us for decades that this was all going to happen if we didn’t start doing things differently, and no one cared so long as it didn’t directly affect them at the moment, or worse, they were rolling in the dough as if money would matter when you are dying of thirst or whatever. God, humans are stupid. Sorry, but we really, really are.

Anyway, I seem to be on the med, most of my blood work came back good, except for the actual blood, which I am very, very anemic and am getting iron supplements today, and need to eat more meat and Iron-rich foods. Actually, there’s a whole list of foods I should be eating for the diverticulosis, too. Loads of fresh fruits and berries and veg, for example. I am trying, but I need ready-to-eat things like the salads, and those are mainly iceberg or romaine with a few toppings.

Trader Joe’s and Market Basket have some good ones, but they are both too far away for my homemaker to shop at. I am on the mend, is the main thing, so happy days, I guess. 🙂 Stay safe. Wear your masks.

I would advise you if you are squeamish to just skip this post. It involves blood and rectums.

Wasn’t sure about posting this, but it’s part of my life, so. The first picture is Gertrude watching me get ready to take a shower this morning. Either because she was glad I’m back and wanted to make sure I didn’t disappear again, or curious to see if I was going to wind up on the floor again. The second one is spacer for the squeamish.

So I had to pee about an hour after dinner Tuesday. Oh, my, diarrhea. Surely I did not eat THAT much. Suddenly got very weak and dizzy, but seemed to be done so stood up. Not diarrhea. Blood. Lots and lots of blood, with bonus clots. Leaned on sink, woke up on floor. Too weak to stand, crawled to living room to get cell to call ambulance. Funny aside here, as I was crawling, Gertrude was walking along side and kept looking at me as if to say, “Why are you on the floor? What is happening here? I am confused.”

Called ambulance and just lay there, too weak move. EMT’s come, cannot move, had to pick me up to put me in the transport chair. Too weak to move because I was still bleeding. Fortunately, rug was spared. Oh, was sick while waiting but again fortunately had dragged wastebasket with me cause I was thinking some kind of food poisoning. Sick in ambulance, too, where they gave me antinausea meds and poked me full of holes for iv’s.

Get to Er where I am given a diaper and de-clothed and gowned. More poking and iv’s and blood draws and painful exam. Doctor suggests rectal bleed is caused by diverticulosis, which usually causes pain but rarely just bleeds. Except for the treatments, I was pain free, thank goodness. Anyway, after a very long time I was admitted and moved upstairs. Still bleeding some next morning and more clots, but getting better. Had to have help for any and everything because I was so weak. Lots of blood tests to determine if my hemoglobin was going down still in case of internal bleeding. But bleeding stopped, and by Friday my hemoglobin count was going back up, so I am home. Gertrude was happier to see Ed, her favorite person, than she was me. Thanks for nothing, Gertrude. And I wa so worried about her but Tess checked in with her every day. Tess and Ed brought me home, too. I am so lucky to have amazing friends.

There is nothing to be done for diverticulosis, it seems, but I have been advised to get more exercise (right. Fibro exhaustion, people.) Eat lots of fresh fruit and veg, whole grains, chicken and fish are okay, beans are good. So was very anxious last night after everyone left. DD 2 had come down, which I did not want her to do but was so happy she did. But anxious, I turned on Hulu and watched Castle and The Orville and a few other things to take my mind off it. Was hungry but nervous about eating. Wound up with peanut butter on toast. Extremely weak today after shower. Can barely walk with cane, just hobbling along in very short trips. Was much better yesterday. Too much excitement, though. Tess came over for a bit today, too, and that was really great not to be alone. Also, I had the best nurse on the planet and a really great doctor, too. Sturdy rules! So that’s it. Be safe. Wear your masks and help keep your friends and neighbors alive.

From Bored Panda:

Fun word fact: Zeugma is a Greek word which generically means ‘to join’ (the city is named for a pontoon bridge which links the land across the nearby Euphrates river). Today, ‘zeugma’ is used to describe a word which does double-duty in a sentence by affecting two subjects at once, usually with different definitions of that same word. For example, “The tiles and the archeologists were both floored by these ancient artisans.” Troux

I just order the new Barnes and Noble Nook. It is lit, like Kindle Paperwhite, BUT it has side clickers. The reason I hate the Paperwhite and gave away the one I bought way back when. Touch screens are not fun or easy, in my opinion, and I avoid them as much as possible. I could just jump up and down right about now. LOL

Good day yesterday, caseworker came, friend came for a brief visit, did a bit of organizing in the kitchen. Today I got up at noon, and was in a fog for most of the time until about an hour ago.

Gertrude got a bunch of new toys yesterday, which she seems bored with already. How to get that girl to move. I just don’t know. I shut the bedroom door so she at least can’t sleep in there all day, as she has been doing. Think I will just open it at night for a while.

So that’s the excitement for today. Stay safe, everyone. Wear your mask.

Is busting out all over. It is 64f, cloudy, and breezy. NOT hot and sticky, so a good day. I have been in such a slump lately, and cannot seem to talk myself out of it. A couple of nights ago, I was on the verge of an anxiety attack, and I haven’t had one in years. Managed to do deep breathing and stopPed it in it’s tracks. I realized that it happened because I have been feeling like my life is spinning out of control. My recent doctors have pretty much ignored me, my new rheumatologist has not, after an entire week and messages left by me, called in the scrip for prednisone that I will be out of in two days and do doctors not know that you cannot just stop taking it without serious things happening. Do they just not care. This is the third doctor I have been trying to get a scrip from. House is messy, cause homemaker did not come last time and I cannot vac, etc. And to top it all off, Blue Buffalo has apparently just stopped making two of the cat food flavors I get for Miss G. So she is getting 1/3 the amount I ordered. She has only had these foods since she moved in at not quite three months old, and she will be three years old this month. She is very, very healthy, according to her vet, so I really don’t want to change her food.

So what did I do to regain some feeling of control? I wiped my iPad and started over. Hey, whatever helps, right?

A