Dandelyon's Worlds

I've been under the weather. This time I managed to get Bronchitis just from the end of the winter heating season (unless a friend with a congestive heart condition was actually sick, and not just coughing because of the heart condition). But I think this was coming on earlier, and the med regime my former allergist suggested was keeping my lungs and sinuses a lot clearer than in the past, but not enough for my body to clear out the infection.

Well, I came to this conclusion Friday, with (among other things) singing at the Eurofilk showing me I was unusually short of breath for singing; I already had an appointment with my newish primary doc who I really like on Monday, and when I tried to call the allergist last month to set up an appointment, there was no answer or answering machine on his number, or on the alternate number I found on Google. I did find an article about him listing him as 81 years old, and I'm not sure how long ago that was written, so I'm assuming he died or retired. So, I waited out the weekend and got tireder and tireder, and shorter and shorter of breath.

Happily, she was willing to prescribe antibiotics and steroids (if I'd gotten antibiotics on Friday, that might have been enough), unhappily, when they figured out that the only way they could give me the meds the doc thought most appropriate that didn't have corn in it (kids' liquid, again), it turned out that the pharmacy couldn't fill it until today. It was too late to try to talk the doc into prescribing something different, as the clinic was closed.

So today I woke up way too early, and was NOT falling asleep again (my body does insist on waking when I really need meds, which freaked out my RN mother when I was first sick enough to always be awake when she came in to wake me up to take them). This was handy in that I was able to deal with a bank overdraft for my grown-up kid (she's still using the account I got her when she went to Denmark in 4th grade so I could easily transfer money to her if there was an unexpected need, so, being awake I saw the text notification) (Her birthday is later this month, so an early birthday gift was perfectly reasonable).

And then I had food and called the pharmacy, because I WANTED those meds before the rest of the day's errands, which included getting My Angel to her PT appointment, mailing a thing (in a post office, since there seems to be no more drop-off boxes outside our regular post office any more--WTF, government?)--and going to pick up meds at a different pharmacy too.

The strip mall the post office was in had one of the closing JoAnne Fabrics, which had almost no fabric left, and not much of anything else either. I did find some things to buy, including two substantially marked down big bags designed to hold a sewing machine and sewing stuff, but which I plan to use one of for author stuff (books, display, etc.) on the assumption that I'll do signings at cons again, and the other for acrylic paints, brushes, and the like since my current bag and plastic bin plan isn't working out as well as I'd like, and because having that stuff on wheels will be very convenient.

I also got some beads, wire, a thimble and multitool, sewing machine needles, an ironing pad to put on a table, some tape, a couple of pillow forms for planned gifting, and, surprisingly, a basket of tumbled stones to put in the fishtank. Sadly, the heavy-duty dolly they had pictured in the front as available had already been sold. I looked at the jewelry making stuff, thought about the heavy duty crimper and some of those beads, but I haven't been making jewelry lately and can use the hemostats I use for holding autoharp strings to crimp things, so I left those behind. I did also get some very discounted project boards, so if we decide to go to one or more protests, we can take signs.

And I took photos of our daffodils in the middle of all that.

I am cheered by all the photos of protests I'm seeing, and by how badly Elon's car company is doing. It gives me hope. Keep contacting your elected officials, we've got to wear them down until they stand up to our very cruel and foolish leader.

Now I am going to hit post and go watch Rachel show all those pictures of the signs again, and do Duolinguo, so I don't miss a day, and fall in bed. Maybe I'll manage to post Daffodil pics tomorrow.

It's cold and grey outside. The peas, spinach, turnips, and beets we planted last week have not sprouted yet, which is doubtless a blessing, since it's supposed to drop below freezing tonight. But those are all cold-weather crops, so they'll be ok.

The warm weather crops that I've planted so far are all safe inside, though some of the tomatoes are very badly in need of thinning, and I don't really have things set up for that. My old flats are also getting really fragile, so I'll have to obtain some newer ones.

I'm feeling really frazzled right now. I know that's because of doing taxes. I have senseless anxiety about that, and it isn't as simple as it ought to be. Tax laws are truly unnecessarily complex and written in confusing jargon, and since that person appointed a new head of the post office, I never get all the forms I need in the mail and always have to spend time chasing them down on the internet or by phone. And the increasing trend of identity theft means that not only do I have to cudgel my dyscalculic brain to focus enough to copy a zillion numbers accurately from forms and my records into the depths of the online program I use, I also have to cudgel my brain to remember the last five digits of my social (which is stupidly hard), and copy numbers from third party authentication notices.

On top of that, when I had questions, I had to sit and wait and twiddle my thumbs, waiting for calls back from the experts on call, and some of the experts were just as frustrating as the numbers. The women ranged from OK to good; the men from bad to horrible this year. (Yes, I know you are trying to help me, but you are telling me to enter a lie in order to get rid of this error message the program is giving me, and I know better to lie about whether I stopped using a particular car last year...) (And then there was the guy who hung up on me when he didn't want to bother to answer my question.) Ugh.

And now it's done, and I feel like I should be able to just sigh in relief and move on, but my brain feels like a wet noodle and my back and neck are still all stress-knotted. Some of this is just stupid anxiety stuff, some is being tired from the forced focus needed to enter so many numbers accurately, but a lot is just an unwanted reminder that the stupid long covid isn't gone. And that feeds my anxiety--did I do something in the on-again off-again, tired, long-covid brain-fog that wasn't correct, and might I have failed to catch it when I reviewed everything?--which won't help me to recover and get on to recording some music or writing new songs or even maybe new fiction.

It's a lot more fun to consider my gardening plans. And gardening, while it requires simple actions on my part, really doesn't require much ability to think.

I don't mind tasks that don't require thinking, but many things that require thinking are a lot more fun, and I really mind not feeling up to doing those fun things!

Elizabeth Barrette is writing poetry to prompts today: https://ysabetwordsmith.dreamwidth.org/14861900.html The topic is cozy coping skills, which is certainly something we all could use more of these days!

#poetry #scifi #fantasy #poetryfishbowl #superheros and more

New people are very welcome. If she gets a new sponsor or a new prompter, she publishes an extra free poem. And the conversations in the comments are often interesting.

Got woken up this morning to learn that My Angel's PT was out sick today. (Someone recommended a PT that specializes in helping people with balance issues caused by eye problems, and the lady is fantastic.) I got the receptionist to schedule a replacement appointment and put it on the calendar. Then, since I forgot to do it yesterday, now that my new health insurance card has arrived, I called to order new CPAP supplies and cleaned the ones I currently have. Naturally, by that time I was quite emphatically awake.

I did a bunch of unexciting little things, figuring that when My Angel got up we could go out and make a new archway for the entrance of the garden. The old one, constructed mostly of saplings we cut down and wild grape vine (and wire) had lost structural integrity last autumn, due to age, wind, and My Angel falling against it. I'd pinned it to the tomato cages to keep it from falling on the car over the winter, and took it down before the big wind storm a couple of weeks ago.

By the time she was awake and almost ready to do stuff, it wasn't quite too cold for the planned work, and I'd moved the car to give me a place on the ground to build the arch, and had just gotten started pulling stored saplings out to assess which one would work best without additional cutting when she told me she would be talking funny for a bit. What? What are you talking about? Her temporary crown came off. So in I went to have her call her student dentist, who said it was too late to get her in today and sent her off to the pharmacy to buy a "lost filling and loose cap repair" kit.

I consulted with her about the arch; the best sapling was taller than I'd hoped for, but I didn't want to get the axe out and cut it shorter, and My Angel is too tall for a short arch anyway. She headed off to the car and I decided to get the shovel and dig the post hole I'd need (one because one of the supports was still there from last year) and found the door was locked. Thankfully she hadn't driven off yet, or I'd have been locked out without my tools while she was gone!

So, door unlocked again, off she went to the pharmacy and I got to work on the arch alone. Sigh. That wasn't the plan! But I did ok, taking the wire archtop I'd made from an old piece of roof antenna and the sapling, some still-limber branches, some lengths of grape vine, and gardening wire, and made 3/4 of an arch on the ground, looping the metal sun-and-moon and butterfly decorations to it, wiring it all together, and then, with the bit of metal fence we'd put up earlier this spring next to the woodpile as a support, got it into place, wired to the metal fence on one side and to the support sapling that's still attached to the twine fence on the other side, and at least that bit is done.

I still have to pull down the bean and morning glory vining from the rest of the twine fence, and probably replace a couple of other supports. But first, tomorrow if the weather remains sunny, I want to get peas planted. And probably spinach. Hmm...I wonder if I could plant anything else this early. Cabbage maybe? Google says early to mid April, and we're near enough to the lake to be in a warmer planting zone than most of Milwaukee, so yes. Onion starts? Google says mid to late April, so no. Turnips? yes. Beets? Possibly. Carrots? No, wait until the threat of frost has passed, unless it's an "early variety". (But the seed packets I have say "as early as the soil can be worked". I'll trust the packets, since those instructions were written for the variety in the packets.

So, there's a bunch of things I can plant tomorrow! Probably more than I'll have time for.

By the time My Angel returned, it was windy and the sun was low enough to be behind the houses on the west side of the street, so it was quickly getting colder. We went inside, and I looked at the flats I'd planted with tomato seeds.

A couple of days before Equinox, I'd planted a flat with "volunteer" tomato seeds. Volunteer meaning I'd taken tomatoes from my garden that were starting to rot and smashed them on a dry pot of dirt and let them dry there (because I read that tomato seeds need to sit in spoiled tomato juice for a while to sprout well). Later, I needed the pots and dumped the contents into baggies, making it really hard to tell what was seeds and what was just dirt. So I just spread about a tablespoon of the mix onto each pot in the flat, covered it with seed starting mix, watered it, and put it on a heating pad and under a rectangular plastic "dome". These seeds will grow children of one or more of the tomatoes I'd planted, so things like Northern Lights, Cherokee Purple, Brandywine, Black Krim, and other heirloom varieties, usually ones that are striped, yellow, green, or purple.

Then on Equinox, right before and after the "moment", I planted two more flats, one all tomatoes from seed packets, and one 1/3 tomatoes and 2/3 peppers (cayenne and sweet Italian peppers, mostly, some from seed packets and some from plants grown in the garden last year. Seedlings were already starting to show on the first flat at that point. Wow, that was fast!

Today, I found two tiny sprouts in the second flat, a Purple Russian (from a free thank-you packet sent by a company I'd ordered other stuff from) and one, well, I don't know. Apparently I was tired enough I forgot to label the last two tiny pots. Argh. There are no sprouts in the third flat yet. But in the first one, most of the pots had at least a dozen happy seedlings. I prepped a fourth flat (adding dirt to the 18 little pots), took out three of the most crowded pots, and filled the flat and four other small pots with 3 seedlings each, leaving three or four each in the original pots. All those babies (roughly 75) were from just two of the little 3" pots. The other one I returned still-crowded to the flat.

I've gotten really good at transplanting tomato seedlings, and three to a pot is too many, so even if I lose 1/3 of the transplants, unless there's some other problem with the babies, or I get sick enough to forget to water them, I'll have lots of tomato seedlings to give away. I plan to put a fan into my sprouting room this year, to hopefully get stronger stems and leaves; since I haven't done that before there may be a learning curve on doing that well; that's one possible source of losing some of the plants before outdoor-planting time.

We tried to glue the temporary crown to My Angel's tooth with the recommended product, with a lot less success than I had with the arch and the seedlings. The tooth is not bothering her, so she said she was done trying. I hope they can see her tomorrow to glue it back on properly, as I'm afraid the tooth might be fragile without the temp covering it. We'll see tomorrow, I guess. If nothing else, she has another appointment Friday.

And, I got distracted and didn't hit post. So, an update: I have the seeds that it would be ok to plant tomorrow in a plastic thingy for easy transport outside, and I should sort some papers or play some music. I'm not doing that until after I post this, so I'll just say see you soon. I'll try to take a pic of the arch to share tomorrow too.

Festival of the Living Rooms 25 was a lot of fun. I sang a bunch of songs, did a bit of hosting, and a lot of co-hosting (watched to let people in, managed to mute a few people who didn't realize they were unmuted, reminded a few people to unmute when it was their turn, pretty normal stuff.) I really love the zoom filks, especially this one, where there's concerts that I can do other things during as well as open circles. I definitely want them to continue!

I also managed to schedule just about everything from this FAWM into my Patreon, so there's public lyric posts and members-only audio posts from now to midsummer. I know I didn't manage to post everything from last FAWM there, so I'll be checking to see what I posted and what I didn't, and adding more posts as time goes on.

I also made some mental notes about songs that I want to record. Maybe I can manage another short album or two before the next Bandcamp Friday. Let's see--ah, here's the schedule for 2025: May 2nd, August 1st, September 5th, October 3rd, and December 5th. I'll have to think about what's the best way to remind myself of those dates, so I'm not trying to get stuff ready for publishing the night before, like I did this month!

The kittens are getting big, especially Ri, who is already huge at a little over 8 months. I got a care credit card, and got Donnflaith's sugery done, but have not heard back about the pathology of the mass they removed from her neck. I've got my fingers crossed about that.

I finally got some tomato seeds into little pots into a mini plastic greenhouse. For the first batch, I grabbed two ziplocks full of dirt that I'd pressed moldy tomatoes into to dry during a recently-past summer. (Since I learned that tomato seeds don't germinate well unless they are "seasoned" by sitting in spoiled tomato juice or pulp, I just take the tomatoes from my garden that start to spoil and press them into a pot with dry dirt and let the tomato remains dry there.) So I put a tablespoon of that dirt onto each pot, which may be way too many seeds, but I can thin or separate them, watered it and set the flat onto a heating pad and under a "dome". I'll also plant some tomato seeds from seed packets, and some Italian peppers, and some cayenne, and then think about what else would be worth planting indoors.

I will be experimenting with setting the seedlings in front of a fan this year, so hopefully they'll grow stronger stems and leaves, which should help when I transplant them into my garden. I was gifted some bookshelves last year, from a friend's parents' basement, so it will be a little easier to organize the seedlings. (I got some grow lights to hang from the bottoms of the shelves; I should take pictures to share once I get stuff set up.)

I know there's more stuff I haven't talked about here, but I'm sleepy and have stuff to do tomorrow, so I should sign off. See you around!

In this case, paypal.

The old pretty links I made (the hat and the instrument case) don't work any more. From what I've read so far, they might work if I switched to a business account. Or maybe not. But there is paypal.me, at least.

With the new paypal.me feature, it might not be worth puzzling over the html to try to link the pictures to the paypal.me/DeirdreMMurphy link. (At least, I assume I could hide the link to the paypal.me with my paintings). But I will miss the pictures.

At least, I had enough trouble with those links back when I stuck them under every ficlet and card draw that I automatically click on the new post to make sure they work. So I was able to insert the paypal.me and delete the pretty (but non-functional) thing.

But still, bah!

After my brother realized he was not long for this world, he started trying to convince us to take his tattoos. Or make them into drum heads. Or at least, taken literally, that's the words he was using. I think he was trying to get us to realize he wouldn't be with us very long (though he died suddenly, and before even he expected it to happen).

After he died, and his other sisters got an autopsy (it is some comfort that even if we had been sitting in the room with him and even if he'd been in better shape, the heart attack that took him from us so quickly was of a type that had less than a 10% survival rate), his daughter had him cremated.

But after his memorial, while spending time with family, I borrowed my youngest sister's paints and brushes, and she gave me a canvas to use, black for mourning, and I started to paint him. It's still a work in progress, there's lots of details to improve on, but as I painted, those tattoos kept springing to mind, and I started adding them to the painting, his companions in making the music that he loved and played and taught.

When I get this into better shape, I'll share the updated painting. But for now, here it is, a painting in progress to accompany my mourning in progress.

Pictured are The Lorax, Annubis, Yoda, and Kokopelli.

My little brother died yesterday. He was in ill health, but it was unexpected. I am very glad we all got to see him over the holidays, and he got to taste the Mulberry Strawberry Jam I gave him. I am also glad that we got to do a little music together. Not nearly as much as I wanted to do, as my energy is still affected by the horrible long covid, and he wasn't always up to hanging out, much less doing music, when I could visit him in Chicago.

It wasn't a great week for me before that. I got word on Christmas Eve that my car was totaled, and directives to be done with my rental by the 30th, and had no spirit to even come here on FB to complain about it, and then on Christmas got some food that badly disagreed with me, so I've been sick ever since. So I'm not in great shape to write about him now. Instead I'll share something I wrote for him a few years ago, and I'll add links to some of our shared music after.

Jammin Hands
Deirdre M. Murphy

He hears the world in rhythms
A breath, a year, a soul
He’s tapping out some healing
To make the broken whole

He’s got Jammin’ Hands
Tapping on the table
Rapping on the chair
Clinking out a rhythm
With the silverware
Jammin’ Hands
Yeah, he’s got Jammin Hands

He drums in the big box store
Over here, then over there
It looks like he’s goofing off
But he’s drumming out a prayer

He’s got Jammin’ Hands
Tapping on a jembe
Shaking shell and bone
Sending out a rhythm
With others or alone
Jammin’ Hands
Yeah, he’s got Jammin Hands

He studies and he teaches
He rocks a keyboard too
He knows that play is sacred
The rhythm will come through

He’s got Jammin’ Hands
Making drums of spirit
Leather, cord and wood
Or from whatever’s handy
To make the rhythms good
Jammin’ Hands
Yeah, he’s got Jammin Hands

Copyright ©2021 Deirdre M. Murphy


Here he is playing on a 4-bell Samba Agogo:
wylddandelyon.bandcamp.com/track/come-to-our-party

When we moved into this house, there was a line of what had been hedge, sandwiched between rusty fence segments, around most of the yard. Weed trees had seeded into this area, and we spent many days removing the fence segments, the old hedge, and plating roses. By the front walk, there was a line of hedge between two snowball spirea, where the segments of old rusty fencing were particularly resistant to being removed. But now that space is open.

We have talked about moving those two snowball spirea to the other side of the yard since we moved in; I'm not sure it will be feasible to do that, but in any case we have some lilac sprouts from the back yard to move, and those will be a lot prettier than the hedge ever was (even imagining it in its prime, before it had weeds and unwanted trees and rusty fencing as a part of the line).

We haven't cleared away all the brush from those hedge plants yet, or decided if we want to keep the ancient evergreen tree in that corner of the yard (which was topped long before we moved in), but I still smile every time I look at it. Slow progress is, as my sister Dragon says, still progress, but actually seeing something I've planned and worked toward for more than two decades (on and off, when I had energy and health and a lack of things that had more immediate urgency) actually, finally, happen, well, it feels good.

So, Sunday night I was having a little ice cream after dinner, thinking of trying to write something before bed, when I heard one of our cats yowling in the bathroom. So I went to see what was wrong, and there was poor Donnflaith, hanging from her two front paws with the (thankfully tiny) bathroom window on said paws. Her hind feet were dangling over the tub. So, I went to rescue the very panicked cat. In the process she bit my left arm, I think to have something to hold onto while I was figuring out how to both hold her securely and lift the window off her paws.

I cuddled her for a bit, letting my arm bleed, then set her down on a chair hoping to check her paws, but she ran off and hid. This upset me, but first I had to deal with my arm. I knew cat bites are potentially dangerous, so I encouraged the wounds to bleed and then doused them with peroxide, rubbing it in thoroughly with a clean cue tip. Then, once the bleeding slowed, I used hydrophilic bandaids on them and took my Zyrtek to reduce allergic swelling.

Then I returned to trying to find the cat. When I spied her, she seemed to be limping—until I almost caught her—and then she was off like a shot. This left me very upset. I didn’t want to have to take her to an ER, but if she needed it, I wanted to know that right away. By now, all thoughts of writing—or anything else productive—had long flown from my head. It wasn’t until I saw that my arm was starting to swell that I found her again, and knew that a visit to urgent care was my first priority the next day, that she showed up again, tempted by canned cat food into letting me pet her forepaws and determine that she, at least, was fine.

I iced the arm, which didn't help, and got some sleep, then shoved some food into my mouth (thank goodness) and headed to the closest urgent care listed for my current ACA plan. Where I was turned away. They don’t, after all, take my insurance. None of the rest were close, but I picked one, started to drive, and called the insurance company to complain. The woman there apologized, saying the first place must have withdrawn from their plan, and they were probably behind on getting the website updated. She didn’t ask me which site had turned me away until I asked, exasperated with repeated useless apologetic re-explaining of the same stupid explanation, didn't she want to even know that? The only impressive thing she did was, finally, after asking if I’d gotten care yet (no, as I’d already told her I was still driving), offering to call the place I was headed for and confirming they would accept my insurance.

They would. Thank goodness. So, thanked her and kept driving. I eventually get to the address. There were no parking places within a half-block of the entrance that weren’t handicapped-only, so I parked and walked to the building with the correct address in foot-high numbers only to be told to go back to my car and drive around the building to the other entrance with the same number on it. Which also did not have any non-handicapped parking within a half-block walk of their door. The area by the door is marked "drop off only" and is next to an ambulance entrance. But at least once I get there, they let me use the bathroom and took me right back to be seen. The nice nurse suggested a local Walgreens that was open until 10 pm. (Again, thank goodness.)

The people there were nice, and looked at things and took my vitals and all that stuff. They told me I needed antibiotics (yeah, I knew that) and I told them that I’d had a (probable) allergic reaction to the first antibiotic of choice, so they settled on the next one. I told them “no corn” and they came back with a prescription. When I asked again about corn, the nice, very young man told me about the antibiotic in the pill, and asked if I’d prefer liquid to a pill. Exasperated (again), I said I’m fine with pills, just not with corn in pills. After I got (minimally) graphic about why I can’t take pills that have corn as a filler (they do no good if they come back up), he went back to their pharmacist. Finally, he came back and said I’d be getting the liquid, because every single formulation of the pill had corn in it.

Somewhere in the conversation, I learned that the urgent care is open until 8 pm, not the 5 pm that the insurance company’s website claimed. (I did not have the energy yesterday to call the insurance company again to complain about their inaccurate website again. Or today.) The doctor assured me if the pharmacy had any issues, they could call him. Oh, yeah, that's when I learned that the hours on the website were wrong. Then the doc wanted to draw a line around the swollen part of my arm to make it easier for me to tell if it’s getting bigger, and for future medical personnel to be able to tell how fast it’s getting bigger, if it does. And he can’t draw. So it was wrong and on my forearm were I couldn't avoid seeing it and that was making me crazy until I got home and discovered I could erase it with rubbing alcohol and fix it with one of my markers. (Next time I'll only consent if I can do the drawing, unless I can't see it!)

Someone warned me that I should eat food with this antibiotic, and I had a happy plan to stop at a natural foods store that’s just a few blocks from there to get some fruit to eat with the first dose, so I could take it before driving home. (The night before, I had planned to grab a bag of nuts on the way out of the house, but that morning I’d been more worried about getting to the urgent care than grabbing snacks.)(
And please, let there not be a next time.)

Anyway, I left the urgent care and drove to the pharmacy, waited in the long line for the drive-through, watched as they looked up my prescription, looked unhappy, and called the pharmacist over. She picked up the phone and explained very nicely that she didn’t have the strength that the doctor had prescribed, only half that strength. So, I asked, I need to swallow twice as much to get the same dose? Yes, that’s right. Ok, I said. But no, the pharmacist can’t substitute on her own, she has to ask the doc for permission. They promised they would contact the urgent care right away. I’ll be waiting, I said. Oh, no need, we’ll text you. That text thing doesn’t always work, and I’m on the other side of the city from home, so I’m very unimpressed with this plan. But arguing with people you need stuff from isn’t helpful, so I go to where I said I’d wait and I wait. For more than an hour. I wasn’t tracking time well, but the hour-long podcast I started after parking finished, and I started a new one. Finally I get into line again, saying the text thing doesn’t always work, so I’m checking. They haven’t heard from the doctor. They can’t help me until they hear from the doctor.

By now it’s approaching 7 pm. I’m starving. I have no food, no medicine, and the words, “Start the antibiotic today, because if it isn’t working you’ll need to go to the ER for IV antibiotics” ringing in my memory. I call the urgent care. “ThisIsXUrgentCareCanYouHold[click]” and I’m on hold. I wait for 15 minutes or so, hang up and try again. Same result. It is now after 7, and the urgent care closes at 8. I hang up and drive back to the urgent care, and walk the long walk to get inside. Some poor woman is there with a sick baby talking to the only receptionist left. I move to the side and try my best to look desperate and visible to the people in the back. Happily this works.

The nice nurse with the pretty flower tattoos comes up to talk to me. (Was I really too sick to remember to compliment her tattoos? I was. Both times.) She goes back to check. They do not have any communication from the pharmacy. I tell her the pharmacist says they can’t dispense as ordered, and she asks me to wait while she calls them. Eventually she returns to assure me that they are mixing the medicine right now, she took care of the problem.

I drive back to the pharmacy. Finally, they have my prescription—or, rather, a partial fill of it--two days worth, rather than the whole prescription. By this time, Rachel Maddow has started playing on the radio, and I am beat. I drive home (no wheat, no corn, and no canola means no fast food) and finally take the first dose of this stuff. Is it OK that they only have a partial? No. But I have to start the antibiotic, so I accept the partial.

So, I get home and grab leftovers and take the medicine. It doesn’t taste quite as bad as I expected, which is good since I have to manage to swallow 20ml of it (more than 4 teaspoons) twice a day. I managed to stay awake-ish for four hours or so, long enough to take the second dose, slept for nearly 10 hours straight, got up to eat and take another dose, and fell back into bed. I eventually got up again because once the antibiotic started to take effect, I wasn’t sleeping, but I’ve been foggy and low energy all day. And of course it was 90 degrees today, so at least downstairs was less hot than laying in bed.

So far, the score is two days pretty much completely wasted, and they better have the rest of my antibiotics filled in the morning. The swelling is going down, at least a little, so the redness only goes around half of my forearm, and on some of the edges, it also isn't as long. And I get to watch for a fever or other symptoms that, if they show up, indicate that I need to go to the ER anyway. I’ve got my fingers crossed.

This is decidedly not the adventure I needed right now, and I'm not sure it's even mostly over, which is worrisome.

But at least the cat is ok!