Tuesday, June 14, 2022

 Tuesday, June 14, 2022

 

  I woke up feeling like my old self. Being alive and moving about in this world seemed interesting again.

  I worked on the blog and updates, trying to catch up. There were days I did almost nothing except post an entry on the public blog.

   I finally did two loads of laundry. I hung the clothes on the line and took them off myself. Yay for me! 

   I had a session with the Step Up Tutoring tech support to see why I couldn't access my Step Up email account. I thought the program had cut me off because I wasn't tutoring a child. But no. It was just some technical glitch, a  Microsoft update, no doubt a changed format that confused me. I now could see the names of the three participants from yesterday. I emailed them to Julia to let her know they had fulfilled their obligation to work with one of us, providing extra help.

  Jean, my Hanai sister, called. She and her husband met with their financial advisor, who told them to get their money out of the stock market. They will contribute to the crash. She advised me to do the same. She would also contact Damon. Damon and I have the same financial advisor. He takes a more optimistic approach. I am pessimistic about all financial options besides hiding money under the mattress. Even that isn't very certain. If we fall into spiraling inflation like Venezuela, the money under the mattress will quickly be gone too. I can't imagine a safe course of action.

  Melissa called. She had been calling every day to check on me. She had been a great source of information.  

  Judy and Paulette stopped by as promised. Paulette dropped off a supply of Kangen water. Since she's been delivering it while I was recuperating, we both realized it would be a good idea if she had a set of empty bottles with her. Then she could deliver the full ones and pick up the empties. That would reduce her visits to one instead of the two she had been doing, picking up empties, filling them, and then dropping them off again.

   Judy and Paulette also picked up the toys Adam had lent us for Sidney. Kelly had given us a box of toys too. Since she only wanted the books back, I told them to take those toys too. If their seven-year-old is too old to play with them, they have a rambunctious almost-two-year-old who's just about ready for anything.

   Then there was the food Shivani had bought for Sidney, which I would never eat. They left with three loaded shopping bags. As they left, I said, "And don't ever say I never did anything for you." it was a tagline I used with Mike as a joke. He never accused me of doing nothing for him. Not that he didn't have his complaints. But don't we all have complaints about each other? There is no 100% guarantee. 

    Darby called. Could she drop by to deliver some food? She said it was good to hear me be my old self. When she spoke to me on the phone, I sounded despondent. I was. I was passively suicidal, meaning dying sounded like a good option, but I had no plans for making it happen. It was those damn drugs. I have no idea why someone becomes a drug addict. Darby dropped off two oranges, two ripe limes from her garden, and a  whole bar of that delicious dark chocolate.

    While I sat in my old-lady chair, Darby sat in the matched one. My leaning tower of Sidney was right next to her. It was a tower Sidney built out of jumbo Lego blocks. It was an architectural wonder. It stayed up when it shouldn't. It leaned, but it never fell over. It was whimsical. I loved it. Darby kept poking at it. She wanted to straighten it out. It fell over and fell apart. Before she left, she put the pieces back together. Her construction looked like a metropolis at the end of the 21st century. No whimsy there. I doubt an adult could create what five-year-old Sidney did. I miss my leaning tower of Sidney. 

    When Judy came over, she delivered some of her homemade chicken soup. Now, that sounded just delicious. I had it for dinner, along with the cheese-filled muffin she provided. Naturally, I only finished about half of it. I never have a huge appetite, but it'd had shrunken considerably since the operation. I assumed it was the drugs, and this, too, would pass. 

  I watched Operation Mincemeat on Netflix. Someone recommended it to Dorothy. It is a period piece about a trick the British played on the Germans during WWII to divert their attention from an intended target. It was successful by the skin of their chinny, chin chins.