Friday, July 7, 2023

quickie

 

Things have been a bit hectic.  The ordeal with Bailey turned into a big deal.  Turns out B was due for his shots in January, which is when we were dealing with FIL stuff.  We had to board him for the remainder of the 10 days (5 nights)  I was beside myself, I felt really dumb for letting that happen and like I had really let him down.  I picked him up Monday and he is starting to act like his normal self.  Honestly, it was probably harder on me than it was him.  I don’t think the neighbor will sue, fingers crossed. 

Had my first appointment with the new therapist.  She seems fine but it is too soon to tell as I felt like the entire session was me trauma dumping on her from all the stress I have been under.  I scheduled an appointment at my primary doctor for the next day to see about changing my anxiety meds and to see about my weight loss.  He thinks they are connected and gave me some daily medication and one for acute anxiety.  Both him and the therapist made the comment that sometimes just knowing you have that will help.  It is a fairly low dose of Valium, which I have never taken before.  So, my current weight is somewhat problematic.  On his scale it was right at 100 and at home it showed around 98.  The daily anxiety meds have been making me nauseous so that doesn’t help.  I forced myself to eat a half a peanut butter sandwich yesterday but that was about all I could stomach.  I have to figure something out.  I wouldn’t mind staying around this weight, but I know it will not be sustainable once I get everything lined out.  Who would have ever thought I would have that problem? 

My mom is going through it right now too.  She took her little 2 pound dog to the vet a few days ago and he had a heart attack and died while they were doing blood work.  She feels so guilty.  I told her she was 100% not to blame, she was trying to make sure he is healthy (spoiler alert, he wasn’t).  She is taking it really hard.

In other animal news I found Frankie a home and I thought all was well until I got a message yesterday saying their other cat was really aggressive towards her and they weren’t going to be able to keep her.  So tomorrow me and my mom are going to go get her.  I guess we will try and introduce her to my herd.  I’m not sure how that is going to go.  I am going a work trip next week so the timing couldn’t be worse.  I tried to talk my mom into taking her but she said no way in hell.

For the first time since I have lived in my house the fireworks om the 4th didn’t sound like a Russian invasion.  I think the huge brush piles at the curb dissuaded most rational people from going overboard.  They finally issued a state of emergency and I applied for a disaster relief loan through the SBA.  The interest rates are like 2% so it’s worth a try.  I need to replace my privacy fence and my roof among a few other things.  I don’t know how long that will take to review.  I am a little concerned that I will take a hit on my credit report, which I have been really working on lately.  That was fast, I already got an email that I was denied.  I will have to call and see what the deal is but I’m really not surprised.  I am not sure what the criteria is but if nothing else going through it will help me at the next hurricane mission.

Monday, June 26, 2023

Post Storm update

 Well damn my week didn't pan out the way I thought it would.  Saturday/Sunday around midnight a derecho blew through and fucked my world.  I was asleep and my mom called to make sure we were awake.  I sat on the far side of the couch with a blanket over me in case the window blew out.  We got lucky in that respect.  The power went during the storm.  When I let the dogs out but walked out with them just in case.  There was shingles all over my hard and the back part of my fence was smashed by a tree.  I have, or had rather, a privacy fence and the neighbors have a chain link.  The tree grew up between the fence.  The huge tree in the front of my house was fine, thankfully.  When Dennis got up I my spidey sense went off and I knew he was going to be a douche canoe.  Sure enough he blew up and left.  I sat in my house without power for 2 nights before he pulled his head out of his ass and brought the generator.  In the meantime I had the tree removed and I wish I would have him put up a temp fence but I didn't.  Now I have to help Dennis put it up and we DO NOT work well together.  





This is what is left of my fence.  My roof didn't fare much better but it isn't leaking into the house.  I am hoping that after all these years of working with FEMA I can finally cash in on all that knowledge.  

My plan for Monday was going to the head spa.  They called and said they had to cancel because they had no power.  I was so freaking disappointed but 100 % expected it.   My mom had her power back by that afternoon.  I want to rebook at the spa before I get my extensions put back in, but right now I have spent so much because of the stupid storm.  

Tuesday I was supposed to get my nails done but she didn't have power either.  I had a mini breakdown Wednesday morning and from what I have heard from other people that was the point we all started to become unhinged.  

So I did very little on my week off.  I cleaned up the yard and bought myself a mini-chainsaw to clean up some other brush in my yard to take advantage of the greenwaste pick up they are going to do.  

Because I have to go outside with the dogs I caught the guy that lives behind me throwing downed branches over the 6 foot privacy fence.  I was pissed.  I walked to the fence and told him as I threw the branch back that the branch the tree came off of wasn't mine and the city is going to do curbside debris clean-up.  As I was walking back to the deck he leaned over the fence to say something, not sure what, because Bailey went apeshit.  He jumped up high enough to bite the shit out of the guy behind me.  It drew blood.  Now I am really nervous about the fence being down.  I am still a little nervous that the guy will animal control or whatever and get him on some kind of list.  Not sure if that is even a thing.  It's so strange because he has been socialized from day one and I'm not sure where this comes from.  At any rate, this is the second time he has bitten someone

When the power first went out we were told the power would be back on by 5 on Friday and that seemed like a lifetime.  Sure enough, power came back on about 3:30 Friday.  I literally cried tears of joy.  This is the first time I have been without power for this long in the summer.  We had a major ice storm about 10 years ago and staying warm is a whole lot easier than trying to get cool.

I have gotten several pictures of Frankie cat from her new family and she appears to be settling in well.  I got a picture of her and their little girl and she looks so happy.  

Now I'm just wasting time because today is the day I am cleaning the fridge and freezer because trash comes tomorrow.  I haven't opened either of them yet and I'm a little scared to see what grew in there.  

 






Monday, June 12, 2023

Spay Day eve

 Well baby Frankie cat gets spayed tomorrow.  I always get anxious with the rescues going off because I know they are scared.  Yeah I know it's for their own good and for the good of the animal population as a whole but not sure how to explain that to a scared kitty.  Her new home is wanting to take her home on Friday so I hope the vet will let us keep her there and let them pick her up there.  As much as I hate the thought of her being at the kennel I really don't want to just let her loose outside the day she has surgery.  It would probably be less traumatic for her in the long run.  She should be easy to wrangle in the morning, she comes when I call her so she won't be a problem.  The boys are another story.  It's anyone's guess when and if they show up.  



She is such a pretty happy kitty.  I love her so much and her new parents better love her as much as I do or I will come and get her!  They have a younger little (human) girl and they can grow up together.

We hadn't seen big boy since I got the message from his "owners" but he showed up while I was outside loving on baby girl.  


He had ticks and several stickers in his fur.  I got what I could until I finally had to go in and charge my phone.  If it all works out we will get one or both of the boys cut tomorrow.  Just have to wait and see if they show up.  If he had gotten here an hour earlier I would have loaded him up and dropped him off tonight.  I'm curious to see if I catch him how long it will take the 'owners' to notice he has been neutered.  They tip their ear but I seriously doubt if the neglectful owners are knowledgeable enough about TNR programs to know they do that when they fix cats to identify them.  But as Patti knows, that isn't always the case.  As far as I'm concerned I haven't seen him and have no idea what happened to that sweet big guy.  People suck.

Friday I went with HMF to see Lion King.  It was amazing.  I had seen it twice before but didn't tell HMF about the march of the animals and the singers in the opening scene.  We had to switch nights so we weren't in our normal seats and lucked into seats on the row they cut down to head to the stage.  That will turn the grumpiest of people into an excited kid.  During the Scar/Mufasa scene the hyenas came down the aisle and one of them turned and made a motion towards a lady a few seats down and she screamed.  Honestly I jumped and probably would have screamed too if it had been a little closer.  

Remind me to never do my hair like this again.  The six-head is living.  You could show an imax film on it.


That was the last show of this season and I'm big sad.  I did get the add on tickets for Book of Mormon, which is one of the top on my want to see list.  I have seen it online and I am not 100% sure HMF will think it is nearly as funny as I do.  Guess we will see next month.  I got our season tickets for next year.  It starts with Aladdin, which I am ambivalent about.  But Beetlejuice is shortly after and that one I am so excited for.  HMF has never seen the movie and I am not sure how we are even friends.  One of my favorite movie quotes of all times is "I've seen the Exorcist 167 times and it just keeps getting funnier every single time I see it" She teaches online for Baylor and has a mini course she teaches at Waco for a month every summer so I told her before she comes back she has to watch it.  We will see.

I also psyched myself up to go get my bloodwork done for the rheumatologist.  My veins love to hide and I will pass smooth out so it's always a joy for everyone involved.  I had a great tech this time and it was pretty easy.  I got the My Chart results back that say I am pretty anemic.  I am not surprised to hear this as I have had a lot of the basic symptoms, one of which being weight loss.  I also got a really significant bruise from the tattoo a few weeks ago.  I have never bruised from a tattoo before.


 

it is fading but it is still there.  I also slept all day Saturday and was so tired I never got dressed.  When I got up Sunday I told Dennis that the first thing I had to do was get some food because I didn't stay awake long enough to eat.  I am the polar opposite of someone who sleeps all day, my insomnia is real.  I have an appointment with my PCP July 13, I am thinking of emailing and seeing if I can move it up.  I might just ask him to do the anemia panel.  Based on past experience and dr. google I think it will end up being pernicious anemia.  I would much rather do B-12 nose spray than iron pills, those suck so it might be wishful thinking, if you can call it that.  At any rate it would probably be better to have that information before I go in.

I changed the batteries in my scale and my weight today was 102.5.  I am barely 5'2" so it's not as bad as it sounds.  I have also set an alarm on my phone and am trying to at least drink a glass of milk if I am hungry or not.  This time next year I will be bitching about how I gained 50 pounds back.  

While I am on that topic, AP really pissed me off last week.  We were talking about random work stuff and she told me out of the blue that I was scary thin and that I needed to stop losing weight.  I was pissed.  We have a guy that works with us that has gained a significant amount of weight and it has noticeably effected his health.  I can hear him breathing from my desk and he doses off in meetings.  He is a younger guy so can't use age as an excuse.  At any rate I asked her if she brought up Jason's weight with him.  It is never appropriate and she has no idea what I am going through.  I added that to my 'if I ever have to file a complaint' list.

I had planned on going to Little Rock next month but since Brooke's mom passed away her sister is staying with her.  Instead I got tickets for the USA gymnastic championship.  Probably the closest I will get to watching olympic gymnastics.  I am off Monday and the competition lasts all week but I decided to take the rest of the week off so I can go to the daytime rounds as well.  I am going by myself so I won't have to coordinate with anyone.  Monday is just pre-heat/rehearsal so I decided to have a little spa treatment with a little of my annual bonus (the rest is going into the bank for the NYC trip).  I found a new trend called a head spa and I am curious to see how that works.  It's not cheap so I won't be going very often and it is 70 minutes so takes a chunk of the day.  I had planned on getting my nails done but since I am taking all week I should be able to find time.  Plus I really like the design she did last time and I'm not in a hurry to change it. 

Update

Frankie was really easy to capture and get to the vet.  She was pretty vocal about not wanting to be in a crate but I unzipped the top just enough to get my hand in and she purred and relaxed a little.  I'm sure the purring to soothe herself.  She was pregnant so that just shows that if there were kittens, they were no longer an issue because she wasn't lactating.  

I got baby daddy wrangled around 11 and got him taken care of.  They said that with the scratches and scabs on him they wanted to get him a stronger antibiotic that would cost $75 and the street cats program doesn't cover it.  I told them to make him healthy but I wasn't interested in getting him house ready like I did with Frankie.  Dennis picked him up on his way home from work and he let me pet him and he ate really well.  We will now have, statistically, 12 less kittens a year to have to deal with.  He ran off after he ate and found a hiding place.  Now I just have to get big boy.  It is storming so I doubt he will be out for awhile.  The vet did agree to hold on to Frankie until Friday.  I also decided to have her microchipped and register it to my "rescue" just in case.  All of the animals I have rehomed have a no questions asked return policy.  I am low key hoping they change their mind on her anyway so I'm forced to integrate her.  Oh, and they said that she was older than we anticipated based on the build up on her teeth.  She is just a tiny thing. We will probably keep taking care of baby daddy as an outside cat but we will have to change his name fore obvious reasons.  They listed him as baby daddy on the vet paperwork 😂

Wednesday, June 7, 2023

June

 

Still kicking it at what has quickly become to feel like a cat sanctuary. 

[img]https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52953947093_fd79ba2273_z.jpg[/img]

 

[img]https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52917158511_de214175cd_z.jpg[/img]

 

We still have the 3 outside.  I am not sure what happened, but kittens never materialized.  Maybe she was starved and ate until she was bloated, maybe she had them and they didn’t survive.  Not sure but I’m glad we didn’t have to deal with it.  I got certificates through our local street cats chapter to get them all fixed next week.  They are $25 each so I don’t have an issue paying that.  The one big male cat belongs to someone in the neighborhood.  I posted on our FB page on May 23 and didn’t hear from them until a few days ago.  They said they hadn’t seen him for a week.  I was like, no shit.  I reiterated that he was not looking healthy, and they acted offended that I thought they would mistreat their cat.  I mentioned him getting fixed and they were adamant that they didn’t want it to happen.  So as far as I’m concerned, I haven’t seen the cat.  There is one that kind of looks like it but can’t be theirs.  It has no identification so fair game.  They will tip his ear so I am probably starting a turf war. 

 

I am getting pretty attached to Frankie.  There have been a few people interested in her.  Someone related to the people across the street wanted to take her home but I told them to hold off until after her spay.  They asked if I could get her to come out so I did.  They made no effort to interact with her, which I thought was odd.  She didn’t want anything to do with them.  I decided they aren’t the ones.  There is also a ranger in our district that is interested in her.  I don’t see anyway for me to keep her.  I have 3 cats already and I’m allergic. So looks like after her surgery she will go live with them.  She is just so sweet.  They are all scheduled for Tuesday.

 

My friend Brooke had surgery to remove the tumor from her abdomen.  The tumor ended up weighing 30 pounds!!  She said she has lost 55 pounds in the 2 weeks after surgery.  Even better news is it wasn’t cancer.  Her mom has been battling cancer since before we were friends and was in really bad shape and recently was put on hospice.  She sent me a text after midnight Sunday that her mom passed away.  I know she has to be exhausted.  They are just doing a grave side so I sent flowers but I’m not going to drive the 4 hours to attend.  I had planned on going to LR in a few weeks to give her a distraction but I’m not sure if she will feel up to it after everything. 

 

My friend Linda was down last week to clean out MIL’s house.  She said it was so much worse than she thought.  They also worked out a plea deal so all three of the jackass inlaws were released with probation.  The cousin that is taking care of the daughter that was the SIL’s ride or die has figured out some of the lies and swears she is done with her.  Only time will tell.  I will never understand how people can do that kind of crap.  Linda has wanted a tattoo for a long tine and it has always been the sane design and location so I asked her why she hadn't just done it.  She said she wouldn't do it by herself so we made an appointment.  She wanted something tiny and she was done in like 5 minutes so I twisted her arm and she got a second one.  I got this one, 

[img]https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52952898792_dd1e962429_z.jpg[/img]

which obviously is very typically me since Patti saw it on a random FB page and knew it was me.  It's a small world and I guess I am predictable.  This is my 5th tattoo in less than a year.  I guess we can go with midlife crisis.  I mean it's not like I am going to have the tattoos that long in  the scheme of things.  

Weight and exercise are at an odd point.  My weight had levelled of around 110 but with the stress of things the last couple of weeks has dropped to 101.6.  I am making a concentrated effort to remember to eat.  I haven't been to dance much.  I wonder how much of it is the ADD obsession ran it's course or what.  I kind of got my feelings hurt a few weeks ago because I had sent the owner a text telling her about my hip issue.  She didn't respond until a month later when she needed me for something.  They were having an event at the studio with the belly dance crew.  Belly dance is the one style I have tried that I just have no interest in.  Anyway, I didn't know what the event was, but I got a text asking if I would be willing to help when she never responded to the first text.  I initially just said yes because that's my default.  She wanted me to buy stuff for punch and infused water and I would get reimbursed after the event. Normally on these kinds of things I never let her pay my back and I was feeling more than a little used.  This was happening the same week as Brooke's surgery and she told me to use her as an excuse so I did.  I have been paying for my membership but I really think I am going to take a break and save that $100/month towards the NY trip.  Speaking of, I got my performance award that I need to put in savings for the trip also.

OK, I have to go out to one of the lakes and audit their meter system.  


Monday, May 22, 2023

Later St Paul

I started this Thursday/Friday and unexpectedly to sleep.  I had a 5:45 flight so didn't take my ambien but actually got a couple of hours of sleep.  The trip home was a lot better than the trip there.  I got home before 11 on Friday and I am really glad I took the early flight.

Saturday night my sister and I went to see Lizzo.  Brooke was supposed to go with me, but after the whole tumor thing that wasn't possible.  I was a little apprehensive as my sister can be a lot but it was fun.  Lizzo was great.



 

That leads me back to where I left off...

St. Paul has been ok.  The sign advisory group isn't at all an outgoing crew. We did go to a brewery on Tuesday for dinner and went to another really small one after work today.  The airport is way more confusing than it needs to be.  Got my checked bag and took the tram to the rental car area.  They had signs saying what floor each company was on.  Me and another guy hop on the elevator to our prospective floor to be told we had to go back down the elevator, back to the tram to the counter.  It was packed, which I knew wasn't a good sign.  For whatever god forsaken reason there was a 2 hour wait for a car.  It was 4, my hip hurt, and I was just done.  I told them to cancel my car and if I see a charge on my account I was going to call the travel agent we are required to use and go off.  So many pissed of people.  The uber was fine, it gave me an option for a quiet ride and he delivered.  The guy at the hotel desk told me to hurry and run my bags up because happy hour was closing in 30 minutes.  I made it with time to spare.  I am trying my best to get those points!

Rewind back to Thursday of last week.  I had my normal appointment with the rheumatologist I am fairly certain I had bloodwork done when I was there in January, but he said he didn't see them on my chart.  I was supposed to get labs done that day but I hadn't eaten and that is really problematic for me.  I might go in tomorrow when I get home.  He looked at my hip ended up giving me a shot in the hip joint and said if that didn't help our next step is fluoroscope.  The pain had subsided some but walking all over the airport almost had me in tears.

We had a sweet baby Siamese cat show up in the last few weeks.  We think she is pregnant but aren't 100% sure.  We call her Frankie because of her beautiful blue eyes



 There is a male that has been stalking around behind her that we call baby daddy.  Not sure if he is or not but that is his name now.  We had yet another one show up that Dennis calls big boy.  Big boy is a neighbor's cat but the refuse to take care of it saying they can't get him to stay in their house.  On the hood facebook site they said if he created any issues just let them know.  I commented they need to come get him and crickets.  He is really matted and scratched up


Frankie doesn't like BB and smacks him around any chance she gets.  Baby Daddy is pretty feral but yesterday he actually came up to me and let me touch his ears.  We are trying to figure out a way to get them all fixed.  I would love to have Frankie but I don't think Olive would appreciate that too much.  

Brooke has surgery Friday to remove the mass from her stomach.  I sent her some adult activity books and some snarky markers with offensive color names.  I want to send her something once a week while she if recovering.  I need to figure out what I want to do this week.  I could just send flowers to the hospital I guess?  I know she is just ready to get it over with.  I plan on going to LR while she if off and let her husband have a break because she is going to make a terrible patient.  She doesn't want anyone doing stuff for her.  She live kind of out there so door dash isn't an option.  

Not much else going on.  My friend with the felon inlaws is going to be here this weekend to get the house ready to tear down.  The SIL took a plea deal with probation.  The DA said she thinks she is going to be able to stay at the garbage house when she gets out and has told her daughter as much.  She will probably be released mid June and I really hope the house is gone before then.  The ceiling is literally falling in and hey just stayed there spending so much money on god knows what.  I can't even imagine.  I am gong to use that as an excuse not to go on a 2 day work trip this week I think.  I just really don't want to go.

OK, I am getting my annual review this afternoon so I need to get some shit together.

Wednesday, May 10, 2023

quikish update

 It has been an interesting few weeks.  It feels like so much has happened but when I think back nothing of importance.  

My friend Linda, the one with the SIL and nephew in jail for elder abuse against the MIL came to town last week to meet with the DA.  The nephew had a bail reduction trial and they lowered it from $100K to $25K.  She said nephew called the next day when he hadn't once called since everything went down.  Her husband refused to talk to him but Linda was all about asking him what the hell he could possibly want from them now of all times.  I mean, we all know he was wanting them to pay the $2,500 bond but he wasn't going to ask her.  She has always been the bad guy in their eyes.  He ended up hanging up on her.  He is still in jail so that speaks volumes.  They did get a restraining order for the houses they were living in and destroyed so if he did get out he would have no place to go.  

She packed up a bunch of the stuff from the mom's house and still can't figure out what they did with all of the money.  Over $100K of it was taken out of the bank via in person withdrawals.  I just can't even imagine burning through that kind of money in a matter of months and having nothing at all to show for it.  The good thing is MIL is doing ok in the facility they have her in and is probably better taken care of than she has been since her stroke.  When she spoke to the DA he told her to be glad they found someone else to take the niece because she would have destroyed their family.  From the bits and pieces it sounds like he has heard some the conversations from the phone calls from jail.  He told her she is starting to create issues (not sure if it's the mom or the kid) in the cousin's home and to not feel guilty for putting her in the system when she has to find someplace else to go.  It's really sad because I know going to live with Linda would have probably been the only chance of a somewhat normal life she ever had.  

On a completely different front, Linda has been talking about getting a tattoo for years.  I told her we needed to go see if they had any walk in openings at 'my' studio.  They didn't but she has an appointment for the Sunday before memorial day.  She told her to put us down for 2 because she owes me something big for a belated 50th birthday present.  You know I'm down but no clue what I want.  I'm kind of thinking about a funky shoe from fluevog since for her birthday I flew to DFW and went shopping with her at the new store there.  I have a couple of weeks.

My other friend news (because I literally only have like 3 irl friends), Brooke is still waiting for surgery.  She went for pre-op on Monday and the cancer marker blood test was still over 400 when the max is supposed to be 0.38.  The best case scenario is the tumor is contained to the mass.  She is doing pretty good considering.  Her husband also works for the corps so I have emailed him some to find out how they are really doing.  I need to figure out a care package to send her.  My first instinct is to send her some bamboo pjs but 1) the tumor is in her stomach and so large they will have to open her up to get it as it is way too large for orthoscopic so she will probably be wearing a mumu for awhile and 2) no clue what size to get when you know someone is getting a 20+ pound mass removed.  If things go as planned she will have surgery May 26.

And to round out the depressing trifecta I attended a funeral for a cousin yesterday.  She was 2 years older than me, which is so funny to think about because her and her sisters were always the cool older kids that I could only aspire to hang out with someday.  So funny how age puts two years into perspective.  Her husband found her dead on the kitchen floor early Thursday morning.  They think she had a heart attack in the night.  The funeral was brutal but I did my ADD mental gymnastics to disassociate as best I could and made it through without being an emotional wreck.  I was talking to Brooke on the way home about it and how the music that was popular when we grew up shouldn't be allowed in the memorial videos.  I haven't been to many funerals of people around my age and when they played STP and Chris Cornell it really caught me off guard and almost knocked me out of my disassociative state.  This is when Brooke told me that she had her music picked out and that she had everything written down in a yellow notebook and if anything happens to her to make sure her husband uses it.  I 'laughed' it off and told her that he needs to put the notebook in a safety deposit box or fire safe for when he will need it.  So she told me that last weekend she felt the need to write everything out and if something happens she has it all there and that her husband has a letter she wrote to me and to not let him forget it.  Luckily we were texting - I was putting gas in my car, and I full on ugly cried so hard I thought I was going to puke.  Hell I am crying just writing about it.  I just can't go there.

Enough of that

It isn't all doom and gloom.  I bought my plane ticket for NYC in October and made hotel reservations for a hotel in Times Square.  My older sister and her husband are going.  I have never traveled with them before so that makes me a little nervous.  Our flights are the same time, I am sitting behind one of them and our hotel is at the same location but if it all goes to hell I can do my own thing.  She is supposed to buy tickets for & Juliette for us but that is the only firm plan.  I could do the entire time on Broadway but I'm not sure I will want to once I get there.  I joined a Reddit group and found out the shows that have rush tickets and can always go to more if I choose once I get there.  My biggest fear is that my bougie sister will want to eat at michellan star restaurants for every meal.  Not sure my budget can handle that.  

Tomorrow I have my normal follow up rheumatology appointment and a long overdue hair day.  I am ready to get this blue out of my hair.   




Tuesday, May 2, 2023

 I'm in the office today and I am about to sneak out.  There is a meeting in the conference room behind me, the person in the office next to me is on speaker phone and someone else is popping balloons.  Needless to say my concentration is shot.  I need to set up my travel for St Paul in a few weeks but I have time and I am 90% sure I would have to go back and fix something if I tried to do it now.

I took off work early on Friday and no one called and derailed my plan!!  I saw Are You There God, It's Me Margaret.  It was so good.  Very nostalgic.  It did bring up a question that I had never thought about.  What did the boys watch while we were getting the period talk?  There was a part in the movie where she was laying with her grandmother and they were talking that almost made me cry because it reminded me so much of the relationship I had with me Granny.  And this would have been one of the books I would have read at her house.  I am glad I went alone.  

Saturday was with my mom.  She called me and said my little sister sent her a text asking if we would go by her house and let the dogs out because she went OKC to visit dr. boyfriend.  I told her oh hell no.  I don't know if my mom told her I said no or what but I didn't go.  I can take petty to a completely different level.  She came up with yet another story about the physical therapist, this time she said if she did the exercises at home she didn't have to come in.  Big surprise she isn't doing them.

Sunday I went to Target and picked up a travel backpack that I absolutely love.  

  https://www.travelandleisure.com/target-made-by-design-viral-travel-backpack-6834839

My laptop bag is a backpack so I probably need to get a sleeve with a strap to use when I travel and put it in the bag.  I got the bigger one because I have a tote that I take also that I stick under the seat.  

My older sister asked me if I was ready to buy plane tickets for NYC.  I know she will get 1st class but I would rather spend that $200+ on Broadway.  I am, however trying to decide if I want to spend the extra for a refundable ticket.  I mean mid-October is iffy with hurricane season and it is my turn to go.  I don't want to turn down the fema pay if it is offered.  

While I was at Target, I got a text from Brooke that she was at the ER with what they thought was appendicitis.  They did a CT scan and found a large 15-20 lbs tumor on her stomach.  They checked her cancer markers but I guess the results take awhile.  She went in today for another scan and they said she has 5 masses with a width of 42 cm.  But they don't show typical cancer characteristics.  She will be getting them removed soon and they want to have the oncologist there just in case.  I am trying not to think about it too much.  I told her that she is only 3.5 hours away.  

For some reason I have been so tired lately.  I went down to my car and took a nap for lunch.  I did the same yesterday.  I started back on Vitamin D, I hope that helps some.