Helenka, Queen of Outer Space

I mean I can read library books again. Why couldn't I? Uh … because my card had expired but I didn't know it. I hadn't received an email from the library. So I'm so glad I had our book club meeting today (I chaired it), examining "The Little Paris Bookshop" that many of us found … problematic and often irritating. However, it gave me the chance to wear the gorgeous wine-coloured scarf Brian brought back from Paris. And I was extra careful not to spill tea on it. One of the attendees, a gay former architect, paid me a compliment as visualizing me as the polyamorous free spirit. I thanked him for the compliment (and continued with an account of another of my former escapades)!

So I asked the Senior Librarian at the conclusion of our meeting to help me sign in. When she couldn't, she took my card to the front desk and the problem was isolated. When she returned, my privileges were restored as she'd just renewed it. Yay!

It had been a decent day weather-wise. Temp above freezing, no precip, though cloudy. Hey, for mid January, I'll take it. My ride was late for the return trip, but I taught the driver to find the classical music station. When I got home, I just had to climb in bed because the pain was encroaching. Sigh. Later, I assumed my "Queen of the Commas" role as I edited the church publication.

While I had some decent vision, I watched Tuesday's N.C.I.S. which was sorta, kinda weird, ranging from McGee's worrying about his upcoming vasectomy, to a decorated pilot pretending to crash her $5 million plane in the ocean, in order to clear her name of murder and bring the guilty parties to justice. Uh-huh. I also rewatched the Jeopardy! GoAT because it delighted me so much.

Flirted some more with excruciating pain. I'm hoping against hope that I will be able to sleep through the night. I've been drinking ginger beer for its calming gastric influence. I'm glad I'm home all day tomorrow and hope I can do my church service summary. ::crosses fingers::

With only minor back-breaking pain, I got a lot done today. The dining table is decorated with lights, deccies, and my baby plushies. Unfortunately, I'd hoped to add a set of clear mini lights, thinking I could connect them to the extension cord, but two transformers took up all the space. So I'll need to think about where to put them. The couch is clear of stuff. Prezzies are hidden in a cool place. And cards are on the device superimposed over the sequinned door hanging. I only have to clear the clothes off the chair (I dread having to hang them up) and move the other chair back to the table. So - hardly anything left! ::rolls eyes::

I took several breaks in order to preserve my back. Watched a pretty weird epi of this week's N.C.I.S. Nola. Whoa. And, natch, I caught the game show repeats in the evening.

After all of that, I had proof positive that activity that gets my circulation going results in crisp colour perception. So I guess I'll have to semi-break my back on a regular basis. Sigh. 'cuz I'd like to avoid unnecessary pain. Anyway, now that my place looks almost pretty (and pretty good), I deserve to go to my lovely bed and have the best dreams. Yay.

It should go without saying (but I will) that life is a lot better when I'm not in pain and get a decent night's sleep. As I did last night, waking up at the nearly-sybaritic time of 7:25. Yes, indeed.

Had a leisurely early morning even though I didn't have brekkie (didn't care for the lonely selection in my freezer). So I had a lemon tart instead! Waited for my meals delivery with S. who supervised my first conversation with Siri. My, Siri is … literal. Sigh. I was trying to get her to find and open a particular PDF. Nope. Sorry. [I rather doubt that.] But I managed a work-around. When my meals were delivered, I decided to have the delightful chicken breast in a honey bbq sauce with veg fried rice. Much better.

I had fluctuating periods of decent vision. Luckily, the switch was ON when the communication came from the church. As I was able to use my iPad, I picked up all sorts of odd errors. And was pleased to note that all of us on the team focus on different aspects - so we're not having a clash of picky pedants!

In a less-sighted fog, I watched last night's two N.C.I.S. shows. You can tell it appears this'll be the last year of the original, as we're all going "Awwww" at the sight of Gibbs (second B for bastard!) befriending the neighbour's young son. This time the kid got to play videogames on the best, non-glitchy screen available - in MTAC, no less! But it was all to solve a crime. I know, I know, it's just a TV show.

Unfortunately, the pain began to creep back during the day. So I reach for the bottle of pills and discover that I can't find the replacements for Vitamin C (ran out today) and Aleve (I'll run out in a few days). But how can this be? I'd already begun using several of the replacement bottles church-John had bought for me. But these bottles were NOT in my apothecary bag. So, hands on hips, Blondie, where are they????? Do I ask c-J to buy some more until I can locate these? I'm so confused. And aggravated, as I didn't put them in the right place and now am looking for my version of the needle lost in the haystack. Sigh.

Irritation is not conducive to reading, so I attempted to slog through my second French book. No! I don't want to read about emotions finally affecting how the protagonist sees herself. Maybe tomorrow. Right now, I've taken my pills and hope to induce a second decent night's sleep in a row. Wow!

Obviously, I'm disgusted that the exploring tendrils of pain woke me up. So I got up and got industrious. Worked some more on my newest writing project, the notes of the blind group's monthly meetings, imbuing them with my unique sense of humour! Had brekkie, took pills, then climbed back into bed where I attempted to have almost two hours of sleep.

Woke up at 1, crawled out of bed in pain, not looking forward to my 2 PM phone meeting with the Prez. To make matters worse, he called more than 30 minutes early as I'd just taken a couple of Robax. But it helped that I was in my office chair, my back pressed against a pillow, getting warmer all the time. We had a productive meeting. He suggested we get together (I always like to meet at the pub in the west end) but, as I already have book club bisecting the week, I declined. But I was excited about being able to add my bit of insight to our website on a regular basis.

After that, I conked out again. I watched a whole bunch more Peppa Pig episodes (including a couple of new ones that delighted me!), and last night's two N.C.I.S. shows. Just did my best to survive the rest of the day, distracting myself with more TV. Or just lying in bed as time went by. Now I'm sad that I had terrific sight especially on my phone (squash orange instead of just plain yellow, wow!). Now it's pinkish against plum. All I can do is hope for tomorrow.

Lather. Rinse. Condition?

At least I slept until 7:54. Almost reasonable. Unfortunately, the pain ramped up, so I did almost nothing today except stay in bed. S. came - after the cabinet guy left - to help me with several things: install flash so I could try to play games online; to load a library book on my iPad 'cuz I couldn't see that it was asking for my library login; and to open a can of onion soup because my battery-powered device was refusing to work.

What's the irony? Well, my vision was so bad today, I couldn't see the contrast of the cursor on the screen to play the game. So frustrating. But at least I had lovely hot soup for dinner.

Watched the usual TV and a new N.C.I.S. Now I'm gearing up to order groceries. I've been putting it off (because it's horribly visual and disorganized) but I'm running out of so many things. Sigh. Time to go to bed and recharge my mental batteries.

I'm also waiting for Brian's "formal" invitation to Peter and me for his holiday tea party on the first Saturday in December.

So, there was supposed to be a plumber, or electrician, or … I dunno … a strange man! No men at all arrived. So I'd woken up at 7 for no good reason at all. Sigh.

As S. was off to the dentist, I had to wait for my meals to be delivered. The good news is that they were delivered at 11:05 (excellent); the bad news is that there were two missing even though the bag was tied tightly. Sigh again. At least I got to spend some lovely time with my buddy, the old man (aka Grumpy) and Miss Mischief (Ce-Ce). When I called the meals provider, all I got was their voice mail. Uh-oh. Just how many deliveries got screwed up. By the end of the business day, I hadn't received a reply.

I sent out some announcements for blind group. But I didn't receive one of them in my personal email. I'm ready to tear our my hair. I'm nearly finished editing the church publication, having to do it the hard way, both reading the PDF and making changes in my word doc, on my desktop. Why? Because, my colours are reversed on my iPad. Sigh. How many am I up to?

At least I did have my leisure time earlier, watching my judge and game shows. N.C.I.S. was intriguing because of the planted evidence (putting fingerprints on the murder weapon, but putting the pinky finger in an impossible position on the gun! There was also hypnosis and Gibbs befriending a young boy across the street and teaching him baseball. Aww.

Okay, birching time is over. I want to get my editing done.

… on my front, right below my top left rib, for "Weird" or "Super-Weird" or Early Warning System! It seems as if my back spasms can be monitored based on whether that rib is aching. If it is, it's almost too late to ease the pain. I did mention "weird", right? Oy.

Despite the pain (and managing it with two double doses of Robax), I caught up with my TV shows, watching last night's N.C.I.S. and the Nola spinoff whose story was about a couple of sickoes (with echoes of "Strangers On A Train"). I also did the editing for the church. Got sucked into reading a really long fanfic; despite its odd mixed-up language (petition I/o partition) and overall poor grammar, the story was entertaining, just what I needed to bore through the pain.

::floats:: Pain, what pain? Yeah, I'm in that lovely haze of warmth and looseness in the torso. I should enjoy it while it lasts.

It's Slump and Relax, an overwhelming 180 after yesterday's painful day. It helped that the cats cooperated by letting me sleep until a reasonable hour, past 7. They also had the sensible inclination to spend the day napping in a sunlit house. I even gave in to the temptation myself, even if accidentally.

When I roused myself, I watched NCIS Nola and my other regular daytime shows. Luckily, there were no new shows premiering tonight. Read a little and posted a couple (rare) comments on FB. I still have to check out this celebrity resort SuM and S. are at, but I'll wait until I have better vision. Anyway, I'm yawning buckets, so it's time for bed.

I was so pleased to have good sight All. Day. Long. Yay. I first took advantage of it by watching last night's N.C.I.S. again so I could see people's faces. Then I took a close look at the refugee publication (cranking up my magnification to 3x). And I worked on corrections to this Sunday's publication. All done. I also finished another book for book club, namely "An American Marriage". The ending really crept up on me. I can see we're going to have an involved discussion.

What was the good news? Well, the fates have decided in my favour; I have a ride to and from dinner tomorrow evening. I've also decided to be practical by not stuffing my pre-birthday week with … stuff, even if said stuff includes a mani/pedi and getting my hair done. For one thing, my fingernails are shredding, so there's no point in getting my first shellac. I think I'll postpone for a week or two when time is less rushed.

Watched my range of daily TV shows and that was my day. Now I'm trying to decide on my grocery order for next week. Definitely on the menu will be lots of fresh fruit including watermelon. That's my final yay of the day!

Where "R" stands for retirement. Well, he was all ready to have Jack drive him to the nearest cop station so he could surrender himself for the revenge murder of his family's killer. But Jack talked him out of it and they had some drinks instead. So, if there's only one epi remaining this season (my guess), I think this is a clue for next season of N.C.I.S. But, whoa on the Nola spinoff. Lots of LSD going down and hallucinations.

That was my evening. My morning was spent at the library for blind book club discussing a book I didn't like. But we had new people and regulars and a lively discussion about how we still couldn't guess about whether there had been sexual exploitation of teenage girls. It was supposed to rail, but I had a bit of sun on my ride home. My other excitement this evening was hunting for my slipper under the bed. Normally I can't get back up off the floor but, as I was still wearing my croc-patent Mary Janes, I was able to push off from the floor with my protected toes. Must remember that the next time I say hi to the dust bunnies.

I also edited the order of service for church. And now I'm vegging. The more I've tidied up, the more serene my mind is. Next up is find a place for my foot spa so it's not cluttering up the bathroom. Hmmmm.