TLDNR
Wednesday, 3 August 2022
Owing to a mysterious disaster and inept use of backups, I lost my
"sent" file and all of rec.arts.sf.fandom, and didn't notice either
until it was far too late to retrieve them.
I moped around for a few weeks hoping that I would think of something,
then restarted rec.arts.sf.fandom from scratch. I found that my
provider's retention goes all the way back to 2013, though many
messages scrolled off before I could read them.
Lots of these old messages are interesting, particularly those from
Dorothy, and I don't want to mark them all read by downloading new
headers. It was only a few days ago that I started reading messages
from 2014. We were a talkative bunch back then, and there were more
long civil threads.
yesterday I packed a go bag. talk later, sew now!
Wednesday, 10 August 2022
Talk later, feed the cat and go to bed now.
Sunday, 14 August 2022
Couldn't find said go bag this morning. Luckily, I had a list of its
contents. It will turn up when I'm not desperate to get dressed and
get out.
I must re-organize my medical-appointment go bag by Wednesday.
I hope I can remember what I meant to say when I finally get time to
write.
I'm up to April 2014 now. I thought I could read the recent posts on
Google Groups, but I lack the time to puzzle out their interface.
Wednesday 17 August 2022
Go-bag organized and in car. Pity I have no time to talk about it.
Friday, 19 August 2022
Trip went well -- I'm released for normal activity, and we were home
about the time we usually get up.
Still no time to write, but I washed clothes this morning, and got a
bit of sewing done in the afternoon.
Thursday, 25 August 2022
I'm now reading 2015. Have a lot to say about it, but no time to say
it.
Partly because another computer disaster (two fried capacitors) and
failure to keep backups fresh have made updating my diaryzine and my
sewing blog take 120% of the available time, and my Web sites aren't
being maintained at all.
I seem to have been a much more-active poster eight years ago.
Monday, 5 September 2022
Can't sleep, don't remember what I wanted to say.
Original go-bag remark referred to the purse I take to church. I got
tired of arriving at the church to find that I'd forgotten my keys or
some other essential, and started a checklist.
(Yesterday, despite the checklist, I had to go back for my phone after
trying to check the time when I crossed the bridge, and when I needed
the nail clippers attached to the Sunday key ring, I found that I'd
forgotten the keys.)
While composing the checklist I realized that most of the stuff in the
purse could be left in it from one Sunday to the next, and it's on the
list grouped under "already in purse".
I have two go bags for medical appointments. When they told me that I
might want to bring a lunch to my Mohs surgery early in July, I
switched from the attaché case to the Trafalgar carry-on, and never
switched back.
They got the cancer on the first pass. (Even with the magnifying
mirror I bought to change dressings with, I can't find the scar to put sunscreen on it, and just smear the general area.) The only hardship
was being forbidden to ride my bike for the rest of July and half of
August. Having to drive the car every time I went farther than I
could walk was pretty close to house arrest.
I'm reading September 2015.
Tuesday, 6 September 2022
Reading February 2016
Wednesday, 14 September 2022
Being short of time wastes a lot of time. I have to open
shoppinglists.txt this morning and search through my bag of canned cat
food, because I haven't yet found time to mark them "X" and "O" for
"Doesn't have juice for morning medication" and "has juice for morning medication".
Can't do it this morning because I have to leave the house before ten.
Friday,16 September 2022
Marked 'em, haven't yet put them in order in the cupboard.
Leafing through unread posts, the subject line "Our human right to
self defense" caught my eye.
Pbbbbt! *Everything* has a right to self defense. A rock can't
exercise that right, but if a chip flies into your eye while you're
drilling a hole for a charge of dynamite, you can't blame the rock.
If something you're trying to kill bites your leg off, you've no call
to set off on a crazed campaign of vengeance.
Thursday 22 September 2022
I'm stuck in July of 2017, reading a 702-post thread that I started.
I seem to have been more provocative back then.
Wednesday 28 September 2022
6 April 2018, and I'm still provoking long threads. Only forty-two
posts this time.
Thursday 29 September 2022
Each year takes a little less time to read than the previous one.
And not because I'm skipping more; it takes fewer page downs to get
from one year to the next.
Monday, October 2022
Subject: Filk
Date: Mon, 18 Jun 2018 19:17:46 -0300
Only eighteen replies, most of them about the definition of "filk".
I think I come down on the side of those who would restrict "filk" to
a particular sub-genre of contrefait, but how could I use _contrefait_
as a subject line when I can't spell it?
Upon reading it half a decade later, I'm impressed that I posted
Never start your Roomba
When the cook is in the kitchen
There'll be plenty of time for sweeping
When the eating's done
confident that people would recognize the tune by the scansion alone
-- and most of them did.
Of course it would have been polite to mention the name and author of
the original, but I didn't have that information.
--
Joy Beeson
joy beeson at comcast dot net
I don't know whether to be surprised that it was that long ago that we
fought free of Comcast (the final straw was a "security update" that
turned out to be a trojan), or that it was that recently.
Friday, 7 October 2022
Beginning to read 2018
Monday 10 October 2022
I found time to count the number of page downs it took to see each
year.
2013, beginning in April: 30
2014: 21
2015: 15
2016: 16
2017: 19
2018: 14
2019: 11
2020: 12
2021: 7
First five months of 2022: 3
So what happened in 2014?
Wednesday, 12 October 2022
Now starting 2020. Should move quickly now, since I read a lot of the remaining posts soon after their headers were downloaded.
A few screens back, discussion turned to what to say when someone
demands "your pronouns". One person said "Thee, thou, and thy".
I'd be tempted to say "That was an offensive question, but I'll
pretend that I didn't hear it so we can start over."
As for why it's offensive, that's a long essay I don't choose to spend
any of my remaining ~84,400 hours writing.
Thursday, 13 October 2022
Just as I was saying "Hey, I'm pretty sure I spent March collecting
mask patterns, and undressing into the washing machine and taking a
shower every time I came back to the house. Where's all the fussing
and feathering?"
And the very next post was "Effect of Covid" on March the third.
Saturday 15 October 2022
I've reached a bit of flurry over my first Mohs Surgery in May, 2020.
That was a cancer on my nose where excision had failed more than once,
and it had dug in so deep that I had to have skin grafts afterward.
The second cancer, which came off in July 2022, had been around for
years because I thought it was a skin tag. I casually mentioned it to
the practioner doing my annual skin exam and she said that'e not a
skin tag and took a biopsy. I flunked the biopsy and I was driven to
Fort Wayne with a sack lunch in my go bag. (Hey! On-topic for the
thread!) They got it on the first pass and we were home before we
usually get up. The hole was smaller than the head of one of my
glass-head pins, a tad larger than the heads of my silk pins. (About
the same diameter, but the heads are shaped like nail heads: flat
disks.)
No restrictions on activities, (except for "being a lazy bum" the
first two days), but changing a dressing on an eyelid every day for
six weeks is a *bummer*.
Now Dave is scheduled for Mohs on his lip. He's apt to fall asleep
in the recliner, and I often find him asleep in his office chair, so
having to keep the wound elevated probably won't deprive him of sleep.
And there will be some *clearance* when he changes the dressing.
Don't grow up in Florida or Texas.
Wednesday 19 October 2022
"Stocking Up" is pretty close to on topic for "Go Bags".
The first consideraton is to stock up on things that you will need
when you are too sick to shop.
I did moderately well.
The west end of the top shelf in the pantry cupboard is piled to the
ceiling with boxes of nose tissue -- and I haven't come close to
emptying any of those that were already down and open.
Consumption of toilet paper and paper towels also goes up if one uses
both for nose tissue. (Paper towels don't go all to lint in one's
pocket, and toilet paper can be flushed.)
The paper-towel stocks are Hoo Boy!, mostly because I saw an ad for
half-size paper towels, reflected that we were running low, decided to
buy them, and didn't re-think when I saw that I could just barely get
the package off the shelf and into the cart. We also had a knee-high
box of full-size towels.
It's time to re-stock toilet paper, but what's under the sink will
last for weeks.
Cough drops: perfect. I ran out of certain flavors, but not out of
any type. There are still three opened packets and two unopened
packets in the freezer.
Fizzwater: I hadn't thought of seltzer as stuff for sickness, but
it's sometimes easier than plain water to get inside the patient, and
easier to prepare than hot drinks. But I'm drinking plain
exclusively, so I'll have to buy more than two plain the next time I
buy one of each flavor. There are two twelve-packs left, plus what's
in the fridge, so it should last until Saturday. (I've *got* to be
fit to go out by Saturday; I'm *so* sick of house arrest!)
Absolute flunk: When it was time to take three little red pills to
drain my sinuses, there wasn't any Sudafed in the house. There were
two boxes of twelve-hour cold relief, but it doesn't allow the "take
enough to do the job" part of the prescription, and is an absolute
disaster for the "AND THEN DON'T TAKE ANY MORE" part.
By the way, if you ever voted in favor of making pseudoephedrine hard
to buy, or voted for anybody who ever voted in favor of making
pseudoephedrine hard to buy, please try to get to my house before I
stop shedding virus. I want to sneeze on you.
Sunday,23 October 2022
When reflecting that fizzwater will settle an uneasy stomach -- one
way or the other -- I recalled a tip my father picked up during World
War I.
I was having my first period, lying in bed upstairs with a washbowl on
the floor beside me and newspapers all over, and he climbed up the
stairs to see how I was doing. He said that when he was on the troop
ship, he learned that "oranges taste good both ways." It was the only
time he ever mentioned his time in the war. I wouldn't know he had
been in the Marines if I didn't have his sharpshooter's medal.
I believe that most fruits work. I have a vivid memory of spewing partly-digested apple juice all over a starched white uniform, but
don't recall what I was in the hospital for.
I thought sure I'd stop "hacketyhacketyhacketyhackety hack hack
HAWK"ing by now.
I did go for a ride yesterday -- and slept most of the rest of the
day. Since I was nowhere near recovered from the six weeks of house
arrest in July when I started all this bed rest, I took a copy of
Analog and chose a route that had benches at frequent intervals.
Turned out that I not only didn't use the benches, I didn't stop to
take notes. I'll have to go back; there was a lot of new stuff along
the trail, and I couldn't find any of it on the map without knowing
what order I'd seen it in.
For a long time, I've been saying that frozen dinners go a long way
toward keeping the old folks in their own home: When you are too
tired to cook, you can still have a hot meal.
But it had been a while since I stocked up on frozen meals when I got
too sick to shop, and now they are getting picked-over.
1/5/2022, Snow in Virginia, Keith Lynch:
"Who ever heard of people stocking up *after* a storm?"
All sensible people replenish their diminished supplies after a
crisis.
But not in panic mode.
Monday 24 Octber 2022
I climbed up on the Kik-Step today, so the next time I see
marble-patterned boxes of tissues, I can buy one.
If I ever again see the inside of a grocery store.
Counted the canned cat food today, and we can hold out until the end
of the week. I'll need AREDS2 somewhat sooner.
Found half a bag of chicken-fried rice for tonight in the freezer, and
I'm making smoked-porkneck soup for tomorrow.
I downloaded fresh Fandom posts yesterday, but I spend too much time
in bed to read them.
I opened Dorothy's last post, but didn't read all of it. I had read
it in rec.arts.sf.written, so the screen had gone all blurry before I
got past the introduction.
Tuesday, 25 October, 2022
Prepping? I *knew* the plumber was coming, but didn't think of
drawing out a pitcher of water until I turned on the faucet and
nothing happened.
Fortunately, it doesn't take long to pull out a broken faucet and push
in a new one. He was nearly finished before I noticed scraping noises
outside. (DH was more alert even though he's sicker than I am.)
Checked my pill stick and found a section that had three AREDS2
instead of two, so I'm all right through Saturday. If I'm not well
enough to shop by then, I can call Zale's and ask them to have it
ready for me at the counter, which is close to the door.
Spent most of the day in bed. We had Clancy's corn chips with the
soup instead of cornbread. And the corn flour was on top of the pile
of cannisters in the freezer. I was doing well to clear the table and
set out the relish plate, which is mostly apple pieces at the moment.
Wednesday, 25 October 2022
I woke up feeling good this morning, so I didn't wash the dishes.
I'd planned to spend today decreasing the entropy in the house, and
thought I could get at least as far as clearing off the counter, but
when I saw that I *could* buy medicine and cat food and lots and lots
of ready-to-eat dinners, I decided not to put it off to tomorrow, as
I'd planned.
I'm not sure I'd have done it if I'd remembered that the town is still
a roach motel on account of the concrete we need to open up King's
Highway went to Florida.
So I began a four- or five-block trip by driving 1.9 miles east and
2.1 miles west. Then I missed the turn onto Center and had to turn on
the notorious intersection at Parker, then come back to Center on
Harrison.
And it's definitely bedtime. I'm tempted to skip the tooth cleaning.
Thursday, 27 October 2022,
05:00 a.m.
Need to sit up until my lungs drain.
Wouldn't have been so stressful if I'd remembered to bring my water
bottle in to Kroger. I did remember, but I was halfway to the store,
it was very windy and cold, and I'd left my coat in the car because I
didn't need it for a quick dash from warm car to warm store. But
doing it *twice* was entirely out of the question. And Kroger has a
water fountain, but it turns out that a fountain is good when you are
thirsty, but quite useless when you need frequent sips to suppress a
cough.
And I didn't think to bring a pocket snack when I'd got such a late
start that I'd be out after lunch.
Lying awake, I realized why the cough-drop displays at Zales and
Kroger were identical -- you had to look close to see that the house
brands had different names -- and why there were only four or five
choices where Kroger used to have a display of two or three square
yards.
This is the first cold I've gotten since 2020. And everybody has been revelling in not coughing all winter.
05:20 I think I can get back to sleep now.
Friday, 28 October
Finished clearing off the counter this morning -- and promptly dirtied
three cat dishes, a freshly-laundered baking tray, a mug, and the "big
tweezer" tongs.
The last session of the farmer's markets is tomorrow, and I can't go. Bonneyville Mill closes for the season on Halloween and I haven't
bought flour. Spring Creek has flours, but it's going to take a long
time to build up from weeks of bed rest to thirty miles -- I was only
halfway recovered from the house arrest when I started coughing.
Pout, grumble, etc. I intend to take a second ride up the Heritage
Trail tomorrow, and whenever I think about it, the scenery is in
Technicolor.
1:45 pm: time for my regular afternoon nap.
[Saturday 19 November 2022: found a huge bag of white-wheat flour
while we were cleaning the chest freezer on our first cold-enough day.
Filled two half-gallon cannisters and put them on the
cannisters-of-flour pile. Thermometer still reads ten above; we are
going to have to twiddle the thermostat in the morning.]
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
6:14
The earliest a Brightspeed technician can get here is November the
eighth.
No Usenet, no Web, no e-mail, no funnies, no updating my Website, no
off-site backups, no television (but DH is resurecting over-the-air so
the dying cat can get his lap fix), no ten-day forecast, no printing
out a map to take notes on during tomorrow's tour of the Heritage
Trail(maybe I'll go to the fairgrounds market instead), and above all
NO PHONE.
It's true that 99.9% of the incoming calls are from people and robots
who want to bring down the communication system, but the remaining
calls tend to be close to "life and death" in importance.
Such as the one that sent me to Fort Wayne to get a basal-cell
carcinoma cut off.
7:12 p.m.
Counter is clear again. Still a lot of cleaning to do. I'm about to
lie down for a five- or ten-minute rest. My wind-up timer broke, and
Alexa stopped playing relaxing music for five minutes a couple of
weeks ago. She probably still does, but the change happened at the
exact moment I finally figured out the old system, so I'm not going to
bother this time around.
And if I did know what command to give, she'd light her ring up red
and start blithering about how to reconnect before I could say
anything. No, Alexa, unplug, wait ten seconds, and replug isn't going
to do it.
Shame Amazon won't allow one to change the wake-word to something less inappropriate.
9:45
And no casually looking up "dog fennel" to see whether my family was
the only one that had that weed growing between the wheel tracks in a mostly-dirt lane.
Dave remembered that we had some chamomile tea left over from when the
vet prescribed it for the cat and the cat wouldn't drink it, and made
himself a cup. I said "what a great idea!", made one for me, and told
him the story of how as a child, I'd sent off for an exotic herb. I
planted the chamomile, it came up, and it was nothing but DAWG FENNEL.
That's almost as good a story as the one Mom told about sending off
for magical potted-plant fertilizer, and when it arrived it was
something she could have picked up in the sheep pasture.
Every child should have a story like that. Sending off for a box of
"2-D" toy soldiers in a sturdy paperboard footlocker is *much* cheaper
than learning the same lesson as an adult.
Saturday, 29 October 2022
10:30 p.m.
I thought "Well, if I can't read usenet or the funnies, I can get
caught up on polishing the October Banner, moving recipes from the
.txt file to COOKBOOK, and so forth." I forgot that the time reserved
for reading the monitor is time when I'm too stupid to do anything
else.
I think that I made good on the snark I made many, many snowstorms
ago. (Being an auxillary fireman at the time, I had a scanner set for
all of the channels where people might say "We're going to need a
washdown" or "We need New Salem's brush truck.", and was pretty
well-informed about emergencies.)
During one storm, the snowmobilers were making emergency deliveries of
common ordinary groceries only hours after the storm started.
I snarfed "If I woke up to six feet of snow in the driveway on a day
when I'd planned to do a major shopping, I'd be terribly embarrassed
if it took less than a week for my menus to get wonky."
When I opened Quicken to enter my receipts for the eye pills and cat
food run, I found that my previous trip to a grocery was sixteen days
before -- and that was on a Monday to pick up an Aldi Find that I'd
noticed during a shopping trip the previous Friday.
On the day of the shopping trip, my menus had not yet gotten wonky,
though we'd begun digging around under the snack foods to find supper
for two.
And we'd had hot meals every day despite being too sick to cook.
But I did need medicine, and it had been a while before the shut-in
since I'd been able to get to a place where I can buy more than two
weeks of cat food.
31 October 2022
We *are* getting low on bread. There's only a loaf of Hillbilly
Bread, about a quarter bag of miniature bagels, five flatbuns, and a
half dozen double-size slices of good sourdough bread in the freezer.
Plus some waffles and other things not counted as bread, and lots of
flour.
========================
Saturday, 18 November 2022
I figured that when the cable was repaired, I'd have lots of Fandom to
catch up with, but there were very few posts, and many days pass
without any. Is r.a.sf.f dead?
But there's been a lot of Real Life(TM), and I still need lots of
rest, so I haven't resumed posting yet.
--
Joy Beeson
joy beeson at centurylink dot net
http://wlweather.net/PAGEJOY/
--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)