Another person close to the household was in the hospital, for a bad bleeding incident (cause medically speculated but not specifically known) but I think is getting out today.

Ack.

And meanwhile my knee is improving but it was pretty bad for a few days. I got some additional parts for my knee brace, which combined with a lot of rest did make a difference. I blame having to overuse the thing regularly.

The other day when I took Alex to an appointment I heard a weird noise behind us when I parked, after I'd turned the car off. Some kind of generator at this location? Weird. I picked up my phone and did something unrelated.

At our next stop, I heard that noise again. Same direction. From where my tote bag was. Fan-like.

I got out and rummaged around in the bag and turned off my menopause fan. Which was lit up. By the multifunction flashlight. (Which is also a fan. And a power bank.) (The menopause fan is also also a power bank.) So I turned that off too.

At home, I low-key thought about it (while re-charging both) until last night, when I decided that what the situation needed was a Mollyguard of the type I'd put on my final work machine at Virtual Hammer.

"Dear, do we have any Sugru?"

There was, in fact, one (possibly expired) packet in the refrigerator (right side swing-out bin in the door, right against the window) and I nabbed it.

The cute bear fan-flashlight-powerbank has the charge port right next to the tiny power button, so I made a narrow coil of the stuff and wrapped it carefully past the charging port, then around in a wider circle that would admit a poking adult-size finger. My finger. (I did not test this with any dragon-size fingers.) And since making it that large meant the surface had sloped down, I added another layer on top, to protect it a little better.

The menopause fan with the noisy water tank has its charge port somewhere slightly more sensible, and its outlet port even better hidden, but the indicator lights are right above the power button. So I carefully peeled off the instructions (which covered the power button but still allowed it to function), and --

"Dear, I don't suppose we have any *white* Sugru?"

... and I added some of the color-shift purple/green glitter I had for Another Project. Which made the black sugru coordinate better with the mint-green fan, at least. And crafted this Mollyguard just as carefully, but without the problem of a slope.

I still had some left, but coincidentally there was my little mint-blue travel fan that I use out on the porch, or Alex uses for various crafts drying. That also has a flush power button. Yet another Mollyguard, this one (thank goodness) uncomplicated.

So, in the time before our heat pumps, we had a window air conditioner. (Still have, actually, just not in use.) Except our windows open the wrong way except a very few in the wrong place: sideways instead of up and down.

This can be solved with Engineering! Note: you may have to make special provisions if you have People Within The House Who Must Not Exit, such as Alex's late Escape Calico, who examined the cracks and crevices around the AC with great interest because she could smell the outside air and she longed for the Wild Places. We used a web of string on the outside in addition to friction; I could also see using a strong elastic cord around a handle anchored somewhere.

Materials:
Air moving device
Foam insulation sheet
Padding (I used the stuff you use to fill stuffed animals & spare fabric scraps)
Cover for padding (I used rags)
Securement for padding cover (I used duct tape but gaffer tape is probably better)
(Optional) Aesthetics cover (especially if you have someone monitoring the outside of your home, such as a rental office or HOA) -- a thrift store fitted sheet in the color of the outside of your blinds, maybe
Something to make sure it stays in and your bowling ball of a cat won't body-slam it out

Step 1. Insert your air-moving device into the window or whatever.
Step 2. Measure the empty space. You are going to be filling this empty space.
Step 3. Obtain a sheet of insulating foam that can be cut down to fit this empty space, with just a little wiggle room so it's just smaller.
Step 4. Around the outside edges of the foam, start attaching padding until it can be squished into place but it doesn't overflow the space
Step 5. Attach the cover for your padding.
(5b. Attach the aesthetics cover, with the nice side pointed out and the side you've pinned or tied into the right shape on the inside.)
Step 6. Set your space filler into the space.
(6b. Adjust if needed.)
Step 7. Do whatever you're going to do to secure it in place.
Step 8. If you have a fan shroud or some other thing to block any gaps in the air-moving device itself, attach those.

In accordance with the prophecy, the now 24+ hours of no drain access at home has coincided with my chemo recovery week.

Monday, not quite 8 am:
☎️🛎️ "BTW, plumbing starts tomorrow!" 🙃

Monday, late evening:
I book a hotel for Wednesday and Thursday nights, on the assumption that the sewer outage probably won't start until 3pm

Tuesday, not quite 8:
Small orange digger in our front yard

Tuesday, noonish:
We depart for my chemo

Tuesday, fiveish:
The 72 hour clock for my infused side effects meds begins

Tuesday, 10pm:
We depart the infusion center. I have epic dry eye and am fighting sleep badly enough to not track my audiobook super well.

Wednesday, 7:30 am:
☎️🛎️ "Sewer will be out at 10a, if that's OK! Then the inspector comes tomorrow morning!"
My beloved partner, half awake and stunned: "Fine..."
Me: "FUCK."

alexseanchai and I scramble to pack.

8:30:
We scram out the door with Belovedest, because the library has bathrooms.

Midmorning, I'm feeling up to driving. I call the hotel.

By 11:30, we're checking in.

(Steph, meanwhile, prepares to fuck off to River Thorn Cottage after their work call.)

Okay. 10 AM Wednesday means we should have sewer back by 10 AM Thursday, right?

Hôtelier: Just let us know ASAP if you won't need that second night!

4:30 or so: Belovedest gets a voicemail from the plumbers. The inspector will require an additional $500 of work/parts for a thing. Belovedest is unreachable due to a program.

5-ish: 24 elapsed of 72 hours of the side effects meds clock. I have been taking the breakthrough meds since midnight, but the few symptoms are not bad.

6pm: I return to the library to retrieve Belovedest.

6:15pm: nobody picks up at the plumbers'. No voicemail either.

Thursday morning, 10am.
No word from the plumbers.

Noon (standard checkout time): no word from plumbers.

And here we are.

I do not love the colo(u)r of the sky when I get that notebook instead of Color Theory Children's Hospital, which is what I ordered. I have initiated an email to Tumblr.

Friday was a day of Great Organizing. Belovedest started the laundry around the time I woke up, we lazed around a bit, and then it was Sorting Time. "Where are you going to be, because this thing is going to explode for a while. It's going to get worse before it gets better," Belovedest explained. I indicated my desk. "And it's probably going to take over the living room. And your seat on the couch." And so it went.

I made some of the decisions on where things would go. They hauled things around. I rearranged some of them. The coffee maker fits next to the bread maker. The instant pot fits next to the microwave, if you're careful to scoot it forward before taking the top off, or remove the dragon head steam redirector. I mulled some cider that we found with some of the mulling spices we found. Alex requested that a space remain designated for food prep. I decided that the bonus knife block should therefore take up residence near that space.

The tea has been Sorted. There are the various boxes, in a decorative bin. There is a less decorative box of General Teas, in the cupboard. The duplicate teas are up on the tippymost top shelf, along with the emergency tea heater unit. There is a tray with sugars and tea implements. There is the box with Alex's personal teas, do not touch. There are the instant powdered drinks, and there are the nutritional powders that go into drinks.

The right hand side of my desk got cleared. The snacks that went back on there are neatly sorted into boxes. Many things are labeled, some humorously. I particularly like "Aggressive Flavors" for the container with cinnamon, peppermint, licorice, and espresso.

Saturday started off with an Ann Leckie Q&A on Zoom, which was great fun. I did some searching downstairs for my crocheting bag, which did not show up. My hip condescended to allow me to join Belovedest in the shower, even though standing still while doing balance-challenging exercises with soap is basically its least favorite hobby.

My crocheting bag for this project is a small black drawstring bag, with black crochet-cotton yarn inside, a set of small hooks, and some shiny beads. It might be in Some Bag of mine, Somewhere. It might be shoved in with another project. It might be in the area near the front door. Perhaps it is wedged into a couch cushion. It could possibly be in Some Very Clever place. The Roomba could have stolen it. I would very much like to have this for next week, when I will join my partner, my out-laws, some various friends, and take in a baseball game. I could start another project but it wouldn't be the same.

I did find the little container with all the jump rings that got sorted out of The Boss's Bead Bag, so I was able to attach a little enamel charm to my medical bracelet. I got this particular bracelet at some point when the public will to wear masks in public was declining enough for people who were still masking to start clocking some public hostility. It says "Cancer Survivor" on the front, has a note about where to find my complete meds list, and has the top three things that EMTs would likely want to know on the back. Now it's got a little peach-colored ribbon charm, for endometrial and uterine cancers.

Then, the Shoppening. We have fizz for our fizzy drinks now. We have the kind of lemonade concentrate that I favor, the instant lemonade that Belovedest enjoys, and (still) the kind of lemonade concentrate that's easy to come by. I didn't think to actually get any lemons though.

It's hot. Lemonade is useful. Though I probably ought to be limited in how much of it I take, since it's an acid and so's my stomach.

The thing about the energy drink concentrate is that it does taste slightly of cough syrup, but honestly that seems like a problem that many things with active ingredients are going to have. I selected the Pink Syrup, and it does go helpfully in lemonade.

And that's why I was able to sit up for several hours after the epic shopping trip and put together pill boxes for the next 2-3 months. (The audiobooks were also helpful.) I will be starting my Sunday morning, at whatever time that happens, without having to dig through my purse like a hungover squirrel to search for my emergency spare pills. (Glancing out the window, I see the twilit rainbow glow of impending dawn in the easterly corner of the north, and the tree silhouetted against it. I do love the colors of the sky.)

Raspberries and strawberries appear to be in season, wherever it is that we're getting them from.

I tried an ice cream that called itself "bourbon vanilla truffle" and I don't know what I expected, but instead of vanilla from a place that had once been called after the French tyrants of that name, it was distinctly boozy.

"It's not the duck of my dreams, nor will it do," I concluded (riffing off my sister's Family Saying, about her first wood carving: "It's not the duck of my dreams, but it'll do.")

I may have more of it later, but it's starting to look like I may in fact have to figure out vanilla buttercream truffle centers with real vanilla. (Dipping them's not a problem, I've been doing that for what must be over 20 years now.)

Today's therapy session was paused when the internet did the thing (yet again; I'm going to have to visualize it, but Belovedest has started being able to scrape the logs for actual incidents) and featured digressions into Pulp (I had not realized that they were still active today, and their 2001 stuff still sounds fairly 70s to me), and who the alt-right were before the term "alt-right" had been coined.

One of the hilarious things about Not Thinking About Things is that you sometimes score low there on a formal assessment because you're so successfully not thinking about things that you can't think of anything that you're not thinking about. Therapist was slightly surprised-Pikachu that the nightmares about Dad only started after he actually died.

The other night we all went out in the front yard and had a planting party with the zucchini and marigolds and Extremely Goth Miniature Pansies. Gabrielle Helped! The innuendo was all us, though. We got inside before the thunderstorm did more than threaten.

Belovedest's new work schedule is kicking in. Friday's a better shopping day than the weekend, in general. In nature, when an otherwise prey-looking animal has extremely bright colors, it often signals toxicity. Don't eat me, you'll regret it. There are now two days at work where Belovedest wears one of their unfuckwithable bright red shirts. (They have two of them as of some time ago, when I found a reasonable deal on a second.)

My hip varies between fairly calm and completely terrible. Sometimes I just Take To My Bed over it.

New therapist isn't bad, but there are a few things we're not on the same page about. Normal for humans! Today we wandered off into Shooting The Shit about gender essentialism. (He's against it, and has a few feminine-coded hobbies, but I think this was the first time he'd heard the phrase.) I also got to explain about the way that some gender dysphoria doesn't become apparent until after the intervention takes. (Like my uterus.) This was news to him! I'm glad to have added that into his toolkit. He, uh, thought that since the uterus is internal, it's not necessarily a huge problem. (!!!!) I mentioned that there are times that it makes itself known. Regularly. Which was how we got into gender essentialism: the aggressive pinkness of menstrual gear.

And he had a fishmum, by any other name.

I got some bubble tea powders on Monday, for the tea part. Also some other miscellany, like the soup base I'd been sent for. Tuesday was my psych appointment; I plan to ask next time why we're on a 6 week cadence when my prescriptions are at a 30 day. I'm adjusting my sleep med dosage back to the previous level from last month. I've also got some new features on my sleep chart spreadsheet, like the star ratings and the average times for the month.

The cheddar bay biscuits just came out of the oven, so I should apply myself to those.

I slept through all of this, but yesterday was Enlivened by the Discovery of water incursion downstairs, traced back to the pipes below the kitchen sink.

Belovedest has turned off the water supply to the sink (I think all of the upstairs folks have tried turning on the tap there at least once, so this was a very good strategy) and the plumbers are due Tuesday.

Whee.

This spring day
A uniform grey
It's nice

Kitten, kitten: full of yells.
Kitten, kitten: full of smells.


Electrician arrived, looked inside the box, pointed out the problems. Said that turning off the breaker saved this from being a much more expensive call. Replaced three? five? switches (the two three-ways and the dining room dimmer, the back door floodlight, the indoor garage three-way), and the face plate for the box with the new dimmer. It's a slider and switch now, instead of a push-turn knob with the very green custom 3D printed part to accommodate the extra thick wood look (wooden?) faceplate.

Importantly, it wasn't a small fortune, and he had Thorts on how to accomplish our "rewiring" for a smaller fortune: add modern wired circuits, and leave the old outlets to the lamps. This is a good idea and I support it. Also I'm having organizational thoughts about how to make the General Chaos slightly more manageable when it comes time.

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Desk cleaning/tidying goes in stages. First I worked on the left side wing. Then I worked on the main desk, and shuffled some things off to the left side wing. Then I worked on the right return, and things from there went both onto the main section and onto the left side wing. In order to get the main section clear enough to replace the soft plastic desk pad, things from there went back to the right return.

Currently I have some stacks of roughly organized containers to my left, a set of pill boxes all over my keyboard protection shelves, pill bottles on my main desk to left, center, and right; on my right return we have papers in need of filing/scanning/shredding/recycling/conversion to notepaper, main desk items shuffled into the organizers that also have my bedtime pills, my paper guillotine, and a box with a few random items and more desk things.

Notably, the pill boxes are set up so that Morning Me can commence with filling the boxes without fear of losing track where we are. Left hand is morning-only pills (and the one pill that's morning/bedtime). Middle is AM/PM pills. Right hand is PM pills and AM/PM pills where I've already distributed the AM set. The pills that I've finished dealing with for this round are back in the drawer where they live.

The new editions of everything are in a sack and I can probably put my hands on something if I run out from the current bottle. All the bottles have a color-coded legend in Sharpie: time of day and which order (before or after meal), how many per each category if it's more than one, and the expiration date. AM is red. PM and bedtime is navy blue. As needed is purple. Expiration is black. I've recently started adding a note about whether a bottle is open or not, because I should use those first regardless of whether I've got a preceding date suddenly.

The ADHD meds live in their bottle, for reasons.