Some Updates: birthday, lost card, health of various peoples

Thank you for the birthday wishes. No wonder I enjoy October, busy as it is*: it celebrates me. I've never understood why some people don't want to celebrate their birthdays. Why don't they find it fun? I mean, I can get as depressed as anyone at my increasing decrepitude as I age, but if you want to give me cake? I'm there!
*Halfway gone already! Whoa.

For my birthday, my mother sent me some fun money, and (in addition to yarn, of course; more on that to come) I thought about getting the first season or two of The West Wing on dvd. Looking on Amazon, however, I saw that they had the entire series, all 45 dvds and a list price of $300, marked down 47% (it's at 46% as I write this, still a deal). I pondered, briefly, and then clicked through. Fun! That should arrive this week, and I look forward to playing around with it. (In other dvd news, my darling brother sent me the first series of the modern-era Doctor Who, since Christopher Eccleston is [as I've mentioned before] my favorite Doctor, and I've already dipped into a few episodes. Fantastic!)

Mum also sent a small travel photo holder that she'd found and filled with baby pictures of yours truly. I love it!

I've been bringing it to work, though not leaving it there at night (following my own policy of not leaving anything that would cause me anguish if the building burned down overnight), and I keep smiling at baby me. In one of the pictures (lower left), my grandfather is holding me on his lap. Like a good adult, he is smiling at the camera, and like your average baby, I am unaware of its existence (in the picture next to it, though, I do have the classic "what IS that?" blank baby stare at the camera). Instead, though my body faces the camera, my eyes cut sideways, and I'm looking up at him as though he was the greatest thing in the universe. Wonderful thing to have.

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 So, about the credit card, no, I haven't found it. Blogging about it seemed to help me stop the futile repeated searches, which is good for my sanity, but it did not enable me to suddenly find the card is an obvious but somehow previously shielded spot. Bummer. I mean, it's good that I'm no longer lurching in desperation and bafflement from one spot to another and back again, but honestly, where the hell is it?

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In grandma-health-update-land, my grandmother, who had to go back to the hospital less than a week after getting a pacemaker, is now happily back home again. I don't know that we're out of the woods yet--she's 98, after all--but it's hopeful. I don't want to think any other way.

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Does it seem to anyone else that taking antibiotics and probiotics simultaneously means they would cancel each other out? Apparently they don't ... but doesn't it sound like they would? (Not Grandma--Carlos, this time.)

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I've been keeping an eye on the forecast in Rhinebeck for the trip. 

Eight days out, it predicted 58 degrees and a 60% chance of showers Saturday, partly cloudy and high of 55 Sunday. 

Six days, 61 and a 40% chance of rain Saturday, then 60 and a "few showers" Sunday. 

Five days, 62 and a 60% chance of rain (again) Saturday, then 60 and still a "few showers" Sunday. 

We'll see how it changes over the week!

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Tonight was my fourth acupuncture session, though I'm inclined not to count the one two weeks ago, when I had a headache going in. I don't know that I'm actually "getting anything" out of the sessions generally, but it was really hard to relax and lie at all still for that one. Otherwise, the process has been interesting, sometimes slightly painful, overall relaxing. Clearly it hasn't cured my headaches yet, but I wasn't really expecting a thunderbolt. I'm willing to keep trying it for now.

...And that's it for tonight!