Fucking Hot Flashes

(Yeah, language warning in this one.)

As I mentioned last month, earlier this year* I had switched my estrogen patches for gel formulation, only to find that it wasn't working the same way. 
*Specifically, on May 7, aka the day the elevator broke. What a day.

For those who might not know, there is a shortage of patches this year, in the US at least. An old study that showed their use caused increased heart attacks and strokes was debunked, so more doctors and patients are willing to try them. But since women's health is a joke these days, that doesn't mean more patches are actually available, so they've been hard to get.

I ended up being on the gel for over two months; I messaged my doctor at just under 8 weeks to ask for a patch prescription because the symptoms were returning, and then there was a slight delay in getting the prescription filled, but I was able to get back on it a month ago. However, my damned hormones are still not settled down back to where they were*. 
*Let us not consider that they may not do so easily. Leave me this hope.

• The mood swings, otherwise known as incandescent rage at small annoyances, were my first sign, and have very much not settled down. 
• The hot flashes started off as occasional, but are happening more often. I had one this morning and I, who loves a hot shower, kept turning the water temperature down and down and down. Argh.
• The joint pain in hips and shoulders maybe isn't as bad as it was for a while there. What with having arthritis, it will probably never go away completely, but it isn't awful. Today.

I don't have any conclusions, or anything more to say. Just need to vent, because this fucking sucks.

Twenty Years. Twenty. 20?

The passage of time can be so weird to acknowledge. I was in high school how many decades ago? People my age are grandparents? I'm how close to retirement?* How can I be this old, I don't feel like it.
*Answer: Not close enough

One of those signs is hitting me this month, which is twenty years since I started a blog. How?

My first post started:

And here I am, more than 4500 posts later, boggling at time. And enjoying a good mental wander from pillar to post.

Recently at work, someone was emailing an update on something that didn't get done that day, and wrote casually, "Time's winged chariot and all that." I knew I recognized the quote, but had to look it up. We studied some poetry in I think it was a high school English class, and I remember that I did like the start of To His Coy Mistress, by Andrew Marvell:

Had we but World enough, and Time,
This coyness, Lady, were no crime.

But the phrase my coworker used comes later:

But at my back I always hear
Time's wingèd chariot hurrying near

Quite the thing to throw into an email, though, isn't it?

There's one other quote from this poem that links to something else, in my head:

The Grave's a fine and private place,
But none I think do there embrace.

Has anyone else read A Fine and Private Place by Peter S. Beagle? I read it a long time ago (there's time again), and remember it as a good book.

What Is So Rare

(as a Thursday off work)

When I originally put in for August 6 as a day off, it was so I could take the cat to the vet for dental work. But when I learned that the elevator was in fact not going to be fixed in time, I decided to put off the vet* but keep the vacation day. 
*Not only do I not want to carry his weight up and down the stairs, but I don't think he would like it, and after anesthesia, it seems like a shitty thing to do to him, when we can wait a little longer.

The fact is that other than my Boston trip, I haven't taken much time off this year, just a day here and a day there, and taking more is both good for my mental health, and also a shame to waste the vacation time---no, wait, that's almost a joke, I never waste my vacation time. But even if I take off time around Thanksgiving and Christmas, I still have days to spare, and no plans to use them.

So, I kept Thursday off. I slept in a little, took the morning easy, then went off to the chiropractor and to do some other errands. I also made time to sit in a cafe with a treat and bound off the shawl I was knitting, more to come on that, but it was good.

Getting up for work today was not exciting. But I got through the day, and now I have the weekend! Pretty good deal all the way around.

Do Not Buy Up High in a One-Elevator Building

When my parents were condo-shopping 30 years ago, they had a list of features they wanted: Three bedrooms, two baths, a garage, a view of the water, and a short walk to the beach, as well as two bridges if on an island (my dad did some business travel, and didn't want to miss his plane if there was a bad accident on "the" bridge). This condo ticks all those boxes, and I can't blame them for not having the foresight to insist on a building with two elevators.

However, in hindsight, yeah.

We got another update yesterday.

As a refresher, here is the timeline so far:

• May 7: The piston breaks. The first estimate is that it will take "about 30 days" to fix.
• May 9: In an update to include the cost, we're told it is "a 10-week process," which means mid-July.
• May 26: There was an owners meeting to discuss costs, but no change to the date.
• July 20: The updated, updated estimate is now August 10, based on 2 weeks for shipping and a week for installation.
  
  
• August 3: Now they say the piston won't even be completed until August 21, which combines with the 2 weeks for shipping and a week for installation to give an updated, updated, updated guesstimate date in mid-September.

As I replied to the condo board president, "Is there any reason to believe them now?" (He didn't have a real answer, not that I expected him to. I did specify that I'm not blaming him for this, although I will tell you that I did not appreciate him saying, "I'm as upset as you all are!" He's upset in theory. We're upset in reality. These two things are not the same magnitude.)

If it gets pushed out again, we'll be getting into time for the snowbirds to start coming back. I wonder if they will, or if they'll delay until it's actually working again? Maybe not the people who are one flight up, but more than that?

I'll also tell you that the first neighbor who tries to laugh, ha ha, at how annoying it was is going to get the bitchiest bitch face ever from me. I might start to find this funny in 2032. Maybe. 

Maybe not.

Bookishly Happy

A few months back, one of my favorite authors announced a special edition set of one of her series, one I loved, and I decided I wanted to own it. 

The author is AJ Sherwood, and she writes many different series, some with slight overlap, usually but not always fantasy, and I love (almost all of) them. She is very prolific and regularly updates on social media regarding where she is with which projects, which is also fun to follow along.

The series in question is a romantic fantasy trilogy, kind of: the first two books are in order and focus on one couple, and then the third is kind of a companion piece alongside the second, with the main focus on other characters. I've read it multiple times and own the ebooks, but not print copies. Until now!

From here, be warned, there are spoilers for the contents, which included some ephemera and a surprise item.

The set arrived in this fun box:

Pretty inside as well as out.

The books themselves had tissue around them, and a seal.

They had actually bumped around inside the box, tearing the tissue, but no damage was done to the books.

Spines:

Painted edges (at top and bottom as well):

Lovely dust jackets:

But also pretty under the cover:

The backs of the dust jackets as well.

I am happy to say that the books also feel nice. Do you know what I mean? The covers (both dust jacket and book) are smooth, the paper is good, and the font size isn't too small. (Yes, all things that I have found not always the case.) They make me happy to hold.

The set had a postcard of the covers, as well as one with a list of Ren's Rules.

One of the main characters is a man of very few words, which is why the rules include:
Rule One - When giving orders, said orders must be more than a location.

Rule Two – Grunts are not answers.

Rule Three – You have to at least try words before relying on gestures.

Rule Four - You’re not allowed to argue with just one word.

Something else that was included kind of puzzles me. Not in a bad way, but in a "what even are these" way. Each book has an accompanying sheet of, well, not quite tissue paper, but sort of? I mean, what is it?

It matches the painted edge:

And it fits neatly inside, but, really? What is it? I guess you could use it as a bookmark, though I would rather use the postcard, which is a little stronger.

Anyway! The books are also signed:

And have a couple of fun notes on the copyright page. Villains ARE a different story!

And of course, the typos are there on purpose. Boo to AI!

The chapter pages are illustrated:

And there's a map of the countries as well.

This is the first thing I saw when opening the box.

Opened the vacuum bag and found a blanket of the cover images!

Which made for a very cozy reading experience.

All in all, this set made and makes me very happy.

Randomly for a Monday

Just a few random things as my mother was clearing off a shelf:

She found a folder of letters she wrote home before her marriage, and laughed about the letter where she casually mentioned meeting some people from Brown Engineering, naming my dad among others. Then there was a letter when she talked about driving Sammy Davis Jr. around Trinidad. As one does, right? For someone who has lived the last 30 years in Florida, and whose life might seem predictable based on that, her past contains multitudes. (Related: When she tells stories that include the lines "the second time we were in China" or "my luggage was lost for a week when we went to Ethiopia.")

On the same shelf, there was a copy of Columbia magazine from winter 2016, and she asked me if I had any idea why she might have kept it. I flipped through and said, well, this article is about Sarah Sze, and I went to nursery school with her, maybe that was it? Pretty random all the same.

What else? Well, how about a file of printouts of my blog from 2006/7? Yeah, no, I don't know why she printed it, or hole-punched it, or kept it all these years. I think this one can hit the recycle now.

It's possibly even funnier when you look at the holder she reused for it:

Sure, why not?

There was another folder of things related to me, and while I was able to discard my performance reviews from 2005 and 2006, the letters that she wrote to me from Liberia when I was at boarding school are worth a read through.

Another folder was a collection of cards I had sent over the years, holiday and birthday and thank-you notes and the like. This one, from 1979 (so I was 10), was for Valentine's Day:

It reads:

Mummy Dearest,

Roses are Red, 

Violets are Blue,

There's no one I like better than you.

P.S. Except Daddy who I like the same

Don't ask me to explain the art within the heart, I have no clue what I was going for. I can tell you from holding it up to the light that it was cut out from one of my father's business cards, but beyond that? Who can explain the art; not even the artist.

Finally, a few cards showed that my interest in yarn and knitting is long-standing, in case we needed proof of that:

Of This (Things Forgotten) and That (View Differential)

Me this week: Thinking about what to cook this weekend, making a grocery list, planning to go to the store on Sunday when I already have to do the stairs for condo checks.

Also me this week: Requesting books from the library.

Me Friday night: Get email that books are in. Okay, then I'll go to the store on Saturday, since the library isn't open on Sundays.

Me this morning, going to the grocery store, coming home, sitting on the couch, dripping with sweat: Damn it, I forgot to go to the library!

Urghhhhhh.

~~~~~~~~~~

I was upstairs at my neighbor's condo the other day (we're on the 6th floor, the 7th is the top), and was surprised that there was a difference to the view, just from one floor up.

Our view:

And the 7th floor:

It's interesting how seeing more of the water changed the look.

Also interesting, and frustrating, is that I posted the two photos on Instagram, and somehow only one of them posted through to Facebook. Way to make my caption weird and meaningless, Meta.

~~~~~~~~~~

And, of course, the cat. Just because he is cute.

Hanging In, with the Sidecat

I'm still here. I'm still a bit grumpy. I'm waiting for the patches to kick in those hormones that the gel seems not to have been doing (I had a damned hot flash on Saturday, didn't miss those at all). The elevator still isn't fixed.

But! In these difficult times, there is always: CAT, in a dozen ways.

1. Still loves his box from Walmart.

2. Also likes to sleep under a chair on the lanai, because that looks comfortable.

3. Hanging out where I put down a bowl of chicken (for ME) for 30 seconds, five minutes earlier.

4. Back in the box, but wait! New development!

5. Tail hanging out the back like a rudder!

6. Chin scritches.

7. Last Friday, he discovered the foot space under my desk and declared it cat space.

8. He went into the corner to wash his face after eating.

9. Chin rest.

10. Hanging out.

11. Back in that corner.

12. Back under the desk.