Written in bed, COVID shot, flowers

By Wednesday evening the COVID booster was hitting and I had to lie down before I fell down, so tired.  This blogpost is being written in bed.

Where I was Wednesday morning.

Home again I did a bit of plant moving, set up an appointment with the hand surgeon, took a walk, took more pictures of the mystery plant.

One shows buds, one blossoms 

Read, fell asleep, woke to make meals, spent time online with friends, mourned Jane Goodall, and could not go on. Energy fled. I did wave my arm about as prescribed after COVID shot.

Happy day everyone, rest when there's no choice.

All this, sez Ted and Big Ursy.

COVID booster, egg n chips, Foyle and Gently

This morning I got my COVID booster from a very nice nurse at the minute clinic who exclaimed in wonder at my intact memory, driving, daily exercise etc. 

She tells me all this is rare in my age group. I expect so, since most of my agemate friends are dead, so they're not really competing.  

I'm certainly very grateful about it, and take just a bit of credit, but there's luck to factor in, too. While I was there, I left ACLU  know your rights cards, Spanish language, in the waiting area. Sand in the gears.

Just in case of a reaction to the vax, I've picked up the next Foyle season. I'm ready. I still have that jigsaw puzzle, too, that I haven't got around to yet. 

Oh, and my lab results are all normal, yay. So I had anchovy toast for tea! Throwing salt caution to the wind for once.

I did a bit more weaving yesterday and had to massage my hand this morning, ow, thumb stiff and grudging.

Meanwhile I'm going to get in some walking today to make sure of it.  And some weights and stretches.  Most of the weird kinks in my left leg muscles and tendons are worked out now, high time. No more peculiar little spasms and jumping tendons. 

I guess they've recovered from being pushed aside during the surgery. They had also shortened because of the joint lameness, so they had to stretch back to fit. All good.

Friday is about simple comfort food -- roasted potato dice with a cheese omelette mit der spinach thrown in to wilt.  

Dessert chocolate covered raisins...all food groups covered.

My afternoon attempts to rest and whine about my instantly sore arm were repeatedly interrupted by door related issues.  Help wrap the paint rollers so Gary could get lunch, confirm the door was dry enough to flip and do the other side, produce a little stool to enable cutting up of the old door for the garbage requirement. Etc. 

I really can't complain considering how much is being done for me.  But I plan to anyway.

Meanwhile the beautiful new door is in place. 

No more cringing to see a ragged delaminated bottom edge of it. It's lovely. 

Happy day everyone, evening online with me buds, lot of royal talk.

Anyone with a cat already has education in Royal talk.  Can you see her crown?

Low key day with intervals of entertainment

Today as expected, post vax tiredness, chills, owie joints, reading and dozing under an afghan.

Then Gary showed up, took my mind off it. His cousin, ready to leave, car loaded, ac on, engine running, found himself locked out of his car.  So I was part of the squad trying to find some slimjim equivalent to get him in. 

He did eventually get away, after taking a lot of teasing about how he really wanted to stay. NADM.

I had a little burst of energy and made a kind of salsa to go with cheese on toast, not up for more.

Diced tomatoes, bit of sugar, salt, cumin, vinegar, garlic.

I'll use the leftovers to bake tomorrow with cheese and an egg. 

That got my strength up to track my ballot 

It's safely received and will be counted once polls close. I noticed I've been registered here since 1991! All that parade of signatures.

Now I'm wrapped again in an afghan, chills back, this too shall pass, while I read an ebook on Hoopla before it goes away.

 Libraries are dumping Hoopla software, expensive, badly designed, and I'm able to check out books easily now, no competition, I suppose.

Anyway, here's my latest comfort reading 

Happy day everyone, do get your vax. It's worth a couple of down days.

Perfect walking day

 I seized the day, after this morning's COVID booster and before the effects kicked in, to enjoy a walk.

Neighbor's roses

And at home my potatoes are growing at warp speed 

And my lavender is nearly ready, to pick little bunches for neighbors 

This afternoon, I waved my arm about to dissipate the swelling, and stayed home to rest instead of Tuesday knitting. Also to field doctor calls about recent test results. I need to increase one pill, but otherwise I'm fine.

Then I read peacefully on the deck, while various relatives and their dogs showed up next door because Gary's home. He sounds and looks pretty good. Party time!

Textiles and Tea this week was about braiding, which turns out to include, but not be limited to, kumihimo. There's a lot of braiding traditions, and this Brit weaver and braider does research on fibers, embroidery, and creates freeform braiding on various frames.

The last slide shows her at work on a bigger frame, with a smaller one shown at the side. Her very open-minded approach is so happy, light-years different from the rigid rule-bound kumihimo workshop I attended years ago and really hated.  

Holding the little frame in one hand, juggling bobbins with the other, only one way to do it or you were WRONG! I finished the project, not to let it defeat me, then gave the frame to someone who wanted to try it, and I hope she liked it.

But Jacqui is adventuresome, likes to let the  fibers, usually silk, direct the work, and it shows. She's written several books on braiding and embroidery, which are available from her. She commented that if you don't sell through Amazon they list you as out of print, even if you aren't. That was news. I'm guessing her classes are fun, judging from her enthusiasm about it.

She started out in mathematics, but one thing and another, found herself in fiber arts. Where I think she's probably giving more value than as a midrange, non creative mathematician, her own description. A lot of people in weaving have a numbers and science background, probably the planning and symmetry appeals? I'm guessing.

Happy day, everyone, and here's another Haggard Hawks puzzle, which at first I got instantly, dogmatically, wrong!

Fungi again and COVID, and advice seeking

 These are the fungi from the other day, already about twice the size. Their growth rate is amazing. If I don't pass that log for a couple of days, I probably miss an entire life cycle.

Yesterday I had the latest covid booster, very little reaction this time, surprisingly, considering the dramatic reaction I had with previous covid vax.

The appointment also saw a phenomenon which seems to follow me about. It's happened many times over the years, when I walk into a public place people seem to think I work there or something, who knows why. Even if I'm wearing a coat, clearly a member of the public.

Yesterday I was waiting for my vax, and a woman came up to me and asked if everyone was waiting for shots, not rxs, and how long was the wait. I said they seemed to be running a bit late, and she looked quite unsatisfied, as if I were fobbing her off.

When I'd been attended, another woman asked me when she would be called. She looked a bit sceptical when I explained I'd been seen late, so I supposed they were running late. I got out before anyone demanded to talk to my manager!

This happens quite a bit, usually comic relief. Like the woman who wanted to know some staff-related thing about an art exhibit I was visiting. I explained I didn't know, I was visiting, And she snarled "Is that meant to be an excuse?"

Why, why! And don't get me started on people asking for street directions, the worst person you could ask! If they're aggressive, I do my best, but wonder where they end up. The worst offenders on  demanding directions have had NY number plates... the advent of GPS has helped me a lot. I don't use it, but if other people do, they leave me alone.

Happy day everyone, if there's anything you need to know, I'll try to help, but I don't work here!

Don't ask me, I'm an innocent bystander.

Onion bhajis, fungi, silo art and sashiko

 Yesterday's walk yielded great fungi

 and the concrete rabbit still hanging in there, aren't we all.

And I made the  bhajis, after the chickpea flour arrived. They're usually deep fried, which I don't do, so I found a way to bake them.

And used tzatziki as a dip. With shrimp. I know there are readers who will ask why didn't you make rice for the shrimp to rest on? I would have if I'd thought of it, but I often forget,  rice rarely coming to mind when I'm not making curry.

The bhajis were okay, and next time I'll use a slightly reduced oven heat, maybe 350°f, rather than the 400°f of the recipe, which browned them a bit too fast, the inside not done quite enough. But they were good, spices in the fried onions as well as in the chickpea dough. Definitely going into the rotation. There's another plateful like this for today.

Special request to Oz blogistas, have you seen any of these? 

Yes, I know it's a huge place, and chances are slight, but just wondering what you might be able to tell us about them.

Just home from my much cancelled and reset covid booster, using the other arm from the rsv arm. This might impede my stitching, we'll see. The pharmacist admired my cheerful pink jacket, said she really likes to see color around. Same one who did last week's rsv, bright yellow jacket that time.

Meanwhile I've started on the sashiko surrounds

Happy day everyone, wear cheerful clothes, it's nice for the people sticking needles into you, or something.

A few more flowers

Appointment, now you see it, now you don't, but there's soup

 Yesterday I thought I had covid and rsv vax set up. One today, one next week. Then last evening I got two texts from CVS marked urgent and cancelling them, vaccine not available. Oh. Please reschedule. Which I attempted to do, their site crashing three times after I'd reentered multiple screens of info. 

So I switched to another pharmacy chain, and after an evening of hitting buttons, have rsv scheduled this morning, covid for Friday. Hoping when I get there, they'll have the vaccine. If so, I'll see how I do, then decide whether I'm up for another shot on Friday.  

We did this dance last time I had the covid booster, the website setting up appointments, the pharmacies not receiving vaccine. So we'll see.

Good thing I made soup before all this. Butternut squash, carrot, with long pepper, kosher salt, nutmeg, chili powder and turmeric. Italian basil for fancy.

A large pot, as you see. Between this and the chili and  yogurt, I'm ready for anything.

Oh, an update on the Irish gymnastics situation. 

This is the gist, I'm guessing done under duress from lawyers, and finally an admission of wrongdoing. Now some of us are asking if the offending official was fired, no news on that. So all it took was 18 months, millions of protests from many countries, threats of lawsuits, and worldwide shame,  to acknowledge a bad act.

Happy day,  everyone, keep on keeping on, hope springs eternal, and other such cliches. Off to knit a glove.

Photo AC