proba tive org archives

A day or so ago I decided that other people who are in worse shape could make better use of the services of the PSW who had been assigned to visit me at least once a week for the next month. I was about to post about the nifty devices that are making my life as a quasi-invalid less hazardous even.

There's the "reaching device" - a must for anyone with a small pet prone to losing toys and other stolen articles under furniture not to mention those of us who cannot or should not be bending down to reach the floor. There's the Rollator walker that I hope to be putting more miles on after I see the surgeon on Friday this week. Until then I'm under the "don't lift anything over 10 pounds" restriction. The walker is about double that I discovered on the web and I can't just "roll out" of the apartment unfortunately.

But the best thing, from a safety and convenience viewpoint, is the chair for the bathtub. The bathroom is all gleaming new but has nothing to hang onto when getting in and out or while standing in the shower, so the folks who take care of discharging patients at the hospital figured I could use a chair. It makes getting showered a much easier and safer undertaking, really. So much so that I think all tubs/showers should come with a fold down version. Imagine the number of accidental falls that could be eliminated.

When I told the case worker at the visiting medical services organization that I was not utilizing the PSW as well as others might and was happily taking showers unassisted, I learned that the loan of my buddy the bath chair would be terminated if I was no longer an active recipient of services. But wait a minute - the chair is one of the things that makes me able to confidently state that I don't need this woman to help me. And the file clearly indicates that I'm in a neck brace and will be for another 6 weeks at least.

Rules don't have to make sense. So I'm going to rent the chair from the same company that loaned it to me on the agency's behalf. Go figure.

It's a whopping 17 dollars a month, mind you. But it would be free if I was willing to abuse the services provided and pretend I needed the PSW. Right. Huh.

[BTW: I'm still amazed by how well I'm doing. Overdid things a bit yesterday, paying for it today and taking a break. Trying to remember that I'm not really 'all better' just yet. It's hard, though, because the reduction in negative symptoms has been such a relief. On top of which there is the elimination of foggy headedness from the pain killers. I'm working at reminding myself that healing is really not an arithmetic progression after all.]

In addition to brilliant morning sunshine the past couple of days, I have been gladdened to be arising without extraordinary effort much before noon. Why this should make me feel good about things is debatable. It gives me a much longer time to fill with less than productive (IMO) activities. I think it's the fact that I am up before most of the noise of daily city life and have a moment or two to enjoy what view I have, listening to the birds and sipping coffee.

[ASIDE: The construction guys have arrived to work on the backyard just now - bye bye peace and quiet. It'll be over soon. The whole project that is. At least that's what I keep hearing!]

Most of my medical appointments are at the Civic which pre-surgery was about a 10-15 minute walk from here. Jeff drove me to the MRI last week and I'd intended to walk back, both for exercise and so he wouldn't have to wait. That didn't work out as planned, so my goal for this week is to be able to at least walk to the appointment with the surgeon tomorrow. I'm learning to anticipate unknown procedures these days and will walk back again ONLY if they haven't beat me up in someway or otherwise worn me out. OR if the surgeon gives me hell for walking too far. Unlikely I think.

As a test run I first tried this on Tuesday. Poor judgement caused me to fill in a bored hour in the early evening with this "how-close-can-I-get-in-30-minutes" experiment. My hip complained the rest of the night. I made it to the Parkdale Clinic, in under a half hour though - yay!

Yesterday I did the same walk to get some bloodtests done. But I did it in the early afternoon. Much better plan. And I stopped in at the hospital mall area to have a Chai Latte and banana bread and rest before the return trip. A short rest upon returning to the abode and all was well. I did give in on the no pain meds situation though. Just a 1/4 of the Rx does the trick and doesn't make me goofy either.

Other than watching a bit of TV I've mostly been researching and plotting a blog for my daughter.

George Carlin quote for today:

When you think about it, attention deficit disorder makes a lot of sense. There isn't a whole lot worth paying attention to in this country.

Before I get into this report and forget, I have found an image for those of you who haven't (yet?) seen my newest buddy the neck brace and me. From www.aspencollar.com (menu: Products -> Cervico-Thoracic Bracing -> Collar) here's a pic of a model sporting my current fashion accessory.

How do I know she's a model you ask? Because she doesn't have a second smile peeking through the front keyhole in the collar, does she? No.

According to the surgeon I'm in for at least 4 more weeks of wearing this device 23.5 hours a day. I get to take it off to wash my neck.

I learned from my brief check up today that the plate that was screwed into my lower three cervical vertebrae is in the front of my neck. For reasons only anaesthesiologists can understand, I was under the impression it was in the back. Given the incision is at the front it all makes perfect sense. Sorta. I guess.

I must admit I was a little concerned that the stitches were going to be pulled out today. They weren't and I didn't even venture a question about it, so queasy does it make my tummy just thinking about this particular bit of medical housekeeping. I guess we all have our buttons. That's one of mine. I won't have to face it for at least 4 more weeks. That's the next time I'm to be seen by this doctor. There'll be another x-ray done to check the bone healing progress.

I am now to avoid "heavy lifting". It's okay to wrangle my walker down the steps, too. The range of my walks has just increased dramatically! AND a classic doctor/patient joke was played out without so much as a smirk on his part. I have been trying to be a good patient and have stayed away from my electronic keyboard until I had this check up. Partly because I know I won't want to stop if I've already started and I find out I shouldn't have.

After the "keep taking things easy, no heavy lifting" directive. I asked whether I could play the piano. He didn't miss a beat. "Did you play the piano before the surgery?" I assured him I had and I was just checking to be sure I didn't do anything "silly" to myself. Funny guy, in a deadpan kind of way. But a good surgeon, IMO. I thanked him for doing a great job on my neck at the beginning of the appointment.

In the interests of keeping Steph's almost-ready blog comment spam free, I wanted to add a CAPTCHA to the comment form. Last night I fought with a "plug-in" that turns out to be a "hack-in". Didn't even work when I'd finished all the gyrations through some core code. Grrr. This morning I found another pluggable "plug-in" that I'll try out tomorrow - after I undo all the mucking I wasn't keen on but thought if it worked it would be worthwhile. Yes, I backed up most of the files first. And made sure the changes in others were well delimited. Kidneys.

The weather was marvellously summer-like, both of the busy young adults I raised called to wish me a Happy Mother's Day and I spent time with my photo albums remembering the fun of raising my babes. Sunday was a good one. Thanks kids!

Saturday two friends popped in at the same time to see how I be. Turns out they hadn't seen each other for a bit, so they caught up then Rob went off to ride his motorcycle (it was another good weather day) and I had tea with Ceyhan. Thanks friends!

Work on the backyard part of the property continues today. The guys were most apologetic about waking me a while ago to get the keys for the Jeep and the bike lock. Not a problem, really. The cat was bugging me anyway. When all is done out there, I may have a private patio to enjoy this summer.

I was kinda sorta planning to make a trek to Dow's Lake today but I've been a little extra tired the past few days, so I'm rescheduling that. Today, I'll attack that blog I'm working on and ruminate on replying to a job posting. Part of me thinks I have nothing to lose and part of me thinks nobody would hire someone who showed up in a neck brace for an interview. Maybe by the end of the day I'll be more inclined one way or the other. (I asked my two former co-workers what they thought on Saturday and got two different opinions. Sheesh.)

Or, should I say "plugin" away? I've been gathering neat plugins for Steph's weblog. Kind of a crap shoot what with sketchy documentation on some. Finally dawned on me that the DOS EOL problem may be getting in my way. That helped with a couple.

Which is most of what I managed to do today. I'm trying to take breaks between keyboarding marathons. No, they're not really marathons, but I know they could easily become so. The neck reminds me when I've been sitting too long. So I do something else. Like read. Hurray, I can read now. Using my knees as a resting place for the book while I'm propped up on the futon accomplishes a change of position for my neck, too.

Another nap attack snuck up on me mid-day. The construction out back included some extra loud pounding with intervals of sawing, silence and discussion. The noise was slightly unsettling and the apartment was warm (did I sleep through Spring? sure feels like Summer these days....)

Managed to doze off for a couple of hours with the earplugs in.

My plans to walk to Dow's Lake haven't materialized yet. The work at the back includes some changes to my small landing as well as equipment and junk being strewn about the walkway. Tomorrow's supposed to be cooler thank goodness. But maybe some rain, too.

In which case more work on the blog (not this one) and then a walk later on. There's a plan.

Watching this government self-destruct is less than motivating I must say. So I'm not going to watch. Tell me when it's over.

I just got back from a trek to Dow's Lake and back. Saw lots of tulips, a fair number of people and tented displays. Took a break to recharge and watch the ducks. Beat the rain back. Total trip time: 2 hours, 20 minutes.

Nap time!

For some reason the date seems significant. May 12th. All day I've been expecting the light to go on, but I'm still in the dark. Oh well...

More work took place on the backyard project today. They tell me they're all finished with pounding on things. As much as I'd like to, I don't quite believe that.

I *do* believe tickets should be given to clueless people who block the sidewalks with their cars and then move them backwards without looking behind them. I had a small heart attack as I watched the bumper of a car come towards me just after I'd taken a step into the space behind it. The driver had been intently watching a vehicle in front of hers jockeying to gain egress from the gridlock that the gas bar had become. I was pretty sure she was trying to make life easier for the other guy, but she still should have looked back first. It was the last leg of my walk, I was tired and carrying two sacs of food. Not moving particularly quickly, so no reason to say she didn't have time to notice me.

The car stopped before it and I came into contact but I was startled and then pissed and finally concerned that the driver not try to move again until I was safely past. So I kicked the back bumper to get her attention. When she did turn to look, I frowned at her and raised my arms in a questioning gesture.

I rounded the corner to head north on Parkdale, and by the time I was across from the pumps, she'd reached one and gotten out. When I looked at her and she shouted her query "Have you got a problem, lady?". I shouted back. Oh yeah... I said I did have a problem - the fact that she'd started backing up just as I was walking behind her car. She flat out denied that she'd backed up. I rephrased and said "Your car moved backwards." (I know it sounds like I'm ready for the retirement home, but another pedestrian coming towards me at the time saw it, and shook his head. The car moving that is, not the verbal exchange.)

I've learned my lesson. I'm taking the long way around that intersection just to avoid useless drivers at the gas station.

On two fronts at once, even.

Physical recovery improvements have been marginal this week. Yeah, I can walk for a couple of hours which is a nice change from the few blocks' worth I accomplished just after being released from the hospital. IMO "discharge" sounds like something that *needs* medical attention, so I'm not using the official terminology :-P

Since that excursion to Dow's Lake, I've been napping well and often. There's a theory afloat that a new phase of healing has started. The thinking is that this phase sucks energy and/or benefits from sleep. It's not a bad theory, I guess.

Of course, it might also be the cooler weather and (today) low pressure system moving in. Now I find myself well-napped, restless, tired and bored all at the same time. I just tried sleeping as soon as I felt tired (instead of when the good TV shows were over), but it didn't work. Bah.

I'm not even half through the predicted recuperation period yet. Hmmm.

The blog project is at the point of custom coding to put some useful and appropriate things in place for my girl. I've become wary about the completeness and usefulness of instructions that accompany some plugins so the survey of information took a while. In good news, I have now found a plugin author who seems to understand proper documentation for other coders. I'm about to put a couple of these to the test. But not while I'm all tired and cranky. Coding done in this state is almost guaranteed to need ripping out and recoding.

Can't wait for one or both of these humps to be cleared successfully. 'Cause I have other things I want to do after the blog is running.

Of course, I will have to wait, so saying I can't wait is just silly. I should say I'm looking forward to these humps being cleared shortly. See? Now I sound all patient-like. Easy as rewording.

It's cool and rainy (pending, intermittent) here and I've discovered I have a cold. A bit of a sluggish start, but after some dishwashing, some coffee, some solitaire on the PC and (when the neck was tired of sitting) some journaling, I got back at the blog project.

Installed a few more plugins - one to keep duplicate comments from being accepted; a great one for obscuring email addresses from bots (hands-free these two turned out to be!) Fixed a strange bit of oddness in a file I don't think I touched - but who knows? All better.

Time for a break again. Perhaps a snack and some reading. Then I must get out for a stroll lest I feel like a slug again tonight.

It was a nice day for a walk. Since that's about all I can do in the way of exercise I set my sights on Loblaws at Kirkwood. Counting getting there, wandering around looking for things and getting back, I was ambling for over two hours. The return leg included two not-too-weighty sacs of grocery stuff.

No sooner had I put the loot away then ROBERT! arrived to visit. Good timing and a good visit.

I'm extra sore now, though. I'll pay for this tomorrow, if not tonight. Surprisingly (to me - probably obvious to everyone else) my right arm (the one that's been, um, disadvantaged for the past decade) is outdoing the hip in the pain department.

No nap today, though. Might be a step toward normalcy. Yeah, right.

I'll admit that I've had my fill of being alone the past few years. Social isolation has served its purpose. Presuming there was one... Oh, yeah: reinventing myself, now I remember!

I am feeling more and more like the self I was pre-neck injury a decade or so ago. So I've been toying with the idea of meeting people online. Okay, not just people, people of the opposite sex. My kids should stop reading if they're feeling queasy already.

During a search for a plugin to "plug" a hole I found in WordPress' functionality (users stay logged in FOREVER --- who thought of that?) I stumbled upon this blog entry. Honest, I wasn't searching for anything online related to the subject of dating.

In a cosmic bit of coincidence, however, I have been spending a considerable amount of my recuperative "timeout" lately reflecting on a significant relationship that feels very much unfinished. I'm leaning toward a frank and open discussion about the probability of a future second shot or at least a meeting that would bring closure. But that's just my half of the equation.

More fuel for the fire. Back to blog preparations. And ruminating. Or was that dithering??

Presuming the predictions from the medical gurus are on target, I'm at the half-way point for recuperation from the awesome neck fix. Happy day!

I'm not running, gardening, (working!), biking, camping, walking a dog, kayaking, or even driving - yet. But the belief that I'll be more able to do these things safely than I have believed for a long time is very nice indeed.

As a bit of a reminder (teaser?) my sister (who has been positively showering me with packages by mail lately) sent me a pile of catalogues that had me mesmerized for a couple of hours, thinking how marvelous it will be when I can use the tools and gadgets that Lee Valley stocks for gardening and building things again. (Thanks, kiddo!)

My daughter is very busy these days and forgot we were to talk last night. I've forgiven her, though - I haven't finished her blog either. A friend didn't have dinner on the weekend or forgot he'd invited me or didn't have time to drive me both ways. Or something really bad happened and dinner was properly dropped off the radar. Someday I'll find out.

My son is extra busy getting ready to impress folks in Europe with his eloquence, intelligence and charm. (That's my boy! Thought I'd say it here since I won't be in the audience - *this* time.) He'll have time to talk with me when he gets back - right?

I ran experiments (aka tests) to see if the security hole (or bad UI strategy) I'd perceived with WordPress was reproducible. Definitely. And more so with Firefox than IE. Strange.

The problem hasn't been reported as a problem in their database, but I found this post that described the exact thing (no automatic logout) almost a full YEAR AGO. Reading the responses reveals a rather unsettling perspective on a user's complaint about same. I am doubly perturbed that the WP "gang" seem to believe in secrecy concerning the existence of code and functionality defects that are inevitable during the development of software products. More so when there is (apparently) little or no user input or product definition before coding starts. This from a group that is (I think) proud of the fact that they are using the open source paradigm. (Maybe shaver has a few things to say about this? If he reads it that is! :-)

Other than this huge glitch, I am kind of happy with WP. More than that, maybe, is the fact that I am very close to getting it to do what I want it to for Steph. Rather than start all over with another blog engine candidate, I'm telling myself I can probably figure out how to make the thing logout automatically, so I will. Maybe I'll even make a plugin - later. Wish me luck.

I'm having a slow news day. Just another way of saying I'm a big ole slug. Thought I'd share what my calendar had to say today since most of the people I know are employed. :-)

Some people see things that are and ask, Why? Some people dream of things that never were and ask, Why not? Some people have to go to work and don't have time for all that crap.

(George Carlin)

Had coffee on the stoop while I let Dixie the cat explore a small bit of the mysterious world on the other side of the apartment door this morning. She truly is the definition of a scaredy cat - bolting back into the depths of the apartment as soon as any noise is heard. Poor baby. But this is precisely why a cat harness and leash-type attachment are handy.

It is another beautiful spring day. More enjoyable once I'd determined that the birds who had been nesting in the eaves had indeed been successfully relocated to a makeshift artificial nest attached to the building as close to the now unusable hole they'd been using as possible. And the babies are safe from the very curious and upsetting (to the parents) large crow who created quite a fuss yesterday by sitting right on top of the new nesting place. Mom and Dad and a few others were giving him hell until he reluctantly left. But not until he was ready and had given his two cents' worth.

Overnight it occurred to me that now is the perfect time to test drive the second blog engine candidate, since the WP one isn't really live yet and since Steph's not going to Japan until July. The possibility exists that this one may be already equipped with an autologout strategy and can also be made to do all the fun things I was planning for her use. Now is the perfect window for a continued exploration, too, because she hasn't had to learn the WP interface, so no loss of her time would result. Worth a day or two to check it out. She's not reading this blog regularly I don't think, so may not even notice.

The March 2002 changelog for my other blog software candidate (Nucleus) gives me joy because it includes this line:

Added: "shared computer" checkbox on login. Checking this box will make your cookie expire at the end of the session (instead of taking the global site setting) (see forum)

In direct contrast to the WordPress attitude that users should just remember to logout. If I wasn't so focused on getting Steph's blog up and running securely I'd join the WP forum just so I could ask why they'd dismissed the possibility of, say, a power outage or other non-user-controlled event ending a session. Huh?

Methinks it boils down to either inexperience or it's too complicated to figure out this late in the game for the dev team.

Glad I looked into Nucleus a little further. Let's hear it for skepticism and thoroughness. Oh, and high expectations.

Now for some reality checking. (What they say isn't always what you get.)

I managed to catch Mike before he and Tyla left the house to catch their plane to Europe and got to say good-bye to him. Bye kids!

The liver specialist says the MRI showed nothing out of the ordinary in any of the organs that were checked. This is good news. The numbers are still at a standstill, though - no further movement toward normal blood levels of liver related things since September last. Not as great as I'd been hoping. So: five more months of watching, then more investigations if necessary.

I remembered to ask about occasional imbibement of alcohol and that's not a problem. Just not with pain killers - eh?

How dare Canadian and Ontarian public representatives attempt to control what movies are shown to their constituents? It's not bad enough we have the Language Police in Quebec (just to be "different - eh?"), now our elected officials are attempting, if not to ban, then to penalize the producers (and distributors, I would think) of the film "Deadly" based on a homegrown pair of murderers.

Why? The gist of the argument as I understand it is that the film will (not "has") revictimize the families of the pair's unfortunate real-life victims and that some (monetary) compensation to these families or (monetary) penalties should be levied to deter such abuse of Canadian (Ontarian) sensitivities.

What hasn't been said, but should be added to the last sentence is by those damned Yankees. Which is, IMO, the crux of the matter. An American film was produced before Canadians could figure out whether to produce one. Shucks. Isn't dithering a Canadian trait?

We shouldn't be surprised. But we shouldn't be prevented or influenced in our viewing by the government, either. Not under any guise. This is extremely dangerous territory.

Nobody is going to make the families involved (or their friends) go to the movie. No convicted felons (the pair) have profited from this endeavour - at least it hasn't been publicized and I expect it would have been if it were the case, since it's a much stronger argument than the current "it'll upset some of us".

In the ridiculous department, there are two families who are predicted to be unfairly made to revisit the horrors inflicted upon them by "Deadly". On the other hand, the National Film Board co-produced and sells to this day a set of films - dramatizations, similar to the characterization of "Deadly" - about abuse of more numerous children who were adults at the time of the films production and airing by our very own Canadian Broadcast Corporation. That was The Boys of St. Vincent. About the second part, the NFB has this to say:

At last, a government inquiry reopens the case. The victims must come face-to-face with their abusers and relive the awful past yet again.

So, it's okay if the NFB does it, but not if those money hungry folks to the south of us do? Give me a break.

On the other hand, telling the stories society would rather forget can be a good thing. If the distribution and airing of "Deadly" raises awareness of the fact that Canada is not the Land of Oz and really bad things do happen here it will have served a purpose. One of the intriguing parts of the story is the fact that the perpetrators were attractive and therefore assumed to be respectable by those around them. A myth that could use shattering, to be sure.

One of the embarrassing parts of the story (as I recall from the news reports back then) is the bumbling of the investigation and then the "Deal with the Devil" that law enforcement made and seems to have regretted since. In fact, because of the secrecy concerning the trial, US viewers had more information about what was happening than Canadians. Shining light on dark corners of the world has always met with resistance from those in power. The strength and persistence of the resistance to public knowledge of the facts surrounding this case adds weight to suspicions of damaging "official" secrets we probably should know.

No, I don't think the publication ban (post trial) serves any purpose but to protect the incompetent. The damage that has been done to the families affected by this pair won't be increased by others knowing about it after the fact. Darkness and secrecy usually serve to protect and enable dysfunction of some kind.

Kudos to author Stephen Williams who bucked the system and wrote about the issues surrounding this infamous case. Taking on city hall has never been easy:

Canadian author Stephen Williams joined the company of persecuted writers in global trouble spots yesterday when he won a grant from Human Rights Watch, an international organization that supports victims of political persecution.

Globe and Mail, May 12, 2004 article

Yesterday I spoke to my beautiful and talented daughter about the issues surrounding deployment of her blog space. Turns out the timeline for Japan has been moved forward. I'd like her to have some time to learn the ropes while we're still in the same time zone.

Even though she promised she'd always log out, my concerns are not just malicious mucking about in her blog should she forget or technical problems prevent logging out explicitly sometime. Logged in from Japan - what could go wrong after all? The server on which both our blogs is hosted is a shared private one the sanctity of which I would not want to be responsible for breaching.

The options I mentally debated overnight (again) were creating an autologout plugin for WordPress (if possible) or going with Nucleus and porting any useful and interesting plugins that I'd already found in the WP world in that direction and not having to worry about autologout coding at all.

From having installed a number of WP plugins (some requiring core code modifications) I had an idea of what the minimum requirements and plugin structure looked like.

Took a look just now at the Nucleus paradigm and I'm sold. Looks much more like professional design than anything I've seen on WP. Feels like home to me... There's even an uninstall method defined for plugins. The other guys haven't looked that far I don't think.

In the interests of "just do it", function has been given priority over presentation by my user. This makes my life a tad simpler and also helped give Nucleus the winning spot.

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That was the subject. The far too long body contained enough instances of %thingies to make it unreadable. Some kind of "inside" stock prediction crap.

Idiots.

I wandered around the Rideau Centre for hours today. Had an errand to run at a particular store (exchanging a gift). Then I explored a couple of floors until my hip had enough. Something to eat at the food court and then a longish wait for the bus and back in time to watch House.

Had a great conversation with a young man at one of the stores. He works on the locks during the day. Fun job it turns out. Nice guy, too.

The mall is not just full of stuff to covet, but it's weather-proof. Next time it rains I'll head down there to get some exercise instead of getting drenched outside. Which is what happened last night. I didn't care that it was pouring, I'd been cooped up too long and had to, just had to get outside.

Went to sleep laughing (did anybody else watch Letterman's hummingbird guy last night?) and a bit achey from the mall marathon. Woke late. Dixie finally pestered me enough that I got up to make coffee about an hour ago.

I've got a wicked headache for the first time in ages. Doubt it's a weather-triggered one - this morning is excruciatingly sunny. If it's possible to "sleep funny" in a neck brace then I may have done that. Or the bus rides were too bumpy. OR (hope this is it) I walked too much yesterday.

I still like the mall. I'll try it again in few days. For today: laundry (woohoo!) and more Stephie Blog plotting and installing various plugins.

Thought I'd have a short nap and ended up sleeping for over 10 hours. One of the perks of living alone is having nobody to wake you up before you're ready - intentionally or not. Of course, the perk of not being employed is that nobody's going to fire me for not showing, either.

Good timing - huh?

Time for a break. I was doing so very well with Steph's blog. Until the cowgirl in me decided to ignore the "make a copy of what works" rule. And then I made an edit to a template and there was no way to recover the previous contents. (This isn't just a text editor - it's inside the Nucleus admin panel. Doesn't seem to have the concept of an externally linked file, like MT did.)

So, it's back to the starting gate for me. I just finished dropping all the tables that were created by the installation of the application.

Called my baby girl to see how she's doing, but no answer. Hope she's okay and just sleeping. (Minor surgery today - poor thing.) On a brighter note, there's a possibility that she'll be coming to visit me this weekend. Got my toes crossed.

I think the cat wants to go out again. I've created a monster by letting her out back on her lead. Of course I have to be watching her pretty closely to keep her from sneaking through a hole in the fence (where the big dog lives that she doesn't know about ... yet) or getting tangled between the many posts that are available for that purpose. We sat out early this morning so I guess it's time again.

Last night proved to be one of those pleasant surprises. Late afternoon found me wandering along Wellington on a hunt for some dinner supplies. Ran into my friend Jeff quite by chance. Accepted an invitation to his place for a drink and chat. Had a great time and ended up staying for dinner and some lively conversation with his wonderful family.

To top it all off, there was piano playing courtesy of the girls. Made me itch to get back at my keyboard, too. Thanks everyone!

Now, I don't know if my problems sleeping followed by much sleeping and very, very odd dreams had ANYTHING to do with the wine (!), but I awoke (finally) with a headache. Apparently I need more practice in this department.

I've got about half a dozen hours to get my act together, including some grocery shopping and laundry before Steph arrives to visit for a couple of days. It will be great to see her again.

On the blog front: before my day surprised me yesterday I did manage to get everything reinstalled and lots of (hopefully) useful plugins activated. It wasn't anywhere near as time consuming as the first time 'round, thank goodness. Now to figure out how to play with the templates and skin safely. But FIRST: some groceries and laundry.

Murphy struck. The planned weekend visit from darling daughter has been rescheduled until mid-week. It makes sense, really, given some time constraints she was trying to work within.

The best part was the timing. Just as I was getting out of the cab with oodles of groceries, she was trying to reach me to let me know. Any later and I'd have already started cooking up a storm.

As it stands, I now have more time to do laundry and work on the blog and - oh, yeah - relax after the adventure at the SuperStore. Navigating the crowded aisles was more work than I'd figured. Lots of exercise was had while staying out of the rain that passed through. Yay.

There was a text message late this afternoon informing me that the visit I thought was taking place mid-week is taking place tonight. Yes. TONIGHT. Holy 'Stop Taking It Easy' - indeed!

2 loads of laundry and a couple of errands to the local shops and I'm sorta (almost) ready. 'Cept the meat for the cooking that would have been strategically done before her arrival is still hard as a rock. Guess we'll be eating out or something.

Pushing that grocery cart around on Saturday was the worst event yet - with respect to the payback in pain the next day. So much so that I was induced to putting even more "ease" in "taking it easy" all day yesterday. (This is going to happen once in while for the next few months I expect. Nothing bad about it. At least while I have wicked pain killers so resting is restFULL.)

It's still not happy - the nerve that got irritated or the muscles that were overworked. Probably the nerve I think, since it took a day to react. Today started out with plans that were shelved in favour of pain relief.

Son and daughter-in-law are back at home all safe and sound from their European adventure. Can't wait to see the pics and hear all about it.