A "huh" kind of day

The weather started off being not unreasonable. Kind of damp but warm enough that there was melting going on. In mid-afternoon the temps rapidly plummeted and the wind whipped up and suddenly it was Siberia. And I mean suddenly.

I finally got the Christmas gifts off to my brother and sil, but not without me annoying the hell out of the poor clerk with my many questions. I wasn't really meaning to be annoying, yet I knew the answer to everything I asked her. I was just in one of those "toy with the clerk" moods. I think I've been hanging around cats too long or something; I'm picking up their love of torment. ::evil heh::

After being pain free for a couple weeks now, I had a resurgence of the old lupus pain in my hips and legs. It started late last night and kept up for most of the day. I was lurching around on very stiff joints, looking ungainly and feeling like crap. It seems to be settling down again, so I'm not sure what's going on with that. Dar thinks it might be related to this cold that I'm still dealing with. Hopefully tonight will be better.

I got a call from the Immigration doctor this morning. Those additional blood tests I had to have because my blood pressure was too high? Yeah, well, he wanted me to know that they came back too low, and Immigration will probably flag them for further follow up. And since the tests concerned my kidney function, he suggested that I let my doctor know and get some further testing done. The levels were only slightly decreased but still below normal, so I'm not going crazy over this, but it is a bit worrisome since I just had them done a few months ago and they were fine. Another thing to add to the list of questions/concerns I'll bring to the appointment with my new rheumatologist.

I found a very neat site that I want all of you to try out. It's called Free Rice, and it's one of those "click to donate" sites, but this one has a neat twist. It's a vocabulary test, and for every word that you identify correctly they'll donate twenty grains of rice. It truly is addictive because the difficulty level increases with every correct answer, and I donated 400 grains of rice in very short order before I forced myself to move on. I figured that this would appeal to my meme/quiz-happy flist :)

I stumbled across this by way of a post at Shakesville (formerly Shakespeare's Sister) that was talking about keeping hope for the future in the face of feeling helpless and staying engaged in changing the world instead of adopting that truly despicable "it's cool to be cynical and disaffected" affect that seems to be epidemic these days. Anyway, among the comments to the thread was a link to a site called So What Can I Do?, which I hope you'll take a look at, too. I browsed it briefly, and there seems to be something for every level and type of engagement.

And now my aching joints and I bid you good evening. Hope you're all warm and safe and happy this night.

Because it's less taxing than actually composing an entry

By way of brighty18.

You paid attention during 97% of high school!

85-100% You must be an autodidact, because American high schools don't get scores that high! Good show, old chap!

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Basket Case

Day 362-Pixel, originally uploaded by maystone1.

Pix likes to sleep in my basket full of gloves, hats, and scarves. This was taken after she leapt in, turned it over, fell off and got pummeled by falling gloves, etc. I put everything back and placed her back in the basket. She was shall we say embarrassed but putting on her "What?" face.

Birthday!

Happy Birthday, vampirefan!

Bring on the music, flowers, cake, and of course the pretty, pretty boys :) I hope it's a wonderful day for you!