Reviews, Recipes, and Random Slices of Life

Oh, hai! It’s been a while since I’ve written here. Glancing back at my last (beginning of September) update, some things have happened! I did finish revisions on the Scorpion Dance manuscript by my self-imposed deadline, I have started querying agents, and I am going to Worldcon (officially DisCon III, as it’s in Washington DC this year).

I had a lovely chat with Pat recently that straightened out my thinking on how to choose which novella in the Unkindness of Ravens world to write next, so planning that is on deck. In the meantime, I am writing a solarpunk retelling of The Nine Maidens of Dundee (their da keeps sending them to a well, where a dragon eats them--nobody learns).

Home life news from today is full of way too many tiny annoyances and a medium-size disappointments.

To my horror, over the weekend we discovered lice had infiltrated the household. ::endless screaming:: We were able to get in at The Minnesota Lice Ladies this morning. Bless the Lice Ladies, they’re doing the Lord’s work. And as I overheard, apparently pesticide shampoo treatments do not work as well anymore because lice have started becoming resistant to them, FYI, so combing it all out is the only truly effective treatment. And they do fancy braids when they're done if you have long hair! ...I am spending the evening doing All The Laundry.

The disappointment is that Phil's promised work trip to Germany has been canceled. He might get to go in January, but his boss also wants him working on other projects then. Of course, this trip was sort of supposed to be a “sorry we might not be able to get you a promotion before the company is sold, here’s a consolation prize” reward. If he gets neither, he’s going to be very cranky.

Both kids got their first covid shot on Friday, so that’s exciting! We’re inching closer to being able to allow them to safely do some of the ordinary kid stuff they’ve been denied for the last two years.

The kids are also in after-school classes now. Busing is a problem. They were getting home over 2 hours after they left the school sometimes, which is just too long (yaaaaay bus driver shortage). So now we’re trying to coordinate driving and picking them up.

Two big changes and one irritating mistake. Okay, the changes aren't THAT big. Practically speaking, they're quite small on a lifetime scale. But big on a weekly scale!

The biggest thing in my life lately has been my inability to shower or bathe at home. Our shower went from decrepit but sorta functional to entirely non-functional. It no longer has hot water, and using the shower is also bad because the walls aren't as waterproof as you would want shower walls to be. We figured this out when Phil looked up at the ceiling of the kitchen and saw that there was water damage. :(

My solution for this has been to take advantage of all the gym trials available that include childcare (and one that didn't, even though its website said it did). This way, I can take the kids, get a workout, write for a bit while the kids stay in childcare, and then wash my hair (the big problem with normal bucket-bath solutions) and the children. It's been fun. I don't have disposable income on a monthly basis, so I won't be able to permanently join a gym-with-childcare and do the short workout, longer writing game plan that some other writer parents and members of gyms-with-childcare have. Sadface. But I've learned that I like group classes and weight machines, and I really like being able to work out again.

Monday the plumber comes and starts the process of retiling the shower alcove, replacing the fixtures, and installing a new toilet while he's at it. I'm very happy about this. I'm just sad that we didn't have the budget to have them also tear up the wood floor and put in tile while we're at it. Alas. Wood floors look great and wear well in many rooms, but bathrooms aren't one of them.

Other things that happened this week(ish), briefly:
1. Tried writing with The Most Dangerous Writing App (change #2), liked it, and beat my weekly word quota for the first time in a long time;
2. Went to preschool auction, got one month's gym membership cheap(!), and collected lots of compliments on my candid portraits of the kids;
3. And, finally, messed up communicating with Cassius' school bus about me taking him to school instead (after gym time in Uptown), leading to confusion all around and a cranky school bus chaperon. Oops.
4. Wait, that's not the end after all! Last Sunday, the children became miserably sick, complete with 105 degree fevers (Cassius) and vomiting (Theia). That was no good. The combination of vomit and nonfunctional shower was particularly unfortunate. I forgot about that earlier, even though the kids are still coughing and congested. They're no longer feverish and they seem to be back to normal energy levels, though, so no more sick days watching videos for them!

The last couple of weeks have been very busy with All The Things, especially last week. In my writing log, I wrote down the following:

Recorded "Breath Stirs In the Husk" for Pseudopod
Recorded “Drowning in Sky” for PodCastle
Did audio editing on PodCastle and Pseudopod readings and sent them off
Writer’s networking tea at Patisserie 46
MinnSpec writers group in Uptown
Updated market spreadsheet, wrote newsletter, and mailed it off
Researched self-pub cover art necessities
Wrote cover art contract
Met with cover artist
Processed “Diplomatic Relations” acceptance
Processed “Charity From a Thief” rejection
Processed writing expenses

In addition to this, we !!finally!! took care of the second mortgage balloon payment, a financial burden that has been becoming increasingly worrisome over the course of the last six months as we went back and forth with our mortgage banker about how we could refinance it. The short answer is that we couldn't, but he was too inexperienced to know that and too incompetent to find that out in a reasonable time-frame or even to return our phone calls EVER. Of course, back when we bought our house, we were assured that we could simply extend the term of our second mortgage without any problems. Now, that program has long since been discontinued. He eventually offered us a personal loan, but that has terms similar to a credit card, so, um, no. Instead we took out a loan against Phil's 401K. Not ideal, but at least we're paying the interest to ourselves. It also means that our 2nd mortgage will be paid off in 5 years instead of 10+ . . . because our monthly payment is going to be a couple of hundred dollars higher. Ouch. But still. Done! One thing to cross off the Worry List.

Speaking of the Worry List, Phil finally put lead encapsulation paint on the back staircase, which is a huge relief to me. Whew. Still not done fixing all the less-urgent lead stuff, but we're getting there.

So, lots of stress (and stress relief) this week, and lots of me trying to scrape out time to get things done. Not helping is that Theia has been waking up lots in the night again. Maybe teething? She's also been batting at her ears when she's sleepy, which makes me worry about ear infections, but Phil thinks it's because sometimes there's referred pain from teething. Basically, we don't know. It is worrisome. Also does not help with the exhaustion and having lots of stuff to get done.

Now that the mortgage's handled, our next big family project is figuring out preschool. Minneapolis folks, does anyone have recommendations or dis-recommendations for preschools in the Uptown/Downtown/S. Mpls area? We're hardly going to buy a second car just to ferry the small one to preschool, so it needs to be busable for us.

Sigh. Here's a picture of a water lily, for serenity.





P.S. Oh, and I bollixed up my left knee badly enough that it's been hurting constantly for the last few days. I'll try taking it easy for a week and see if it gets better on its own. If it's still this bad in two weeks, a doctor visit is probably in order, and who knows what else. I do not need this.

As I am writing this, it's very weird to realize that today is only Friday. 4th of July, yes, but Friday! I've been existing in the weirdly timeless dimension of sick for the last week. Phil has been home for much of it, which hasn't helped (with the disorientation--it's helped a *lot* with keeping the household running!). Last week, both kids got sick with congestion, coughing, and fevers. Last week Friday, I started to feel sick. Over the weekend, I got all the congestion, coughing, and fever. I was so wobbly and lightheaded that I put Phil in charge of carrying the baby up and down the stairs and even--when I felt particularly bad--of moving her from the playmat to my arms to nurse.

Theia's church dedication was on Sunday, so Phil took her to church and I stayed home sick with Cassius. This was probably a very good thing, as it turned out, since Cassius and I were the most sick and probably most contagious at this point. She looked adorable in her little satiny white dress with red flowers; that's all I know.

My fever went away on Monday, but Phil still stayed home to help and because I'd made a doctor's appointment for Cassius. You see, even before this latest bout of sickness, he had a minor but persistent cough that wouldn't go away. He'd had it for three weeks, which seemed a bit long. We talked to the nurse practitioner. They took swabs for various tests. They used the water pic to clean earwax out of his ears so they could make sure he didn't have an ear infection (since he'd complained of ear pain the previous day). She said that perhaps he had seasonal allergies, we should try medication for that and see if it cleared things up.

Tuesday, Phil went back to work. I managed okay with the kids, but I was exhausted and so slept as long as the kids did during naptime, which was a really long time that day (we were all sick). That's how I came to miss the nurse practitioner's urgent attempt to call me with Cassius' test results. He tested positive for parapertussis, which is like whooping cough junior. It's less likely to kill you or cause severe complications. It's also not vaccinated against (see: less likely to kill you). So I called the triage nurse on the night shift, and she referred me to the doctor on call, and the doctor sent in a prescription for antibiotics for both kids and told me to get the adults in the family to a doctor so that we could get treated too. So that's what we did the next day.

We are all highly contagious until we've taken five days of antibiotics. So certain things had to happen--or not happen. Phil called in sick to work through next Monday. We're avoiding social events. We had to cancel our annual 4th of July party for the first time in, um, well, since before we were married. Phil was very sad. I'm pretty glad that I wasn't planning on going to CONvergence, anyway. Parapertussis would be a nasty addition to the con-crud mix that usually brews at these large events.

So instead of a 4th of July party, we had a back yard picnic (Cassius corrected Phil when he called it a party). Just family, hanging out in the back yard for most of the day. Everybody came indoors for naptime, though. Cassius ran around in his red-and-blue plaid shorts and his caped Superman shirt, eating all the raspberries, swinging in the hammock, and generally having a great time. Phil grilled and posted links and analysis of his favorite heavy metal music of the year (his "ponies"). Theia crawled off the blanket we put her on a lot and generally required a whole lot of attention, but she appeared to be enjoying herself just fine. I ate and lounged in the hammock with Theia and watched House on my tablet and generally was kept rather busy by my offspring.

On top of all this, in a feat of rare and remarkable clumsiness, I managed to trip over a stool and fall in such a way as to sprain my ankle and bruise my knees badly, right on top of the scar tissue from my knee surgeries. Ouch. Ouch ouch ouch. Moving my ankle hurts. Going up and down stairs hurts. I am extra sad that I can't take ibuprofen because all the brands have lactose and Theia's allergic to it.

Other (better!) things have happened since my last diary update, too.
* I had a 4th Street (Fantasy Convention), about which there will be another few posts.
* I finished a short story that became unusually long! "You May Also Like Gas Masks" is over 12,000 words. Yikes.
* I finally figured out the part that makes my next notebook story work. Turns out the problem wasn't the mystery or the A.I. part, it was that I needed to figure out the character's spine: grief.
* I emailed a pro-paying magazine editor to ask for a different, less rights-grabby contract--and got it. Like a pro, oh yeah.
* Cassius is having nightmares on a regular basis. I feel so bad for him. He's also become very focused on figuring out when things (people, monsters, cars, etc.) are "bad."
* Theia has mastered an army crawl that gets her across the room in much less time than you might think.
* Phil has finished selecting what he thinks is the best music of the year for a Ponies disc . . . or two.
* I've been experimenting with an easy, delicious microwave (vegan!) fudge recipe. I am happy to continue experiments, I just need an unlimited supply of coconut cream, cocoa, and powdered sugar.

I would like to strangle the FSA/HRA administrators! I've been getting all these repeat bills from hospitals, etc. At first, I thought it was the provider's fault. Well, yes and no. If they don't fill in the account information properly (or our insurance doesn't pass it along properly, whichever), then when the FSA/HRA administrators pay, the money goes into a weird limbo instead of going to our account. For me and Cassius, our names aren't even on the payment. Phil's is, because the insurance is through his work. You'd think the provider could figure that out, but no. And the only account and invoice numbers are gibberish.

Apparently, what *I* need to do is click through the online payment portal to an entirely different page where I can change the invoice/account number manually to match the paper bill I received.

This is not something that I logically expected to have to do, nor is it intuitively part of the payment process.

Grrrr.

So now I have to request copies of the canceled checks from the FSA/HRA administrators, so that I can fax them to the providers, so that I can prove that, yes, they *did* get paid.

All because nobody included inputting/checking the account and invoice numbers as part of the step-by-step paying a claim process.

Strangling, I tell you.

I will exempt the nice customer service lady who was able to figure out what was going on and tell me how to prevent it in the future.

(I am of course happy to have good insurance, despite the hassles. Boy am I ever happy.)

Phil's working late Mondays these days--by late I mean until 9 or 10 pm. Today, this means I am indulging myself and eating Taco Bell for dinner and then going to watch Alice in Wonderland before it goes out of theatres. Yay, girl's night out! Yes, I am boring these days.

Also, I am currently hiding in the closed office that I share with 2 other guys during the day, with the door closed. My job officially ended at 5, you see, but the movie doesn't start until 6:40.

I have a great affection for empty spaces that are usually populated. After-hours businesses are like catnip.

***

This morning was unproductive, though, so I feel a bit guilty. Between extra work hours and busyness and in-laws, I haven't been getting much done.

This morning at least I had an excuse. Dentist's appointment. All went well, thankfully, while I was leaning back in the chair with sharp metal things poking at my gums. On the bike ride home, my bike got a flat tire, but fortunately I was only a block away from a coffee/biking shop, so I got it fixed pretty speedily and pedaled on home.

Why yes, I am having an immune system response to the flu shot. And to the tetanus booster. And having blood drawn + painkillers has made me a bit lightheaded. And I've been staring at the computer screen doing data entry for a day job project all evening.

On the other hand, looking at the snow outside, I'm quite happy I'm working from home tomorrow.

My 2-week-post-surgery checkup went well. There are no signs of infection at the incision sites. My range of motion is as good as can be expected at this point--I can't quite straighten it, and while I can barely bend it 90 degrees, it's pretty painful to do so. Sitting at a desk is going to be--interesting. And they're scaling down the painkillers, which I expect to be No Fun. They handed me copies of the x-rays and photographs of the inside of my knee, some truly gory stuff that I'll be posting shortly! The doctor also added leg raises to the knee exercises I'm doing, and believe me when I say they're no picnic. The really happy news is that I no longer need to use a knee brace or crutches; I can wobble around on a cane. I can carry things again! I'm not entirely useless!

In other news, tonight Phil (sort of) rose to the challenge of cooking CSA vegetables while I'm out of commission. Tonight's dinner: buttery dilled green beans. Recipe: Boil large pot of heavily salted water. Wash bag of beans, chop off tips and discard. Boil beans for 6 minutes. Add 1/2 stick butter, 1 small bunch minced dill weed, and salt and pepper to taste. Would probably be better with some lemon juice or bacon.

Oh, and a fudge bar--my favoritest frozen treat in the world.

x-post Fb/LJ--

The knee surgery to replace my ACL is scheduled for this coming Monday, and I can hardly think of anything else. It's worse because I know what to expect this time around (I had the other knee repaired about a year and a half ago). I have no energy, no willpower, and my impulse control is remarkably poor. I think all my strength and willpower is going to the not-freaking-out-about-imminent-surgery project. With mixed results.

I've dealt with work emails. I've gotten my teeth inspected and (my very first) cavities taken care of. I've bought skirts and loose-fitting pants for post-surgery work wear. My family visited us and we visited Phil's family. I went to the opera, the zoo, and the Walker Art Museum*. I went to a nice restaurant with Phil last night for the last time for a while. I have a bed.

There's no way I'm hitting my Vicesteed editing goal before surgery--I'd hoped to finish this draft, but I'm only to Chapter 20. And writing/editing/anything time will be pretty much non-existent for the next couple of months, mostly because I'll be too muzzy-headed to do anything quality. I suppose I could write short stories, because it matters less if I muck those up.

There are still other things I want/need to get done before surgery. I'd like to get my bike fixed, so I can use it for physical therapy during the recovery (once I'm somewhat mobile). I'd like to get the dishwasher fixed, but that requires one more part to arrive and then a scheduled appointment with a repair guy. There's a wedding, and the surrounding events. There's the MNSpec writing meeting and critique session (the day before surgery), that I still need to get critiques done for. I need to finish uploading and labeling at least the 2009 orientation photos. I'd like to go to the MoA and look for more post-surgery clothes and comfortable dress shoes and tiny earrings, but that seems a distant possibility. I'd like to go to Fire Roast Mountain coffee shop in the afternoon this weekend, but other events may interfere. Oh, and I need to pay bills and see about that property tax refund and...and...clean the house really thoroughly one last time, and--.



* While I'm still a walker. Get it?

It's never a good sign when the doctor says that part of what holds your knee together feels "mushy."

Today was spent being ferried to doctors. I made an 11:45 AM appointment (or thought I did) to see a doctor at a clinic I'd never been to before, because that was the only open appointment for today. Then I get there and this horrid, unkind nurse says that I'm a drop-in and don't have a real appointment and so I have to wait. And wait. And wait. And I can't sit comfortably with my leg in the immobilizing brace and it hurts and my painkiller wears off and I finish the book I brought and have nothing to read and it's just awful. I finally see the doctor after 1 PM. He pokes and prods and says one of the last things I want to hear--that he's worried about the ACL.

(There was also a funny intermission when the doctor thoroughly examined my healed ACL surgery with great professional interest in seeing the outcome of another surgeon's work. And discussed it with his assistant. "See this? This is what one of Dr. Riggi's surgeries looks like.")

I get redirected to my "usual" orthopedic clinic with a same-day, 3 PM appointment for an MRI, which is most fabulous. We pick up Taco Bell on the way. I have a nice, soothing MRI. Yes, MRIs are soothing. They have you lie down in a room with dimmed lights and a machine that makes repetitive white noise, and they tell you you can't move for 40 minutes. It's so hard not to take a nap. I'll find out the results in a couple of days, and then I'll know what's actually injured.

This morning I called work to say that I'd be busy with dr's appointments, making and hopefully having. Left a msg on manager's cellphone, since she wasn't answering. Got home and called to leave her a msg saying that I'd be in tomorrow. No response yet. I hope they didn't wrap up the project and not tell me, because that would be way more annoying than usual given how difficult it'll be for me to get into work.