Salamander
Fire Walking

We had three inches of the most lovely "packing snow" you'd ever wish to see today. It started mid-afternoon, and in fact it is still coming down a bit now as I type this. I had to run out for hangers (Where do all the hangers go? The metal ones fall to the bottom of the closet and reproduce, I know. I like the nice heavy plastic ones though, and they seem to simply vanish. Maybe the metal ones eat them in order to build up enough fat reserves to be able to give birth to more metal hangers?) so I got to drive in it for about a mile. I had fun cleaning off my windshield by making snowballs of the accumulated snow there and throwing them at trees. I would have liked to take Cattitude outside for a little bit, but even though she's good for The Socialist, I was afraid she'd bolt on me. I emphatically do NOT want to have to explain to The Socialist why his kitty is among the missing when he returns.

And return he will. He left California Saturday morning. He called me from outside Little Rock tonight, and is hoping to make Tennessee before he calls it a day. That means he'll be home tomorrow night. *sigh* My last night of all-to-myselfness, and I didn't even know it! It will be good to have him home though.

I've noticed that I'm getting intermittent pains in my left side these past few weeks. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I'm not forming an ulcer. Because of the "portal hypertension" (high blood pressure in the liver because of the blockages) blood can back up in the stomach wall, forming a sort of varicose vein. These can then form ulcers. It isn't uncommon for liver patients to get small erosions like that, but they've got me on two separate medicines to prevent it. A low-sodium diet is bad enough, but if then end up sticking me on a low-sodium bland diet I may finally go stark raving bonkers.

I accomplished quite a bit that I wanted to in The Socialist's absence. I cleaned up the place, purged the refrigerator, got all the laundry done, got my filing together for 2002 taxes (damn, did I take a hit in the stock market or what?), straightened out the closets, got most of the bills paid and super-cleaned the bathrooms. I did not, however, get around to mopping the kitchen floor or vacuuming the upstairs. Nor did I take the recycling over to the bin at the far end of the complex - it was just to heavy for me to manage. I'm sure I'll hear about the recycling when he gets home. Ah well, one does what one can with what energy one has. Or something like that.

This week will be the first normal five day work week I've had since mid-November. No Wednesdays off, no Saturday's on, no first day of hunting season off [Palimpsest rolls her eyes at that one]. It's going to feel strange. Rumor has it that the overtime is going to go way down now too, though I'll believe that when I see it.

I was going to bake brownies for the guys in MIS tonight, but I ran out of steam. I can always make some tomorrow though, with an extra batch for The Socialist as a welcome home offering. Then again, I might just come home from work and collapse. It will be a Monday, after all....

Maybe I'll sneak out and make one last snowball to throw at something, and then I'm off to bed.