Category: health

Was it the Booster Shot?

I don’t feel sick. At no time since getting the booster shot on Thursday evening at 8:00pm have I felt sick. I was a little alergyish on Friday morning, as I sometimes am when I first wake up, but I never felt sick.

Having said that, is the booster shot I got on Thursday the reason I am so wiped out today? I got the shot Thursday night, they say you might start feeling something after 12 hours. After 14 hours I was outside mowing the lawn, and I did that off and on for a few hours. As out of shape and grossly overweight as I am, mowing the lawn requires me to work my ass off. I did in fact work my ass off. Big time. Last night I got a good nights sleep, better than I usually get, and today when I got up and got my shit together I had to go out to run an errand at an actual store. Covid safety was not pleased with that, but I had a mask and I social distanced the shit out of the joint. Then when I got home I jumped right into my planned project for the morning: Cleaning the holy hell out of the shower. It took forever, and it also took a lot of my very fat and grotesquely out of shape self getting up and down off the floor. Much like the lawn yesterday, today’s task kicked my ass.

I’ve been a mess ever since. My legs are dead weight, my back and shoulders are killing me. I can barely move, and I am so tired I can barely keep my eyes open.

My question then: Am I still feeling the effects of the shot? If fatigue is a side effect, is that where all of this is coming from? I’m guessing not, but who knows.

My second question: If I am still feeling the effects of the shot, does it change my opinion on whether or not you should get the shot? Fuck no, it does not. Get the damned shot and stop being a science denying idiot. The shot works. Get it. Do not pass go. Do not collect $200. Do not put the health of your friends and neighbors in jeopardy. Get the mother fucking shot. End rant. Or as HTML would say if rant was an actual tag, </rant>.

Early Start

I was up early this morning and had some chores to do. Between taking the trash barrels to the street and going up and down the stairs to do laundry (the avalanche of Bellana clothes are finally folded and put away) I somehow managed to register 10 minutes of exercise without even having done any actual exercise. The activity app is off to a good start today.

I’m not sure what was going on, but the FaceID on my iPhone stopped working last night. It was working before I started cooking dinner but I noticed it wasn’t working just after we finished eating. Weird. It didn’t work once for the rest of the day. Right now? Working fine. I’m not sure what happened.

Today is my sister’s birthday. Being facebook free, I sent her a text instead of a post on facebook. I hope that is acceptable. I’m not sure what the protocol is anymore.

Speaking of facebook (giggles), that was kinda fun yesterday. Sure, it pulled the nazis over to Twitter for a while, but I managed to avoid all of that and just have fun reading the faux panic. Sounds like Zuckerberg lost about six billion dollars in stock value. I assume most of that was due to the 60 Minutes story Sunday night, but whatever. It’s all connected to his wallet one way or another. Granted it was just stock value, right? He’ll probably make it back today. It’s not like it’s real money or anything. It’s not like he’s going to need to take a second mortgage to pay his bills.

Okay, time to go to work. We need to get through the day so that we can focus all of our attention on the Red Sox beating the Yankees tonight. It’s a moral imperative. 8:00pm tonight, or thereabouts, we finally get payback for that friggin one game playoff back in ’78. Sure we beat them in 2004 and handed them the most humiliating playoff loss in major league baseball history (giggles), but still… I want one game playoff revenge. Suck it, Bucky Dent.

Baseball

The Red Sox are down 1-0 in the second. The Blue Jays are spanking the Orioles, the Yankees are scoreless, and the Mariners are losing.

Come on, Red Sox. Let’s get it together.

I asked my father if he has any clue what happens if we end in a four way tie. He hasn’t a clue either. I doubt anyone does.

We had a FaceTime call with Harry and we are hoping to have another with Bellana. Jen and I have both closed our exercise rings, which is awesome. We’ve got two episodes of The Walking Dead tonight (one from the main show and one from World Beyond), Jen and I are caught up on Ted Lasso and The Morning Show. I’m up to date on all the shows I’m watching on my own.

I haven’t played guitar at all this weekend. I need to, soon. I did get a flu shot yesterday. I’m qualified for a Covid-19 booster starting Thursday, so the flu shot was kinda like practice*.

The Red Sox are still down 1-0 after 2.5 innings. Not worried at all**.

And that’s where we are right now.

* No it wasn’t.

** Yes I am. I’m totally worried. I’ve been a Sox fan since the 70’s. The multiple championships since 2004 haven’t cured me of all of the heartbreak.

I’m Not a Vegetarian

On Thursday we had veggie burgers for dinner. Tonight we had a quinoa dish that Jen found that used tofu instead of meat.

Two out of the last three nights we’ve had a veggie dinner.

And I would have them both again. I’m not going vegetarian or anything, but every now and then I’m definitely open to dipping my toe into that pool.

You heard it here first.

30 Minutes in Hades

My exercise ring is closed. I am up to 32 minutes. Two minutes over my goal. I usually walk to close the ring. Today I changed it up a little.

I went with the bike. Oh sweet merciful universe did this thing kick my ass. It was in five minute increments wrapped around large chunks of time wallowing in the pain and suffering that riding the bike caused.

Still…. The ring is closed. The activity app can suck it.

More Nothing

Another lunch break with out much to talk about. We had plans to go up to Burlington to see the kids this weekend, but the weather is looking bad and thanks to Covid we want to stay outside so we’re looking at rescheduling. I guess I don’t quite need to have Bellana’s Fall laundry done tonight after all. I’ll still try though.

This is going to be broken record-esque. but my back and my shoulders and my legs are killing me and I haven’t don’t any of my exercise yet today. Not good, Robert. Not good.

I started a new candle yesterday. When I lit it again this morning I started a time lapse video. I’ll post it later today and you can bask in the glory of the glorious gloriousness of the candle burning time lapse iPad video.

This has felt like a super long week, but it hasn’t been particularly long at all. I think the start of October just makes everything suck. Not that September’s generally any better. Hang on to it as long as you can though. Don’t leave, September! Stay with me!

I haven’t a clue what I’m talking about anymore.

Okay, back to work. Lunch break is over.

Feeling Lost

I feel so weird right now. I feel lost, somehow. At home, I had a huge music project that I was completely wrapped up in and now it’s done. At work I got flattened by a runaway train that is now back on the tracks.

Now what?

Those two things have kept the CPU in my head running at close to 100% capacity for most of the last month. Now that I’ve moved on from both things my CPU is down to a much more normal operating level and that is all kinds of good, but the rest of my brain is less occupied than it was and doesn’t know what to do with itself.

I had an idea to take the 10 least awful songs from the last three months and redo them in the hopes of improving them. I listened through everything and picked the songs I want to try, but I’m already losing interest.

What should I do? Part of me wants to just spend a few weeks watching TV, but I should do better than that, shouldn’t I?

I just don’t know what to do with myself.

I found a bag of Hershey’s Kisses in the junk food closet. I just ate a bunch of them and now I feel sick. I guess I ate too much. Somehow that is symbolic of my mental state. Blah, barf.

Gore

Last Friday I burned my hand on one of the racks in the oven. I posted a picture. That night the burn blistered over. It wasn’t too gross, just a little unpleasant to look at. Jen said to me, “don’t pop that blister.” and I said in return, “no, I won’t pop that blister.”*

The next morning the shower had other plans. I took the band aide off, got into the shower, and next thing I knew the water had ripped that blister right off. Well that’s too bad. It looked pretty grody after that. I tried to keep it covered but somedays the band aides just wouldn’t stick. Yesterday was one of those days.

When I woke up today it had blistered over again. Finally. Heel, you sucker! Then I took a shower. Once again the water pressure ripped it off. Once again I didn’t see it happen. This time though… I looked down at my hand and it was covered with blood**.

I cleaned it up. Reverted to Boy Scout training and applied direct pressure until the bleeding stopped. I put some medicinal goop on it and got a new band aide to stick. All is well now.

Come on, you stupid injury. Scab over and heel, ya creep.

*Those may not be exact quotes. I tried to capture the spirit of the thing.***

**When I say covered in blood, that’s probably an exaggeration based on the fast approaching end of September and the imminent start of the month long Halloween season. Halloween is getting all like Christmas these days. Every year it starts earlier. HoHoBooHo.

***That is a direct quote. Dickie Dun, sports journalist covering the Charlestown Chiefs in the movie Slapshot.****

****Yes, I did put footnotes into my footnotes.

Describe Your Weekend

So Robert, why don’t you describe your weekend for us?

Okay. Saturday:

Sunday:

Notes: the hole in the stand hour streak on Saturday was due to my watch being on the charger. The hole on Sunday was due to being on a conference call, I think.