Two Thoughts

Two brief topics for this more-or-less lunch time post.

First:

I screwed up. As often happens, three hours after I finished breakfast my stomach was starting to ache because it was too empty to deal with itself. I had a snack. Peanuts. Lovely. I then… had another snack. Some sugar free cookies. That was a mistake. Not because I had a bad reaction, but because I was stuffed and only about 90 minutes away from lunch time. Now here we are, 10 minutes into my planned lunch break, and I am still stuffed and can’t see myself having a real lunch. Dumb ass. You’d think after a year and seven months I would know what I can and cannot handle in terms of between meal snacks. Nope. I screwed up. 

Maybe I’ll try to eat a lunch-esque something or other about an hour from now. I don’t have any meetings so I won’t have any problems with work scheduling, but I also don’t want to ruin dinner. We’re planning on having some gnocchi tonight and I want that to go really well. I wonder… do we have any meatballs in the freezer? Hmmmm… we’ll see.

Second:

Social media. Shit. Why can’t I just stop with the social media stuff? I mean, I post to this blog 123612764 times a day, why can’t that be enough? What the hell is wrong with me?

I need a twitter alternative. There are a lot of decent platforms, but none of them are quite good enough. I should just back one of them and post there 2496723457 times a day and fool myself into thinking I’m having fun with it. It will be a bald faced lie, but I don’t mind.

So which should I go with? There are three that I am kind of using a little bit. 

  • Mastodon
  • Threads (which makes me sick because it’s a facebook product and facebook is just as slimy as twitter)
  • BlueSky

Mastodon is good because this blog cross posts there. Threads is good (even though zuck is fucking evil) because there are a lot of people that I followed on other platforms that I am following there. BlueSky is good but… I really don’t know why. Probably just because I sort of use it, I guess. 

Culinary Experimentation

It’s lunch time. I am running two culinary experiments today.

One: I cooked a hamburger in the air fryer.

Two: Sugar free ketchup. Yeah, you read that right.

Short term results. First, the hamburger is SUPER greasy. That’s a surprise. Second, the sugar free ketchup sort of tastes like ketchup. Again, surprise. It’s only been a couple of bites but so far it’s not disgusting. Shocking.

Lunch Break

If the weather would just cooperate and stop raining once in a while, I would spend my lunch this way more often…

Oh my goodness, does this cheap, frozen burger patty taste goooooood. It’s four ounces and I don’t know if I can eat the whole thing, but it is so gooood.

Also, is it hot enough for ya?


ADDENDUM: An hour or so after posting this I am happy to report that my tiny little surgically altered stomach and I were able to eat the whole hamburger and a handful of french fries I had on the side. I am pleased with the whole experience. I’m also feeling very full right now. Not quite stuffed, but close. I really want a glass of water but I still have to wait 42 more minutes before I can drink anything.

Don’t Do it Again

The last time I was in the office I sat at the same desk I’m sitting at right now. When I left for the day I forgot my laptop charger and had to drive back in the next day to get it.

Robert… moron… whatever you do… don’t forget the damn charger again, m’kay? Forgetting your laptop charger is bad.

On a mostly unrelated note, all of this extra working from the office stuff has thrown my personal, internal calendar into complete chaos. I have been 100% convinced all day today that today is Friday. Guess what. It’s not Friday. Not even close. Tomorrow is Friday. It’s just plain old Thursday.

I was hoping this weekend could be a total downtime weekend. I don’t think that’s possible. I want to finish hanging the blinds and curtains and make the last couple of changes to the bed room setup. I also want to put together the tent/shed thing we bought for the back yard. Unfortunately it’s going to rain all weekend so that’s out. I have four songs that need to be finished by the end of the weekend, so there will be music in the car and at home. I still have to finish writing two of those four songs. Way to wait for the last minute, Robert. Dope. Next month’s music plan is a full 10 song album in a month deal using my new King of Tone overdrive pedal which I haven’t even plugged in yet. Dope.

It’s looking more and more like I will be able to work from home for the second half of the day. Fingers are still very much crossed. My stomach started acting up about half an hour ago but it was just one of those, hey dope you are hungry stomach aches. I ate a snack and now I am fine. I won’t get home until well after 2:00pm so I am not sure what to do about eating lunch. I’m hoping for some chicken and maybe some french fries, but I don’t want to ruin dinner. It’s crazy how reliant I have become on being able to cook lunch and dinner at decent, routine times, and how shuffling those times even a little bit messes me up.

I am hoping I’ll be leaving the office at about 1:45. Fingers intensely crossed. I wanna go home. Just don’t forget your charger, you dope.

Another Absurd Day

This week… I just can’t win. What the hell?

TMI is on it’s way. You’ve been warned.

I mentioned earlier that I woke up with a stomach ache today and didn’t really know the cause. By the time the clock was approaching noon that issue was more or less resolved. I wasn’t 100%, but I was okay.

At 12:02 I started the process of taking my afternoon Calcium Citrate dose. Two pills. I had eight ounces of grape flavored water in my water bottle. The plan was to take the two pills but spread it out over 20-30 minutes or so and to drink that whole eight ounces. I had the last sip of water at 12:38 and all was well.

Or so I thought.

A couple of minutes later the foamies started. I was spitting up left and right. I feel so sorry for the little trash barrel next to my desk. There were bigger nightmares to come though.

The spitting up kept getting worse but it was topped by the gagging. Really. Gagging. I started yacking up grape juice. Not a lot, just a bit here and there, but it was awful and it was gross. The longer it went on though, the more grape juice was coming up. Make it stop, please! I don’t know how much came back up, and I’m sure it wasn’t the whole eight ounces, but what the hell, digestive system? It was water. Water!

It stopped around 1:10 or so. It lasted about half an hour. It’s not the first time something I ate came back up after a little while, but it was very much the worst experience yet. I know this post is living in TMI land, but I just had to vent. I was well enough to start lunch at around 1:45. I had another short foamies episode an hour later, but it cleared quickly. Maybe my rebuilt stomach just had mercy on me.

What a day.

What a week.

I need a vacation.

Discharge Tomorrow?

My father has been in a rehab hospital for weeks now. Today we got some good news. He is very likely coming home tomorrow. We’re not 100% sure, but it’s looking that way. Oh, what a relief.

Changing the subject, dinner last night was meatballs and gnocchi. It was delicious. Today for lunch I had leftover meatballs. Again, delicious. I had scrambled eggs for breakfast and they gave me a little trouble. Not a lot, but enough to make me pause for a while in the middle of the meal. Lunch? No trouble at all. 3.9 ounces of meatballs without issue. Oh, what a relief.

I think I have one more person to get an xmas present for. Not sure when I am going to take care of that. Tonight after dinner maybe? Depends on what else is going on. I should try to play guitar tonight but I kinda don’t see it happening. I should do what ever needs to be done outside of the house today though, as we’re going to get spanked by a huge storm over the next couple of days. Yeah, I should go out tonight. Shit. I don’t want to. Oh well.

I really want to go out to shoot some pictures tomorrow. I don’t think the storm will hit until later in the day. I should have gone this morning though because it was sort of sunny and tomorrow will likely be cloudy. I wonder if the weather will be clear on Saturday. Should I go to the ocean for sunrise on Christmas Eve? That would be fun.

Okay. Lunch break is over. Clicking that little blue publish button now. Until next time, my reader(s) and only friend(s).

Lunch Break Flake

I had two ideas for things to do on my lunch break today. I am not going to do either one.

  • Thrift shopping for manual film SLRs on the cheap
    • The Salvation Army store in Salem, NH is apparently only open M-F 10am to 5pm meaning I will never be able to get there unless it’s on my lunch break
  • Take one of the cameras (probably the digital) out into the woods behind the house to check out a couple of huge fallen trees. Nature photography, babie. Yeah!
    • I think the main reason I am not outside right now is ticks. I would have to put on longer, heavier socks and maybe boots and shit like that and I just don’t wanna.

Instead of doing those two things I am sitting at my desk typing this here message to you, the universe.

I’m actually struggling with lunch today. I don’t know what I want. For the first time since before the surgery I am kinda tired of the handful of mini-meals I’ve been eating. I wasn’t in the mood for any of the usual suspects. Chicken, Tuna, Eggs… nothing. I made myself 3.9 ounces of chicken salad but I really don’t want it. I am just eating it to get the protein.

What do I want? Who am I?

Unrelated note: I read that CVS takes 7-10 days to develop your film and return it to you. Today is day 11 since I dropped off the first roll. One YouTube video on beginning film photography said it takes two weeks. Is the YouTube video more accurate than the store? Stay tuned and find out. Or, CVS can just give me my friggin’ pics.

ADDENDUM: Screw it, I thought. I am going to check out that spot in the woods. I grabbed my camera and opened up the bulkhead (which is right next to my desk), and saw that our next door neighbor was hitting golf balls into the woods, as he sometimes does. Shit. A 10 minute photo-op is not worth getting beaned in the noggin’ with a golf ball. Maybe tomorrow. Ticks be damned.

Bite

Sonofabitch.

Yesterday, while eating lunch, I bit my lip. It swelled up like you wouldn’t believe. It hurt like a bastard. It took all night for most of the swelling to go down. It was still sore this morning.

Wouldn’t you know it, I bit my lip again during lunch today. It was exactly the same spot. All the swelling is back. All the pain is back. Two pints of blood are gone. I’m feeling really lucky that I brought some paper towels with me today because I needed them to mop up the gore.

Stop doing that, asshole.