Off the Cliff

I know intellectually that six days is not the longest I've spent indoors, but I notice that even the knee replacement four years ago only kept me in for seven. Oh dear.

Dreamed of having to leave my dream!house at night to consult a professor? police detective? some kind of expert? because there was an unwrapped mummy!!! under my bed eww yuck. He sent his minions in and discovered that there were actually four of the things so I couldn't go home till they'd been disposed of. Turned on my other side and dreamed of going to what passed for the daycare to see my old friend L who was still business co-ord, but problems kept cropping up and she couldn't get away. So I wandered into the Infant section where my old coworker S was changing a baby. Neither L nor S have been at the DC since the turn of the millennium, or possibly before-- unreliable memory says both left in 1999-- but that baby I remember well. He had no off switch when it came to food and we always had to cut him off after three large bowls, to his extreme displeasure. His umm leavings were in proportion to his intake, which was bad enough when he was still in diapers but disastrous when it came to toilet training. Ah yes, I remember B well.

Woke in cold and started downstairs to see if it was just the thermostat set to moderate or if the vent had somehow got blocked. Furnace came on as I was still descending, but since I was there I steeled myself to check what damage holiday indulgence had wrought. A kilo, which could be much worse, but eventually I must stop drinking Black Russians and start drinking more water. And moving more somehow.

Anyway, went up to Loblaws for pharmaceuticals. No sane person shops on New Year's Eve but it wasn't that bad. Of course there were fields of ridged ice at several street corners and driveways, but that's winter in this here burg. Snow and snowflurries expected all week but will eventually get that book back to the library. And my backup lenses from the Extremely Expensive But Reliable company arrived in good order, so I now have eight weeks' worth, by which time maybe my preferred company will at last get the two boxes of 90 each that I ordered out to me. Knew I shouldn't have ordered two boxes-- absolutely tempting fate-- but I'm tired of having to a) order a month in advance every two months and b) wait on tenterhooks to see if c) they have them in stock or d) if they're on backorder and if so, e) will there be a postal strike that prevents them getting to me? This got old years ago.

Reading-wise, finished Silverlock. Mr. Google cannot in fact tell who everyone is, even though there's a webpage that has some annotations.
http://anitra.net/commonwealth/refindex.html

So the rain and the 6C temps yesterday removed the snow from the sidewalks as far as I could see, and the wind got up overnight and the temps dropped. So I was prepared for dry pavement today. The corners would still be pretty ridged, but easier to get over than Friday's slush. Only of course I woke up to more snow. This is clearly going to be one of Those Winters. Can only hope the Old Farmer's Almanac is right about December being the worst of it.

However snow on Friday did bring my nursing friend and her son to Christie Pits on Saturday, which is prime tobogganing territory, and they came up the street for a visit. A. has a car now, which is excellent news, because having a job and a kid who must be picked up from after school is extremely dicey with TO's unreliable transit system, especially in winter and especially in a winter like this one. She still has trouble with her rotator cuff: those things take forever to heal. But she brought me a box of chocolates and conversation,  both of which were appreciated.

Rearranging books the other day, thought I might as well do a reread of Silverlock, especially now that there's google to tell me all the references I didn't get at 17. The 60 year old paperback is falling apart-- the front cover fell off almost immediately-- so best to read while the reading is good. This counts as putting my enforced homestuckness to a useful purpose, though kanji and Greek would be more so. Five years since my last review of the former, and ohh but those Papuwa doujinshi are reminding me of that fact.

Woke to snow this morning, several inches/ cms of same. Went and shovelled steps, front walk, and mine and NND's sidewalks. Came in and drank a lot of water. Snow kept falling, snow on snow, mixed with ice pellets. Someone with a snowblower-- SND orGood Neighbour C-- came by and redid sidewalk and front path. Have just been out and did steps (delivery coming tomorrow or Sunday) and the next inch on walk and sidewalk. If the city sends bobcats out I may be able to leave in a day or two, but otherwise not. Also is supposed to be above freezing on Sunday, which will turn all this into a sloppy paradise. I may have to have recourse to grocery delivery.

This would be far more bearable if I didn't have bursitis or something up my left side, but I do. Sofa and beanbags it is.

She has turnèd, she has turnèd, she has turnèd (everyone to her own way)-- I mean, for the first time in 75 years I am actually *glad* for the solstice. Sympathetic magic: may the returning light bring a lightening to this dark world, and may I soon read that big, beautiful obituary. Why yes, I have frequently wished someone dead, whatever it does to my karma, and still do.

Lie-in dream today was of being at a spa/ onsen of sorts which was also the family cottage but enlarged, with my cousin F but also my sister, and an unpleasant woman I was supposed to share a room with. Decided I couldn't hack this, I was going back to TO, but couldn't find the owner/ o-kamisan to tell her this and the mostly Asian staff didn't know where she'd got to. Told my sister but she couldn't help. Told F, who was in a bathing suit, who said something about her dad (dead 50 years this month) taking me back but he was at their real-life cottage, two over from ours. Did I make it home? I think I may have-- vague memory of counting the cars on the 401 highway, which is not the way you get to the cottage, that's the QEW, a sink.

Hit the LCBO and have vodka and Kahlua to see me through the hols. Many white russians in my future, since the black ones rot my guts. Gov't money comes in early so I splurge on alcohol and food banks, though am accablée that the Muslim one seems to operate only on the west coast. Will no one  think of the Toronto delivery guys?

 I think I may have to invest in some ginkgo biloba because my memory is nonexistent these days. That may be because nothing much ever happens now: I go nowhere, I see no one, I sit at home and read, and then forget what I've read. But still: even in lockdown I registered events-- possibly because things like new roofs and surgery and queens dying aren't easily forgotten. The last three years though seem to default to which detective series I was reading, and nothing more.

I ordered six months' worth of lenses from my usual place and now, of course, they're on backorder and will arrive who knows when. I have five weeks worth left but there's also a week of holidays to factor in. So I went to the other place and ordered 30 from them, and hopefully that small an order can be filled immediately. If I ever get back to an ophthalmologist I might ask can I go back to monthlies at least. It would save a lot if money, not to mention packaging.

Me, mostly.

Item: I have an entry on my phone. Dec 22, 2:15. No idea what or who is happening Monday at 2:15. Presumably I knew perfectly well when I wrote that and didn't think I needed to add a name. My doctor, my dentist, and my investment woman all email me reminders when I have an appointment, and no one has. I hope I don't actually have to *be* somewhere at that time.

Item: a new bottle of ibuprofen with the usual 'press down and turn' opening mechanism. Could not press down hard enough to get the whatevers lined up enough to open. Elbows screamed at the very attempt. Did without ibuprofen until today up at Loblaws when I collared a clerk and got him to open it for me.

Item: my razor needed a new blade today so I opened up the cardboard package and then tried to figure out how to open the hard plastic case with the blades in it. There seemed to be a hinge at the bottom so I should be able to open the top. But I couldn't do it-- fingers and fingernails both too weak. Clearly it's time to move into assisted living. Eventually I broke off a piece of plastic and got a single blade out, resigned to going after the rest with a flathead screwdriver. Post-shower I looked at the case again and this time turned it over. The back is already open: you just insert the body of the razor into the slot of the blade and pull it out of the case. I knew this but of course had forgotten.

Otherwise: finished Lords and Ladies, and Carpe Jugulum. Currently on Maskerade. Object being to discover how many times Greebo uhh humanizes. I thought it was in three books, but maybe it's three times in two books.

Couple of Dr Priestleys, still not to the level of Desmond Merrions. One I figured out the murderer just because he was so obliging, though the actual murder method was John Dickson Carr levels of mechanical. The other was almost a reverse mystery, where you know who did it and then watch the detective figure it out. Ah well. Passes the time, at any rate.

Next up is Petty Treason, a Sarah Tolerance mystery. Regency A/U, I think. Second in the series, the first not being borrowable in the library system. If good, might be worth buying in ebook.

Will say it to have it said: I hate moving. I especially hate moving around the house. Outside is sort of OK because there's somewhere to go. But inside, doing housework, everything bloody hurts. I want only to sit on my sofa with my warm wool shawl around me and read and doomscroll on the tablet and essentially *not move*.

Have been making me do little housework things like dusting lampshades and tidying the pointless little things that have been sitting out since forever and moving fans back into closets until next summer so they don't accumulate dust, and the amount of sheer bloody Don'wanna!!! this involves is unbelievable. Because everything hurts.

Vacuumed the side bedroom this morning. If I finally swifter the kitchen floor, I will have justified my existence today, and I still don't want to.

Back in November I offered to take bro and s-i-l out to dinner and they said they'd get back to me. They got back to me three weeks later suggesting this week. Yeah well: this week we have cold and then snow and then rain, and I don't want to be out in any of that. So maybe in January, which might behave better than this month has.

Yesterday was sunny and frozen so I stayed in, certain that the slush ridges of Wednesday would have turned into impassable ice ridges in the -7C/ 19F windy day. Got shawarma delivered instead and tipped the brave delivery guy heavily. I mean, for all I know Mohammad Iqbal Hussain comes from Edmonton and laughs at what a Trawntonian thinks of as cold, but equally he may be suffering as much as the Indian guys. Today we were flirting with just at freezing so I went up the street. People had put salt down, sort of, so the ice ridges were starting to break up, but were still solid enough to catch on the wheels, leading to much heaving of the walker and snarling and swearing. Ah well. Life as a cripple was never going to be fun.

Loblaws says they'll get turkey roll in a week before Christmas. We shall see.

Then came back and took my ice scraper to the tracks of the six or seven houses up the street so there's now a clear stretch. Unfortunately I'm going the opposite way tomorrow. Library hold comes in, so. I should know not to put holds on things in winter, but December isn't usually this snowy.

Turns out the soft rubber protuberance on the back of my solar lights' solar panel is an on-off switch. Is covered up because panel is exposed to the elements. Lights come on, a bit wanly, partly because you need actual sun to power the thing and we haven't had much of that this month. But at least I now know it works.

The art gallery with the trompe l'oeil painting now has an artist who does houses in fresh acrylic colours and boy do I want one of those. I'm a suck for houses in paintings, so much so that people have commented on it. The three Yoshitoshi up the stairs all suggest houses with their verandahs; the Albert Franck my sister passed on to me when she moved into her apartment is a street scene; the fake Franck in the front room is a view of the back of some very Toronto houses; the Evening at Kuerner's Wyeth print in the bedroom has a house, the only light in that brown autumnal landscape; even the Foxfires at Musashino in the side room shows the far off thatch roofed houses, which many printings black out. Yes I have other prints with no houses (Hiroshige's lumberyards, Hasui's Magome, Petit's Mt. Fuji) but those synchronise with colour schemes. Houses are what I want. But I already have a large picture of a house, a watercolour that needs to be reframed except that, when framed, I can't see it properly. And those acrylics cost: 5000 for the smaller 12x16 inch ones, probably over 10,000 for the large ones. But still...

In other news, if one turns on the overhead lights in the middle room, one finds the ID fallen on the floor under the table and half underneath the carpet. So all is well on that front. My fridge does still leak if it's opened but that I can live with until spring. Got out before the worst of the snow fell and have vodka and coolers enough to see me through to next week, so shall hibernate until then.

Yes it snowed and no I didn't go out, even if the sidewalks kind of got clear by midday. Kind of. West side of street must have been salted, my side wasn't. Anyway.

Fridge started leaking water inside yesterday. Did it again today. Googled about, something that should drain in the freezer doesn't, caused by gunk or maybe ice though self-defrosting fridges shouldn't have ice. I cleaned the back of the freezer as best I could. Anything further they say requires taking the back of something off which no, not gonna do. Fingers crossed.

Have discovered that adding vodka to hot chocolate makes a lovely warming drink that doesn't upset my tum the way Black Russians do. Doesn't make me tiddly either but relaxes the muscles still. This may become my winter drink of choice.

At Loblaws on Friday a woman was handing out samples of Parma ham, which was so good I bought some from the deli counter. Asked for 200 grams, she accidentally cut me 250, which was a hideous price but hell, Christmas. And figured hell again, sheep lamb, and bought fingerling potatoes, Swiss cheese, and eggs, so that I can subsist on Savoyard omelettes for the next week. Loblaws fingerlings come in bags and are not to be trusted, but I can cut off the bad bits easy enough. Fiesta's are better and their Xmas music is nowhere near as annoying, but Fiesta also has cake slices and I must stay away.

Fuhreeezing cold today, with snow squalls and wind, so stayed in and did nothing but dishes and a dark load of laundry currently spinning in the machine. Did have to go out to sweep off steps and front path and bring bins back in. Luckily lid of green bin did not freeze in place as it has done before, but if this polar vortex continues I might try putting it up on the porch where the snow and ice can't get at it.

Puzzling thing: my feet are different sizes and ten years ago (good god) when I bought my Toe Warmer boots, I ended up buying two pairs to get a proper fit. The heel of the right or shorter boot has worn away so I thought maybe I'd use the longer boot instead with insoles and thick socks. Only I can't find it. Left boot, yes, but the right one has vanished, lord knows how or why. And of course the online pair I bought last year or whenever don't fit at all, but rub and pinch where they shouldn't.

At least my new ID card arrived. Much better picture than last time FWIW. But they still have my height as 5'8.5/ 174 cm. which is surely no longer true. I suppose that's what I put down when I first got the thing, which was also ten years ago or so. Really don't remember when, and of course COVID screwed up the record keeping. But if they kept to every five years, then it was 2016 and yes, I have shrunk since then.

There was a sprinkling of little sleet bumps on the front steps when I went out this morning for my blood draw. (Whingeing, unwilling, unrested, resisting, but it's snow all the rest of the week.) Nothing on the sidewalks, same as after yesterday's snow that washed away in the rain, and this was because the city had laid a carpet of salt down at some point. So I bumped down the street to a full waiting room, but various couples and families departed in short order. In spite of posted 40 minute wait times, I was in and out after less than a half hour. They had to take blood from my hand because my veins are now in hiding, and she had to press my hand to get the blood to keep pumping which seems odd, given how prominent the hand veins are. But that's done for another three months.

Bumped back home and swept the sleet from my steps and the salt to the side of the pavement. Will no one think of the dogs??!! Occurs to me that maybe there isn't a sudden influx of dog owners in the hood, just that I was always on a bike before and didn't notice them. Though I do still believe there are more dog owners now than before.

Yesterday's +3C feels like -3 was hideously cold because grey and windy. Make that -10C, and wore thick blue coat and gloves and wished I'd double-bagged them in my wool mitts because the fleece weren't cutting it. I bought pricey fleece ski gloves from Canadian Tired which also didn't cut it in cold weather and which of course fell out of the shallow pockets of my green coat so I only have one. Lesson learned: buy gloves from the dollar store only. Today was -3 but with sun and I sweated in the blue coat.  But I got vodka from the LCBO yesterday and began a new round of Project Tiddly.  Did weigh myself this morning and have neither gained nor lost in the last tennight, meaning not having pastry keeps weight down, so go me. And also stay away from Fiesta and its baked goods.

Got my water meter reading yesterday. They said I could add a photo of it if I wanted to, which was dicey because I needed three hands to do it (one for the flashlight, one to hold the tablet, one to click the icon) and I only have two. But got something, then went to the city's website and entered my info and meter reading and attach photo, and it wouldn't attach. OK then, reenter info, click on send, it wouldn't send. Ohhhkay, here's a phone number for reporting, call, sit through five minutes of useless information, press button for enter reading, get told mailbox is full. So much for that.

To library today to print my blood draw form. Guy says I can do it from my phone. Log in to library's wifi, bring up the DL, press print, phone does not try to find a printer but sits and snickers at me. Fine. Go to a computer, wait for it to load Chrome, why are library computers so slooow, get Chrome, call up webmail's login, enter my info, Chrome says the password is wrong. Enter it again, still wrong. Check password on my phone, yes it's the same one, try again, wrong password, three tries and you're out,  try again in fifteen minutes. Sit there glowering at computer, remember that I forwarded the email to my gmail account, call up gmail, login, there's my forwarded message, where's the link to the form? It should be at the bottom, where's the link? Could this be it? Yes!! Press print. Then go to printer, enter my library card number, enter my password, last digit doesn't enter but printer tries to print anyway. Can't. Go through it all again, enter password veeery carefully, printer prints my form. Success, I have slain the beast! but sheesh is this amount of faff necessary? 

And now I must once again go down to the lab only this time in the rain, or snow if I leave it to later in the week. However, today my water meter reading went through no problem, so go me.

I'd scheduled a cab to take me down to my appointment at Service Ontario but today was the day those No park signs spraypainted onto the street for the last week came into effect as little bobcats ripped chunks out of the pavement and then filled them up again with asphalt. When I went to check 90 minutes before my due time, cars were able to pass, but there was no guarantee the bobcats wouldn't start on a new section. So I cancelled my cab and hoofed it over to Bathurst (shall be oh so happy when the Christie elevator becomes operational) and so down to College. Where my normal up elevator was out of service but I eventually located one in the labyrinthine and badly signposted MARS building. Up to the street and over to Bay and eventually located the totally unsignposted wheelchair entrance, and by dint of asking a security guard, the minisculely signposted elevator down.

I was early because of course I was, but they called me fifteen minutes after my appointed time and I was out ten minutes after. Found my MARS elevator no prob, empty subway train to St George, and announcements that train would bypass Spadina station because of a police investigation. Well, I wasn't going north, I was going west today, so down to the line 2 platform, black with the unlovely youth of TO and their backpacks and their hockey sticks and their shoving and jostling and loud whoops of glee. Ah well, knew I'd hit the student rush hour, shou ga nai. But the westbound train comes in, I get on, and then a stentorian loudspeaker says EASTBOUND TO KENNEDY, THIS TRAIN IS EASTBOUND TO KENNEDY. Bref, all westbound trains were turning back at St George because the investigation was at the line 2 Spadina station. So forced my way back through the crowd and tried to locate the elevator which was on the far side of the sea of humanity, both sides of the platform. And may I say, guys who stand on the platform edge looking down the tunnel in case the train might come earlier than announced, blissfully unaware of someone trying to pass them from behind, are asking to be shoved off said platform. Made it to the elevator along with many other disabled types with walkers, and mothers with tank strollers, and the elevator showed no signs of coming, and when it did it was full of tank strollers who decided no they didn't want to get off after all. One or two walkers made it on, also an unlovely youth who slid past me before I could move and stood there looking innocently over my head. 

Got to the street eventually and then walked home. The one good thing being that Wieners was still open and I could buy fruit fly traps. Guy recommended fly paper but I've dealt with fly paper before and don't care to repeat the experience. So 8000 steps today and a temporary health card and the real thing if and when the post office agrees.

The odd thing being that both my health card and ID date from four years ago and I seem to remember going down to Bay St to get them, pandemic or no, but I have no record at all of doing so.

My blood draw luck deserts me once again. Early to bed last night was awake in good time this morning, so did exercises and stretches for what help they could give me and trundled, unmedicated, down the street at shortly after ten. To find the waiting room not merely full but with a line down the hallway and posted wait times of over an hour. Which, even masked, am not willing to do because the waiting room was full of unmasked coughers. Better luck tomorrow. Came home, breakfasted, and doped me up on lovely ibuprofen and paracetamol and in consequence am feeling, if not no pain, at least less than yesterday.

Also got daybook for next year from Midoco, though the clerk had to point out that the daybooks were by the entrance, not round the corner with the notebooks where they usually are. So that's ticked off the list at least.

Also went to Paupers for their lunchtime hamburger, which is less meat than the dinner version and hence more digestible. Paupers is not playing Christmas music yet, bless them, and is playing 60s and 70s rock. Could do without Sinatra but otherwise just a bunch of golden oldies.

Continue to read Miles Burton on phone and tablet, quite entertaining. Except certain of the cover art is unmitigated spoilers and what *were* the editors thinking,  passing a cover that actually shows the murderer and the murder method?

Wild winds blow in cold and glorious sun, and incidentally swept my porch clean of the ironwood's leaves that fall on it. But I still have fruit flies in the house, and upstairs as well. An irksome mystery which might be explained by having bananas in the kitchen. They're now in the fridge where they will blacken, of course, but might put paid to the flies.

Except when I went up to Loblaws for milk and a turkey sandwich, there were the fruit flies still. Maybe they just breed in the leaves.

Apparently the aurora borealis will be visible tonight in places where it's not raining, which is not here. At least the sidewalks were somewhat dryer than yesterday so all I had to do was wipe the wheels down at each stop, not poke into the housings with a screwdriver like yesterday.

Continue to throw out bits of the dead past for recycle. Am now into the bedroom boxes and their stash of APAs from the latter 90s, which left me feeling oogier than even the doujinshi do. There's a nightmare feel about aspects of those four years.  I know it took me a good year to get over the reverse culture shock and the loose-endedness of not knowing what I was going to do next. Dépaysée is what the French call it and what I was, even if I was also in my own pays. So glad those days are over.

The one thing I can't throw out are the original Takamatsu / Jan episodes of Channel 5, which ran in Animage. Yes I have the tanks and yes I threw out the other eps but those, obscure as they are, I need to keep. Hoping vainly that some day I'll figure out what's happening, though Shibata Ami will never tell me.

As for reading, I reread House of Many Ways since DWJ doesn't stick in the memory, and also Enchanted Glass, which I thought was her short stories but isn't. Several Desmond Merrions on the tablet and phone. Heir to Murder, A Smell of Smoke, Murder M. D. Dipping into the Leonardo biography but All Those Painters! besides the fact that it dates to 1988 and the author's speculation about the character of Da Vinci's mentor Verrocchio, based on his portrait, are nullified by the fact that said portrait is now firmly identified as one of Perugino.

Started The Place of Shells which has that 'translated from the Japanese' feel to it, because it is. But it led me down a rabbit hole looking at Soseki's Ten Nights of Dream, of which there is a bilingual edition on Kobo if I find my Japanese copy too obscure, and I do, which then led me to look at a new translation of Mon/ The Gate with an introduction by Pico Iyer, which I read. Iyer says it's not what Soseki says but the things he doesn't that count,  which means I will never read Mon, thank you, because I am not Japanese and can't pick up on stuff not-said when it's text. Iyer compares Soseki to Ishiguro, and I see what he means. He also compares him to Murakami and I disagree completely, at least where style is concerned. Murakami I find refreshingly straightforward. But he may have been talking about the haplessness of both authors' characters, which, well, maybe.

Though the sidewalks are oddly and miraculously clear. But plastered with sodden leaf carpets so no, staying in for the duration. Cleared steps and front path though back and elbows objected strongly.

Tried making lentil curry with disappointing results. My spices may have lost their oomph or possibly November allergies have killed my sense of smell, because even the fresh ginger didn't smell or taste very gingery. However, add couscous and reconstituted raisins, a sprinkling of cinnamon, and call it a pulao of sorts.

I shouldn't be having allergies because leaf mold is supposed to become dormant when the temps go below freezing. It has and they haven't, boo hiss.

 The upstairs tablet is an ancient beast (eight years old! Methuselah!) so no surprise when it wouldn't load Kobo. But it was last updated in '21 when it had conniptions and had to be restored to factory settings, so I DLed the newest version. And of course, as ever, the icons are too big and things are Not What I'm Used To and cat-nature me is disgruntled. And now it transpires that it won't charge past 72%. The old one would stop at 85 but I could get it bumped up to 100 usually. This one is adamant that 72% is all I'm getting. Oh, and it still won't take Kobo and it still won't let me add an input language to default American English.

OTOH it *will* finally give me word suggestions as I type. When I bought it the clerk said Samsung was feuding with some company so predictive text was unavailable. For all I know he was on crack and the feature's always been available, only I didn't know to look for it because it's squirreled away in a nonintuitive place. But anyway it's here now and will correct my typos for me unless they start with the wrong letter. Shall note that my phone doesn't have that tic, but phones are useless for typing on and I'm amazed that anyone can.

Hoped to get out today when the rain stopped but sullen clouds loured unmoving all afternoon, making it dark at 4, and nothing dried up. Maybe tomorrow before Sunday's forecast snow moan groan tremble.

Another white night last night. Finally drifted off well after 3 and was ripped out of sleep five hours later by a caller who at once hung up on me. And I was having such a nice complicated dream too, details of course irrevocably gone.  Something to do with plots and poitics in an imaginary country. Rolled over to go back to sleep-- I get up at 8:30 for nobody-- but couldn't. Thus spent the day awake and heavy-eyed and grouchy.

Grouch contributed to the current bête noir, which is people who press the 'audible signal only' button at intersections, thinking they're going to make the light change by doing so. I know people don't read signs but on days like today it irks me unreasonably. If I weren't a Torontonian I'd ask them 'why did you press that button?' and see what they had to say, but I am and I don't. Luckily or un-, the audible signal no longer sounds when people press it: which is tough on the semi-sighted. 

Thus accomplished nothing today beyond getting a scrip from the pharmacy and cooking up the (rarely come by these days) chicken livers in a ginger orange sauce. It's been so long since I've had them that I forgot my recipe calls for green onions to go with and didn't buy any, but I did add frozen, putatively Canadian, broccoli for extra iron. I hope it's not just Green Giant putting maple leaves on their packages but eyes were too gunky to decipher the print on the label.

This blog assures me that every November I sneeze and cough and run at the nose so my current waterlogged state is simply same old, same old. Any antihistamine or sinus meds I can find of course have Tylenol in them so it's probably just as well that my system has taken against alcohol. However, when I finally weighed myself this morning after six weeks of cowardice, I discovered that last month's overindulgence in Black Russians and crême liqueurs had no lasting impact and I'm actually down half a kilo. So must keep it up. Winter and its couch potatodom are fast approaching.

October is my favourite month and it's drawing near the end. Rain and wind, tomorrow and Friday, will put an end to most of the gorgeous colours: the yellow whatever across the street that glows so beautifully under the street lamp has lost half its leaves already. The gorious red maple out back will soon follow. And then comes the darkness, early this year: November 2nd.  So sad to see them go, even if November does have its moments.

Read through a bunch of Papuwa doujinshi yesterday prior to tomorrow's recycle pick up, which left me with the usual weird hangover. Is it the trip to a former mindset, the mental time travel, that causes the oogies? The counsel of the dead is not profitable to the living, even if it's one's own dead self. But I only had three or four djs to throw out after that and I don't want to waste a recycle day, so I went through the many bags I have stashed in a wicker chest, found the Saiyūki ones, and threw them out unread. There was a great falling off in talent between 1993 and 2001 as far as I'm concerned so I regret nothing. But the idea of doing that with the Papuwa ones is unthinkable. I must reread them all: they hold a portion of my soul.

Finished since last week are Cinder House, House of Many Ways, and Castle in the Sky. One Charles Lenox, An Extravagant Death, and two by John Rhode/ Miles Burton,  Death at Breakfast and The Secret of High Eldersham. The last of which was just a tad silly. The Badnasty has been feeding the villagers drugs at regular intervals for several years and manipulating them with mental games. Badnasty is disposed of. Detective says villagers will be fine now. I say villagers will be anything but. Detective would be a fool to settle down in High Eldersham but does, of course. And acquires a wife who, in subsequent books, must go on many visits to friends so detective can continue to detect.

I have another Lenox in ebook and a couple more Burtons on Kobo if they will consent to show. Neither my Kobo Burtons or Rhodes wil display on my phone. I should forge on with that biography of Da Vinci except the author wants to talk about Freud's ideas of Da Vinci instead, even as he admits Freud was working from a mistranslation of the Italian and was therefore All Wrong.

Sinking in a gentle pool of (checks label) crème brûlée craft cream liquor. After all, why not? Why not get rush tickets for Orfeo ed Euridice at the Canadian Uproars Co.'s Saturday matinee? Or even just order a ticket? Well, because rush seats are SRO at the back thus perfect for walker users. But if I can see where the seats are, might buy a full price one even with blocked sightlines. I know I've been at the Four Seasons Centre at least once-- s-i-l's partner flaked on her for I forget what opera a good eighteen years ago and she took me, so I know the acoustics are better than the quondem O'Keefe's. And if I'm to be chained to a walker for the rest of my life, it's time I learned to work around it.

Otherwise did little bursts of housework today so a couple of foot-dragging things got done, so go me, I suppose.

Did get out in the grey humid morning and cleared the first and last third of the back garden path of its leaves, vines, and cherry pits. Not nearly as overgrown as it should be, and it can't be NND clearing stuff, though they do mow as much of my yard as they can get to. Oliver had fits until someone-- not SND-- came out of the garage and told him to stop growling, and subsequently took him inside. Oliver will bounce up to his back porch and stand there barking at me, tail going like a metronome: except SND keeps her screen door open and Oliver's tail bangs on the aluminum part. You'd think this might discourage him-- it can't possibly be comfortable-- but Oliver after all has small dog energy/ lack of brains. I don't know if two years old is still a puppy in chihuahua terms, but Oliver definitely is.

My back however did not have fits-- trust me, am grateful-- but footing as ever was uncertain. Still, sodden from the exercise, I lugged a full bag down the alleyway and up onto the porch, safe from subsequent gales and downpours. Which commenced thereafter, stripping more leaves off the trees. Have put my recycle box out and hope this time the rain will get to clean it somewhat.

Then inspected my tree trimmer which needs to be assembled but not by me, because my concept of spatial arrangements, and my elbows, are not up for Remove wingnut, line up something, return wingnut, tighten, and try to figure out how the cord goes. Maybe Prof Islamic Studies can do it, and borrow it for trimming his magnolia.

Then strained my soup stock and dumped the bones and celery ribs in the compost bag. No idea what I'll do with my stock. Probably just freeze it.

Yeah, so, the upstairs tablet will not DL any new languages. They all reach 50% and hang. And if you somehow deleted English from Input Language (but how? I didn't even realize it existed) you are left with a tablet that will only write in Japanese. Oh crap. Maybe buy another tablet? but I can't google Samsung tablets in Canada because, yanno, Japanese.  Noodle around in the language settings and finally see Restore factory default. Which do. So now the tablet is in English again, and only English, but fine. I don't write in Japanese much anyway.

I am of course flush with money right now and a new tablet would only cost one month's worth of property taxes. But my eyes have been objecting to my glasses, both dollar store cheapies and hideously expensive good ones, so maybe it's time to have my eyes tested again: and that too will cost a month's worth of tax and more. Of course this would happen when I just snagged 120 days' worth of lenses. *And* I have a crown coming up next year which insurance won't cover, and there's the cherry that must be trimmed for many thousands of dollars, and so economic prudence is advised. Henh. Maybe it's just allergies.

It wasn't supposed to rain all day but of course it did. Got out to the library with my rain cape for a couple of holds and a sandwich at Pour Boy. Pour Boy has the virtue of always giving you lots and lots of vegetables whether you want them or not so I don't feel too guilty for having had bread (whole wheat FWIW). But no way I was getting to the laundromat this afternoon so might try tomorrow, though Saturdays are not optimal ever. Otherwise not till Tuesday and maybe not then. October rains OK.

Physio says the recurring and random pain in my foot might be a nerve gone wonky and advises cushioning on the sole to take pressure off. Evidently these things will go away on their own so all I need is patience.

Recycle tomorrow and having gone through most of my surplus manga, I began throwing out paper. Stacks and stacks from the late 80s and 90s, APA articles and Japanese lessons. And no, they will not come in handy some day. I give up on Japanese grammar: kanji are enough to be going on with if I ever get back to them.

But someone somewhere mentioned the book they learned ancient Greek from, a reading course that seems to give you basic grammar at the end of each section but no vocabulary at all.  It's on archive.org and delineates the post-mortem adventures of a boy called Themistocles and, well, I discover that google will define the words for me even if Chrome won't give me the Greek alphabet to do it in. Keyboard will only switch to one language other than English, and I need mine for Japanese. But I might take Japanese off the downstairs tablet and see if Greek will work there because downstairs is where I'd be reading Themistocles.

Otherwise have finished only a Charles Lenox, the latest Flavia Albia, and a couple of mysteries by Cyril Ten-names. Have Walpole and Leonardo desultorily on the go and more Cyril on the tablet,  though it seems I like Burton more than Rhode, when I thought it was the reverse.