#480 Good, Middlin', and Bad

Busy day today. Good - A few things accomplished. Middlin' - A lot of hurry up and wait. Bad - A lot of pain.

I was awakened this morning by a call from Piper. We'll meet Thursday, early afternoon, to finalize the plans for balancing the portfolio. He wanted to make it lunch, but I have too much other stuff to do that day. Puttered around, washed hair, etc.

Then across the river to the mall to the computer expert to get the scholarship application printed. He also made 30 copies of the 2-page document, and didn't charge me a cent for anything.

That all went so quickly that I was left with an hour before the appointment with the lawyer about the easement, not enough time to go home. So I ate a late lunch/early dinner at what happens to be Piper's favorite restaurant. They have things like $9 appetizers that turn out to be a whole meal. The full entrees there are simply too big for me. I don't understand why they charge $18 for a huge loaded plate. Why can't I get half the food for half that price? Frankly, I think it's a secret way to increase profits. It's like two people eating in one seat, requiring half the waitstaff.

Even with just a shrimp, spinach, and cheese roll appetizer, I ended up doggying half of it.

Then to the lawyer. My appointment was for 4 pm, but I got there at 3:45, and he took me right in. He filled out the tax forms for me (the state apparently considers the granting of an easement to be a sale). I had found a serious error in the survey of the easement - the way they had it written, instead of going up the edge of the lot, the line went across the middle of my front yard and into the neighbor's yard. They had an "E" where it should have been a "W", so the line veered. A little whiteout and a black pen fixed that. He also added a paragraph that maintenance was to be done at no expense to me, and answered my concerns about how the easement contract specified compensation of $1, and there was a separate contract for the brush clearing, which was to be the REAL compensation (if I had to hire someone for that, it would be at least $2,000.) I was out of there by 4 pm, and he didn't charge me a cent.

I'm beginning to wonder why I didn't get a free lunch.

I was left with an hour before I had to go to class, not enough time to go home. So I went to the classroom (an hour+ drive, at rush hour no less) early and spent the time collating and folding the scholarship forms.

The class was 4 hours long. I wasn't sure I was going to make it through it. For some reason, after a few years of hurting in only two or three places at a time, today I hurt all over. It seems to have started last Friday, with pain in my left foot and ankle, left hip, back of my neck, and temples. I've been taking glucosamine condroitin (spelling? I'm not about to look it up!) on May's recommendation. She says it did wonders for her joints, but it takes a very long time to kick in. I also recently increased my calcium supplements on the advice of my doctor. I'm thinking maybe neither of those are good for me with my problems.

I don't metabolize calcium very well, and it can build up in deposits in my joints, and as "gravel" in my muscles. I think that's what's going on in my foot, ankle, and neck. (Yeah, I'm limping on BOTH feet today.) Oddly enough, the deposits usually eventually dissolve themselves. Ultrasound seems to break up the stubborn patches.

Today, in addition to the foot, ankle, and neck, I had screws twisting into my temples and between my eyebrows, my breastbone was on fire, the middle of my back kept biting me, my lower back ached, the left hip burned, lower right abdomen was cramping, and ... whatever. It was so bad I had to do the relaxation breathing several times during class.

There are only three of us in this class, and when the pain got bad I had to keep forcing my eyes to stay open. Didn't want Roman to think I was falling asleep. I kept slumping, and that would set the back off. I forgot there was a guy sitting next to me, and several times I slipped my hands under my sweater and inside the back of my pants to massage my lower back. I wonder if he got a show. After class, Roman said I seemed to "be out of it tonight." Little does he know....

The temple stuff frightens me. I've heard that tic doloreaux can come back, and I never ever want to see that again. I had it on both sides, 4 to 8 20-minute episodes a day, for 18 months. Mine was so severe the doctors at first refused to believe that's what it was. (It was so severe because it was due to a stretched and twisted brainstem - not the usual cause.) And I can't take pain pills stronger than plain aspirin.

When I got out to the van, a little after 10, the van thermometer said 9 degrees. Driving up route 9, I started shivering so badly I couldn't hold my head still (and I was wearing the warmest of my fox jackets!) and it was messing up my neck even more, not to mention that the head shaking was so violent I couldn't see to drive, so I stopped in Barnes & Noble, and bought some books on HTML and web site design. I keep registering for the web site design class, but apparently I'm the only one who wants it, and they keep canceling it, so I'm giving up. I'll figure it out myself, thank you.

Like I said - a good, middlin', and bad day.

I'd like to sleep in tomorrow, but I also want to take more paper to recycle, which has to be done by noon. Compromise - I won't set the alarm.

~~Silk