Helenka, Queen of Outer Space

Okay, let's get serious. These old broken feets aren't going to be tripping the light fantastic. But, after my oh-so-needed pedicure, I could have … er … danced all night!

I set off for the mall at 11, wearing a fce mask for the first time. It wasn't too horrible, as long as I didn't exhale through my mouth. I was really early but that was okay. Right now, I have pretty silver toenails with sparkles on top. Why do you ask about my age?

After that, I picked up some supplements and powder at the drugstore. Ha! It'll be a long time before I wear powder in the sweltering heat. I only had shiny eyeshadow and black mascara on. Not even lipshine because I didn't want the inside of the mask to get goopy.

My final stop was the supermarket and it was almost a disaster. Why? Because they moved all sorts of things around. I bought salad fixings, grapes, yogurt (hve no idea what flavour). buns and cheddar slices. And grapes. Abd then gad to wait a very long time for my bus but it was early. The driver carried my tote in and when we reached home, Things are ly weird; because of social distancing, there can be only one client at a time, so he rushes around making multiple trips.

When I got it, I collapsed. Drank lots of water. I'm really happy for the distraction of summer repeats of some shows. Watched Bull and Young Sheldon (one of my fave Trek-inspired epis). Right now, I'm wearing a champagne lace and satin nightie I haven't worn for nearly two decades; but, when you need to do laundry, just about everything is acceptable. What is not acceptable is having lousy sight tonight (gee, it had been terrific at 5 this morning). But I'm till trying to read my latest library book.

Finally, I was surprised to receive another beautiful card from my fairy godmother Marilyn. It included Kilmer's famous Tree poem. I think I'll send her a snippet of the Reversebang story I wroke that referred to it. Uh … tomorrow.

It was high time I got a break when sleeping. So, the trick is to take my pain pills and muscle relaxants immediately before heading to bed. Which is what I did at 2 a.m. And I slept all the way to 10:40-ish!!!

I'd also had my dose of silly sisterhood re May the Fourth, beginning with a hilarious exchange of text messages with Jan before midnight last night and continuing with R.S. sending both a text message and then an email this morning. I tried contacting her, wanting to know when it would be a good time to call her, but got no reply. Sigh.

After a late brekkio and pills, I had what is becoming my customary nap. Unfortunately, today was not a good vision day. Everything is ghostly white against a snowy background. Yuck. So even my TV watching was affected. Both MacGyver and that raucous music video masquerading as The Rookie were sad, but I had trouble understanding what was happening on the latter show. Still, I was very happy in he evening as Ken Jennings presented the very first Jeopardy! show on which he appeared. Coming up tomorrow will e a repeat of the GoAT tournament, so I know I'll be enjoying that.

I have to remember to call my eye doctor tomorrow to see if I still have an appointment next Monday. Who knows?

So, this morning I stayed up until 3:30 a.m. reading. Such an improvement. NOT. My brain registered my phone vibrating, so I woke up. It was the admin of my meals provider. I phoned her, listened to her request, and turned down an opportunity to be interviewed over the phone by CBC Radio (the national broadcaster). After insufficient sleep and a growly voice, there was no way I would have felt comfortable or eloquent enough to talk about the provider.

I was thrilled to discover that my excellent sight had not diminished while I was sleeping, so I quickly got to watching last night's ST: Picard, the series finale. I guess we should accept it as a movie in serial form. And, yes, I cried. There were some excellent lines I'll have to write down.

I continued reading the book that ate my brain. As for the blind group, I sent a personal email to the delightful young woman who's been coming to Canada from Ireland a couple times a year and staying. Turns out, she's still in Canada and has no way to get back home. And now she can't go anywhere. And, just now, I received a late night phone call from Janet who moved out of the city to a neighouring one. She was checking up on me! Awww.

With a wee sense of paranoia, I checked my bank account and sighed with relief to see that my pensions had been deposited today. Not that I can spend the money easily as it was reported that a driver for the grocery delivery chain had contracted Covid-19. Okay, back to raiding my fridge!

Anyway, I think I'm going to stay up and watch tonight's MacGyver.

Hmmm. I wonder if that's going to become the new word for 2020. Anyway, it's becoming more evident in my life. The libraries closed yesterday and today I received confirmation that our book club is cancelled for the 25th. I've suggested we could still hold it using conference calls, so we don't miss out on at least staying in touch.

Sent out an email on behalf of the blind group. Some sister chapters are appreciating our leadership on this matter.

So, for some more positive news, I woke up briefly at 7:37 but then talked myself into sleeping until 10:40. That was a relief. As Brian and I will be having a huge lunch tomorrow, I ate tomorrow's brekkie today (roast chicken) so I can have the lighter fish'n'chips tomorrow morning. Speaking about food, you know the joke about not know how to boil water? Well, today I flunked making sparkling water! I'll have to ask Brian how to tell I'm done, other than to have Niagara Falls.

The rest of the day disappeared in a flash. A bit of TV here (felt enough clarity to watch ST: Picard. Then I watched my judge and game shows in the evening. I'll have to watch the rest tomorrow.

Despite the stupidity of waking up at 6 - AGAIN!!! I managed to have a very full and productive day. Ergo, I must be amazing. Let me count the ways (::snickers::).

1. Finished my second fic for "Romancing McShep" and posted it in the nick of time.

2. Figured out and solved the colour/ghost problem in my saved documents. How? Well, I C&P'd the content of one and sent it to myself as an email. Then, going into the font colour icon, I discovered that Windows, in its infinite not-wisdom, had changed the way that colours are displayed. Apparently, between the last update and two successive power failures, yellow had changed - to dark red!!! No, I don't have any idea why or how. But I returned to the original docs, corrected the colours, and was back in business. And I'd done it all very calmly. Yay me!

3. Did another load of laundry.

4. Had a delightful conversation with Brian as he was walking verrrry briskly along Carlton/College from the big Loblaws to Kensington Market. I told him I'd fixed one thing and then he invited himself over to my place next Saturday to install a new browser that might be a better fit than Edge. Yes, please! We can also order Swish and talk about a new phone for me.

5. Charged my new electronic magnifier for the recommended five hours. Now I need to send in the warranty.

6. Had enough decent vision that I watched an extended epi of ST: Picard and MacGyver, both of which were terrific.

The only down was getting my ride times for tomorrow and absolutely groaning. As I was in agony today, I can just imagine what the rides will feel like. ::groans in advance::

Bit of a tossup. I'm just a zombie now, but at least there's power. And, now, I'm going to be walking around with my flashlight. Good thing it hadn't happened when I was in the shower. ::shudders::

So, with the wide expanse of many hours, I read. I also imported (manually) one of my more unusual BtVS stories which makes me feel competent and compassionate as a writer. When cleaning up the emails, I also found out that one of my fave stories, coincidentally written exactly five years ago, was chosen to be in a collection of stories one didn't want to lose. Aw, shucks.

While I still had sight, I watched last night's Picard Holy moly, is no one who they appear to be? Also watched my usual daily shows and a smished MacGyver because of the second power failure. Well, I can make up the missing minutes using Restart tomorrow.

I think I need to go to bed soon. Time for pills to kick in. I do not need a repeat of last night.

Not when I get a leisurely start to my day, have brekkie, need to lie down when the pain began its assault on my torso, watch some TV, then get ready for a quickie conference call between the Prez, the former FB admin, another member of the blind group and myself so that she and I could take co-ownership (am I half Queen?) of the FB page. I don't know how it's going to work, because it makes more sense for me to have the posting authority, especially if I'm just C&Ping my outgoing emails. Oh, well, we'll see.

After the 52-minute call ended, I was able to relax. Watched Young Sheldon and an outrageous Will&Grace. I also had a lovely surprise when I checked my Friends' Request on FB. I won't say who, but it's somebody I've admired for a long time. Too bad it should happen when I'm relieving the pressure of writing to a deadline. But, speaking of deadlines, I have to finish my McShep fic so I can post it tomorrow. And then I'll feel all warm and fuzzy.

Okay, blondie, go relax some more. Or read or something, because your vision is crisp this evening. Speaking of crisp, brrrrr. We're supposed to have a cold-weather emergency tomorrow. Them's dirty words to this blonde!

So I didn't go to bed until - eek - 4 a.m. Don't ask what I was thinking. Somehow I managed to sleep until 10:30. What a relief. Oh, wait, I shouldn't expect that … not when my fingers were throbbing from arthritis. Sigh.

After finishing the SGA fanfic, I'm now mired in a longish NCIS one. Kept the French station on for more of the day. Apparently, Saturday is a casual day where perfect enunciation and a deliberate pace goes out the window. In a chat during the afternoon, I kept hearing "WAY" a lot instead of "WEE" (the correct pronounciation of the word for YES).

Otherwise I watched my game show repeats abd lost things in the dark as my vision was lousy. Sigh. I'll look for my steel bottle tomorrow. But, now, a bit more reading - not too much - and bed.

Apparently, I sleep like a blissed-out baby when it's snowing. I hate the stuff and it was particularly dangerous out today, but I had a wonderful sleep. I opened my eyes at 7, noted the time and rolled over. To my surprise, I'd fallen back to sleep quickly, roused by the alarm at 7:35. Wow! Even better, I was in NO pain.

I had a leisurely morning until it came time to leave. Ack. Snow, everywhere. But at least I got to my destination, the mall, shortly after 11. I had a wonderful time at the salon. The pain stayed away but, just in case, I took another Robax dose at 1. Then I went off to the drugstore where I had wonderful, personal assistance from the cosmetician. I got everything I wanted except for the glittery eyeliner! She even helped me get the perfect Kissymas cards, After that, my last stop was the supermarket. I'd remembered from last year where the mincemeat tarts were, but had to ask where to find whipped cream (yes, the instant aerosol one). As I couldn't find the deli cream cheese, I splurged on a party-pack (4 flavours) of hummus.

My driver was on time and we enjoyed chatting as he drove. Turns out he's worked in just about all of my old 'hoods, and spoke of moving a former captain of the Maple Leafs onto my hoity-toity street! Well, imagine that. He was very solicitous and helped me all the way up the driveway, through the garden, up the treacherous steps where snow was piled at a 45 degree angle.

I was so happy to be home and unpacking my treasures. Watched my recorded TV and an absolutely hilarious Young Sheldon. He's at a birthday party for a quirky boy (who may have been on the spectrum). The two of them are on their own, away from the other kids. Sheldon insisted on wearing his Mr. Spock outfit, pretending to analyze Earthlings. At one point, the kid says he's going to find Sheldon's mom. Sheldon replies, "My mom is on Vulcan." The kid didn't miss a beat before saying, "My mom's on Valium!" I just screeched. I didn't even erase it!0

Well, it was almost too good to be true, but I felt the pain start attacking my back around 8, so I quickly swallowed more Robax, lying on my back, and aiming the heater at the affected area. Whew. I think I just dodged a bullet! So I celebrated by having two mince tarts with whipped cream for … supper!

I also had a couple conversations with the Prez. I finally sent him my uhique observations of our general meeting (in September), to be inserted into a new page on our website. Yay!

So, yeah, kinda, sorta, maybe. In the real world, I was staying up until 3:30 a.m. with an SGA fanfic that ate my brain. When I woke up at 9:30 a.m., I continued reading, even foregoing brekkie until I was nearly done at 11:30. Whoa!

I finally watched yesterday's church webcast and then set out to write my review. There was a lot to cover, especially as theologian Rev. Deana was at the helm. I took it easy for most of the day before I posted. Then I caught up on my recorded TV while gorging on a bagel covered with cream cheese and smoked salmon. Washed down by a glass of white wine. Unfortunately, my spine is screaming at me, so I'll have to take a muscle relaxant before bed.

SuM and S. went off to a local park instead of down to the beach for the fireworks tonight. Surprisingly, there had been no homemade noisemakers the past three days in the neighbourhood. Makes me wonder whether more people are reporting acts of individual stupidity.

Even though I'll be getting home late tomorrow, I can't wait for pub night. I was busy answering more RSVPs. It should be a lot of fun. Okay, bring on the painkillers!