RantWoman Sleeps--or Not

 Slightly over 4 hours of sleep and not even laundry. THREE crosswords in one day (EASY ones but still) is probably too much and saving the walking until the only sane option is 20-30 minutes walking the breezeway at 10:30 does not rank as great planning either. Oh and mozarella sticks and figs late in the evening also... But the TubShroom is STILL collecting hair from Saturday's hair washing. And the kitchen is holding up to the no dishes in the sink regimen instituted after the plumber visited.  I thought I was going to make it through September without a timely event getting restimulated, but NO! And the funny thing is the rest of life is such a whirlwind that that topic is barely a ripple. A Favorite Breezeway Bench in Sunlight And it's been almost 25 years since a certain night at Gay Bingo, a story that it probably would not have been a good idea to tell at one moment but is now one of several moments behind a PERSISTENT allergy to sloppy use of mental health terminology...

 about two hours in chair trying to head to bed. About 4.5 hours actually in bed. Longer would have been fine but did not happen. The Queen of Spades trying urgently to keep the human sane Not enough exercise late in the day but phone call about convention video was great. WAY too much fun to wrtie the How not to do it script. How did phone not get charged overnight? Either I plugged it in wrong or the cable was not connected correctly. Good that it charged fine over breakfast. I want The Cat in the Hat and Thing 1 and Thing 2 to come over and clean my bathroom. But my TubShroom is miraculous about catching hair. Last night I emailed family. Results were predictable. Stay tuned? Phone calls with sister and friend. I am kind of dragging.

 A solid FIVE hours of sleep. The problem with going to bed early because one is falling over and there is no way laundry is going to happen and the Monday NYT puzzle is always ridiculously easy is that  drum roll please One then wakes up early too.  And if one is home and travelling by Zoom with breakfast just across the room instead of riding over the mountains and sleeping with strangers (not what it sounds like) and there is a creek and no breakfast for two hours is that one first tends to get up and tackle the day. Going back to bed definitely would have been an option timewise and probably would have felt good. Pot of Chicken Barley Stew But morning texts with sister when voice would be too much and I already had enough voice last night 15 minutes right at the start of the call about her badly matted hair exercise. YUCK. Glad i have only my own problems since I am not doing so well holding even them together. Well , my braid actually helps hold my head together but ...

 Five hours of sleep.  Should have gone to bed earlier.  Should have saved the salmon spread for breakfast.  Made it to Bible Study. Such a good space for learning from each other. Zoom call to write a resolution about uniform standards as far as voting accessibility in WA Good call but a couple points i am still stuck on. Blind chatter call was not as interesting as sometimes. Need to work on second skit for our convention session. At least I got dinner before the Taco time indoor pickup closes. Practicing sharing medical news with strangers so i can figure out how to deal with family. Dumped the beta test software partly because the test protocol was not fitting into my schedule. Phone is behaving much better now that previous stable version of software is back.     Got the NYT Sunday puzzle done in about 2 hours.

 Somewhere around 5 hours of sleep. Going to bed earlier as in when I was sleepy anyway would have been good. Knowing the QM Bible study started 15 minutes later than i thought also would not have been terrible. But not trying to wash dishes while Zooming was definitely morning sanity. High Contrast Black Cat on sort of white couch Other random moments: --For rest of the world blog a Sometimes Stupid happens item. Someone at an anti-nuclear weapons event with a sign that said "Kill the Deathmongers" definitely falls into that category. Some other events too. Babble about accessible campaign management software. Oh and I signed up for a usability study involving the term "beta test" also known as unstable software likely to cause device to do weird things. So now I get to find the email about loading it and figure out how to unload. Welcome to life on the frontier for this century.

      Barely FOUR hours of sleep. Got to bed WAY too late. Part of that was late night food. Could have gone back to bed but then day would have started absurdly late.  Changed filter in CPAP. This is the one I removed. Kinda black. Old CPAP Filter. Look what one does NOT want to breathe Also changed sheets including run bedlinens through hot dryer as bedbugh prophylaxis. Dryer lint also just black. Got past the insurance authorization. Decided i am going to need some mouthy assertive blind women in my quarter.

 4.5 hours before breakfast plust 2+ after breakfast.= almost 7 hours. If I could do taht consistently it would be awesome.  The Queen of Spades   Lunch. Two phone calls and 3 webinars though i wound up staying in only 1 and not being able to find the other and skipping the blind techies one in favor of listening to people do bystander intervention training. Not to be repetitive but everyone finds no video hard. No morning schedule is SUCH a luxury. Things are inching forward about stuff with insurance. New documentation appeared in online medical chart. Now I remember what I signed up to do on Saturday 10/3: make a recording of an acceptance speech for an award I would give to someone else. Gah! My goal really is to inspire others to their own pieces of advocacy. And by advocacy I mean both nurturing the light of fierce affordable housing advocates and supporting blind landlord who needed to kick out tenant with bogus service dog in training. Have i ranted about this bef...

  Welp. If one goes to bed promptly at 1 am, one has time for a good 5 hours of sleep before the first wakeup. This would be pee and feed the cat and try not to get sucked into Twitter or texting with sister and just GO BACK TO BED. That did not happen today. For all of the usual reasons.  The Queen of Spades,  Resting Reproach Face Trash collection and removal did happen. That is a great good thing. If one does not snack in the evening, one wakes up hungry. Luckily there is porridge with raisins though time to get some more fresh fruit. Tomorrow. If it is not raining or I decide on a wrap that is the right level of water protection and warmth. Today I got a call from the building staff. They are doing this regularly. It was nice to hear staffperson's voice. Also take note of delivery of a couple boxes of packages of adult diapers and one of what must be the Ag department's food boxes. I dunno which T campaign contributor is making money off they boxes. but no question pe...

Somewhere around 4.5 hours of sleep. Give us this day our daily Powerpoint or at least a few pages of it Going back to bed not an option but at least I got the periodic pot of porridge concocted. Steel cut oats. plus... Had to skip shower but got bra and reasoanble clothes on in time for said festive orgy in the titile. Today's owie zowie is a weird hip back thing. I have had it before but today was a new level.  Okay now either comb hair or just go back to meeting. I HATE screen share. I am very mature about this. Plus I need to see something about Zoom and accessibility from all the Crip camp examples. Focus. Focus. Today is budget. Anxiety. Numbers. And celebration of the term "technical assistance."

Almost SIX hours of sleep. Accomplished by going to bed just after 1 and going back to bed after breakfast. This put me awake and washing dishes around 10 and hurrying to shower and dress before a video appointment at 12.  More glorious blue sky and no photo. Out for a walk in the neighborhood: Hard to figure out borracchini's. Today they were definitely closed but I think I did not grok that maybe they are closed on Mondays. Try a different day of the week. And I succumbed to temptation as in Baskin Robbins. No snacking late but yesterday was a want a lot of pineapple juice day. I hate it when i go back to bed just wanting to sleep and forget and what comes back is OH CRAP another reason not to want to be able to away and not only that but .... The owie zowie is related to a phone call I am awaiting to follow up from dr calling me at 6 on saturday night about test results. There is actually an oww but mostly it does not interfere with sleep.

 Almost 5 hours of sleep. Woot. Going back to bed would have been good but did not happen. BLUE SKY Clouds breaking Night before last late night carbs veggie sticks last night nothing after about 8 Not enough exercise.

 ALMOST FIVE hours of sleep. So weird because it always seems to take me the same amount of time to make it to presentable on Saturday mornings. See how much more detail Today:  chat with sister about Mom, zoom, phone call from brother. Wash hair and sing praises for my TubShroom which indeed does seem to be adding value better than the things from Lowe's that cost o $3. Good things since it costs about 4x as much. Got Saturday crossword done in about 1.5 hours. a little bit of time just chilling on the breeze way before bed. Now late afternoon time for shopping cart quest. Hopefully even though shopping carts are verboten / civil disobedience int he hallways, someone will have left one around so I can take trash out and move my laundry. NO I really do not want my own. I just want a pool of them available with people need them and i would prefer not to have to think of the subject in terms of theft from merchants though I am completely good with borrowing As for the title. I d...

Five hours of sleep. Went to bed  early enough. No back to bed. Sigh. This is not candidate for earworm of the week. It is part of RantWoman's quest for a Quaker / pandemic wildfire smoke version.

Close to SIX hours of sleep. That means go to bed early enough AND go back to bed after breakfast.   No evening snacking. I always feel silly when I reveal puzzle and find it was 6 letters i should have gotten. Oh well. Try another week for a streak. Today's Haze Shot Yesterday was definitely not enough exercise. My body just does better if I even just walk the breezeway in spite of the smoke.  This morning I decided to listen: body is tired of what I cooked a few days ago, so roasted parsnips, baked tuna loaf full of nice roasted tasting celery and an experiment in pumpkin custard. Plenty of moving around exercise at least but I also wound up deciding cool air from window balcony cross draft was better even with smoke than too warm space. Cat is also tired of smoke. Now I am trying to stay focused on long to-do list and throat is still sore but chocolate ALWAYS helps.

 Got to 5 hours of sleep by going back to bed for a bit after breakfast. Today's Haze Definitely not enough exercise. It would not help to try to cook something because there is already plenty of choice. Tackling the stuff to throw out seems like too much but partly that is a mental deadline and some paperwork chores. I WISH I had enough of a non-profit and team right now to offload... Either need that level of team or just offload or hope that what I can do is enough stability to draw in other people with the gifts we need. CrosswordS were easy but I am glad I just went to bed when some pure anxiety filled in. GOOD phone conversation helped and call prompting meditations above and ... And COVID sucks.  And smoke sucks. And my aunt and uncle are back in OR safe from fires but I am surprised they did not check out the smoke and air quality before heading home from ID.

Somewhere past 4 hours of sleep maybe almost 5  it's just that some of it was falling asleep in chair while watching videos. Trevor Noah is always  funny but funny registers better if one is awake. Crossword puzzle and RAIN, glorious rain were what was keeping RantWoman awake. And orange striped compression socks. Oh my how they help.

 It took until 11 am to achieve 5 hours of verified sleep. I think there was about 1.5 hours in chair before actually going to bed. Whatever it is, blame the smoke. #seattlesmoke. But roasting a pan of eggplant,peppers, onions garlic at least knocked some of the smell down.   View from balcony to South

Sleep: probably close to 5 hours total just that 2 hours of it was in chair listening to Trevor Noah and team talk about how they do The Daily Show. Really interesting but not sleep. Sleep is only part of the game. Other part is dealing with day. Something freaky and powerful and I THANK those present for being willing to holdspace for a conversation.  And I am grateful for other conversations. And something freaky. Now what?       Today's Smoke photo from the balcony And more leaning on the everlasting arms.. around people who can at least some of the time needing to ask about smelly armpits. The versatile god part goes in other places. Well, well, well

      Somewhere around 4.5 hours of sleep. And someone in a conversation about sleep issues correctly guessed a common going to bed time. Not always. The Saturday crossword puzzle is always a bear, many times worse than Sunday.  Going back to bed was theoretically possible, except...drum roll please it was national day of civic hacking. After leaping tall password hassles with a series of irritated muddles, I decided I did not want to traffic in the data scientist mumbo jumbo for one interesting project about helping small childcare providers find resources they are eligible for. RantWoman did not have quite the stats mentioned and was debating about whether to say the precise stats mentioned might be BS and then to go on about transparency in algorithms. RantWoman also decided she could just be distracted and not even look at more sidewalk maintenance stuff. Plus RantWoman needed the phone call she took (for 1.5 hours!) and also needed to wash hair. All hail th...

 About 4.5 hours of sleep. Went to bed at a semi decent hour. Should have been able to go back to bed. Same balcony view as the other day but  Look at all that SMOKE More sleep unquestionably would have been good and breakfast later might not have been terrible. At least I did not eat as late as sometime and the adhoc borshch from things in the fridge rocked. Besides breakfast, there was call from Little Sister asking about yesterday's medical events and needing to have anxiety about Mom and retirement community: and staffperson with new positive COVID test. That SUCKS because lockdown and stay in rooms returns. And there is some 28-day window being virus free before the facility can ease up. Mom hopes it will only be 14 days quarantine. Mom does denial well sometimes. And stuff still SUCKS "Look Staff person has a right to privacy. Facility is conscientious. If it were someone who sees everyone for example because of delivering food, I think they would test everyone. That is ...

 4.5 hours of sleep. Going back to bed was not an option. I am a grownup, allegedly.  I am the one who scheduled the endoscopic ultrasound at 8:00 in the $#$@*( morning. I had time for a shower. The bus was VERY empty. The attitude at the hospital is MUCH more relaxed than when I got a test I probably did not need early in COV.ID  The Mask of the Day Still smiling about the baby orca, the mom who carried her dead baby around for 17 days 2 or 3 years ago. I hope mom and baby survive both the navy and the wildfire smoke..  Also of course still muddling about transit. And tonight for the next in my series of "will work for sandwiches" home video conferencing usability exercises is tangled with so many dial-a-tirade themes that if I have the sense God gave goats, I will just GO TO BED and not even try to think until the super cloud passes.  Have we already established that I DO NOT claim the sense God gave goats? On a twitter thread about smoke headaches, I said yes...

 Almost SIX hours of sleep including a decent go back to bed segment before a shower and this morning's adventures in the big bad world of video conferencing. A few things worked better than in the past. Other things not so much. Last night I checked the QR code on the piece of paper I got at the COVID test. Nice to have a tactile label so I can figure out where to aim the camera to read the QR code. The next steps worked, but last night no results. This morning, results came back negative. I think I was half hoping the stuff i get to have a different test for tomorrow could somehow be linked to COVID instead of to being overweight or whatever is going on. And of COURSE people need some more visuals. It looks like Borrachini's may be back open After the video meeting, I finally turned my pot of lima beans into stew with onions, peppers, potatoes, garlic, chorizo, arugula. I will feel well fed for days. Now about transportation after a medical procedure tomorrow. PS wildfire smo...

  Solid five hours of sleep.  Would have been good to go back to bed but since I texted Little Sister she realized I was awake and needed to unburden herself as far as her latest nightmare public transit moments. That ook almost an hour and nixed shower time. Oh well, Clean clothes, webinar about pedestrian issues and transportation equity and don't forget pedestrian crashes and deaths. Aren't I in a cheerful mood. NO sound effects, but I like this time of year how my building looks in the evening. But there is also a why I go walk the breezeway thread lurking. View S from my 6th floor balcony and so

Made it to FIVE hours of sleep. Going back to bed would have been good. Going to bed earlier definitely helps. And the Monday NYT puzzle is always super fast. Other than that, holding everyone's start of school year in the Light some cute kids of color singing about hope!

Almost 5 hours of sleep. It would have been good to sleep longer but there was a wonderful ARE session at SSFM. Do not forget the part about saltines with butter and dates late in the evening. Fuel seems not terrible. Something more nutritionally responsible than saltines with butter would probably be preferable. Almost 3 hours on the Sunday NYT crossword, but I solved it all, except for the part about how many times I had to use Check Puzzle.  Morning: skipped shower which I sometimes do right now on Sundays since I do not have to go anywhere. Also noting that I change clothes every day even though it does not seem like things get very dirty. It does seem like not changing I would feel too down at the tooth really fast. Today's excursion: the QA TJ for cat food, and $45 worth of other stuff. This huge bag was a gift from someone who is an AVID thrift shop scavenger. The bag is awesome, almost too awesome when one is tempted to pack in way more than one can carry.   A wonderfu...

Four hours of sleep. Starting we will not say when. Two hours for the crossword puzzle but I solved it all myself.Okay I had to Check Puzzle several times and clean up a lot of bad guesses. Better times will come specifications to follow. Janis Ian stuff Better times like people with disabilities not getting told they damage the community by speaking up for their rights  and  "community" means something besides "I don' wanna..."

Five whole hours of sleep in one spell without even any noise to fall asleep to.  It helps to have enough water in the CPAP machine.      It's tempting to just sit in the latenight quiet on the breezeway but bed is a much better idea. Walking the breezeway probably helped. So do the 10-15 minutes of light aerobics in the morning. Can't remember whether i did the anti-plantar fasciitis stretch or the free weights but routine routine. Today's humor: see if I can get the hashtag #RealSeattleRiots trending on Twitter. The idea is to post pictures of things that are perfectly normal and beautiful to counter all the riots chatter in the national press. Morning food prep rampage: start some lima beans soaking, inventory larder and pay attention to dried legumes supplies. Next iteration of Ratatouille and whole wheat macaroni. Quinoa cocoa bites. Grateful to be well-fed and even to have extra eggs donated by neighbor who had not room in her fridge. Sometimes I tell her just ...

Somewhere close to 4 hours of sleep. Sitting on the breezeway staring into space and then in chair in apt sort of count. Delicious  Powdered Milk Mocha Some visual interest. If the concept of powdered milk mocha is scary,  just note: the pot of chicken pumpkin soup is too many days back in my photos. Just imagine. It worked: a package of prepackaged soup, a can of pumpkin, green beans from the freezer and green pepper. Presto half the sodium per serving. So um RantWoman has been thinking about tandem biking for awhile. RantWoman has been thinking about who she might ask to be the captain, the person who can see and rides in front. RantWoman recently realized there is absolutely someone she can ask. Basically RantWoman needs a person probably a guy large enough not to be intimidated by the physics of riding a tandem bike with RantWoman.  RantWoman's thinking about this was jogged by a tandem biking thing on Twitter and by recent conversations with a guy who agrees with Ran...

4ish hours of sleep in bed plus a couple hours of dozing upstairs when I did not make it into bed first. More sleep would of course have been stupendous. Instead, phone call with Little Sister about Mom. Looks like she is ready for some family conversations that have been needed for awhile. Stay tuned. Mom probably gets to go home today and ... and ... And Little sister gets to be the ONE visitor per stay at the hospital. I am fine with that.  Little Sister is better than I am right now both about tracking details and pushing follow up pieces. And lord knows I have spent enough time in hospitals for Selfie with Compression socks both of them I am FINE with my sister being on the job for needed hanging out.  And then, then, just when I would have gone back to bed, THE PLUMBER shows up, cleans out the kitchen sink trap, cleans out the bathtub. Bathtub is still not great but I will install the spiffy new TubShroom and see how much hair I can catch. Touching in all the videos, the...

somewhere between 4 and 5 hours of sleep. Going back to bed would have been a good idea, but calls to RantMom and little Sister needed to happen. The hospital decided since she has tested positive and then negative for COVID and has now had about 5 tests that she needed another  negative one before they would ease up on the PPE. Probably part of the "We just don't know" picture but so isolating and frustrating when a person is lonely and frightened by hospital routines anyway. Hospital also has some elegant system for dealing with incontinence at night. Sister and I hope a version can come home. Plus about sleep apnea...? Today's visual is the TubShroom. There was also supposed to be the bitmap I made using the Tactile Graphics software to produce a tactile version of this image. Luckily I saved the bitmap on one of my other blogs. I need to either read help files or just choose a different blog platform so I don't inadvertantly delete any more images while editin...