vital functions still ate'nt dead
Sep. 1st, 2022 12:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kaberettI last managed to write up a vital functions post (or indeed anything other than a tada list) on, apparently, the 24th of July.
I have still had a migraine continuously since the 29th of May, excluding a total of six (or, if we're feeling very generous, seven) days, in two batches following administration of prochlorperazine via deep intramuscular injection on two separate occasions. (I have taken no acute pain relief since the 11th of April.) On the 11th of July, I increased my topiramate dose to 100mg; on the 20th of July, UCH's response to my complaint arrived, and was very upsetting.
On the 1st of August I further increased my topiramate dose to 125mg. The migraine did not go away, but the side effects got so bad I landed in A&E -- on GP advice -- on the 15th. Happily, decreasing the dose again seems to have alleviated them. Unhappily, my next confirmed appointment with anyone who might be willing to refer me to someone who might be willing to prescribe me something that might work is the 8th of February.
Reading. Since late July I have been almost entirely happily reading yánasenesse | brief sanctuary, Silmarillion fic set in the immediate aftermath of the rescue of Maedhros from Angband by Findekáno. I am currently working on getting myself to stop going OH DARLINGS NOOOOOOOOOOOO about the events of chapter 20 for long enough that I can actually write a comment on it, whereupon I shall go on to read chapter 21, whereupon I will be caught up with the work in progress to the point of current publication and will have to decide whether to (a) further break my own heart by finishing my reread of the Silmarillion, which I have not read in full for well over a decade, or (b) opt for a little light relief in the form of blitzing through Gideon and Harrow yet again in preparation for the publication of Nona the Ninth on the 13th, i.e. in less than two weeks, and also the day after the final Admin: The LRP event of the year.
Writing. Complaints. Self-advocacy. Instructions on the arcane mysteries of printers.
Watching. The very important arrival of a baby elephant. I had not realised, even on watching, until Adam pointed it out, that all of the adults immediately went WHOA RIGHT NOW STAND BACK until the baby had got itself actually steady on its feet! Presumably because they are worryingly delicate and one when is a large pachyderm one gets Nervous about being anywhere near a small that might at any moment unpredictably flail over underfoot. But it is Very Definitely Adorable to watch the moment where they go "ah! good! we can all go and say hel--FALSE ALARM, retreat retreat retreat."
Playing. We have recently picked up Heaven's Vault, which I bought lo these many years ago. You are a spacefaring archaeologist of sorts, a brown woman who wears a headscarf accompanied by a robot, working on building an understanding of an ancient language you're finding in scraps on bits and pieces scattered around the Nebula. Story Ensues. I am getting Hours Of Additional Fun out of Compiling My Own Dictionary, and analysing what's going on in terms of both "how much sense does this make in terms of actual language?" and "how much sense does this make in terms of game design?" So that's nice!
Also it's very pretty. Also we have been curling up on the sofa together and eating ice cream.
Opinions to follow, perhaps.
Cooking. Cooking of many things. I have been experimenting with:
Eating. Misc of note:
Exploring. We spent a night camping at Greenheyes Farm, where some friends of Adam's were celebrating their handfasting; we saw a local bat, which I was very pleased about, and I enthusiastically recommend their website.
The following day we headed home again via Chester to meet up with A's mum for lunch, and had a nice time pootling around the city walls/cathedral/bronze statue of a baby elephant named Janya (ooh, there's a theme of the month I hadn't spotted).
Creating. I painted Adam colours again for the handfasting! And got the amount of yellow about right this time, being "more than that, no, really, more," which is good to know for next time.
Making & mending. I got out my Molymod and put together a model of prochlorperazine, with benzene two ways, since I didn't have enough quadrivalent carbon:
(I also don't currently have any sulphur, hence using an oxygen -- red, instead of yellow -- at the top in the centre there. I'm looking into ways to rectify that without buying a whole additional kit...)
I have also been disaggregating a box of fabric masks kindly sent me by one of you lot (feel free to identify yourself in comments!), such that together with the existing ones, the Maybe I Want To Make A Folk History Quilt Out Of Masks That Have Reached The End Of Their Useful Life now looks like this:
Obviously this is nowhere even close to anything vaguely approximating a layout or design, but it was nice to put everything next to each other and start seeing how the colours and prints actually go.
Growing. Let's see:
Observing. I saw four foxes on our way home from A&E at 1am. We've seen bats in Chester and at the allotment (without the bat detector in either case! the allotment bat conveniently flew very picturesque circles around us!), and I spent last night's horn practice watching the at-home bat do some very pretty aerobatics in silhouette against a beautiful indigo-to-peach gradient of sunset sky.
And! For a birthday present that was arranged at the time and came to fruition at the beginning of the month! A took me to watch badgers at a sett around the back of Wakehurst Gardens, also run by Kew. They were not very cooperative but we did get some excellent posing in some lovely golden evening light, and I did learn a thing about badgers that I did not previously know (they maintain separate latrines!), and it was very quiet and peaceful and pleasant.
... and that, I think, brings us more-or-less up to date...
I have still had a migraine continuously since the 29th of May, excluding a total of six (or, if we're feeling very generous, seven) days, in two batches following administration of prochlorperazine via deep intramuscular injection on two separate occasions. (I have taken no acute pain relief since the 11th of April.) On the 11th of July, I increased my topiramate dose to 100mg; on the 20th of July, UCH's response to my complaint arrived, and was very upsetting.
On the 1st of August I further increased my topiramate dose to 125mg. The migraine did not go away, but the side effects got so bad I landed in A&E -- on GP advice -- on the 15th. Happily, decreasing the dose again seems to have alleviated them. Unhappily, my next confirmed appointment with anyone who might be willing to refer me to someone who might be willing to prescribe me something that might work is the 8th of February.
Reading. Since late July I have been almost entirely happily reading yánasenesse | brief sanctuary, Silmarillion fic set in the immediate aftermath of the rescue of Maedhros from Angband by Findekáno. I am currently working on getting myself to stop going OH DARLINGS NOOOOOOOOOOOO about the events of chapter 20 for long enough that I can actually write a comment on it, whereupon I shall go on to read chapter 21, whereupon I will be caught up with the work in progress to the point of current publication and will have to decide whether to (a) further break my own heart by finishing my reread of the Silmarillion, which I have not read in full for well over a decade, or (b) opt for a little light relief in the form of blitzing through Gideon and Harrow yet again in preparation for the publication of Nona the Ninth on the 13th, i.e. in less than two weeks, and also the day after the final Admin: The LRP event of the year.
Writing. Complaints. Self-advocacy. Instructions on the arcane mysteries of printers.
Watching. The very important arrival of a baby elephant. I had not realised, even on watching, until Adam pointed it out, that all of the adults immediately went WHOA RIGHT NOW STAND BACK until the baby had got itself actually steady on its feet! Presumably because they are worryingly delicate and one when is a large pachyderm one gets Nervous about being anywhere near a small that might at any moment unpredictably flail over underfoot. But it is Very Definitely Adorable to watch the moment where they go "ah! good! we can all go and say hel--FALSE ALARM, retreat retreat retreat."
Playing. We have recently picked up Heaven's Vault, which I bought lo these many years ago. You are a spacefaring archaeologist of sorts, a brown woman who wears a headscarf accompanied by a robot, working on building an understanding of an ancient language you're finding in scraps on bits and pieces scattered around the Nebula. Story Ensues. I am getting Hours Of Additional Fun out of Compiling My Own Dictionary, and analysing what's going on in terms of both "how much sense does this make in terms of actual language?" and "how much sense does this make in terms of game design?" So that's nice!
Also it's very pretty. Also we have been curling up on the sofa together and eating ice cream.
Opinions to follow, perhaps.
Cooking. Cooking of many things. I have been experimenting with:
- more sourdough pitta (basically happy with)
- aloo paratha (largely happy with but need to revisit when I have actually got enough atta in the house that I'm not mostly substituting other wholemeal)
- sourdough naan (needs more work)
- cauliflower butter masala (I replaced the oil with ghee because we have some we're using up currently, omitted the teaspoon of salt added with the tomato in step 2, omitted the second cup of water added in step 4 because we tend to prefer our curries on the drier side, forgot to add the honey in step 4 and am honestly glad I did because I'm pretty sure we'd have found it too sweet, and replaced the heavy cream with cashew cream in step 6: take ~1/3 mug of unroasted cashews, juuuust cover with boiling water, let sit for minimum 15 minutes but longer is fine, grind nuts with their water in a mortar and pestle or in a food processor of some ilk, use as directed or go "yay I like this stuff" and add loads more of it than the recipe actually says to >_>)
Eating. Misc of note:
- I am delighted that little moons passion fruit and mango ice cream mochi have purple outards and orange innards
- Waitrose raspberry trifle ice cream is an Adequate low-effort substitute for actual raspberry trifle for my purposes in these trying times
- Serve It Forth! are delightful
- it turns out I find Hotel Chocolat's cocoa-nib-infused ice cream Interesting
Exploring. We spent a night camping at Greenheyes Farm, where some friends of Adam's were celebrating their handfasting; we saw a local bat, which I was very pleased about, and I enthusiastically recommend their website.
The following day we headed home again via Chester to meet up with A's mum for lunch, and had a nice time pootling around the city walls/cathedral/bronze statue of a baby elephant named Janya (ooh, there's a theme of the month I hadn't spotted).
Creating. I painted Adam colours again for the handfasting! And got the amount of yellow about right this time, being "more than that, no, really, more," which is good to know for next time.
Making & mending. I got out my Molymod and put together a model of prochlorperazine, with benzene two ways, since I didn't have enough quadrivalent carbon:
(I also don't currently have any sulphur, hence using an oxygen -- red, instead of yellow -- at the top in the centre there. I'm looking into ways to rectify that without buying a whole additional kit...)
I have also been disaggregating a box of fabric masks kindly sent me by one of you lot (feel free to identify yourself in comments!), such that together with the existing ones, the Maybe I Want To Make A Folk History Quilt Out Of Masks That Have Reached The End Of Their Useful Life now looks like this:
Obviously this is nowhere even close to anything vaguely approximating a layout or design, but it was nice to put everything next to each other and start seeing how the colours and prints actually go.
Growing. Let's see:
- I have potted up some of the surviving squash seedlings on the patio, on the basis that they're clearly not going into the ground at the allotment but they might manage to do something here. So far, the cucumber has responded by flowering.
- I've also potted up the chilli, which will hopefully make it significantly happier.
- At the allotment, I have harvested a handful of (dried on the plant) broad beans for sowing next year, and a whole 50g of soup peas, likewise dried on the plant, which might some of them go into a bowl of soup for us but will likely also mostly be saved for sowing next year. On the upside, that's more than went into the ground.
- Alas despite promising signs we have had no actual fruit off the Ribes this year, because I was too ill to manage to harvest anything before the heatwaves and the jostaberry did not manage to keep anything standing through the heatwaves, poor thing. On the upside, the gooseberry has responded well to being actually weeded and vaguely looked after and is no longer a struggling shrubby little knee-height thing, which is actually cheering.
- Oca and yacon are surviving! So that's a win for Things Gone In The Ground.
- Thanks to a plot neighbour doing lots of watering for me I am getting some tomatoes this year and even I am getting some tomatoes of the ridiculous coloured varieties I sowed specially for fun. We are going to be eating our first Blue Fire at some point in the next week or so, I think; they are apparently not much for taste but I was so tickled by the colour in the pictures, so I am delighted to have finally grown one to eating, and very grateful for the help that got it there!
Observing. I saw four foxes on our way home from A&E at 1am. We've seen bats in Chester and at the allotment (without the bat detector in either case! the allotment bat conveniently flew very picturesque circles around us!), and I spent last night's horn practice watching the at-home bat do some very pretty aerobatics in silhouette against a beautiful indigo-to-peach gradient of sunset sky.
And! For a birthday present that was arranged at the time and came to fruition at the beginning of the month! A took me to watch badgers at a sett around the back of Wakehurst Gardens, also run by Kew. They were not very cooperative but we did get some excellent posing in some lovely golden evening light, and I did learn a thing about badgers that I did not previously know (they maintain separate latrines!), and it was very quiet and peaceful and pleasant.
... and that, I think, brings us more-or-less up to date...
(no subject)
Date: 2022-09-01 11:53 am (UTC)<3
(no subject)
Date: 2022-09-01 12:04 pm (UTC)I've heard great things about it, though alas there is no Mac version for now.
Also I am glad you got the foxen to make up for the A&E visit a bit.
(no subject)
Date: 2022-09-02 10:40 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2022-09-01 01:13 pm (UTC)BADGER, BADGER.....
(no subject)
Date: 2022-09-02 10:40 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2022-09-01 01:32 pm (UTC)a brown woman who wears a headscarf accompanied by a robot
. o O { clearly this extremely small robot is worn as some kind of accessory attached to the scarf }
we saw a local bat, which I was very pleased about, and I enthusiastically recommend their website
. o O { this highly sophisticated bat not only has a website but expresses a preference for non-binary pronouns! perhaps they mention that point on the website }
(no subject)
Date: 2022-09-01 02:50 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2022-09-02 10:40 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2022-09-01 02:32 pm (UTC)♥
Huh! Synchronicity! I recently picked up Heaven's Vault, too. I've been playing with Lisa; they write the dictionary, and I do the controls. (The controls drive me a bit mad.) We have been very absorbed in figuring out theories about the grammar; we are moderately confident about nouns, pronouns and verbs now, but have a couple of tentative words in our dictionary that, if correct, do not seem to work in that system. Harrumph.
(no subject)
Date: 2022-09-02 10:39 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2022-09-01 04:50 pm (UTC)I enjoyed Heaven's Vault, and usually had to get Brent in to help with the language. His linguistic anthropology helped out there.
(no subject)
Date: 2022-09-02 10:41 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2022-09-01 07:34 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2022-09-02 10:41 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2022-09-01 08:13 pm (UTC)(I am SO SORRY about the ongoing migraine awfulness.)
(no subject)
Date: 2022-09-02 10:41 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2022-09-01 08:59 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2022-09-02 10:41 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2022-09-01 11:47 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2022-09-02 02:51 pm (UTC)It is very good to read about and see photos of your goings on.
Unhappily, my next confirmed appointment with anyone who might be willing to refer me to someone who might be willing to prescribe me something that might work is the 8th of February.
*screams quietly*
(no subject)
Date: 2022-09-02 10:42 pm (UTC)It's all. Very.
I am currently working on two separate avenues of "... okay but, uh, seriously, though?" and a third might become available in January. (There is a fourth very expensive one available right now but I'd... rather not, because see also Very Expensive.)
(no subject)
Date: 2022-09-03 10:44 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2022-09-03 12:49 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2022-09-03 01:54 pm (UTC)Sending many migraine relief vibes
(no subject)
Date: 2022-09-04 09:16 pm (UTC)Ooh that curry sounds amazing. Will definitely have to try it!
Blue Fire looks fun! Let us know how it tastes. We are growing Amish Paste, mostly for sauces and the like (which are coming out deliciously). Tuesday we have scheduled an eggplant curry recipe that takes a bunch of tomatoes, so we'll see how much flavor they impart there.
Baby elephants! Fun! Mask quilt, an interesting/cool idea! Badgers, fascinating and sounds quite settling in the soul zone.
(W)
(no subject)
Date: 2022-12-16 03:37 pm (UTC)Blue Fire were a bit disappointing tastewise, which was to be expected, but definitely pretty! I am contemplating whether I want some Amish Paste this year...
(Am signing up for private medical insurance via partner's workplace for the next calendar year. I am hoping for a fairly rapid referral once the calendar ticks over.)
(no subject)
Date: 2022-09-05 03:44 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2022-12-15 10:39 pm (UTC)Oh lovely -- it sounds it!
(no subject)
Date: 2022-09-18 07:23 pm (UTC)Used-mask-quilt is BRILLIANT and acknowledges last time we bungled a virus.
I am so sorry and angry to read of your continual migraine.
(no subject)
Date: 2022-09-20 12:59 pm (UTC)Yes it does! That is absolutely a thing that was On My Mind also.
Thank you <3
(no subject)
Date: 2022-09-18 11:07 pm (UTC)Hooray for small good things