Darkoshi

Trying to finish my taxes. I've done the forms, just need to enter the data and submit it.

body: It's cold.
Ah, a perfect time to make the rest of that hot chocolate. I heat it up and drink it. Yum.

body, later: Have to pee.
body, later: Have to pee.
body, later: Have to pee.

body, jittery: I'm hungry.

I eat some dinner.
I finally finish creating my online account.

body/brain: SO TIRED. SO SLEEPY.

What are you talking about? It's only midnight!

I'd like to someday finish recording my and my mom's audio cassettes to MP3 files. But all my cassette players have encountered problems. The last one I used for the task still works, but started making a rattling noise while playing which gets carried over into the MP3 recordings too. Another boombox with dual cassettes has that same rattling noise problem, as well as its speakers not working.

I watched some videos of people replacing the rubber belts in their cassette players. In one video, after the belt was replaced and the cassette deck was being tested, I heard it making the same sound as mine! So even replacing the belts might not help with that problem.

Each time I go looking online for a new cassette player to buy, however, I am scared off by reviewers who say NOT to get this one, because it eats tapes. Every single one I look at has at least one, if not several reviews like that. Or other deal-breakers are mentioned, like the player being mono rather than stereo.

.

I got my 2nd Shingrix (Shingles) vaccine shot.

A bit of my rear molar chipped off. I went to the dentist and had the edges smoothed.

My thumb still does not bend.

.

A section of the garage ceiling panels, which I had lately noticed was sagging, broke and fell down before I could reinforce it. Luckily there was nothing underneath that area, so no collateral damage. But the cellulose insulation on top of the panel came down with it, making a big mess. I cleaned it up.

Did I ever mention the reinforcements I added to the other garage ceiling panels which had been sagging? That was 5 years ago. I attached wood boards along the seams of the panels. I still remember it feeling like quite an accomplishment. It was tricky, bracing the boards against the ceiling on both sides, while I screwed the screws in. Those sagging panels were a problem that I'd noticed and worried about for quite a while, and I couldn't find anyone to fix it, and then I figured out how to fix it myself!

.

Today it was very rainy. Happy Lunar New Year!
I succeeded in getting the new mailbox post in the ground. Perhaps tomorrow I'll get the mailbox transferred over to the new post, in between working for work.

One of the gateposts on the gate that got knocked down last summer has concrete anchoring it. If it weren't for that, I'd probably have been able to get it out and replace it myself by now. I keep going back and forth between thinking I can do it myself, and thinking I will hire someone to do it. Then other things take precedence for a while. Now I'm wavering again, because I was able to rock the post back and forth a bit. Maybe if I can just get leverage... I had a couple ideas to try... I could get it out of the ground. But I really ought to just hire someone. Yeah. I really should.

.

In the past, I used a product called Tub Grip to add traction to the bottom of my tub, to make it less slippery. It works very well, but it seems to capture dirt and makes the tub harder to get clean-looking. It also wears away over time.

Before applying a new coating of it, it's best to remove the rest of the old layer.
This time I used a product called "Citristrip" to remove it. It got the residue off, but also etched up the tub surface. Oops. It's a synthetic tub, fiberglass, I think. All the comments I found indicated this Citristrip works fine on fiberglass without damaging it, but no, not in my case it didn't.

The tub being etched makes it less slippery now even without applying new Tub Grip. But in some directions it still feels slippery so I probably still should apply new Tub Grip on top.

What's the point of me getting up "early" after only 4 hours of sleep, if it never results in my going to bed earlier? Grrrr... I try to reset my internal clock but it doesn't seem to work.

Yesterday I was still up to see the sun rise before going to bed. It was pretty. It'd be nice to be able to see it every morning - but *after* a good night's sleep rather than before.

.

The doctor said I had trigger thumb, as I suspected. He gave me a cortisone shot in the thumb, which from what he said and what I had read, gets rid of the problem in the majority of cases. He said if the shot doesn't help within 3 weeks, it won't. It's been 2 and a half weeks, and it hasn't fixed my problem so I'm quite disappointed. Possibly it's because my problem was more extreme to begin with, not being able to bend my top thumb joint hardly at all.

The day after the shot, there was some improvement - I could bend the thumb, jerkily. But that only lasted a day or two, and then it went back to being stiff for most or all of the day.

The doctor said if the first shot didn't help resolve the problem for at least 4 months, he wouldn't try another shot. He would go to the next option which is surgery to cut the tendon pulley. I'm not ready to agree to that yet. I plan to take Vitamin B6 (P5P) supplements for a while to see if that helps any, based on some stuff I read, even if it is far-fetched. The thumb at least doesn't hurt most of the time, and I've already gotten quite used to the joint not bending like normal.

Yesterday, I was surprised to find that soaking the joint in warm water (which I read about and/or heard in a Youtube video) makes it loosen up to where I can bend it (jerkily) for a little while. The doctor didn't mention that, at least not that I recall.

A week or two before the doctor appointment, my hand was a lot more achy, so that it was even difficult to pick up things with the hand. My other hand started acting up too, which worried me even more. But taking naproxen helped with that and so far it hasn't gotten that bad again.

A few of my shirts have been making my upper back itch lately, even though they are tag-free shirts. Sometimes when this happens and I carefully inspect the shirt, I find a tiny hair or eyelash or some such thing which is the culprit. But the last times, I've found nothing.

I now suspect the tag-free labels themselves are the culprit. The shirts are several years old and the substance (acrylic paint?) used to print the label text on the fabric now has cracked and the edges of the cracks stick out just enough to irritate the skin.

Times Square had a car commercial behind the count-down numbers. Very tacky if you ask me. But the music performances were nice.

The local virtual event's headline act (Arrested Development) wasn't live, and didn't even look specially recorded for the occasion (the part I saw looked like a music video, filmed outdoors in the daytime with a pretty yellow-leaved tree in the background). I wonder if there was a technical problem that resulted in something else being shown than what was planned.

I banged my drum. A rumpa pum pum.

.

I love this new Geico commercial, "Scoop, there it is!".

.

My small over-sofa laptop desk broke; a weld at the bottom came apart. Today I drilled holes through the square steel metal tubes, and bolted on angle brackets to attach it back together. I hadn't expected to be able to drill through the metal, but it wasn't very difficult at all. Finding enough nuts and bolts and washers of an acceptable size among my collection was more tricky. My first try, a single angle bracket on the broken side, made the desk feel lopsided and not sturdy enough. So then I stacked 2 angle brackets on both sides, and now am very pleased with it. I sure hope it proves to be a lasting fix.
That's my New Year's Eve accomplishment.


So many things have been breaking lately:

The porch lamp; I fixed it by putting up a new one. Looks and works good.

The deadbolt lock; I fixed it by replacing it with the old matching deadbolt lock from the other door which I'd replaced a few years ago, and rekeying it to match the current key. Not sure how long this one will last, but replacing it with a new lock would be difficult as the distance from the edge of the door to the hole is non-standard, and the hole is also too small for new locks.

A connector under Qiao's kitchen sink leaks when the warm water is turned on. So for the last week, I've only been using cold water to wash dishes. I don't want to try tightening it and end up with water spraying everywhere. The water meter in the front yard was changed last year; I'm not even sure we can turn off the water to the house out there anymore.

The caulk on my tub; I recaulked it on 2 sides.

The outlets... I wanted to replace a couple of 2-prong outlets with 3-prong ones, and tried installing a GFCI one... but it doesn't work right; it indicates there's a wiring problem somewhere in the rest of the circuit which unfortunately connects to a bunch of different things, so is not easy to figure out. Especially if the problem is in the crawl space, because I went down there again, and yeah, NO. I can not convince myself to crawl flat on my belly under the HVAC duct while bringing along camera and tools and flashlights and cringing at how much dirt I'm getting all over myself, unless it's REALLY an emergency, maybe.

That storm door. I FOUND the retainer strips in the garage, yahoo (so glad I didn't throw them away years ago, not knowing what they were back then), and the glass panel is now securely in the frame.

.

Ooh. #Dancelikeadad. That was a good commercial too.

Oh shucks, the Dick Clark NYE show ended before the Pacific time zone reached midnight.

Well, I suppose I should go to bed.

.

A few days ago, I noticed a small rash on both my outer forearms near the wrists. The skin was red and dry, with a couple of small bumps. Not at all itchy or painful. The dry skin feels like it got a rug burn. I haven't ever had rough dry skin in that location before.

(Of course, I'm wondering if it could be a COVID symptom, even though the COVID rashes I've read about don't present like that. It's more likely to be some other virus, or an actual rug-burn scenario that happened without me remembering. Or an allergic reaction, but what could I have touched with only that part of my forearms?)

Although I'm vegan, I don't often buy much fresh fruit and vegetables. Doing so results in needing to wash, peel, cut, cook, (etc.) as well as eat them, and to do so before they go bad, regardless of whether I have the time that day or week. Background stress. Not buying them avoids that. Usually I'll only buy a few easy things here or there. Avocados are good. Occasional fruit. Carrots; they last almost forever in the fridge without going bad.

I felt like cooking something this weekend though, and that fruit would be nice too. So yesterday I bought:

a passion fruit
2 oranges
blueberries
blackberries
jicama (pre-cut sticks, ideal for munching on! such a great convenience even though it comes in a plastic container)
fennel
dandelion greens

The fennel didn't have a bar-code on it. At the self-check-out station, it wasn't listed in the item look-up menu. A Kroger store employee came over to help, but we couldn't find it on their physical cheat-sheet either. Then I said, "It's also called anise, but I don't think it would be listed under that..." Yet it was listed as "anise / fennel".

.

My erstwhile flu or cold still lingers a bit. Last weekend, my upper right chest area ached for a day; might mean a slight lung infection. My throat has been phlegmy; I still have a slight cough and occasional runny nose. Otherwise, I've still been feeling ok. Still much better than the usual kind of colds I get, where my nose is runny and/or congested non-stop for days or weeks.

.

Kleenex has renamed their "Cool Touch" tissues to "Cooling Lotion". In the store yesterday, I wasn't sure if it was the same product. The ingredient list included polyethylene (plastic!?), which I hadn't remembered it having. So I took a photo of the label and didn't buy any. But comparing that now to a "Cool Touch" box which I still have, the ingredients are the same.

.

While walking, I passed a hickory tree and thought of that children's rhyming song, Hickory dickory dock, the mouse ran up the clock. Except I thought the rhyme must be like "Tickety tickety tock, the mouse ran up the clock" (since clocks go tick tock). I recall thinking, well if I *did* put in the word "hickory", how should it go, "Hickory hickory hawk?" I played around with other variations in my mind, "clickety clickety clock", "clippety clippety clop"

Looking it up today, I was surprised that my brain's initial word association of "hickory" with the rhyme was correct. It's interesting that those words "hickory dickory dock" may have come from Cumbric numbers.

A mandolin cutter put some gouges into my thumb yesterday. That's what I get for ignoring the warning to always use the food-gripper thingy with it. It was bound to happen eventually. Maybe I won't ignore the warning anymore.

With the waterproof bandages they have nowadays, the gouges hardly bother me. It would be nice if they made smaller mini-sized ones so that I wouldn't have to cut them in half for cuts on my fingers. The cut side makes it easier for water to eventually leak in, when washing hands or taking showers.

.

One reason I like the sounds of katydids and cicadas and such is that they speak of another world right in the midst of this one. The human world could disappear and they'd still be there, singing those same songs.

.

I discovered that one of Notepad++'s dialog boxes has a button labelled "I'm going nowhere". At first I was perplexed, then amused.

The high dose ibuprofen didn't have a noticeable effect on my teeth/bite issue. But I still think it could possibly be due to tense muscles; that still makes sense to me. So I will wait and see a while longer.

The ibuprofen didn't have any noticeable effect on my stiff fingers/hands issue either. I suspect that ibuprofen just doesn't work well on me; maybe it's something genetic.

The ibuprofen did cause my ankles to swell, however. I could barely see the ankle bumps on the inner side of my feet anymore. Oddly, that didn't happen until the day after I stopped taking it. It probably would have happened whether I continued taking it or not. It took 4 days for my ankles to go back to normal.

.

I burned Linux Mint onto a DVD, to try out on my old laptop. It takes quite a while to start up, but runs pretty good once it's up. I think I'll install it to the hard drive. I'm wondering if there's a special way I ought to do that, to be able to try out and/or install other O/S's too.

My brother left 3 computers boxed up amongst his stuff in the garage. He said I could get rid of them after clearing off the hard drives. They're over 9 years old, with WinXP. For the 2 I've looked at so far, I had to replace the motherboard button batteries, so they would even boot. I learned some things about IDE hard drive cables and connections in the process. I'm going to put Linux on one of those computers too, so my sister and niece can use it while they are at my place.

I just noticed that my fingers aren't the same length on each hand. How can I have never noticed that before?

If I hold my hands flat with the fingers together, then:
I can touch my right middle finger to my left pointer finger at the same time as touching my
right ring finger to my left middle finger.
But if I touch my left middle finger to my right pointer, there's at least half a centimeter gap between my left ring finger and right middle finger.

And when I put my hands in a typical prayer position, I can now see that the left middle finger is slightly longer than the right middle finger, and the right pointer is slightly longer than the left pointer. Before I would have only assumed that I wasn't holding my hands exactly even.

At my appointment yesterday, the doctor ordered some x-rays of my hands, as well as some blood tests (after I suggested them).

The bloodwork I had done last year showed a very low CRP level (rheumatoid arthritis is associated with high levels). But that was before I started having these problems, and I'm still not sure how trustworthy those results are, as I ordered the tests over the internet. So I'm curious both about that and my rheumatoid factor level.

http://www.jrheum.org/content/36/7/1387
"Erythrocyte Sedimentation Rate, C-Reactive Protein, or Rheumatoid Factor Are Normal at Presentation in 35%–45% of Patients with Rheumatoid Arthritis"

So even if my levels are low, it still won't rule out RA.

The doctor suggested that I might have carpal tunnel syndrome, and wanted me to try wearing wrist splints. But that seems dubious to me, as my wrists haven't been achy, only the fingers. I've had achy wrists in the past, and still do occasionally*, but this finger issue seems different from that. I've also tried wearing wrist splints in the past, when I was having achy wrists; they were uncomfortable and I don't remember them helping any.

*it mostly happens when I've been very low on sleep (< 6 hrs) for a few days in a row.

But now that I've read more on carpal tunnel syndrome symptoms, it doesn't sound that far-fetched. The possible symptoms include burning sensations in the fingers, difficulty forming a fist, and it being worse at night. I work on a computer for a living as well as in my spare time, so I do a lot of typing.

But I didn't feel any pain when the doctor pressed on my wrist, and I haven't had any numbness or tingling which seem to be the main symptoms. The burning/shooting pains that I have had have been local to the finger joints; they don't travel up my arm. So even though I'd much prefer to have CTS than RA, as it would be easier to treat, I still doubt that is what I have.

The side effects from rheumatoid arthritis medications can be significant (increased risk of infections and cancer, blurry vision, headaches, etc.) I already get headaches and my vision already often is strained and blurry, so I don't want more of that, nor more infections or cancer.

So even if a doctor eventually prescribes me any of those meds, I may not want to take them. Yet they say that if you don't treat RA early on, the damage can be permanent.

Methotrexate sounds like it is the DMARD most commonly prescribed, but I don't see a vegan version (without lactose) of the pills available in the U.S. Xatmep is an oral solution of methotrexate without lactose, but it isn't usually prescribed for RA.

Tofacitinib (Xeljanz) has an extended-release version tablet without lactose. But this med sounds more dangerous than the others.

So I was feeling down before the appointment. I wasn't sure of the point of it. I'll try some more diet changes to see if that helps (more in next post). But at least I did get the blood tests done, and even x-rays which I hadn't thought of. Maybe if those show no issues**, I'll consider the wrist splints again.

**But I can even feel a bony bump on the side of my thumb joint; it's been there for a few years at least; I used to think it was only a callus but am pretty sure now it's more than that.

In the month before the appointment, I'd have days where I felt panicked about having my joints deteriorate, and not being able to do normal things anymore. (When I wake up at night it's hard turning a door handle or door knob - I have to use both hands. Not to mention pulling toilet paper from the roll.) I wouldn't be able to take care of the yards anymore (using the string trimmer was making my hands ache; though yesterday I did a lot of yard work without a problem besides mosquitos and sweating).

But then I think about how so many people have so many worse problems. This will probably turn out to be nothing.