The last 4 days were the worst so far since Mom...

After the weekend I had, sadly, I had to dump the last serving of Arroz con Gandules from my Dutch oven which I hadn't washed since my last use of it to boil red kidney beans before I used them in a crock pot recipe... I'm not exactly sure what caused 3 weeks of kidney stone suffering suddenly, and while looking over my diary of weight, sleep, & last night's supper doesn't reveal any link, I decided to just wipe it clean & just have a sad food pantry bagged version of Tuna Helper tonight. Added 3/4 diced onion sauteed in canola, added 113 grams of sliced rinsed mushrooms, and later a can of no salt peas. Reserved the tuna juice & peas water for a dashi along with whatever the directions said to do. When it finally congeals overnight, a bit of Duke's mayo might make for a decent sammich. Sprinkled some grated Parmesan & a little Adobo to give it moral support. Even used a clean skillet! The other skillet (I have like 3 - with 1 good one I paid $20 for and is like a wok) has meat grease I want to use for fried rice. Topped off the evening with a cold A&W.

 

Passed yet another kidney stone

2nd time in 3 weeks. Thursday before paying rent saw my doctor, got prescribed a pill. Blood in the urine continued 2 more days, then cleared up. (Sadly, the sample collected at the office was not bloody.) Had that characteristic "dull thump" in my lower right back. Took the pills as carefully as directed until March 5th when suddenly I had low urine output. Extremely concerned, found out the extra pill I was taking can do that, which is why they said take with LOTS of WATER. Out of fear, I refrained from taking the last pill. Urine output returned to normal over Friday & Saturday, dropping nearly 4 pounds as if my body was catching up to what it should be doing. Sunday was fine.

Sort of woke up with that discomfort in my lower right again. Joints hurt, had low motivation & energy. It hurt to walk out to get breakfast which I got late & hurt to walk back. Was going to mop the floor in the other room but my energy reserves said NO. Toilet visit seemed to indicate blood again in the urine. So I got back in bed, bundled up warm, got comfortable.... and slept until 5:48 p.m. Was feeling much better energy & motivation wise. Peed, urine was definitely red hued. This was a Furosemide pee - usually colorless & if any color is there, it's not supposed to be there. Didn't photograph that.

But as far as overall feeling, was much better than this afternoon where I definitely slept. Wrapped up warmly and got a deep nap. Dull thump was gone, but I could tell the area had undergone something traumatic as it was still sore. Going to slam the water, as my doctor has advised in the past.

Like, I didn't have any of the usual signs of a UTI. Kidney stones are a different item. 

The worst nearly full day in a while...

This day started off last night with an inability to get to sleep for paying rent due to an incessant uncomfortable pain in my right side & lower right side in my back. The kind which pain medication can't fully relieve. Maybe it was another kidney stone, maybe it was the medication I had been taking... Somehow I managed to wrangle myself into a position of Least Discomfort and fall asleep.... but not for long. By then the alarm clock went off. I wanted to stay asleep to recharge & I hadn't been able to do much of that. That was evident in the amount of lethargy I carried myself with to get to the toilet. The call was there, but there wasn't much to say. And without any color. Odd. I looked up the thing I was experiencing, then I looked up the medication. As it coincidentally turns out, that medication can cause reduced urine output. If it lasts longer than 12 hours, do something about it.

Well, at that moment, my plan to leave at 11 a.m. was basically pushed back. I had a few things to do before I got in the van & left... taking out trash, for one. But the way I was feeling, without much strength & just dead tired... I had no hope. I wanted to call the building manager & ask if I could pay on the 6th. But life is about small goals. I made it out of my unit, down the evalator, to the bench. Had to refill some spoons of motivation. Deposited trash, got in my van, did a loop around the building, & made it to the credit union. Needed more spoons to get out & go in to collect my money & get back in.

Then I got to DrugFart. I just needed payments & some groceries, but most importantly, the birthday gift for my sister. Somehow I did all that thanks to the electric chariot. Managed to drag myself back to my vehicle, get gas, & return.

I had heard our previous building manager had returned and there she was in the office once again when I got back. Should be interesting to hear the story. However, on my way out there was a box of foodstuffs which I couldn't stop to pick over on my way out. I'm a person who dislikes wasting effort. If the box is not on my way to something else behind it, I let it go. But I needed to drag myself over to mail an envelope & managed to score another free bag of bran cereal, some canned no-salt vegetables, a bag of rice, little red beans, and a Tuna Helper thingy in a bag. Love the dried stuff since I use my crock pot a LOT. Plus I make Spanish Rice & Arroz con Gandules that much more often.

But throughout this whole day, I barely survived. So wiped out & low energy & worried about the low output peeing, I couldn't enjoy anything. Ended up with a headache in bed. Even time I had to get up, I was in pain. I hate living like this. Does it get better? 

Today's shopping

Was out grocery shopping after visiting my manga guy for maybe the last time since Diamond is gone. Scooby Doo cereal had a $2 coupon. Doritos Late Night Fully Loaded Taco is excellent, Lay's Bacon Grilled Cheese really should have been Grease. Butter Beer Hershey's Kisses - You have my attention. I bought 2 bags. Also the pile of $2.25 Pączki. I should have bought $20 worth. But I held back with 1 box of Raspberry. WHY WAS THERE NO DIET 7UP??

 

 

 

Did the survey from the register slip & got asked what I thought about the spicy breakfast sausage patties. "I am depressed & eat spicy foods so I can feel something."  I wonder who gets to read that.

Discoveries

Well, I found out some things today.

The little white box for converting composite video to VGA signals works! I bought this device off eBay about a year ago? It was last year anyway.

And one of the chargers which I bought in bulk & suddenly stopped wanting to charge my LG56VL actually works as this is what I'm powering the box. The image looks best in 720p mode.

As for the color... The tube is working fine as the self-test showed me. This is an input problem. Likely with the cable having a broken wire somewhere or it could be the box not outputting the correct colors on the correct pins. I don't know. The monitor has no way to adjust the color guns through the config menu. So I'll probably do something about the cable. This monitor is a Multisync model & best at adapting to odd video signals.

Product ideas for Palmer's

After eating some of the chocolates from the latest bag of stuff I bought at the store from Palmer's chocolates, I thought it would be more fun if the bag had more chaos.

As the bag comes, there are 4 different versions of the heart shaped chocolate. And the version you get is the same in each wrapper. If you grab the Gold wrapper chocolates, they're all the same. But what if you had 50 or 60 different wrappers & the one you grabbed was not what you were expecting? eh? Sound good? You hate the white chocolate ones but you can't just avoid picking the neon pink wrapped candies. It's just fricken random! Maybe a green one, next a puce colored one! 4 flavors, all wrapped differently.

Another idea came from during Christmas when I bought a little mesh sack of chocolates obviously meant as a stocking stuffer. Missed opportunity by not having nuts in some of the candies. Almonds, Walnuts, peanuts, etc. I also have the perfect name for this. It's absolutely brilliant.

 

 

 

Winter 2026 anime The Mushroom Witch ending theme "Kimi wa..." You are...

Seems like some websites hosting content they don't have the license to like to prevent people from merely copy & pasting text from their pages - and a little snippet of Javascript (easily blocked) tries to stop that. But it's just as easy to view a page with No Style & then it's just bare bones with text you can easily lift out. To wit... The lyrics & a better translation of the ending theme as indicated by this entry's title.

Kokoro no naka ni shimatte oita      Kept hidden in my heart
Itsuka no kanashimi                  was someday's sadness
Ima wa kirei da ne                   Now it’s pretty

Eien no isshun shizuku ni natte      An eternal moment, becoming a drop
Mabuta no uragawa hikatte iru yo     is shining behind my eyelids!

Ah kimi wa yume                      You are a dream
Ah... hoshizora                      The starry sky
Ah kimi wa ai kimi wa...             You are love, you are...
 

Saurkraut Rice Maki Rolls

So after eating your New Years' saurkraut & ham, you're left with water from the crockpot. What do you do? Dump it out? Hell, no! You find out how much water you got & cook rice in it!

I noticed I had almost 2 cups of saurkraut crockpot water left from cooking it, and there was flavor needing enjoyed. 1 cup of rice would be perfect. But what to do afterwards? I had some nori sheets hanging around so I made maki rolls! These really are meant to be eaten cold. Hopefully next time I get the idea to make some, I can wait patiently with these in the fridge much like breakfast pizza. I had enough rice to make 4 maki rolls. I managed to not eat 2 until later & that's when they held firm & cut easily.

The flavor was amazing. With my sister's hand crafted kraut according to the Algonquin Mill recipe & a small 1 pound brown sugar cured sliced ham - after 12 hours on low in the crock pot - produced something divine. I didn't even make any mashed potatoes... A bit salty as expected, slightly diluted by the water I had to add to give me 2 cups of fluid. I didn't stick to my rice pan nor did it burn. One thing I will not do next time is add any rice vinegar. This really didn't need any.

 

You know it's almost Christmas when...

Top Ten Signs of How To Tell When It's Almost Christmas:

10. When the cashier at Walmart actually manages a smile when she says "Happy Holidays!" during a busy period.

9. When you rush out to get some Christmas cards to mail out to all the people who suddenly sent you one at the last minute.

8. When there are more pine needles in your carpet than on your tree.

7. When light displays on everyone's houses in the neighborhood convey the true meaning of competition.

6. When you bake up a couple dozen cookies to mix in and give away with all the other cookies everyone else gave you.

5. When you want to give fruitcake to all the people you don't like but you still have the fruitcake you got from them last year.

4. When thousands of soloists without enough musical talent to tune a kazoo are somehow invited to sing "O Holy Night" in public.

3. When the plastic light-up manger goes up on the roof of the local pub.

2. When TV specials get crazy ridiculous: "Charlie Brown and Frosty the Snowman Track the Grinch Who Stole Rudolph's Red Nose and Started All the Animals Talking when he Surgically Transplanted it on the Littlest Donkey."

And the #1 Sign of How To Tell When It's Almost Christmas:

When stores start advertising "Only 375 shopping days until next Christmas."

Random time for a random memory

What a moment to pull out a faded memory. My mother at one time was in the middle of a serious hobby in photography. By the time I arrived, mom had a 35 mm camera - a rather good one she used for color film & slides. Unfortunately, nearly 400 color slides were lost in 2005. I managed to scan the ones left in a metal box - something I had a hand in happening. The camera ended up getting broken & eventually destroyed, and us being a dependent family, didn't have the money for repairing it, among the many other things we didn't have money for.

But the things I remembered randomly were her having a light meter device. I remember a random device I played with but didn't know how it worked or what it was for. It's such an early memory I don't remember what it looked like. I don't know what happened to it. But I remember there was this thing & that had to be what it was after seeing a video online. I just can't pick out a light meter model & sadly Mom isn't here to identify them if she still even could.

Mom also had a photographer's film developing kit & it vanished after we moved from the Mount Jackson house. Some years later I figured out what I saw in the attic of a house my father owned. A family member was saying how he was going to get to use it when he got older & Mom used to talk about her developing kit on occasion which got taken from her. I finally put the 2 things together some years ago. It could have been the same thing. A shame my mom gave up her hobby to raise a family. It wasn't the only thing she abandoned for a family. She had an X-ray Technician certificate at one point.