Dale Miller

I did pretty much nothing today. About my only accomplishment was cleaning the worst of the mess in the kitchen. At least the counters aren’t sticky any more. I don’t know how many drinks were spilled last night, but at least most of them seemed to be over the vinyl rather than the carpet.

The party was overall a success. I kind of miss the large turnouts that Sara and I used to have when I lived in Little Rock. Of course, my house couldn’t handle that many people, so it’s for the best. I’m sort of sad that some of my pictures came out blurry, but I’m hoping that others have some that they will share with me.

Yesterday’s headache is back today with a vengeance. The party distracted me sufficiently that I didn’t pay much attention to it last night, but now that I’m settled down, it hurts. :( Maybe I should have had something to drink last night, then I could blame this on a hangover.

I think I’m officially sick. I woke up this morning with a headache, and it hasn’t gotten any better. I’m supposed to be getting the house ready for a party, and it isn’t happening. I’ve managed to do a few things, but there are many more remaining. I also need to make a trip to Wal-Mart for the things I forgot last night. I just simply don’t feel like it. My headache has deteriorated into muscle aches, a stuffy head, and a bit of a gastrointestinal discomfort. I just want to climb back in bed and pretend I didn’t remember what day I was supposed to be having a party. :)

I’m sure I will manage somehow, but I suspect I’ll be turning in fairly early.

I felt lousy yesterday morning, and spent the day at home rather than going in to work. I’m going to be making up for that today. I have meetings scheduled for the entire morning, I’m teaching water aerobics at noon, and I have choir this evening. I should be getting ready now, but I like to start my day by messing about on the computer. That seems kind of silly, since I’ll be spending much of the day in front of one, but that’s work, and this is personal.

Oreo seems to be doing a bit better. It’s hard to tell. She’s not shifting position like she was before I took her in, so I’m hoping that means she’s no longer in pain. She is still favoring one leg, though, so all is not yet well. Dr. Gillam called yesterday afternoon with the lab results. No cancer, so hopefully whatever is wrong can be fixed.

I dropped Oreo off at the vet this morning and picked her up this afternoon. Dr. Gillam isn’t precisely sure what is wrong with her, but it seems to be a related to a tumor on her leg. It does not appear to be cancerous, but we are waiting for lab results to be sure. He drained 100cc of fluid from an abscess that is probably what was causing her the pain, and she is now on antibiotics. She’s still limping a bit, but seems to be more comfortable tonight. I hope that this will take care of it, or that it can be dealt with. At least it doesn’t appear to be anything life-threatening. I still wish I had taken her in several days ago. I don’t like to think of her in pain. The problem with animals is that they can’t really tell you when something hurts. She’s snoozing at the foot of the bed at the moment, looking quite sweet.

I started today out in a bad mood. I ended it up in a somewhat better mood. I think I’m going to take tomorrow morning off to take Oreo to the vet. Her leg is getting worse instead of better. I should have done that several days ago. I fell terrible that I haven’t taken better care of her.

My good news for the day was that my blood test results from my most recent physical were good:
Total cholesterol: 141
HDL: 48
LDL: 78
Triglycerides: 76

Not bad considering that untreated I’m over 300 total.

I have this tendency when in the grocery store to purchase cans of things I think I might like but don’t want right away. Today seemed like a good day to heat up something out of the cabinet. The first can of soup I grabbed had a “use by” date of 1998. I started to heat it up anyway, but then thought better about it. I’m not really sure what would go wrong with a sealed can, but I decided to play it safe. Of the eight cans of soup in my cabinet, seven had “use by” dates in the past. That pretty much narrowed my choice, and probably means I need to go through the rest of the cabinet, and then plan a shopping trip. I stayed home last night and today, so the food in the house becomes a bit more of an issue. I need to start cooking real meals again. It’s just so hard to convince myself to cook for just me.

Saturday night, and the typical decision: Do I go out to dinner, with the guarantee that I spend money and an extremely low likelihood of meeting an interesting female, or stay home with a lower chance of spending money, and an almost-zero chance of meeting anyone.

Yesterday didn’t quite go as planned. I went out to change the battery in my car, and it wasn’t the same size. I figured I had either read the book wrong or grabbed the wrong battery, so I re-installed the original battery, jump-started the car from the new battery, and headed out to run errands. It seems that Wal-Mart thinks that my car should have a smaller battery than the one that came in it. I decided to just let that be, and have them install it, since I didn’t feel like getting dirty (and it was free). If I had realized that it would take them over an hour to do so, I would have just done it myself. Ah well. Then, a trip to “Waterful Wonderbeds” in North Little Rock to finally buy some bedsheets. I picked up a satin set in royal blue and a cotton set in bright red. I need to just throw away most of my old sheets. Next, back across the river to Best car wash to get an oil change and wash. I was one of their last customers of the day, and the car wash reflected that. I shouldn’t drive away with bug spots still on the front bumper. Nonetheless, I did get the oil changed, and the car is cleaner if not altogether clean. My next stop was to spend far too much money. Since I never managed to make my old home theatre receiver work, I replaced the system. I got a Denon, which should be good, but I spent more than I really should have. Of course, I really shouldn’t spend anything, so that’s not saying much. While I was out, I dropped by Wet Seal to se what sales they had going on, and ended up buying a very soft white turtleneck sweater. It wasn’t on sale, but it was just too comfortable to pass up. Again, too much money. Then I had dinner at Sufficient Grounds and came back home.

My house is a disaster area, but I haven’t yet convinced myself to clean it up. Maybe this afternoon…

It has been a tiring day. Work was okay but not exciting. The good news is that my new glasses were ready this afternoon. The bad news is that when I went to get them my car wouldn’t start. David drove me to pick my glasses up, and then we attacked my car. We disassembled and cleaned the terminal, and then he gave me a jump to see if it would charge. I drove around for about ten minutes, then parked the car and shut it off. The battery was still quite dead. So, after choir, Tracy gave me a jump to leave the campus. I stopped at Wal-Mart on the way home and bought a new battery (without ever turning off the engine). I now have a project for tomorrow.

New glasses are nice. I can see again.