I reject your reality and substitute my own.

Years and years and years ago, the Vietnamese War killed my patriotism. I was in college. My friends were being drafted to go over and get killed. Then, an hour from my college, the National Guard fired guns at the students at Kent State. And that was the final blow.

I could have - maybe should have - left but never even seriously considered it. I got a little hopeful when Obama was elected but, of course, that's been squashed.

So celebrating the birth of this ugly political pit is not something I gravitate to. Red White and Blue represents stupid old white guys who make ridiculous decisions.

Yes, I have enjoyed the fruits of those stupid white guy decisions and I get the irony but I still hate all patriotic holidays and the crap that goes with them. So... today will be a Friday for me.

New menu day and the last week of my meal month so I need to eat up whatever they are serving. Scott and Julie helped this month so it's not so much of a scramble.

My foot is a little better. It's no longer bruised looking from the shot so there's that. I still have another shot to go but that's not til August. I've been watching my ankles and they are weird. One day they are huge and the next they are back down to normal, lather rinse repeat. I'm now taking an embarrassing number of pills each day. 1 for cholesterol, 2 for high blood pressure, COQ 10, vitamin D, AREDS2, now an allergy pill and one for my feet. That's 8 every morning and another AREDS2 at night. AND I'm healthy! (Oh and the allergy pills are working again so whew!)

Baseball starts at 10 today. And I might do some laundry or not. My little UPS shop is closed but I have nothing to return today anyway.

Turns out my foot hurts far less than yesterday UNLESS I'm bouncing on it in the pool. And then, OMG! So I played with one leg and the ouchy foot tucked behind the good leg's knee. That was an experience. It's really hard and after 2 hours I think my back is going to be pissed tomorrow. But I was really surprised when I got out and started walking - it didn't really hurt at all. The 48 hours of pain expire in 4 hours. I'm counting.

And in other good volleyball news, the asshole is gone for a month. It was so lovely this morning without him. I'm going to enjoy July.

2025 is half done today.

AND today is the day I brought Biggie and The Smalls home from the shelter in 2019.



I got an interesting email from Gmail today. It said it was getting ready to close out an old email address of mine for lack of activity. So I thought I'd see if I could resurrect it. I have a giant fear of Google blocking my account. It happened once. I don't remember why. It was years ago and I finally managed to snag the helpful eye of a googler on Twitter who got me back on track. But, since then, I've lived with the fear. That first time, I was unable to come up with a former password or the date I opened the account which were two bits they wanted to prove I was me. Once I got back in, I captured that data and put it into an Outlook email account.

This morning I was interested in pulling the thread on this 'new' email account and seeing if I could get back in. It did ask for a former password and I typed one in that it did not reject. Then it wanted the email address I was using for backup. That took 2 tries. Then it wanted a phone number to text. But, once I got that far, it let me reset the password and BOOM I was in. Cool. Turned out I opened the account in 2005 and looks like I last touched it in 2006. And, shockingly, there were only 300 junk emails. So that now you can easily run multiple Gmail addresses in chrome, I think I'm going to start using it for storing misc bits.

So then I remembered I had not backed up the database that holds my notes. So I did that - which goes to email so then I decided to check and make sure it went to my backup email. All of the mail that comes into my main Gmail account automatically also gets sent to my backup account. So I went to Outlook and could not get in!! It let me reset my password but still would not let me in! so I noodled around a little and found a reddit thread about VPN which I do not use but it did lead me to try turning off wifi and using my cell data on my phone with a hot link to my Chromebook and BOOM! Microsoft is happy again. What a PIA. THEN I discovered remembered that because Microsoft is such a PIA, I had moved my backup email to me@susandennis.com which is over on my website hoster. So I go over there, log in and BOOM! There's all my email safely waiting for me and not connected to Google or Microsoft.

An interesting thread pulling for sure. But I do like that I finally got in everywhere and my stuff is safe.

All that thread pulling was time consuming. It's now 9:30 and I'm still in my robe from the pool. I need to make my daily run to UPS. I'd better get dressed first.

My foot (the shot one) was fine until I stepped on it wrong this morning and now it is very ouchy BUT Dr. Google says this is totally normal and to be expected and should fade away in 48 hours. Meanwhile I should avoid strenuous exercise. Since I have approximately 76 years experience in avoiding strenuous exercise, I'm feeling that won't be an issue.

The laundry is laundrying.

When I finish this, I'm off to UPS to return two pairs of shoes. And then to Safeway for sour cream. And that is my entire to-do list for the day! Retirement rocks.

All my life I've had a large trash bin in the kitchen. So when I moved in here, I got a cheap plastic one and tucked it into a cabinet in the island. Last week, I realized I was running out of bags and thot, hmmm, is this the best solution? The trash shoot is less than 20 steps down the hall. Do I need to keep a dumpster in here? In internetted the shit out of the situation and decided to try a new scheme. I found a 2.5 gallon thing that clips over the cupboard door. (I found lots that clipped over the cupboard door but they were all tiny.) I took the gynormous one out and clipped on the littler one and I love it!!! It's so easy. And now everything goes in first off instead of accumulating on the island like it had been. Glorious little solutions.

The window shade guy says he needs to order new valence pieces and then his installer will come out and fix. No discussion about who pays. I think I know the answer but I'll be interested to hear if his guess is as good as mine. At least it will get fixed and better this time. Just this morning I looked up and saw this:



Not a huge deal but sloppy and easily seen from this table.


My mysterious Amazon package yesterday was drugs. I'd forgotten that I ordered refills. My toe drug arrives tomorrow but today I have new shoes coming.

I would be happy if rain would not wash out my baseball today. And percentages say it won't.

Ok. Time to hit the road (not vigorously - see paragraph above).

So. The foot guy was pretty hilarious. ZERO warm and friendly bedside manner. He was all about the solution and he got on it fast.

My left foot has gross thick toenails and peeling skin. Terbenafine. Take it for 90 days. The skin will clear up after 30. The nails will be better after 90 and back to their original shape and texture in six months. 85% chance it will clear everything up.

My right foot gets a sharp pain irregularly, across the toes and cramps up a lot. He had me point where the pain starts and then he put his thumb near the spot and pressed. HOLY FUCK! Ouch. Then he pressed a couple more places. Not quite as ouch. Pinched nerve. Two cortisone shots. One now and one in August cause he's going on a motorcycle tour of the southwest for the rest of July. 75% chance it will make the pain go away completely. (I've had this pain for years and years and if this actually does fix it, I'm going to apply for some of those years to be returned to me.)

Wild. I assumed he was going to tell me to change shoes, wear inserts. Never go barefoot. Always do this, never do that. But, nope. I did take all my shoes with me. He barely looked at them and would not at all had I not asked him. He gave me the names and model numbers of 3 kinds of shoes to get if I wanted to be comfortable walking. And he told me that the inserts I'm wearing in my shoes right now are the best and the only ones I should ever use.

And that was it. The end. of him until August.

I had to go down and give blood to get a liver test which he assumed would not point out any issues so he went ahead and sent the prescription to the pharmacy. Including the blood test, I was on the road back home at 1:24. My appointment was 1.

I feel like I got more than my $30 (co pay) worth.

I had ordered 3 pair of shoes but all 3 now get returned. One, however, is a keeper but I need a longer size. I did all the online return bit. They all go to the same place - UPS. I'll take them in the morning.

It is hotter than a fire cracker out there. I'm in the elbow now waiting for my house cleaner to finish. It's pretty warm in here but she's about done and I can go home where it is very cool.