Strange September

Well, this day hasn't gone the way I thought it would. Here it is almost 4 pm and I'm just starting my post. I may not write much today, because I'm completely discombobulated by something that happened earlier -- I hit a car in the Starbucks parking lot! I'm fine, my car is fine, Teen B is fine, the other driver (probably a very young CU student) is fine, but her little BMW (parked illegally) now has a brand-new dent. So I will be paying for this, I'm sure, and we will have to see what that involves. I called my insurance company and they told me not to make a report unless I'm claiming damages, which I'm not. (I studied the back of my car carefully -- there are scratches on both sides, but nothing bad, and no dents. The car is, after all, 17 years old.) I just have to wait for a phone call from the insurance adjuster. And then wait for our car insurance to go up even more. Maybe. It didn't go up after Rocket Boy's car was hit in St. Louis a year and a half ago, and that was very expensive. But this was my fault, more or less, so it may be different.

I've gotten less comfortable driving recently. I go out of my way to avoid it if I can, and I take roundabout routes to avoid anything I find scary. I've always been a nervous driver, but it's getting worse. This experience isn't going to help.

My main feeling when it happened was embarrassment. I couldn't believe I'd done that. I looked behind me before I backed out, but I didn't see her -- she was slightly to my right -- but as I backed out, I was backing to the right, because I was planning to go to the left, and I hit the back corner of her car. So dumb. And so dumb of her to be parked there, illegally, in the "no parking" zone. Grrr.

I'm also embarrassed because she has all my contact information: a photo of my license, a photo of my insurance information, my phone number. My address. My height. My eye color. I feel exposed. You wouldn't think someone who writes a blog could be bothered by "exposure," but the blog is anonymous and hardly anyone reads it. This experience with the car is different.

Memories of other minor car accidents keep coming back to me. A few years ago, someone rear-ended me. I was turning right onto 30th and I stopped -- because someone was coming -- but the person behind me didn't. He was terribly apologetic, wanted to give me all his information, etc., but I said no, because there wasn't any noticeable damage and it didn't seem worth worrying about. That's probably where some of the scratches on the back of my car came from, lol.

And this summer someone scraped the side of my car. There are all these white marks on the left side. It was in a parking lot and I wasn't there at the time and the person didn't leave a note. It didn't seem very important to me, but then, my car is 17 years old. It'll be 18 in November.

All afternoon I've felt like crying, but I can't because I have to be Mom and not freak out the twins. I've talked to Rocket Boy twice, trying to get some comfort. The first time, right in the middle of my story, he had to get off the phone because his car was misbehaving and he needed to disconnect and reconnect the battery. The second time, right in the middle of my story again, I had to get off the phone because Teen A chose that moment to accidentally pull a shelf out of the refrigerator door, sending bottles flying. 

Emailing my sisters did help. Thanks, guys. Gals. Whatever.

***

OK, now it's almost 6 pm and I've hardly written anything. Let's do a Mounjaro update.

• Weight the morning I took my first shot: 254.6
• Weight 2 weeks ago: 239
  
• Weight last Sunday: 241.4
• Weight this morning (after 13+ weeks on Mounjaro): 237.4
  

So I'm 17.2 lbs down in a little over 13 weeks, for an average of 1.3 lbs per week, and I got rid of last week's little blip upwards. I saw my doctor on Monday and she was very pleased, both with my weight loss and with the reduction in my A1c (from 7.7 to 6.7).

That's all good, but it wasn't a good eating week. I had terrible sugar cravings. I had bought myself a lot of peppermints and mint Mentos, and this week I finished them all off. Friday was the worst day, after Rocket Boy left to drive back to St. Louis. Could not stop eating. A diabetic is not supposed to sit around stuffing herself with candy! It was much worse than my cravings used to be before I started taking Mounjaro. It was as bad as they've ever been in my life, although I've never had this craving for pure sugar, not chocolate. Very very strange. I don't know how I managed to lose weight while also gorging on sugar, but whatever.

I feel better today, not so crazy (despite -- or because of? -- the car accident).

Let's see, what else happened this week? Rocket Boy arrived, dumped some stuff, and left a few days later. For once I didn't get upset when he left, because I knew we'd see him again in a few weeks. 

We went out to dinner for his 70th birthday on Thursday at the Boulder Dushanbe Teahouse. Teen B had been there before, with his dad, for tea, but we don't think Teen A had ever been there. The hostess looked down her nose at us: "Four walk-ins?" but then found us a nice table outside, where I always like to sit in the summer. Teen A looked around in horror and then whispered to me, "It's a Miss R--- restaurant," Miss R. being his language arts teacher last year (and Teen B's teacher this year). I have met Miss R. and also read some of the things she's written, and yes, I agreed, it was definitely a Miss R. restaurant. So then we kind of made a joke out of that, looking around for people who might turn out to be Miss R. or perhaps a relative of hers. This helped calm Teen A down.

The food was good (I had the Indian Thali, ate maybe half of it), and then we went home and had ice cream cake from Sweet Cow, which was a bit too rich for me, even though I only had a sliver.

***

So now I have perhaps 2 weeks until Rocket Boy comes back for good, and I have to figure out what I want to get done during that time. It would be a good idea to throw a whole lot of things away and clean up the mess in the desk room, but I know probably neither of those things will happen. I guess I will just try to chip away at them both, but mostly I want to enjoy my free time. The one thing I'm not looking forward to (about Rocket Boy coming home) is that I will lose my private time, my quiet space when I can be in the desk room by myself and write. Rocket Boy is like me -- he likes to spend most of his time sitting at the computer. And this room is so small that when we're both in here together, we hear every click of the other person's keyboard. When I get in the zone, I stop hearing him, but it's hard to get in the zone without some private time first.

We'll work something out -- we'll have to -- but I think it's likely that I will be the one who gives up the most. If he gets/takes this job that's in the works, he'll be working at home most of the time. I will just have to figure something out.

I still want him to come home!

Things are happening

Oh my goodness, things are happening. Rocket Boy is at this moment driving home -- not permanently, but with his first load of stuff. He decided he wouldn't be able to bring it all at once, so he is making two trips. Yesterday when I talked to him he was packing, and I urged him to leave that day, maybe get 200 miles under his belt, stay overnight near Kansas City, whatever. I don't know what he ended up doing, because we missed his calls when we were out to dinner, and when I called him back later he didn't answer. So he might have been calling to tell me he hadn't left yet! But I'm sure he's on the road now and we'll hear from him tonight.

Knowing he would be home next week kind of threw a monkey wrench into my plans for the month, but it's OK. I didn't feel well enough to do much of anything this past week. On ONE day I did what I'd planned -- Monday, before I took my shot. I spent 15 minutes cleaning up the area around the entryway and put away my suitcase. That's it. I did my normal stuff throughout the week: dishes and laundry and shopping and cooking (some cooking, anyway). But I couldn't seem to do anything else. This drug, Mounjaro, is not my friend.

In addition, I didn't lose weight this week, I gained! True, I think it had to do with a little constipation problem I've been having (which may be solved now, I'll skip the details).

• Weight the morning I took my first shot: 254.6
• Weight last week: 239
  
• Weight this morning (after 12+ weeks on Mounjaro): 241.4

So instead of 15.6 lbs, I'm only 13.2 lbs down in a little over 12 weeks. If I were on Weight Watchers, this would have been very upsetting. But because I'm on Mounjaro, it's kind of like, oh well, I'll be down again next week. I liked being in the 230s (and I was for most of the week, just this little blip up today), but I like the low 240s too. Much better than 261.2, which is what I weighed on May 12th.

Plus, to be honest, Mounjaro is my friend. I got bloodwork done this week in preparation for seeing my doctor tomorrow. My A1c went from 7.7 to 6.7! That is a really good drop. I'd like it to go down further, maybe to 5.7, but it might, if I keep this up. So I guess I will keep taking Mounjaro. But I really don't enjoy this drug. 

I am interested to see what my blood pressure is tomorrow at my appointment. If it's down, I might mention the possibility of dropping my blood pressure med. Not that it bothers me. I looked at some lists of common side effects of Losartan and I don't think I have any of them. It's a low-key drug. It's just the idea of losing a med that is appealing. My total cholesterol is down to 111, but I've already brought up the idea of dropping Rosuvastatin and my doc said no, because it also helps prevent stroke in diabetics.

I just feel like I take so many pills! 

Every morning I take:

• 2 Metformin
• 1 5mg Rosuvastatin
• 1 CoQ10, to lessen the muscle pain side effects of the Rosuvastatin (not that I've ever noticed any)
• 1 Vitamin B complex OR 1 Vitamin D (I alternate -- the B complex is for my hair and the D is for all the things D is good for, not that I've ever been low in D, but you know...)
  

Every evening I take:

• 2 Metformin
• 1 50mg Losartan
• 1 10mg Loratadine (generic Claritin)
• 1 400mg Citracal petite
  

In other words, of my 10 daily pills, 4 are Metformin, which I still need, 2 are optional but I don't really want to drop them (the vitamins, the CoQ10), 1 is fairly necessary (the allergy med), 1 is a good idea and I probably should take more (the calcium), 1 is a med I've been told I can't drop (the Rosuvastatin), and just 1 is a med I might someday be able to drop (the Losartan).

So, you know, probably I'm going to go on taking all 10 of these, unless I can get my blood pressure down far enough to drop the Losartan -- and it won't be tomorrow.

I guess when you're old you just take pills.

***

There's a chance Rocket Boy might show up late today, but I think it's a remote one. Much more likely we'll see him tomorrow, possibly tomorrow night. Still, just in case, I'm trying to do some cleaning today. So far I've spent 15 minutes on the living room and 15 minutes on the kitchen. Still to come: our bedroom, the bathroom, and the desk room. I also need to work on homework with the kids. Sundays are not a day of rest around here, although I do find writing this blog relaxing.

Rocket Boy's 70th birthday is this week, on Thursday. He might start driving back that day, just to spite me, but if he's here we should have some sort of celebration. How do you throw a party for someone who hates birthdays and is absolutely horrified to be turning 70? I'll never forget his 59th birthday, which was the day of the flood. But that's kind of how he views every birthday. After raising the twins to this point, he understands that birthdays can be nice things, and so he's a little more accepting of birthday traditions. But he still doesn't like his birthday, not one bit.

I got him a silly card. I'll get a cake. That's probably all we should do.

***

I guess I don't have much more to write today. Not much happened this week, and we're just in waiting mode, waiting for Rocket Boy to get here. The hummingbirds have been going crazy, drinking sugar water like maniacs. They're getting ready for their flight to southern Mexico, maybe even Guatemala. My understanding is that the guys at the feeder now may not have spent the summer here -- they may have been up in Wyoming or Idaho, and they're on their way south, stopping at my feeder. Meanwhile, I ran out of sugar! I had to make only half a cup of sugar water, because I didn't have a quarter cup of sugar. Teen B and I went to Costco after that and bought, among other things, a 10-pound bag of sugar. It'll probably get me through my Christmas baking.

September is always a month of new beginnings (and endings, with the hummers leaving), but this year it feels truly fraught. Rocket Boy moving home, quitting his job, possibly starting a new one in October (I'll write more about that when it's more sure). It makes me feel happy, but incredibly unsettled.

By next Sunday, Rocket Boy will be back in St. Louis for two more weeks and I'll be trying to figure out how to spend those weeks.

Scary September

Three posts in one week! My vacation post, the reading post, and now it's Sunday. It's also the first day of September. The NY Times this week had an article about the "September Scaries," which I guess are people's anxieties about summer ending and regular life getting started again. Wow, I don't feel that way at all. I'm so glad summer is over. I've never been a huge fan of the season, and now more than ever I don't like it, because of the oppressive heat. September is a fairly hot month too, but in Colorado you can feel things cooling down, even this year. This past week and this coming week, highs are/were/will be in the 80s, not the 90s, and lows in the 50s. It gets dark earlier. Mornings are cool. 

The biggest difference is that the house doesn't get hot. All day long it's pretty cool inside, whether or not I close the windows and doors. At night I'm still running the fan, on low speed, but that will end soon. It's mostly just to move the air through the house. In a few weeks it'll be too cold even for that. The hummingbirds are leaving soon, maybe have already gone, some of them.

***

The kids have now been back in school for two and a half weeks, and things are going pretty well. Teen A really likes his afternoon class at Boulder TEC and I think finds his three morning classes at Boulder High SUPER boring and pointless. But he's doing the homework, sort of. Actually, I discovered one evening this week that he hadn't been doing his math homework because he thought it was too easy. I nipped that in the bud. 

He and Teen B have the same social studies class, and their homework mainly consists of reading, which means that I can read it to both of them at the same time. (They each have a gigantic textbook.) I know, I know, I shouldn't be doing their reading for them. But this way they actually do get something out of it. I read it with a lot of emotion, and I pause to comment on what I've just read, ask them questions, etc. Social studies this year is US History, with the interesting twist that it's mostly about the Civil War to the present, plus a quick review of the older stuff to start. They're supposed to have learned the earlier stuff in 8th grade. Only problem is, Teen B didn't take social studies in 8th grade. He was failing and his counselor pulled him out and gave him a job delivering notes for the front office. Teen A took social studies that year, but in January his teacher fell on a patch of ice and got a serious concussion and was basically out for the rest of the year, so that was a wash. Anyway, neither of them knows anything about early US History, so the review that we're doing right now is important.

An aside: during Back to School night I asked their teacher when this change had taken place, because I certainly learned early American history in 11th grade. Oh, about 10 years ago, he said. It works pretty well. Some years I get as far as Reagan. Well, we certainly didn't get that far in my American history class, I said. Then I remembered: Reagan hadn't happened yet. I graduated from high school in 1978 and Reagan was elected President in 1980. 

I'm so old.

The kids have different English classes, but they'll be reading some of the same things, like last year. The focus this year is on American literature. Teen A's class started with some (modern) American Indian poetry. He had to choose two poems to respond to and I helped him choose poems by Joy Harjo and Sherman Alexie, both of which (entirely coincidentally) mentioned birds. He was displeased by that ("Mom and her birds!"), but he wrote about the poems mostly on his own. Now his class is moving on to The Crucible, which apparently counts as Early American literature, even though it was written by Arthur Miller in the 1950s. Teen B's class is reading random short stories right now, I think because his teacher has been mostly out for the past two weeks (family stuff, a wedding, etc.). 

Teen B is very cross that Teen A only has three classes and he has seven, but one is his special ed class and one is band, so he really only has five: math, science, English, social studies, and foreign language. When he doesn't want to do his homework, I remind him that in college, people do their homework. "Well, maybe I don't want to go to college!" "That's fine, but then you'll have to get a job." Mmmm. He does his homework.

At the moment we're not doing much because both kids are sick with a cold. Teen A has had it almost since school started, and Teen B came down with it this weekend. I can feel it around the edges, attempting to strike me down too. I might have to stop writing this and go take a nap. I'm actually very interested in how this illness will go, because they say people on Mounjaro and Ozempic don't get as sick, or at least they don't die of Covid as often as other people. I'm wondering whether Mounjaro will have any effect on a cold.

This seems like a good place to give my weekly report. I didn't weigh myself last Sunday because I was in Seattle, but I do think I lost a little weight on the trip, probably due to all the walking.

•     Weight the morning I took my first shot: 254.6
•     Weight two Sundays ago: 242.8
•     Weight this morning (after 11+ weeks on Mounjaro): 239

So that's 15.6 lbs down in a little over 11 weeks. I have to go in for bloodwork this week, and then I see my doctor on September 9th. I hope she's pleased with my progress. It's interesting -- on my trip to Seattle, after I settled down, I felt pretty good the whole time. Since getting back, and especially since taking my shot Monday night, I've felt awful. No energy, no motivation to do anything. I didn't cook all week. I guess my Mounjaro-related misery is also related to the fact that my life isn't super fun. If I were living in a hotel room, not having to take care of twins or cats, and going to baseball games every day, maybe I would feel better, lol.

I'm currently reading a book about modern medicine, Telltale Hearts: A Public Health Doctor, His Patients, and the Power of Story by Dean-David Schillinger. I read a review of it in the NY Times a few weeks ago, it sounded interesting, so I requested it from the library (which had it on order). It's always interesting to read about medical stuff, but this book has an agenda: pointing out how poor, nonwhite people are so much sicker than wealthier white people, and how they do so much worse with (roughly) the same sort of treatment. I knew about this, of course, but the book is still eye-opening. One way in which it's made me sit up and take notice is its description of all Dr. Schillinger's diabetic patients and their complications.

I know I have diabetes, and I know that's not a good thing to have, but I don't spend much time worrying about it. I go in for my yearly eye exams (feeling silly when I do), I take my Metformin (and now Mounjaro) and my statin even though my cholesterol is fine, and I try (not very hard) to eat a healthy diet and exercise. Occasionally I'll have some pain in my feet and I'll think, oh no, neuropathy. But it always goes away. I haven't had any foot pain in months. I go barefoot most of the time.

But reading about Dr. Schillinger's diabetic patients -- wow. Their kidneys are failing and their eyes are in trouble. One patient who's lost all feeling in her feet goes to a water park on a hot day, gets serious burns on her feet (because she can't feel that they're hot), ends up having to have one foot amputated, gets gangrene in the other, goes septic, and dies, just like that. 

I thought, that won't happen to me. And it won't, probably, because I'm white and middle class and I have good medical care. But hmm, it could, if I weren't. Diabetes is a controllable disease, but it is a serious disease, and a lot of people who have it don't do very well at all.

***

So Rocket Boy got the new hot water heater going (leaving the enormous box on our front porch for me to deal with), and now he is back in St. Louis, but he's getting ready to finish that phase of his life. Yesterday we filled out his application for social security online, since he's turning 70 in two weeks. The first check should arrive in October, and it will be about as large as a social security check can be.

But that's not the big news. He's planning to quit his job at the end of September, finish packing up his apartment, and drive home. He may or may not have a new job here in Colorado -- we'll see how that goes. But regardless, he's going to come home, bringing all his stuff.

This will be quite an adjustment for our little family.

A few days ago I had to take our cat Sillers to the vet, because she wasn't eating. This has happened before and was nothing, but it's also happened and been an indication that her digestive tract is all blocked up, so I had to take her in. For $100 I learned that she's probably fine (and I have to bring her back this week for vaccinations which they didn't want to give her if she was sick). Sure enough, within a day she was eating normally again. I think she may have stopped eating because of two things: (1) Rocket Boy arrived, making it impossible for her to sleep all curled up next to me on the bed at night, and (2) I went to Seattle for a few days. 

What is she going to do when Rocket Boy is here all the time? I started thinking maybe I should get a little co-sleeper to attach to my side of the bed, and the cat could sleep in that. Of course, Baby Kitty would probably want to sleep there too. Hmm.

Plus, if by any chance he gets the job he just interviewed for, he will be working mainly at home, in our crowded little desk room, where the kids and I also like to hang out. The desk room that I was meaning to clean out, to make room for another desk. The desk room that now looks worse than it did a year ago, if that's possible.

Since it's a new month, I thought I should make some serious plans for it. More than just "read a million books" and all that. I know I don't have much energy, I know it's hard to add MORE tasks to the current few I manage to perform most days. But Rocket Boy is planning to make TWO trips to Colorado with all his stuff. Where are we going to put that stuff? Especially since the house is a crowded, cluttered nightmare already! Talk about a Scary September!

Plus, he doesn't like to throw anything away. If I'm going to get rid of anything, I need to do it now, before he shows up. I've actually already started, because it was up to me to put the hallway closet back together after RB finally got the water heater working. I threw out a LOT of stuff the last few days. Towels that were so ratty they were disintegrating. Old medicines -- from 10 years ago, even 30 years ago. Things I couldn't even identify. Into the trash it all went.

Therefore, don't panic. We have plans for the month.  

Every day, do the following:

• My usual tasks: cat care, teen care, laundry, dishes, cooking, errands
  
• 15 minutes on the room of the week, with a focus on getting rid of things, rather than cleaning them. Note: for this 4-week month, Week 1 is the front porch, entryway, and dining room; Week 2 is the bedrooms; Week 3 is the bathroom and the living room; Week 4 is the kitchen.
  
• 15 minutes on the files and piles in the desk room, with an emphasis on recycling.
  
• 15 minutes on the yard. This is of least importance, and can be skipped if I run out of time or get tired.
  

Every week, do the following:

• Fill the trash, recycling, and compost bins to overflowing and don't forget to put them out (this week I forgot to put out the compost and oh man, the smell, the maggots. Oh well).
• Make a trip to Goodwill.
  

That's it. That's my plan for the month. Will it work? I suspect that I'll do some of this, not enough, and I will feel frustrated and panicky, and -- it'll be OK. Whatever I end up with, it'll be OK. Because in the end, it's really nice that Rocket Boy is coming home. After five years! Who'd a thunk it would be that long?