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!