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Strange light, strange cat
Mar. 10th, 2003 05:03 pmThere's a great bank of gray cloud in the western sky, and it has almost finished swallowing the sun. Above it is a bright band of pale yellow, fading fast. The smoke from the chimney of the house acoss the street stands out against the gray like upmoving snow. My beautiful muted orange cat is sleeping on a cushion on my desk: nose tucked under one hind paw, both forepaws firmly holding the hind paw down. The snow light and the cloud light and the fading sunlight grapple and overlap. All colors look peculiar.
I went to the clinic for my yearly checkup this afternoon. They had to reschedule the PAP smear. I'm having a period for the first time since last May. *snarl, gnash* My blood pressure was 161 over 93, but Vicky looked at my home log of pressures and just said, "You probably have a touch of white-coat hypertension. Just keep taking it at home so we know what's going on." She gave me an interim prescription for Cardura, and wrote a one-year one to use on the Canadian pharmacy website. She also told me that Pawlenty "and company" were passing a law enabling senior citizens and people without health insurance to get discounts on prescription drugs comparable to what one gets from buying them in Canada. That'll be interesting.
Then I went over to the Multispeciality Clinic and got my 50-mg Toprol caplets, enough for six weeks. Linda told me that she was expecting a huge lot of hundred-mg caplets and she'd put some aside for me when they arrived.
It was still brilliantly sunny then. I walked back over to Nicollet, enjoying it all enormously. I feel so much better now that they believe my home-monitor readings (they didn't believe them last summer, and it just drove me nuts), maybe my blood pressure at the clinic will look better next time. It's a pity I couldn't get the PAP smear out of the way, though.
Returning to my party report. Despite all those shoes and boots, there was plenty of room in the house. I lost Eric at once -- he ended up in the kitchen, while I went down to the furnace room to get something to drink, and noticed that that doors of the new refrigerator opened the wrong way for the orientation of the room. You had to shut the door of the room all the way before opening the refrigerator. I had a number of bottles of San Pellegrino and a lovely one of peach soda in the course of the evening. With the blood pressure check coming up, I felt drinking was unwise.
Peg waved at me from the sofa when I got back upstairs. She was wearing her ribbon jacket, and it was splendiferous. I couldn't readily get through the musicians, who were playing a Richard Thompson song, to say hello to her. Eric appeared at my elbow and told me what was in all the spreads on the table, and gave me a bite of the bean and artichoke one. I talked to Beth for a bit. She might be starting a Live Journal. I told her to let me know. She said her username would be all my fault.
David asked me if we'd brought Lydy, and I had to say we'd rushed out of the house so fast to get the Grand Avenue bus that I'd forgotten to ask if she wanted to come. I looked around a bit later, though, and she was there. People I didn't talk to included Peg, Laurel and Kevin (who were terribly cute), Alisgray, Martin, Lynn, Juan, Shaun, Joe, Andrew, oh, dozens. I admired them all, though. They were partying very assiduously in high fannish fashion. I really liked being there even though I had no conversation.
I sat on the stairs for a while, and therefore got to speak briefly to Nate as he was on his way out, and to talk to Beth some more. Daedela came up and gave me a book that we'd met for dinner so she could hand it to me some weeks back. The dinner was nice anyway. After a while I felt that my position on the stairs was encumbering the free movement of partiers, so I went and leaned over the back of the sofa and listened to the music. Eric found me there, and we examined watches and he checked the bus schedule and decided to take not the next bus but the one after. By the time he came down with his stuff, Beth, who was fading, offered him a ride. He gave me an extremely nice kiss, and thanked Bruce for the party, and they left.
I found an empty chair and listened to music for some time. During this time, Bruce decanted a bottle of wine into a very wide-bottomed decanter, using a candle. It looked like some mysterious alchemical operation, as the brilliant red wine slipped down the sides of the clear container. David came over later and gave me a sip of it. It was ambrosial. Bruce gave me the last small chunk of goat cheese and also talked me into trying a little small dab of a Brie so aromatic it was like brandy in the mouth. It was mellow, too, not ammoniac at all.
Much later I stood companionably in the kitchen with Eileen and neither of us had conversation. Larry told me his bean dip recipe. "You could make it at home." We discussed lemon thyme, and thyme generally, with Eileen. Karen was washing dishes. Mary came upstairs and exclaimed that the refrigerator doors were being taken off and repositioned. I went down to see, and sure enough, Shaun was doing that, with David taking photographs and occasionally handing him a screwdriver. There was a brief moment when they thought the handles were asymmetrical and would only work in the original orientation of the doors, but Shaun rapidly realized that if he swapped the freezer and refigerator handles they could be put on properly. It was lovely to watch.
After a while, having observed how easy it seemed to be to climb over the back of the sofa rather than walking through the music circle, I tried it. Karen came and sat down briefly, noting that she was really enjoying crunching her celery. The next moment, however, she had divined in some telepathic fashion that one of the musicians must want tea, and he did, and she went to get him some.
There was a secondary influx of musicians after midnight, including Lojo. At some point I noticed that there were fewer and fewer musicians, and finally they all packed up. David and Lydy and I were all standing near the food table, and he noticed he had one of us on each side and gave us each a one-armed hug, which was very pleasant.
We went home not long after. I was too far and not far enough past my bedtime, so I got to talk to Raphael for a bit and do some reading before I suddenly fell over. My cat slept on me. All was well. Aside from a tendency to longwindedness, that is.
Pamela
I went to the clinic for my yearly checkup this afternoon. They had to reschedule the PAP smear. I'm having a period for the first time since last May. *snarl, gnash* My blood pressure was 161 over 93, but Vicky looked at my home log of pressures and just said, "You probably have a touch of white-coat hypertension. Just keep taking it at home so we know what's going on." She gave me an interim prescription for Cardura, and wrote a one-year one to use on the Canadian pharmacy website. She also told me that Pawlenty "and company" were passing a law enabling senior citizens and people without health insurance to get discounts on prescription drugs comparable to what one gets from buying them in Canada. That'll be interesting.
Then I went over to the Multispeciality Clinic and got my 50-mg Toprol caplets, enough for six weeks. Linda told me that she was expecting a huge lot of hundred-mg caplets and she'd put some aside for me when they arrived.
It was still brilliantly sunny then. I walked back over to Nicollet, enjoying it all enormously. I feel so much better now that they believe my home-monitor readings (they didn't believe them last summer, and it just drove me nuts), maybe my blood pressure at the clinic will look better next time. It's a pity I couldn't get the PAP smear out of the way, though.
Returning to my party report. Despite all those shoes and boots, there was plenty of room in the house. I lost Eric at once -- he ended up in the kitchen, while I went down to the furnace room to get something to drink, and noticed that that doors of the new refrigerator opened the wrong way for the orientation of the room. You had to shut the door of the room all the way before opening the refrigerator. I had a number of bottles of San Pellegrino and a lovely one of peach soda in the course of the evening. With the blood pressure check coming up, I felt drinking was unwise.
Peg waved at me from the sofa when I got back upstairs. She was wearing her ribbon jacket, and it was splendiferous. I couldn't readily get through the musicians, who were playing a Richard Thompson song, to say hello to her. Eric appeared at my elbow and told me what was in all the spreads on the table, and gave me a bite of the bean and artichoke one. I talked to Beth for a bit. She might be starting a Live Journal. I told her to let me know. She said her username would be all my fault.
David asked me if we'd brought Lydy, and I had to say we'd rushed out of the house so fast to get the Grand Avenue bus that I'd forgotten to ask if she wanted to come. I looked around a bit later, though, and she was there. People I didn't talk to included Peg, Laurel and Kevin (who were terribly cute), Alisgray, Martin, Lynn, Juan, Shaun, Joe, Andrew, oh, dozens. I admired them all, though. They were partying very assiduously in high fannish fashion. I really liked being there even though I had no conversation.
I sat on the stairs for a while, and therefore got to speak briefly to Nate as he was on his way out, and to talk to Beth some more. Daedela came up and gave me a book that we'd met for dinner so she could hand it to me some weeks back. The dinner was nice anyway. After a while I felt that my position on the stairs was encumbering the free movement of partiers, so I went and leaned over the back of the sofa and listened to the music. Eric found me there, and we examined watches and he checked the bus schedule and decided to take not the next bus but the one after. By the time he came down with his stuff, Beth, who was fading, offered him a ride. He gave me an extremely nice kiss, and thanked Bruce for the party, and they left.
I found an empty chair and listened to music for some time. During this time, Bruce decanted a bottle of wine into a very wide-bottomed decanter, using a candle. It looked like some mysterious alchemical operation, as the brilliant red wine slipped down the sides of the clear container. David came over later and gave me a sip of it. It was ambrosial. Bruce gave me the last small chunk of goat cheese and also talked me into trying a little small dab of a Brie so aromatic it was like brandy in the mouth. It was mellow, too, not ammoniac at all.
Much later I stood companionably in the kitchen with Eileen and neither of us had conversation. Larry told me his bean dip recipe. "You could make it at home." We discussed lemon thyme, and thyme generally, with Eileen. Karen was washing dishes. Mary came upstairs and exclaimed that the refrigerator doors were being taken off and repositioned. I went down to see, and sure enough, Shaun was doing that, with David taking photographs and occasionally handing him a screwdriver. There was a brief moment when they thought the handles were asymmetrical and would only work in the original orientation of the doors, but Shaun rapidly realized that if he swapped the freezer and refigerator handles they could be put on properly. It was lovely to watch.
After a while, having observed how easy it seemed to be to climb over the back of the sofa rather than walking through the music circle, I tried it. Karen came and sat down briefly, noting that she was really enjoying crunching her celery. The next moment, however, she had divined in some telepathic fashion that one of the musicians must want tea, and he did, and she went to get him some.
There was a secondary influx of musicians after midnight, including Lojo. At some point I noticed that there were fewer and fewer musicians, and finally they all packed up. David and Lydy and I were all standing near the food table, and he noticed he had one of us on each side and gave us each a one-armed hug, which was very pleasant.
We went home not long after. I was too far and not far enough past my bedtime, so I got to talk to Raphael for a bit and do some reading before I suddenly fell over. My cat slept on me. All was well. Aside from a tendency to longwindedness, that is.
Pamela
