Okay, I don’t know if I’m allergic to tobacco smoke but I’m pretty sure it irritates me.
That, or whatever was making me cough before is still happening now and again.
If it’s not Dad’s chain-smoking, it’s likely allergies. I’m hoping that’s what it is. There’s still plenty of stuff blooming, plus we live in an area with some bayous and some swampy places and therefore lots of fungus, so it could be that. I already know from my few months in South Bend, Indiana in late summer 2002 that some fungi fuck me up. That may not even be an allergy. Fungi have a high affinity for animal tissue. None of us are particularly resistant to them.
Whatever. I was coughing as I started this entry so this is me thinking out loud. Moving on now.
We had nasty storming this morning and I wasn’t sure what severity we were in for, so I stayed home today. Dad thinks it’s option B versus going to work, but I wasn’t going to go to Lafayette, I was going to go to the library or possibly Carrie’s if she’s home. There is almost no point in driving on Monday or Tuesday. Unless something weird happens, I think Wednesday through Friday or Thursday through Saturday are perfectly reasonable work schedules right now. If I could figure out working towards alternative income sources on other days of the week, I’d have it made. Dad will be happy either way because I’ll be out of the house Doing Something.
Weirdly, he asked me to let him know I’m leaving when I do go “to work” so he can put on his Life Alert pendant. Call me crazy, but he ought to be wearing that thing anyway. I mean, what if he had a heart attack while I was in the fucking shower. I might hear him, I might not. Just hit the fucking button. Besides, it’s faster than calling 911 even if I were in place to know what was going on when it happened. And if it’s important enough for Life Alert OR for 911, I shouldn’t be fucking driving him.
But… as usual… I say nothing, because he’ll have some counterargument.
High drama in the trailer park today. Dad was napping earlier and I was playing phone games and watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV show, not movie) when this racket started up outside. I couldn’t tell at first whether it was a woman or a boy but they were yelling stuff like “I didn’t do anything wrong!!!” and “Let me in!!!” and BANG BANG BANG on a door. There are so many Latino people in this neighborhood that I thought it was probably the tenants in Corey’s trailer behind all the ruckus because they’re white, that was not a Mexican kid screaming, and the sound seemed to be coming from that direction. When I got up to look I found out I was right. And the screamer was definitely a boy. I couldn’t tell at that distance but I suspect I’ve seen him before: probably the tenant’s son, and he’s getting around to middle-school age but his voice has not cracked yet. His tone of voice was such that even if I were the meddling type, given my general life experiences, I would not have walked over to yell at him because mofo would have probably punched me in the face or something, and it would have actually hurt. I did think to myself, Boy, if Jodi’s home, she’s gonna be PISSED. Number one cardinal sin where the trailer-park owner is concerned is tenants lying to her. Number two sin is tenants disturbing the peace. Though I think the sins might have swapped places today. Dad got up not long after the incident and maybe half an hour after said incident had begun, he hollered for me to come look out the window and sure enough, Jodi was at the trailer with an Acadia Parish sheriff’s deputy in tow. Those people had already pissed her off by committing Cardinal Sin One some weeks ago, and now they’ve upped the stakes. If she doesn’t get Corey to evict them, I will be stunned. And Corey will defer to her. He and his mother and sister used to live here and they have a good relationship with Jodi.
I will not deny I’m kind of wishing Dad would take advantage. That is a nice trailer and I think he would be more comfortable there. I know for a fact I would be, with the central air and the probably two bathrooms alone. It’s probably not going to happen, though. Because he’s paying Jodi rent on this trailer and not just rent on the lot, Dad stays here so Jodi can get that extra money. He feels he owes her a lot because she stayed over here overnights after he got out of the hospital last year. I understand, but if someone asked Jodi whether she’d rather get more money from Dad or see Dad more comfortable (and he would be; he does complain about this place from time to time), I suspect she’d pick the latter. But I won’t be the one asking that question. Not my lease, not my place.
The other thing that happened during Dad’s nap was I got my glucose meter via FedEx from that hospital/Humana diabetes-treatment partnership. When they told me it was going to connect to the internet I assumed it would be a CGM, but no such luck. I’m not 100% disappointed; I had been a bit worried that I might start reacting to the CGM covers and their bandage adhesive, and now I don’t have to worry about that. It is Bluetooth, as I suspected, so I can move numbers to my phone even if I can’t upload them, and stuff will be a lot easier to track. The notice card that came with the kit says to set up the app and then take my first reading and that will start me in the program. I’ll do that tomorrow because I intend to be out of the house for part of the day anyway. I get intermittent connection here but not reliable enough to try an app installation, much less sending data.
But the meter is actually cute! It is teensy and it makes me think of what a glucose meter would look like if Apple designed it. (I’m an Android gal through and through, but Apple’s designs are pretty. I can admit it.) And it actually came with control solution! I almost never see that in new-meter kits. I’ll do a control-solution test first tomorrow.
I’ll keep my other meter. I could end up kicked out of the program tomorrow if Humana loses funding for it, and then I wouldn’t have a meter. Or I would, but I’d stop getting free strips for it. Might be worth my while to check Amazon to see if they have the strips because there is a native app for the meter that I can use even if the program ends (I won’t be using the native app for the program), but right now I’m a bit broke for buying strips. So having prescription strips is still a great idea. I’ll probably fill that about once a month just to be on the safe side. Hopefully my situation improves enough soon enough that I can stop worrying about all of this.
The other cute thing that happened today is I was standing out on the front steps doing something on my phone and all of a sudden I hear BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZeep! right above my head. Looked up and it was a male ruby-throated hummingbird flying off like I had startled him. Which I must have done, since he had squeaked. At first I was surprised because we have no feeders in Dad’s yard anymore, and then I remembered I’m wearing a red tshirt today. Birb saw red, got excited for nectar snax, and then OH SHIT RED IZ MOOVING. Oops! Sorry, lil guy! I need to set up a feeder soon. That might be something I use my Walmart gift cards for. Wouldn’t be a bad expenditure. I’m sure the neighborhood miscreants have been wondering why we aren’t feeding them anymore.
(If you have ever observed large numbers of hummingbirds at a feeder, you would know why I call them that. Hours of free entertainment right fucking there. Or cheap, anyway. White sugar still isn’t a huge expense.)
The other neighborhood miscreants, the feral cats, seem to have disappeared. Dad made a big deal yesterday out of not having seen any of them but I’m finding it’s true, there don’t seem to be any around. Part of me is glad for the wild birds’ sake but part of me is a little sad too, because we don’t have a good animal-welfare situation in this state and, like as not, someone carted them off to gas them somewhere. I’m not against euthanasia, but we aren’t particularly humane about it. But we’ll see. Could be it’ll turn out they just felt the front coming and didn’t feel like roaming until it blew over.
Okay, I’ve been sitting here with my mind wandering all over the place for the past ten minutes. If something else happens today, I’ll add it. If not, I won’t. Deal? Deal. Buh-bye.