February 23, 2025

Once upon a time, and seemingly not that long ago, this morning I would have made my way to the closest Dan's Hamburgers as I woke up way too early and would need something filling to fuel my day. There, I'd have ordered coffee and probably a small orange juice, followed by the #1: Ham & Cheese Omelet, hash browns, biscuits, with a side of sausage gravy. Besides providing quite the cache of calories, it would have given me a moment or two of nostalgia, reminiscing about times (and foods) past. Times with my daughter doing the same; my mom's biscuits and gravy as well as her jams, jellies, and preserves; even going as far back as helping my mom's mom make breakfast, especially her biscuits and fried apples. Because of current health conditions, it is now in my best interest to not participate in such a feast to break my fast of last night. My heart would not appreciate those five or six cups of coffee, and my cursed bowels would not appreciate processing that amount of food. And hungry I usually am as I've been blessed with no decrease in appetite, and no nausea!

So, what I did instead was go to work early and eat breakfast there: a couple of scrambled eggs (which were not done enough for my liking) and a half-order of French toast (the brioche of which wasn't soaked in the custard long enough, as far as my tastes go). Was hoping to have enough energy to make it my first day back after my last chemotherapy treatment but, alack and alas, no such luck. Made it less than an hour. Saying that one will feel fatigued is quite an understatement. Will try again tomorrow, of course, after my way-too-early-in-the-morning sonagram for my rapidly approaching histotripsy, followed by lab work necessary for the same procedure.

Speaking of work, I was scheduled the last two days and just couldn't do much of anything. Including, much to my regret, my eldest grandchild's birthday party. As mentioned last year, today is my eldest grandchild's birthday. Fourteen years ago today, at 1:24 PM, weighing in at 7 lbs, 8.3 oz, and 19.75 inches long, that little person cemented my role as a grandparent. Now, I've missed two of that grandchild's birthdays. Got to do better, got to get healthier, feel there are still happy memories to be made for them. Running out of words, and steam, so off I go to sleep: perchance to dream. The chemo fog hasn't quite lifted, although 'tis better than this morning when I began this log. And although the weekly iron sucrose infusions and the pint of blood I received on Wednesday are helping with the energy levels and cold tolerance, the anemia is still there.

Don't forget, Brevity Quest 2025 is still running...

Prickle-Prickle, the 54th day of Chaos in the YOLD 3191

Some heartfelt thanks to a lot of you, and a peaceable plea to one.

No thanks.

I recently received this message from a user: "Man, you one of the stubborn lefitists [sic], go back to Lefty UK." Yep, "go back to your own country". A puerile response, and one that should be beneath you. Playground talk in a DM to me. You make statements about how everything left of a Ronald Reagan speech is "socialist", and I don't believe you understand the meaning of the word. Yes, I'm left of you by quite a way, but was willing to have discourse. Now I'm not so sure I want to hear from you again. Abuse me like that again and I will block you. Every opinion I've written that's critical of the alt-right and Trump has invited discourse from those who disagree. Your man came to the White House and unleashed his pet dog to "create efficient government". Instead of trimming dead wood he's chopping down the whole forest. Disagree? come at me with your best evidence to the contrary, but do it nicely. Now how are those egg prices, and gas prices coming along? ¹

Big Thanks! ♥

Now for some less divisive things, and infinitely more pleasant. Many thanks, to Segnbora-T, to Jet-Poop, C-Dawg and maxclimb. Your additions to my library will delight and enlighten me for many years to come. I also have an anonymous gift from The Custodian of a pillow featuring the Handley-Page Victor aircraft, which my father flew for many years in the Royal Air force. I owe you a writeup on the English Electric Canberra, which I mean to do justice to. It's another aircraft my father flew, when it was a big part of the UK's nuclear deterrent, a variant of which is sill in service (and used to great effect by NASA these days).

Because I'm still awaiting my cheque from George Soros, I am again asking for help, am desperate for lots of little things that are yet on my Amazon gift list. Books, computer stuff and tools will always be welcome, so I'm not tempted to spend money on them and can save for rent next month. In addition, I have a future hobby project, a homelab which I want to build to accommodate a network attached storage (NAS) server, Nextcloud server and some home automation software. Any spare components (storage, possibly unused single board computers) would be gratefully received. The original plan was to have a Raspberry Pi for each project, I've now decided to run all on one machine using virtual machines or Docker containers as I only have one RPi currently available.

The farm is largely a weedy, muddy mess and markets are going to be few and far between in March, which means less work and money. I wish I'd accepted an earlier offer for someone to start a GoFUndMe, it would be really handy to have right now, although lacking a bank account (long story!) I'd not be able to get access to the funds anyhow =\.

 ________________________________________ 
/ Today is Prickle-Prickle, the 54th day \
\ of Chaos in the YOLD 3191              /
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   \
    \
        .--.
       |o_o |
       |:_/ |
      //   \ \
     (|     | )
    /'\_   _/`\
    \___)=(___/

¹ To clarify, I stress that I have already communicated this to the user privately; this writeup is not my way of communicating with them. In fact, the user has recognised their error, apologised and mended the rift.

$ xclip -o | wc -w
564