4th of Nisan

Passover or Pesach, this year, starts on the night of April 12th to the 20th. I’m going to do it this year. The seder and ‘diet’ during the holiday. Ashkenazi Jews have a more restrictive diet than Sephardi Jews during the holiday. In addition to no leavening (from 5 types of grains: wheat, barley, oats, rye, and spelt), which is chametz, we don’t eat kitniyot. Kitniyot (lit. ‘small things’) are legumes, rice, corn, and other foods considered similar to grains. Even mustard is on the list. I try to keep it as close as I can. There’s a surprising amount of corn products in things.

Seder lit. means ‘order’, it’s a ritual dinner that goes in a certain order. I didn’t do a seder for a couple of years after my fall and cancer diagnosis. I think this is my 3rd year getting back into it. I’ll be the leader at our family one. It’ll just be my parent and I. It’s a bit sadder when it’s just me. (Had that for a couple of years.) We used to go to a friends’ place for the 2nd night. Most people do (or go to) seders on the 1st 2 nights. The hostess had an accident (I don’t remember exactly what happened) and got brain damage from it. So, they haven’t hosted one since. They might have stopped it when Covid came around, too. I kind of miss their seders. There were a lot of people. I got to see their dogs. There was interesting food. I usually was the youngest one, so I had to ‘search’ for the afikoman. Afikoman is a piece of matzo (cracker like unleavened bread) that’s been hidden. The kids have to find it. They usually get a prize of some sort. The best present I got, I think, was an illustrated Hebrew dictionary. (Most of the time it’s like $1 or something small.) The seder can’t end unless everyone eats a piece of the afikoman. It’s also the last thing that’s eaten. I think some strict families don’t sing or listen to music after.

I decided on the actual dinner things for ours. We’ll have the usual hard-boiled eggs and gefilte fish first. I got 2 jars of the fish, which will be nice to have during the week. Then, matzo ball soup. I got 2 jars of this. We’ll probably use all of the 1st jar that night. My parent wanted to make the roasted chicken. The last couple of years we’ve gotten it from one of the markets. It might be even better made at home. I thought having a salad would be a good side. Probably get a spring mix. I can put a few leaves from it on the seder plate. I was hoping to mix in shredded carrots and shredded cabbage. I think Safeway used to have those already prepared. I’m hoping they’ll still have that. Craisins or dried cranberries would be great in the salad, too. I already found a good looking dressing and got it. It’s a garlic vinaigrette. I got quite a collection of desserts. Double dipped chocolate macaroons, almond macaroons, fruit slices (candy), chocolate seder plate (it looks impressive to me. Hopefully it’s in one piece), and Osem's chocolate chip Pesach cake (they make amazing Pesach cakes. I think they crushed this one, sadly). I bought 2 boxes of matzo. Even though I’m the only one that will eat it after the seder, I’m going to use it a lot. Matzo pizzas, matzo with charoset (fruit, nut, and wine mix, which the one I bought is like a jam) on it for a snack, matzo sandwiches (almond butter and charoset, egg salad, and tuna salad), and more. I decided not to try to roast an egg this year for the seder plate. I’ll just put a hard-boiled egg on it. I’m not sure how many hard-boiled eggs I’ll need for sandwiches for the week. Safeway has a couple of brands, and they all have 6 to a bag. Maybe if I want more I can just go back to get more then. We’ll put an orange on the seder plate again. It represents marginalized Jews. Like LGBTQ+ Jews, Jews of color, etc. We’ll have to get parsley for the plate, too. I noticed we have ‘extra hot’ horseradish. We could use that for the plate and the little matzo sandwich we have during the seder part just before dinner. I hope I can handle a tiny piece of it. I’ll get sparkling grape juice for my 4 cups. I don’t drink alcohol. I think I’ll get 2 bottles. I can have the rest during the holiday.

I got 3 bags of Pesach noodles. They didn’t have any at the markets, and they only came in 3s on Amazon. (I got most of the Pesach stuff from there.) I love those noodles. It’ll definitely last longer than the holiday. I’m going to try and find a good pasta sauce to have with it. Kind of hard to find without soy or corn products. I’ll have some cheese with it as well. I’ll use both the sauce and cheese with the matzo pizzas and noodles. I also found a premade roast chicken, potatoes, and carrots boxed meal. They say it can be used for camping. They say they’re kosher for Pesach. I might try more of them in the future, if I like it. I got bbq potato chips. That would be a nice snack. I got an herbal tea sampler. Most teas are kosher year round, but it was on sale in Amazon’s Pesach section. Hopefully it’ll be good. I thought a sampler would be nice. I can try a variety of them. This holiday is one of my faves, but it takes quite a bit of planning.

The main picture on the Jewish calendar is of an old French seder plate. It has the spots for each thing, each one is also in Hebrew and French. The outer part of the plate has all the sections of the seder in both Hebrew and French. That’s kind of cool to see. Most seder plates don’t do that. The other (secular) calendar has someplace in Scotland, I think. It has the Scottish flag. It’s of a sunset around some ruins.

I downloaded my ancestry . com data, and uploaded it to MyTrueAncestry. They supposedly do a deeper dive into how far back they go. My parent did it before me, and it looked interesting. It only took less than 10 minutes. It was free, although they show more if you pay for it. Not sure how accurate it is. A big percentage were Illyrians. I still don’t know much about them after looking them up. I’ll look at the other groups at some point. (A lot of them I don’t know much about.) Another big percentage were the Romans. I’m surprised by this one, but they got around, like the Vikings. I didn’t see any Viking in there, oddly. It had an era circle of what percentage of people were for each era. They also have a map, so you can see where they travelled around in certain eras. My parent also recently tried another DNA thing. Something that sequences your whole genome. I might be able to do that when they have a sale. It takes a while.

Went to Kettlefish for the first time on Saturday. There’s only 3 entrees I can have there: fish and chips, cod tacos, or Caesar salad with cod pieces. I got their cod tacos with coleslaw. The fish was really good. There were way too many things in the tacos, so most of it fell out. Even with eating the fish first, it was still too much. The pico de gallo tasted like it had curry spices. Interesting. The tacos also had too much lettuce. The coleslaw was interesting and good. They also had ice cream. I got a chocolate eclair bar. Reminded me of the strawberry shortcake bars. Just with chocolate. I might try their fish and chips next time.

I ordered quite a bit of meds lately. My primary doc’s ‘team’ also ordered 400 mg gabapentin. They want me to take it once 3 times a day. They think it might help me more than the 300 mg once 3 times a day dose. I had been waiting for my morphine 60 mg pills. I’d run out by Friday morning. (I take it 3 times a day.) I was so happy to get it today. It really cut it close. I also got the gabapentin. It was 90 days worth. I wanted it to be a 30 day one. I ended up with 4 huge full bottles of it. Too much. I barely had space for it and the other meds I got. (There were a few more.) I think the gabapentin was $16, but I wasn’t charged for the others. I thought it’d all be a lot more expensive. Maybe I’ve already hit the deductible or whatever it is.

Today I didn’t miss any of the Spanish sentences on Duolingo. Did 3 lessons. Finished a unit and my Spanish number went up to 62. Hit a milestone for my daily streak, which was 1,250 days. Finished all the quests for today. I’m 5th in the league. 

Someone tried to basically harass me on Shabbat . com. He sent weird messages and tried friending me twice. He seemed to only be there to look for a wife. He made quite a few false assumptions about me. I eventually just blocked him. Oddly, I noticed I haven't used that app for 3 years. I might get back to it. It's kind of like a Facebook for Jews. Including part of it where you can find places to stay and host Shabbat dinners. They got a dating part of it, which I never really used. Most people on there have been nice.

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26th of Shevat

Having the new hospital bed in my room has been interesting. The remote actually has a clip to hook over the rails. I don’t have to have it at my side all the time. The old one didn’t have a clip and would easily fall. Had to sleep with it. It feels weird to not have to do that now.

I got 2 new calendars. One that’s Jewish, and the secular one features places from around the world. We think the one that features places has Amsterdam for this month. The houses are similar to the one’s there.

I kept getting hot flashes and had to open the windows in my room. It got pretty chilly in there. It was weird to feel so hot when it was so cold outside.

I had my first bed bath with it on 2/13. I didn’t really trust the water coming from the bathtub, so I got some downstairs, and slowly went back up the stairs. I poured it out in the tub afterwards to make it easier to go down the stairs with. The dust bunnies went everywhere, but it did go down the drain. I did the bed bath after lunch instead of right after brushing my teeth in the morning. I think it was the perfect time. I did that for the other times since then. Most of the time since then it’s ended up being 40 min-45 min to do everything. (A little bit less time last time I did it.) That’s not too bad considering I was by myself. The last couple of times, there wasn’t any wet spots. Yay! I ran out of lotion last Monday. I quickly ordered more that day. With my most recent bed bath, I had to go without the lotion. At least I got clean. It’s just my skin got a bit drier afterwards. I got it tonight. 

I waited a while, but my next Universal Yums box was stuck on the pre-shipping phase. I sent an email to them about it. They replied back only a few minutes later. (It was much faster than expected!) They were sorry that it looked like they lost it. How do you lose something like that? They quickly sent a replacement box free of charge (I paid for the one they lost, so it should be like that) after that email. They said it’ll be on Türkiye or Turkey. That’s interesting. They sent another email on a Turkish recipe for karnıyarık. It’s for a savory stuffed eggplant. I hate eggplant. Maybe if it was hidden I’d try it. They even had tips for what to look for when picking a fresh eggplant, and on Turkish olive oil. They prefer Turkish olive oil. Should be interesting to see what snacks they have. Probably would be different than Treats was. I think they mainly look for things with multiple servings, which is great to me. Apparently, I got 2 boxes from them tonight. (I just got them, so I don’t know what’s in them yet.) They must have found the ‘lost’ one.

My parent was gone last Monday through Friday. She went to a NASP convention. They go to a different place every year. This time it was in Seattle. I heard she met a lot of people she hadn’t seen in a while. She also broke her glasses. She went with an Uber there, and came back in one. 

Rosie has been super clingy since she was gone. She already was before, but even more so now. She’s been resting under my new bed as I’m on it throughout the day. There’s a pretty big area back there. She’s been peeing a lot on the puppy pads. She’s been going through them like water. We got more on Saturday. It takes a lot out of me to do them. I was giving her the insulin shots. Sometimes it was earlier than usual. I didn’t know if she was going to run away later, so I did it when I saw her just before making breakfast and before my dinner. Her usual is after those meals. There was one night where I didn’t see her downstairs until my last snack. A little late, but I did it. I think I was doing it right. I didn’t feel any wetness or smell it in those spots. She seemed wobbly at one point where she tripped over her legs. She was ok after a minute, though. I didn’t think she needed sugar or anything with that. She’s been lying on the hard linoleum floor in the kitchen sometimes. I don’t know why she does that. She has food, water, and the pads have been taken care of. Sometimes I’m making something, so it sort of makes sense. Other times I’m not. Weird. She’s been sitting/lying down really close to me as I eat, too. Sometimes so close, she’s under my chair. Hopefully, she’ll go back to normal, since my parent’s home now.

I decided to order groceries online Friday night, since my parent’s glasses broke. I thought it would not be good for her to drive. Found everything except for the usual desserts, my toothpaste, and a med. Still had to go out for those things Saturday. That’s also when we got more puppy pads for Rosie. My parent decided to wear her bent glasses while driving, since she could still see that way.

Last week I had a chocolate chip cookie sandwich with cream in the middle. It was from the new bakery area at a local market. It seemed over-the-top, and a great way to celebrate things. I could only get through half of it. They also had a red velvet and champagne cake. It was combined, and interesting.

A couple of days ago (in the morning), after brushing my teeth, there was a lot of red stuff that I spat out along with the toothpaste. I didn’t eat anything with a red color. I didn’t feel pain in my mouth, and didn’t see any blood from my gums. The only thing out of place was last night I noticed a hard/spiky spot on the roof of my mouth. It disappeared pretty quickly. I don’t think it had anything to do with it. So, what was it? I’ll see if it does it again.

I enrolled all 5 of my ebooks on Smashwords to their annual Read an Ebook Week promo. I set them to free. I seem to get more ‘bites’ when they’re free. It’ll be from March 2nd-March 8th. I put up a notice about it on my socials. I doubt anyone will care on those. I’ll still post about it on March 2nd.

Last week was Aromantic Spectrum Awareness Week. I didn’t see anything new and interesting on facebook for it. Seems like everyone’s quiet about it this year. Maybe they’re scared.

I posted a selfie on my socials. I haven’t taken a selfie in a long time. I also wanted to compare previous selfies to see how much my ‘moon face’ has gone down. (A steroid made that happen.) I think it’s pretty much gone. I had a couple weird responses. One person, on Tumblr, said they looked at my profile and my selfie and they want to make a mural based on it. Saying I’m their muse. They said they’ll pay me $500 for it. I quickly blocked them. That was just bizarre. On Twitter, someone mentioned me. Apparently they said they were ‘inspired’ by my selfie and drew/painted me. It looked awful. The other people he did that to and was inspired looked awful, too. The original selfies were much better. Good it’s not just me. I don’t like that they did that without my permission, but it doesn’t violate Twitter’s rules. Although, he also had drawings of naked men. Some with rabbit heads. It was creepy. Another little surprising thing was a comment on facebook. Saying my skin is perfection, with hearts for eyes emoji. I think I should take it as a compliment, but I’m not used to that. At least it wasn’t like that person on Twitter.

It’s been raining heavily lately and windy. It’s supposed to get even windier tonight and Tuesday. The temperature has been warmer than usual, too. Warm, but stormy. Weird combo.

I finally cooked again Sunday night. It was One Pot Chili Mac and Cheese. From another pin on Pinterest. I don’t know if I rinsed the beans correctly. It turned out great, though. I thought there wouldn’t be enough liquid, but the pasta was perfectly done. There were a lot of leftovers, but that just means more lunches/dinners during the week.

Had a phone appointment today with my primary care doctor. I wasn’t expecting it. I had a notice telling me to do a pre-check in. I looked at my appointments, and there was also one to see someone in oncology (one I don’t know) in April. No one told me about it. I don’t like when they ‘decide’ for me.

Anyways, my doctor said she created the phone appointment today. She wanted to talk to me right away. She had just talked to Dr. Slack about my pain. He might think I’m still in palliative care (pc), which I’m not.

She went over 3 options for pain. The first one was to go to a certain specialist (I don’t remember what she called them), choosing between 2 different places in Seattle. They’ll insert a pain pump. Seattle’s a long haul. I don’t want to go all the way out there. It also sounds a little scary. The second option is to switch to methadone. I’d have to get off of morphine. The third option was to try gabapentin. That would work together with the morphine. She said the morphine deals more with bone pain, and gabapentin deals with nerve pain. I chose the third option. I think I’ve tried gabapentin before. (I could be wrong. We might have just talked about it.) It was back when they thought I had fibromyalgia. In reality, I probably was experiencing symptoms of my cancer. If I took it, I don’t remember how it affected me. She said there’s either 100 mg or 300 mg capsules. She’s going to try a stronger dose for me to start with. It’ll be the 300 mg. There’s more wiggle room to work with as well. Like, the max is higher than some others. She said I should probably start with it at night, since it might make me sleepy. It might also make me dizzy, unsteady on my feet, or trouble thinking/brain fog. She’ll order this along with okaying my next morphine refill. She wants me to talk to her again in 3 weeks over the phone. Just to see how it’s going. Hopefully, this will work. The other options sound intense, and again, scary. 

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14th of Shevat

It’s been a while. This whole past week was weird. I was supposed to get my hospital bed last Monday (on 2/3), and they were also supposed to ‘pick up’ my old hospital bed that day. The weather was really awful. We had gotten some snow and ice. It was so bad, my parent said the schools she works for were closed. The Apria driver did call me about postponing it, considering it was so bad out. He said he’d call me on Tuesday at around 9am or 9:30am. I never heard from him after that. The weather was bad for most of the week. Schools were closed most of week, except for Friday. That was a 2 hour delay. I have a feeling they didn’t call because of the weather. It was forecast to be really cold out this week. Not much snow in the forecast. It was ridiculous to be waiting so long. Especially with no word from them.

On Monday, they called me at around 12:30pm. I was going to call them after I had lunch. So, perfect timing. They had apparently called my parent just before me. I have her as my emergency contact. They have my info, but for some reason they’ve contacted my parent instead. It’s weird. It was like that with the previous bed. Anyways, they finally did it. They attached some of the old bed parts to the new one, which was interesting. The new one’s fully electric. Different than last time. Just a press of a button to have the whole thing go up and down. There was a crank with the old one. The family room looks really empty downstairs now. My bedroom looks more ‘busy’. I managed to get the hospital table where I wanted it. Parent helped a lot with bringing it upstairs. I almost had to throw it in my room. I can still get to the closet with it. Should be interesting to see what it’s like for bed baths. The bed itself is pretty comfy. 

I still need to dust more in my room. I wasn’t really using it as my room for close to 5 years. A little weird to get back to. I’ll vacuum it more and go through my clothes and other things. Hopefully I'll have the energy to do stuff like that. 

I ordered calendars last night. The previous calendars were stuck on December 2020. I got the Jewish calendar this afternoon. That’s pretty fast. It’s from the same museum that did my previous Jewish calendars. They showcase a different artifact (sometimes 2) a month. I don’t like the new packaging. They went without plastic with a slight overhang. I had to cut that off. They still have the Torah portions or parsha, phases of the moon, Shabbos lighting times, National and Jewish holidays (I think they even have things like Ramadan as well), and more. It’s usually a nice calendar. Last night, I also searched for a secular calendar. I was planning to get a chemical element one, like I had last time. That was a really cool one. Apparently they stopped making them in 2023. I looked for an herbs/spices one, which I had before. Nothing. Then I did a generalized search. They had a Pusheen calendar. I had one in the past and liked it. The problem was it wouldn’t get here until March, and I want it sooner. I was surprised with the sample that they even had Shavuot on there. That’s kind of rare for secular calendars. I found one that was called Passport to the World. It has pics of places from around the world. I think I had a calendar in the past with the same company. They’re French. They have French, Spanish, and English for everything. It might have pretty pics. I think that’s supposed to be delivered on Friday.

I also might look into getting a clock for my room. I already have an idea of where I’ll put it. I’d like it to not tick. I’m a little nervous about how to put it up on the wall. Maybe my parent can help me. I just want a simple one. I’m going to have to get rid of my stereo at some point. It doesn’t really work anymore.

My little TV is old (I think I got it just before I went to college in 2003), and it only plays my old Sega Genesis games. All the other channels don’t work. I want a new nice and small TV. I’ll take down my ace flag, and put it up there. Maybe have a sound bar underneath it. Maybe eventually get a game console with games. I think my parent got a Playstation for us, but it would be interesting to have something like that in my room as well. She can play with me, too. I have some ideas for the future in my room. It seems fun that way.

The Saturday before that Monday (the day I was supposed to get the bed) the Got Junk people came by. They were supposed to be here at 11am, but they came at like 10:30am. They took my bed, the headboard, and the stuff that was under the bed. I was nervous to know what was under there. I thought there would be like a ton of spiders, mice, or Rosie’s poop. None of that craziness. I found my certificate from when I ‘graduated’ from swimming lessons as a kid. Found a few of Rosie’s toys. She must have brought them there. I saved her fave big yellow ball and ladybug plush toy. It’s kind of an angry looking ladybug. I saw my old posters. There was a wooden slab. My desk used to be made of 2 short blue bookcases and a wooden slab/plank over it. I have a real one now. I think what I have now was my mom’s. I certainly didn’t need that huge piece of wood anymore. I’m glad they took most of it away. My parent, on Friday (I think), vacuumed the area that was underneath. There were a lot of dust bunnies and small pieces of debris. Now it’s even better. I didn’t have the energy by then to vacuum it myself. We had it ready for a while this way.

Last Saturday I also had a haircut appointment. I was worried the Got Junk people would take so long that I’d have to cancel it. Luckily, they were quick. They were done before around 11am. I got another buzzcut. A little cold for right now, but it’s so easy to take care of. I had a lot of grey or white hairs. Kind of surprised me. Yet again, she didn’t charge me. She does it because she feels that’s what she can do to help me. When she found out I had cancer, that’s how she felt about it. I feel guilty about it sometimes.

Afterwards, we went to Isla Bonita for lunch. I got their burrito blanco. One of my faves at other Mexican places, so I wanted to see what theirs was like. It was very good. Leftovers made for another great lunch.

After that we went to Starbucks. (I think we went home in between.) Apparently my parent had lost her wallet. The Apple Pay wasn’t working, so I paid for everything. A little difficult for me, considering I don’t get much through ssi.

After that we went to Walmart. I needed a surge protector and my parent needed Tums. I bought both of them, since Apple Pay didn’t work there. I needed the surge protector for my new all electric hospital bed, iPhone charger, and watch charger. The other outlet is for my lamp on my nightstand. So, it was another thing to prepare for the new bed. I’m surprised the iPhone charger works as well. It’s pretty old, but I haven’t used it in a long time. Hopefully it’ll work for a while. I think we might have gone to Petco, too. Rosie needed more cat litter. Apple Pay did eventually work there.

I tried to take a cramp med that my parent gave me during the week. Did it for 3 nights, and didn’t have any cramps those nights. It might interact with my other meds, so I decided to have it when I have cramps at night. That hasn’t happened yet. I’m unsure if it’s safe for me to take on a regular basis.

We decided to go out on Thursday. Kind of felt stir crazy. We went to Starbucks again, which I think I paid for it again. (We tried the Apple Pay again, and it didn’t work.) I tried one of their new sandwiches: pesto egg and mozzarella. It was really hot at first. It was good. The gingerbread latte wasn’t as great as I expected.

We went to Safeway for dinner stuff, and Central Market that night for dessert stuff. I think I got broccoli chicken Alfredo. I got a fruit tart for dessert from their new bakery area. My parent was able to use Apple Pay at both places. Thank goodness. I went through the self checkout and I had to tilt the fruit tart at a weird angle. It made some of the fruit pieces slide off.

We went to the Olive Garden for dinner Friday night. They actually had Apple Pay, and my parent had no problems with it. I got chicken and gnocchi soup, fettuccine Alfredo with broccoli, and tiramisu for dessert. There wasn’t enough gnocchi in the soup. I think I had like 3 in the whole thing. There was way too much broccoli in the fettuccine Alfredo. Like more than a head’s worth. The tiramisu was frozen in parts. Once I thought the cream/custard was like ice cream, it was better. Had half of the fettuccine Alfredo with broccoli and had the leftovers for lunch on Saturday. It seemed like quite a lot still.

Did weekly grocery shopping at Central Market on Saturday. Parent found some decent bananas. I got 2 dinners and 2 desserts. One being a broccoli and cheddar quiche, and the other dinner their mac and cheese. I had half of the mac and cheese Saturday night. Got a hazelnut chocolate cupcake from their new bakery area, and a cherry pie slice. The cupcake that night was a bit weird. The frosting/nuts/chocolate syrup was good, but the cake part had like an herb. I couldn’t place it. I got tired of having the oatmeal cookies, and got snickerdoodles this time. We also got hot dark chocolate. We still have small marshmallows, so why not?

Went to Safeway on Sunday. There’s a new flavor of the cereal I get. I normally get the maple pecan Honey Bunches of Oats. It’s one of the few cereals that doesn’t turn into tasting like sand. The new flavor is chocolate Honey Bunches of Oats. I thought about it. It would only be 3 more grams of sugar. I decided to get my usual, but I might try the new one soon. For a dinner, I got grilled chicken with green beans and mashed potatoes. It also has some garlic and herb butter. I added BBQ sauce to the chicken and the butter mostly on the green beans. I got tiramisu cake for dessert. There was a big one that was like 500 calories, and the one I got was 210 calories. I don’t need a lot. The chicken with BBQ sauce (it was one I haven’t had before) was really good, same with the rest of it. The cake is probably tasty, too.

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15 of Tevet

It’s been so long since I’ve actually cooked something. I think the cancer has made it hard to motivate myself to do it. Before my fall back in March 2020 (a month before I was diagnosed with cancer), I was getting back into it. It was fun. I thought I’d try to cook again this year. I might cook on Saturdays. I made Enchilada Pasta from a pin I found on Pinterest this last Saturday. I bought pre-diced white onions, so I didn’t have to do it myself. It really helped. I hate onions, but will eat them if cooked a certain way. The recipe called for yellow onion, but it probably doesn’t matter much. The onions basically disappeared, which was a plus. Good to just have the taste. It has ground beef. It really reminds me of Hamburger Helper that way. I’m not used to using taco seasoning and enchilada sauce. Both were interesting. There’s also low sodium beef broth, pasta, and cheese. The cheese is a blend of monterey jack and cheddar. The cheese was like magic. It thickened up a lot when I added it. The pasta was perfectly cooked. I thought it would be too long. You cook it in the enchilada sauce and beef broth (and the rest of the stuff except cheese) for 15-20 minutes. No extra pot that way. It was really good. Very zesty. It’s made quite a few more dinners during the week. They say it’s 6 servings, but I don’t measure them out. I just go by what I want. I gave myself a little too much Monday night. Felt really full, but I still have a lot left.

Didn’t go to the markets on Sunday, but went to Central on Monday. I’m running really low on what SSI was paying me, so my parent was nice enough to help me with it. I still haven’t heard from Social Security. Anyways, I got a smoked turkey and dill havarti sandwich for dinner. To have a little break from the pasta thing. I also got a slice of cherry pie. I had that as my last snack. I got more instant beef pho. Used one of the instant pho’s on Monday, so I replaced it with this. The bananas looked horrible. It must be bad weather or something, since they’ve looked bad the last few times. I forgot to get milk, so I’ve had cereal without it again. Got one of my fave Amy’s frozen meals: broccoli cheddar bake. Also, got their Country Cheddar one. It’s been a while since I’ve had it, but it sounds good.

I got my first box of Universal Yums. It’s on the UK. I think they do a lot more interactive things than Treats did. One of their emails beforehand had a list of British comedy shows. Each one has a youtube link (I think to playlists), so you can watch some of it. Another email had recipes. It comes with a map of the country with some highlights. On the back you can write how you felt about each snack. There’s a booklet. Much more in depth than Treats on this. They have more recipes, sayings, a music playlist, descriptions of each snack, tips on what to do and not do at a tea party or afternoon tea, and even nutrition info on each snack. There are also stickers. The snacks have been interesting, and I don’t think Treats had any of them before. There’s also a little Yum Bag, which is apparently full of 2 types of little things they found. They’re fudge and a caramel filled with liquid chocolate. (They actually highlight them in the booklet as well.) This one seems more interesting to me. I've tried everything except the rhubarb candy and toffee. The pickled onion potato chips (or crisps) were better than the cheddar potato chips. The candies were softer than I expected. The Millions Iron Brew flavor were awful. Worst thing so far. Reminded me of Nerds, but stickier. Not really chewy. Stuck to my teeth too much and I only had a few pieces. (Gave it 1 or 0 hearts, if I could.) Tried it today, and had the chocolate chip and coconut soft cookies instead. They were good, but had just a little too much coconut. I also got an email from them a couple of nights ago. They featured books from or about the UK. A couple of them sounded interesting and I might add them to my wishlist on Amazon (if they’re on there). They really seem to get into it. Oh, and they asked if I wanted to opt out of Valentine’s Day related stuff next month. I happily did that. I don’t really like the holiday. They said I’ll still get the country related emails.

Monday I did 5 or 6 lessons in Duolingo’s Spanish course. I wanted to finish all the quests and use the xp multipliers I got from finishing them. I did 3 lessons each yesterday and today. Finished 2 quests pretty quickly. Only had 1 mistake today. I’m 4th in the league. That’s pretty good considering how competitive they are in this one.

Watched Flow and finished Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire. Flow was really trippy. They got the cat movement/mannerisms correct. It seems like it was a metaphor for death. It was a world where humans had certainly been there, but they disappeared. Interesting how the animals interacted with each other. At times they almost seemed human.

The New Empire was kind of cool. Lots of big ‘monsters’. I like how Kong knows the humans are trying to help him. They fixed his tooth for one thing. (There was another thing the humans gave him, but that might be giving too much away.) Godzilla just seemed angry with everyone but Mothra. I like where he decided to sleep a couple of times. I think he didn’t even know why he was trying to supercharge himself with radiation until Mothra came out.

Went to Silver City last night for dinner. We (my parent and I) shared their pretzel appetizer. It comes with 2 pretzels, so we could each have 1. I ate half of mine. I got their Top Notch burger with coleslaw. It was pretty good. Had half of both of them. Those and the pretzel made a nice lunch today. I had their brownie for dessert. It had ice cream on top, hot fudge, caramel sauce, and a ton of whipped cream. Some chocolate puffs/chunks were on top of the whipped cream. It looked like a huge ice cream sundae. I didn’t have the whole thing.

Had a horrible leg cramp early yesterday morning. I was still in bed. It was so bad that it was spasming for a long time afterwards. I’ve been getting little ones lately, but this was the biggest one in a long time. Maybe I need my cyclobenzaprine dose increased. It’s a muscle relaxer, which has helped a lot. I’ll bring it up with my primary care doctor. Another thing is I’ve been occasionally bleeding from my nose. I don’t know if it’s just dryness or something more.

Figured out another way to organize my pills. It might make it easier. After each day, organize yesterday’s pills. So, I end up refilling it over time. Sunday I’ll end up doing 2 days worth. Once during the day, and once after I have my last batch of pills that day. That’s better than doing all of them at once. It takes time with each one. It won’t take nearly as long. (It also means I won’t need to refill one on Mondays.) I’ll just still go over my pills on Sunday to see what I need to order or get at CVS/Safeway. That doesn’t take much time. 

I got a billing statement today online from Kaiser Permanente. It was more than I expected. They're still using the insurance I get as a dependent, not the Medicaid version. If it were the Medicaid version, I don't think it would even cost me anything. The biggest thing was the CT scan. I kind of think they used my Medicaid for the meds I got earlier this month. They were still at no cost. Normally, if I haven't met the deductible yet, most are $10. Except for Ibrance and Symproic, being $50 each a month. I'd be happy if they are using it for my meds. Wish it was for the rest of it, though. I'm a little nervous about my Xgeva again. I don't know if it'll be covered by Medicaid, or they'll charge me. It's not a cheap med, even when covered normally. If I don't get it, I can easily break more bones. I don't know if I can put a pause on it anyways. I might just go through with it, see how much it is and use their monthly bill pay thing for it and the CT scan stuff. The benefits card will help for now. Hopefully they can switch me to the Medicaid one soon.

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5th Night of Hanukkah

 It's the 5th night of Hanukkah. It's an 8-day long holiday. The last day is on January 2nd. 

Went to Central Market, Safeway, and Petsmart last Sunday. Rosie needed more food and treats. Her treats basically clean her teeth. I got salmon flavor this time. She loves them. She’ll even jump off my bed to get them.

Safeway apparently doesn’t have a Hanukkah section this year. It could be because of how late the holiday is. It’s the same day on the Jewish calendar (25th of Kislev), but it doesn’t match up with the regular calendar. I think the Jewish calendar added a month this year, so it could be because of that. There was a section at Central. They had a lot of gelt (chocolate coins). I got a couple of the bigger bags of gelt the week before. This time I also got Hanukkah candles. They were expensive. One box was like $20. I got a $14 box of them. It has blue and white candles. Nice to have more than one color. It has enough for the holiday plus one more. Maybe that’s just in case? A little weird. I also got Hanukkah cookies. They have a blue Star of David on each of them and are shortbread cookies. I think they have clear sprinkles. Cute for the holiday.   

Rosie’s new litter box came. Another package from Chewy came before that. Don’t know what’s in that one. The litter box is big. I just hope I can still get to the toilet and sink in there.

I’ve been taking care of the puppy pads a few times a day. She’s been using them instead of the litter box to pee most of the time. Although, there have been a few times where she used the box for it! She pooped a couple of times in it too. I think we need to get more pads.

We did our traditional Chinese buffet dinner on Christmas Eve. It’s a tradition among American Jews to have Chinese food on Christmas. (Either Christmas Eve or Christmas Day.) It was a bit crowded. In fact, I thought I tripped over someone, but no one was there. They had some good stuff. 

The first night of Hanukkah was on December 25th. I’ve been lighting the candles. These candles seem ‘taller’ than the ones I’m used to. So, they last a little longer. We listened to some klezmer while we ate dinner the 1st night. I had a broccoli cheddar bake. One of my fave frozen meals, but it’s not fried… People eat cheese/dairy products during the holiday, too. (Just not as well-known.) At least I covered that. We had Hanukkah cookies and gelt for dessert. That’s kind of close to feeling like the holiday. We might look for sufganiyot (jelly-filled donuts).

I had my bed bath last Thursday. Ran out of wipes, so it was a good thing that I bought more. At some point I hope to use my shampoo again. The no rinse stuff seems like it’s still somewhat good for my hair. I don’t think I got the bed wet. I’ve been pretty good about that lately. Had to use the antifungal cream, since I’ve felt itchy. It burns in those areas with that stuff. I don’t put on as much as my home aide did. That was overkill. I’ve been putting on lotion. My skin feels better with it. I put some of it under my eyelids. For some reason that area has gotten dry and rough. The lotion helps a bit.

I had to make an appointment to see my primary care doctor. Apparently she needs to go over my pain meds. Maybe she can help with my pain more. I feel like they ignored my pain with palliative care towards the end. So, I have a CT scan coming up, an oncology appointment (with someone I don’t know), and the primary care doctor one. January sounds a little busy.

I might ask my primary care doctor about getting a new (well new to me. It’ll probably be gently used) hospital bed. I’m hoping to put it in my room upstairs. Hopefully they can take my current bed up there down to the garage or something, and take my old hospital bed. The current hospital bed slumps to one side. It feels crooked. The remote’s buttons have worn down so much it doesn’t have the illustrations anymore. It’ll be nice to be in my own room again. It’ll be nice if all the buttons work on the remote, too. The only ones that work on my current one are for the head and leg part, not the whole thing.

Went to Central today. I found another Hanukkah thing. A bag of 2 different types of chocolate truffles. It says Happy Hanukkah on it. My parent found a premade meatloaf. Just had to add ketchup and cook it. Didn’t have pork in it, even though the one they make for the meals does have it. We had it for dinner, along with pearled pesto couscous and a green cauliflower. The cauliflower was butter-poached. It tasted like cauliflower, but looked like broccoli. It was a bit weird. The meatloaf was good, except I noticed it was really salty in parts of it. The couscous was great. We also got chocolate coffee cups with mousse for dessert. We’ll have that later. 

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19th of Kislev

Managed to go to the bank on Tuesday. I was taken off the shared account. That took a little while. Then, I asked for a printout of a bank statement. That statement will show my royalties I finally recently got. I added my social security number to them. (Wrote it in pencil below my name, in case I made a mistake and needed to correct it. Hope that's good enough.) I also was going to highlight the royalty payments, but then I thought it won’t matter. They’re easy to see. They gave me kind of a small envelope. I managed to stuff all those papers in. The bank also had a menorah in the back. Nice to see something Hanukkah related. I didn’t put my number on it and send it that day, because it was raining, and I didn’t want it to get ruined. I put it in the mailbox yesterday. It was a bit thick, but it made it in. Now I can start thinking about other things. I’ve been so worried about this, and I hope they respond quickly. I did what they told me to do. Hopefully it’s all correct. In the letter they were asking for why I was getting royalties, but I told the interviewer about that. She didn’t highlight it either. She just wrote royalties on the envelope. I’m a bit worried if I did enough for it. Maybe they’ll tell me by calling me. Again, I just need to relax and think about other things until I hear from them.

After going to the bank we (my parent and I) went to Central Market (or Town & Country now) for dinner/dessert stuff. My parent was getting ingredients for her scallop and parsnip puree dish, which was from a French recipe. It looked good and fancy. Although, I hate parsnips and can’t have shellfish. I got a turkey dinner. It had roasted turkey, brussels sprouts, a little stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, and cranberry sauce. It was pretty good. I didn’t melt the plastic of the gravy container this time as I heated it up. Yay! I wanted to try something from their new bakery area. A lot of it looks pretty or over-the-top. I got the fudge Boston mini. It looked good. It fell apart as I ate it. It was like a parfait. It had cake, custard, fudge, chocolate frosting, and little hollow balls that were like sprinkles. It was so rich tasting, I couldn’t eat the whole thing.

I noticed something on the ground Tuesday night. I didn’t have my contacts in, so I couldn’t really see what it was. I thought it was a big dead rat. In the morning, after putting my contacts in, I looked at it again. It was just one of Rosie’s mouse toys. It scared me. Good that it means she played with it, though. Despite getting a new type of litter box, she’s still peeing and pooping outside it. We both think maybe she just needs a bigger one. Her hips/legs felt good enough to jump on my bed last night and during the day today. Her blood tests came back, and her diabetes seems to be under control. The only thing seems to be that she's very dehydrated. We plan to change her water bowl to a fountain-like one. She might like it more if it's moving, I think. She does drink a lot. Maybe it's just not being absorbed. 

Duolingo was going through maintenance as I did my lessons today. It was a bit glitchy. I missed 3 sentences. I think I was still correct, and maybe they marked me down because of the maintenance. I think I did 3 lessons. They made me redo one story. I’m now 10th in the league.

Got this month’s Treats and it’s on Poland. The recipe is for Polish paczki, which are like donuts. There are some ‘new’ snacks. There’s a sesame candy/snap that was good. Had the Delfina chocolate bar today. It had alcohol in it. Didn’t expect that.

This will probably be my last Treats box. I’ve been getting it for about 3 years. Amazon will stop their subscription for it at the end of this month. I feel like it’s time to try something new anyways. I’m thinking of getting Universal Yums. Specifically their Yum Yum box. It seems like they cover more countries, and I think you get more in depth info on the country and its snacks. You pick a country to start with, then they choose the next one. It’s a surprise each time like Treats is. I’m not sure what I’ll pick. They also have you fill out a quiz on what flavors you like and such. It might be more customizable that way.

Had a hard time sleeping last night. Something made me feel upset enough to cry. Then, Rosie decided to sleep on the bed and a little on me. She was there for a good chunk of the night. She normally gets off at like 12:30am. I decided to raise the leg part, which I like. She doesn’t. After a while of this, she finally made like she was getting off, so I lowered it for her. She finally got down. That was like at 4am. I had a hard time the rest of the night too.

Did my bed bath today. Didn’t get any water on the bed again. I think I did a better job with my hair. I haven’t been using my shampoo for a little while, and instead use the rinse-free soap stuff. My home aide used it on my hair occasionally too. It’s easier to work in, and if I miss a spot, it’s ok. Different with my shampoo.

Went to Olive Garden tonight for dinner. I got their chicken and gnocchi soup, which had more gnocchi than last time. Then, I got a 6 oz sirloin that had fettuccine Alfredo on the side. The steak supposedly had a garlic herb butter, but I think that fell off and went into the pasta instead. It was all pretty good. Took half of it home. Not sure how good it’ll be the next day. I’ll see.

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16th of Kislev

Rosie had a vet appointment this morning. It was too early for me to go. She apparently is a pound lighter than last time. That could be a good thing, since she was a little overweight. She has severe arthritis in her legs and hips. They think a different type of litter box would help her with that. One that’s more open on one side so she can just walk in. I think one of the sides will have to be up higher to catch when she pees. She’s getting gabapentin for the pain. She was very dehydrated. So, they gave her fluids through an iv. She came back with a hump on her back full of the fluid. Despite having so much fluid already, she came back and started drinking more right away. They’re going to run some blood tests. I think my parent said they might know the results by tomorrow. They want my parent to get a stool sample, too. I hope all this helps her.

Had my bed bath today. I timed it this time. It was 20 minutes with just the ‘bath’ part and getting dressed. 10 more minutes to put everything away. When my home aide was here she didn’t clean me as thoroughly. It was a little less than 15 minutes with her, and that’s not counting the time it took to put things away. I think what I did today was really good. Faster than I thought it would be. Good for someone who has to use a brush for a lot of it (and sock aid). There were no wet spots or cool areas this time on my bed either. Yay!

Managed to go to both markets (Central and Safeway), plus CVS, yesterday. Had to go to CVS for 2 things. 1 I can only find there, but the other can be at Safeway too. I found that 1 thing that I can only find there. However, the 2nd thing they were completely out of. It surprised me. Found it at Safeway, but it was odd.

I also wanted to see if both markets had Hanukkah sections up yet. Central did have it, but the candles were super expensive. I got 2 bags of gelt (chocolate coins). There were a lot to a bag. Safeway didn’t have their Hanukkah stuff up yet. They usually have cheaper candles. Usually the box only has enough for the holiday, so you have to get a new box every year. Maybe I need to wait a little longer. The holiday is a bit late this year.

I had Central’s smoked turkey and dill havarti sandwich for dinner last night. It’s a little weird that they add butter to it. I always have to heat it up, so I don’t deal with patches of cold butter. It was good. Had cherry crunch pie from them for dessert. It was pretty tasty. I had Safeway’s blackened chicken with mushroom sauce, mashed potatoes, and broccoli for dinner tonight. There wasn’t very much chicken, small amount of broccoli, and ok amount of mashed potatoes. I had their Chantilly cake with berries for dessert. I had it right after dinner. Usually the prepared meals from the markets are so big, I end up having dessert as my last snack instead. I really like their Biscoff cookie butter cake, but it wasn’t there. That one’s a new fave. The cake I got is usually really good, but it’s quite different compared to that other one.

I also got deli meat from Central. It’s their honey roasted turkey. It reminds me a bit of what ham tasted like in the past. (It’s been a very long time since I took pork products out of my diet.) It’s really good. Got more Colby Jack cheese to go with it. I realized the previous deli meat I got went bad really quickly. Hopefully this one will be better.

I also got 3 of my faves from Amy’s frozen meals. Their cheddar broccoli bake, chili mac, and pesto tortellini. The chili mac reminds me of my mom’s chili mac. Haven’t had hers in a long time, but this one seems special that way. I think Saturday night I did try a different frozen meal. It was Stouffer’s beef and macaroni. Seemed like they would have cheese with it, but they didn’t. I added some parmesan. It tasted like a stuffed pepper, only with macaroni instead of rice. Very interesting, and I might have it again in the future. It was pretty good on calories. Should have checked the sodium, but I forgot. It’s ok if it was a little high. It looked like it was a good amount to me. Very filling too.

I dropped Vanitas no Carte recently. It was getting too sexual for me. The way they depict when the vampires drink blood is over the top. It was kind of disgusting. The story was interesting, but I just couldn’t get past that. It was very artsy too.

I got back to watching Jujutsu Kaisen, Boku no (My) Hero Academia 5, Mairimashita! (Welcome to Demon School!) Iruma-kun 2, Dr. Stone 2: Stone Wars, and Tensei Shitara Slime Datta Ken (That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime) 2. All of them have been great! The only ones I haven’t gotten back to are Kumo Desu ga, Nani ka? (So I’m a Spider, So What?) and Hataraku Saibou (Cells at Work) 2. Just haven’t been able to get back to them yet. I found out some of them are on Netflix, which is great. I’m luckily caught up with One Piece. Apparently it’s on hiatus until April.

I've been continuing to do my long walks inside like I mentioned last time. It's a 30-minute walk. I still think this is the best way to do it right now, since I'm not used to how long it is outside. I did about 110 rounds today of the loop I do at home. That's a lot. I feel tired afterwards each time. I think once I really get used to it, I might try to do an outside walk. When I do, I probably should do it earlier in the day. I don't like doing it in the dark.

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