Reamed, Steamed, and Dry-Cleaned

Welp, it’s only quarter to eight in the evening, but I’m simply too whipped to build the page and post the first chapter for the third book in progress — which unlike the other two, really is a work in progress — that I plan to publish here at Plain & Simple Press.

Not that I’ve done that much today. Here’s the thing: I finally gave in to CardioDoc’s entreaties that I try the mildest blood-pressure drug he can think of, even though I question that it’s necessary at all. It’s a long story, but shall we say it was recently punctuated by a PA at the Mayo opining that she would not prescribe any meds for an average blood pressure in the 120s/80s.

I’ve resisted: the reason being that I’m hypersensitive to prescripton and nonprescription drugs. As a child, I almost died from a reaction to a popular antibiotic of the time, administered for a cat scratch — the doctor told my mother I would not live through the night. Oddly enough, he was wrong…hence a world plagued by my presence. I’m even allergic to aspirin. And acetaminophen. And ibuprofen. And iodine. Who knows? Maybe I’m even allergic to allergy pills.

If one in ten thousand people has some weird, rare, exotic reaction to a drug, I am invariably that person. But a few spikes — one of them a breathtaking 165/105 — have been alarming. Yes. Alarmed, I decided to capitulate and have been swallowing pills for the past couple weeks.

So since this supposedly benign med has kicked in and indeed has depressed my blood pressure into the subterranean range, I have felt so tired, so weary, and so foggy that I can barely function. Getting through an ordinary day’s to-do list leaves me falling-down exhausted.

Today there wasn’t that much to do:

  • Take the dogs for a mile-long walk
    • Didn’t get far with that. There was so much traffic on the ‘hood’s main feeder street, I couldn’t get across it, so we had to take another route that only walked up about 3/4 of a mile
  • Download data from bank and credit-card accounts, figure out the accountant’s new spreadsheet system, and install the data in the spreadsheets she sent.
    • I truly hate Quickbooks. I truly hate Excel. I truly hate crunching numbers. This tooth-grinding, three-pronged chore absorbed about three tedious hours from Hell.
  • Check pool chemicals and adjust.
    • Done: almost out of chlorine
  • Change out pool pump pot basket. Clean.
    • Done. Notice filter’s pressure is rising; automatic cleaner is slowing down. Mental  note: cope with that. Later.
  • Post to writer’s group at Facebook.
    • Done. Just barely.
  • Post to Funny about Money
  • Haul six wicker chairs back outside, the rain having stopped and the chance of more estimated at nil.
    • Done. Dinged a newly painted wall in the process and so had to…
    • …clean and repair damage inflicted by that exploit.
  • Inspect K-1 for an investment made, years ago, by my ex- and me in a land fraud bank. Package it up and haul it over to Wonder-Accountant’s place.
    • Done.
  • Post a chapter of Ella’s Story here at P&S Press
    • Sooo…NOT done.
      • Discover that Wyrd has lost data in what appears to be the latest version of the Ella’s Story file. Search, search, search, and frigging SEARCH SOME MORE trying to find it.
      • Eventually I do recover what I believe to be the latest file (though have not searched Time Machine’s back-up of DropBox, because that’s more techno-frenzy than I care to take on.
      • Am reminded, though, that I drafted recent parts of the partially lost chapter in ink, on paper, by hand. Could it be?
        • YES! Find the lost copy scrawled across the pages of an artist’s sketchpad.

Decide to post chapter tomorrow, thankyouverymuch.

One of the other interesting effects of this fine antihypertensive drug is that every time I fly into a hummingbird-like rage, along come a hot flash and a screaming headache. Apparently it drops the blood pressure so much (under 110/75) that my system can no longer handle a true, elegant, and fully realized flying rage.

Lord, spare us.