Yesterday was a day!

Well, they usually are, I gueess...but this one was a long one spent "away" -- appointments, shopping, class... and as much as most of those needed doing and some are sometimes enjoyable, a long day still wears on me.

It started off oddly, as K (apparently) had one of his times of being "not here" during the session with his shrink that started off the day. I am thinking that overall this will be a good thing, as she needs to see the whole picture and when he manages to pull together enough, as he seems to have done up to this point, to self-censor and put the best foot forward, it is not as supportive of his disability or terribly helpful in diagnosis or treatment. But, like many folks I guess (I know this was what make it take so long for my doc, who even knew me fairly well, to recognize my depression) we desire to show ourselves at our best, even when it is overall not to our best advantage.

I am not sure what happened, but he was a bit "off" when we left for the appointment. I dropped him off so I could hit the local drugstore in search of old fashioned Mentolatum (found it! and also found that it is now Cadbury Eggs Season! WOO HOO!! and they were on sale, even... ) When the session was over the counselor came to get me to accompany him out of the office, and I found him just sitting, initially non-responsive and cold/sweaty to the touch even on his hand. He did come back enough to walk to the car, slowly as if he really were not there.. and indeed he wasn't as he "winked out" again halfway down the stairs... stopping as if someone turned off the switch. At least I was able to get him back, saying, "Kevin you are still on the stairs, you need to keep walking"... and he did not fall.

We got him a snack before we left town, as we both sensed that part of the issue might have been his insulin hitting a bit harder/faster than usual, and our second stop in town was Olive Garden, for lunch (after a very quick stop at the PO box). By then he was coming back to this side, remembering, perhaps, bits and pieces of what he had said at the shrink's office...

His new med, prescribed to remove some of the lactic acid (I think) seems to be causing him lots of pain in the kidney area. I keep trying to get him to force fluids more, suggesting a glass of water and a drink (thirsty or not) every 10-15 min... but so far he doesn't seen to be able to do that. Today is a half day at work and I am going to try to give him a drink every 15 min while I am here and see if that helps. A good nurse, I really am not...

We did get groceries stocked up a bit, though to my frustration WalMart was out of the indoor cat food and Beneful in large bags for the mutt... which will mean buying it locally in smaller quantity for now and another trip next week. Ugh.

We did a bit of research at the hardware store on ways to get the weather station up -- didn't buy parts though -- and found that Home Depot here never carries the portable greenhouses that they offer online, so I will not even consider buying one unless someone else in the area springs for one over the 'net and I can see it installed. They say they are good to 60 MPH winds, but I am concerned that they might not hold up well to our blustery hill.

I did have the thought of building a smallish wooden structure, on skids of a sort, with strong eye bolts for ropes and designed to be pulled from location to location by a small tractor, our lawnmower or even people power... wondering what qualifies as "temporary structure" for the town building inspector. I need to make an appt to talk to him at some point SOON... was thinking of that today, but I am still a bit under the weather and feeling like laying low for now.

Our last stop of the day was Hannifords -- not that there was much on our list that we needed to find there (I had not found kitchen matches at Walmart... not sure if they don't stock or I just don't know where to look... so that was about it, but I had a STRONG urge to stop there and was rewarded with finding JONQUILS!

I have this thing (I have written about it earlier) of having daffodils on my altar in February and I was quite frustrated that I had not found anything like them here this month. Hannifords (and other placed) had the potted jonquils LAST month (too early) and there have been tons of tulips - both cut and potted -- this month but it seemed that the minute the calendar turned to Feb. the daffy type things vanished. I have no idea where these two pots of jonquils came from (they were likely left over from last month, as one was rather long in the tooth and they were sporting a "special" marker at 3/$9 marked down from their former price of $3.33 each) but I snagged one and now, all is well.

Though I do have a bit of a complaint for the commercial florist suppliers to stores like Hanniford and WalMart... WHY must you put most of the flowers in bunches of identical items? I see tons of tulips, sorted in bunches -- a bunch of red ones, a bunch of yellow ones etc etc and none mixed. I see other flowers done likewise, and never a bunch of mixed color tulips. And the bunches of mixed flouwers seldom feature the "seasonal" varieties (other than, this time of year, a rose or two). Just makes no sense to me...