I did the whole tree today including the lights.  X has done the lights for two decades.  I guess he’s retired.  I did them.  They look fine.

I don’t know how to describe my mojo today.  Low mojo.  But not an existential crisis.  Just low mojo.  It’s like having a cold.

We went to Simple Roots Brewing for beer & Pie Empire Pie.  Then downtown, bought a couple of gifts.  Then dessert downtown.  Too much inedible buttercream.

I love going downtown.  We used to go nearly every weekend.   Now, there are so many other choices.  Maybe I love being downtown because I was young there?  Or because I’ll always miss an urban environment?

And so largely melancholy today… but we came home, with the tree lit up, and damn it looks nice.

 

A cat I’m taking care of.

I sat down to work as usual this morning, and after about a half hour, noticed that the tip of my right ring finger was half-numb and tingly.  It bothered me enough that I looked up numb finger on the internet, and I was assured that it was most likely carpal tunnel.

As lunchtime approached, I had thoughts about digging out my carpal tunnel wrist brace, but couldn’t help but notice that finger looked blue between the joints.  I don’t think my finger should be blue.  Carpal tunnel is about nerves; this looked to be about blood flow.

I had lunch and went out and fed goats, and the cold made my finger even number.  When I came in, whereas the rest of my fingers and me were rather red from the cold, this finger was white.

I went down and walked on my treadmill for a half hour.  This eliminated all symptoms.  But they gradually came back over the course of the afternoon.

I have been wearing a ring on this finger for over 20 years.  I obviously took it off at the first sign of trouble this morning; but it wasn’t at all tight.

I also have had this feeling in this fingertip before, now and then, briefly; but it was generally when out feeding goats in the cold; and coming inside was enough to make it go away.

In the past I’ve chalked it up to most likely damaging a blood vessel in my finger from carrying pails of water.  The pails that don’t have ergonomic handles, that are just a wire handle, can really dig into your fingers when the pails are full of water.  But I haven’t lifted a pail of water all week.

Still, I suppose I COULD have damaged something somehow without realizing it; and it’ll heal within a day or two.

I wish that it were easier to get medical opinions.  What if your health insurance provided you with a phone number and a pin number; and you could call the number, provide your pin, and you would be validated and your co-pay charged.  Then you could tell a doctor or nurse your long sad story, and they could give you their opinion.  And the whole thing would be about 20 minutes long.  Wouldn’t that be great?

This was a couple of days ago.  The weather’s gotten even drabber since.

Today the team and I logged our 1,004th bug.  Having exceeded the thousand threshold, I am no longer able to pull the JIRA data to create my daily report to management.  I win a prize!

I think I might actually not work tonight.

There’s a tiny dot in the road, way up where it starts to turn to the left in the distance.  That’s a fox.  He had been in our driveway.  I accidentally scared him away by starting to yell “Get outa here, cat!”

My co-telecommuter-worker and I exchanged “God I am bored” pix during our team meeting Monday.

I have a killer head cold today.  Ouch.

The High Holy Days are THIS weekend!  And my new mudroom construction (or I guess, first, porch demolition) starts MONDAY!

 

So, in it all comes.

Notice the beets… I grew cylindrical beets this year.  I hate peeling beets; the more spherical and small, the more I hate it.  These were awesomely easy to peel.  I could peel all day 😉

 

At the Essex Resort & Spa this weekend.  We had a dinner chef’ed by her last night, and saw a cooking demo by her today.  She is loads of fun!