silence in the storm

We have the tail of the hurricane blowing through North Carolina today. There were several power outages overnight here. MonsterMustDie went to work as usual this morning. Two days ago, my Samsung 9+ cell phone died. It would start up and then the screen would go completely black except for a thin bar of green at the top. It was off and on the first night so I hoped it was fixable. Then it went black with the green bar permanently. I think I even heard a faint crackle from inside the phone when I held down the buttons trying to restart or shut down. So I went to the Verizon location near me with my non-functioning phone. Of course, they said I needed a new phone. Of course, they tried to up-sale me on services and even wrote up a bundle for me including streaming services, which I never use on cell phones and, even if I wanted to do that, John Stephens already has paid subscriptions to Netflix, etc. and I made the woman serving me strike streaming paid services off the contract. They did not take my old phone in a trade-in and didn't want me turning it in there because they said there was no way they could securely dispose of it or erase/reset the device. So I decided to try a Pixel this time. The new phone does not work. I got home and tried to go through the login procedure for Verizon and it put me in an endless cycle of requiring an SMS text for an access number to plug into my new Pixel phone. Since I don't have a functioning phone yet, I can't read or recieve a text or make a call out to customer service. I tried to use the chat bot and it told me service was down and to try again later. So, I still have no phone for now even though I'm now paying a lot more for no service.

Looking forward to Autumn

I still have problems with my back and side that I've had since mid-April. It's gotten better but really has not improved as quickly as it should have. My doctor, who seems to have fired me or at least refuses to see me, simply labeled it as sciatica and told me it would probably be better in a few weeks. Months later, it's still a problem but I can at least sit in a car more than 10 minutes now. Brian and Laura sent me a lumbar pillow like the one that he depended on and it does seem to help on longer journeys. Only my doctor's PA and one physical therapist have seen me. After several weeks of reporting on my pain via MyChart, I had an x-ray to make sure it wasn't a bad disk or pinched nerve and one appointment with a therapist, who gave me a list of exercises to do daily.

Meanwhile, like I said, there has been some improvement. Maybe I'll be well enough to travel again by next year. Meanwhile, I've been stuck at home most of the time.

We were able to make the longest road trip since my injury to Raleigh, which is an hour drive away, to see a friend who lives in California performing at The Reeves Theatre last Saturday. It was great to see and hear live music and to visit with a pal I haven't seen in a long time.

I'm still well enough to look forward to Halloween. We're (I'm) already planning to start decorating the yard soon with our Spooky Lady graveyard and pumpkins. I've already bought a few bags of candy. I found popcorn balls in the shelf at Target yesterday and I couldn't resist picking some up to stash away for Trick-or-Treaters.

I hope I'm in even better shape by December. I've got no solid Christmas plans, as usual, but Karen and Bob will probably be around to spend Christmas day with this year. Christmas eve, I will no doubt be working at the dress shop. I already put in RTO for the Scandinavian Christmas Market, a one-day event at the fairgrounds, and Winter Solstice.

As a retail worker, I can't expect any other time off between the beginning of November and the middle of January. I wish I had some good side-gigs that I could do at home. Mostly, I just stay knotted into a ball of anxiety here due to my isolation and ignorance of what to do about stressers like my realtor in Atlanta who doesn't want to pay me, what to do about getting on Medicare but not yet on Social Securty — so I have extra costs for that — and the fact that I pay too much to Adobe every month to keep my software for Creative Suite apps that I can't yet bear to let go of even though they are not paying for themselves but giving me any work here.