Ouch, how the heck did that happenā½ Lots of relatively small payments added together, that’s how it happened.
And 2 lots of vets bills for Pumpkin puppy’s squitty tummy definitely contributed.
Pumpkin puppy in the kitchen, looking cute, her head on one side. She’s actually looking at the doughnut my wife is holding above my head. Mollie cat is looking on from the background, wondering what the fuss is about. Mollie, our matriarch, does not like doughnuts.
Look, she’s worth every penny of course, but we really do need to be thinking seriously of pet insurance.
The great thing about the size of the bill is it gives me the ability to focus on my New Year’s resolutions for 2025, but more on that another time.
World and domestic political events are a difficult thing for me to talk about publicly. Iāve no influence and so often keep my views private. Youāll find examples on this blog where internalising just takes too long. Hoping my views are on the right side of history. Searching my blog with a term I carefully pre-selected might be useful to at least startto determine my character.
Anyway, 2025?
The Ukraine war will end.
The Israel vs Gaza/Lebanon/Iran/Syria/common decency/etc. conflicts will end.
Lawmakers in the USA will start the process of changing the amendments to their Constitution to make it easy for unlimited terms for incumbents they like.
Still-active emergency powers in the USA will be used against anyone the people in power doĀ notĀ like.
The United Kingdomās politicians will lurch towards the right, populism will become the de-facto way of engaging with the public.
The NFLās Cleveland Browns will win more games than this abysmally unrelenting 2024 season.
Iāll get a new car to replace my 15 year-old people carrier/minivan. Not looking forward to the upcoming repair bills before that happens.
Iāll execrice. exorcise. exa. Erā¦ doĀ exercise. Having a puppy now nearly 6 months old helps a lot with basic fitness. Heck, I even ran a couple of times with her the last couple of days. Not prolonged, incorporated into more of a fartlek-style walk
Youāve my oldest daughter to blame for this, I was only going to say Iād eat more healthily in the new year.
Some of her predictions are:
King Charles passes away.
Trisha Paytas has a new baby. [Who she?]
Cancelled influencers gain redemption by becoming less self-centred.
US terrorist attack on a major city, either Chicago or San Francisco.
Twitter shuts down, either eschewing a physical headquarters or eliminating links within āXā entirely.
My Chemical Romanceās 5th album.
More CEO deaths, not restricted to the health insurance industry.
Jimmy Fallon gets cancelled or loses influence in an altogether more final way.
Chappell Roan becomes a full country.
The UK retirement ages rise. Again.
The UK Heath Secretary is fired, not for an affair but for corruption.
There were more but Iāve determined that itās now teatime!
I just added this book to the micro.blog library as I couldnāt find it either by title or ISBN. (Stopped short of adding it to the Open Library as all this is new to me).
I just opened Ulysses writing app on my iPhone for maybe the third time since the company moved to a subscription model. Iām not saying I donāt value the app enough, itās just that I already finished writing the book that common lore says we all have within us.
But Iāve just found Ulysses can now post directly to Micro.blog andā¦ will my pre-subscription app allow a connection?
If youāre reading this, what do you think?
ā¦
Some time laterā¦
ā¦
No. Medium, WordPress.com and Custom WordPress are the 3 options.
Ah well, I cannot justify the cost of a subscription, even via SetApp. Maybe Iāll try one of the many other apps Iāve used over the years and copy and paste instead. Like a caveman.
A thought-provoking link post by @ianbetteridge on Mastodon:
āThis article really hits the nail on the head about so-called āultra processed foodsā, a meaningless category so broad as to group together tofu and twinkies as if they had the same health impact.ā
From the article:
āIf youāre confused, donāt feel bad ā some of the worldās top nutrition experts are, too.ā
Maybe I should have read this before my lamb sausages, fried onions and microwaved tomatoes, tomato ketchup (Tesco, none of that Heinz crap) on tortilla wraps for breakfast? Delicious as they were.
I’m sure it’s just me but I can’t summon up the enthusiasm to continue even to crosspost to the Bluesky site. Why? Well, 2 reasons. My social home is the Mastodon-based appdot.net, and now I’ve tried Micro.blog I cannot decide between my self-hosted WordPress blog and one at Micro.blog.
I’m using Bluesky to pull together a few sports reporters and social accounts recently moved from Twitter/X. And that’s all.
The social aspect of being able to blog at Micro.blog and have replies in-line with the posts is compelling. However I’ve been using WordPress for some years now and I’m comfortable with it, but the official plugin linking it to Mastodon simply didn’t work for me. And if I’ve got this right I can continue with the WordPress blog and have it imported to Micro.blog – magic! I know it’s one-way so if I post to Micro.blog it won’t appear in the WordPress blog, but hey, do I care?
Not really.
So what’s next? A todo list:
I’ve turned off crossposting to Bluesky.
I need to unfollow the ‘Bridgy Fed’ bot to terminate the link between appdot.net and Bluesky.
I’ll probably add text in my Bluesky bio to mark it ‘read-only’.
I’m definitely going to experiment with retaining a link between my WordPress blog and the Micro.blog site for the duration of the free trial. At least hoping it’s automatic.
I’m unlikely to link my domain with Micro.blog within the trial period, even though it’s recommended to do it.
I’m so glad I’ve chosen to think about this over the weekend, it’s bordering on an obsession this trying to find out how things work.
I’m currently sipping gingerbread-flavour mulled wine, at room temperature, from a Glenmorangie-branded thistle-shaped glass.
I’ve just finished peeling the veggies for Christmas dinner. Part-way through the smallest potato escaped from the bag and fell to the kitchen floor.
So I apologised out loud and picked it up, promising to return it to its family and friends. They’re all peeled now ready for chopping for mashed & roast potatoes, everyone back together again, to fulfil their promise, their destiny.
Yes, I said that to the smallest potato, also out loud.
The smallest potato from the bag, peeled, nestling in a pan of water in the middle of the others, all of them ready for action. (Chopping, to start with).
(Apologies if anyone expected a Victorian-esque morality tale).
My wife became unresponsive earlier, experiencing a diabetic hypo (low blood sugar) episode. We’ve been lucky, she’s managed her condition well, and for the last 15 years I’ve not had to ask for assistance.
But this evening I had to call the paramedics out. We don’t have a glucose pen or gel these days so I tried feeding her bits of chocolate to attempt to raise her blood sugar level while at the same time not introducing a choking hazard.
2.9 is pretty low, but specially over the couple of hours it was at that level. she’s set her monitor to alarm at 4.0. Incidentally, that monitor reading of 2.9 is a little high compared to the paramedics’ 2.6.
Anyway, to anyone who’s not experienced this before it’s a little disconcerting. The sweating, the moans and occasional wails, the slightly combative stance, none of it remembered by her when she’s out of harm’s way. And the lack of responsiveness to outside stimuli. Not nice for an observer.
But the paramedics gave her the gel, the injection, and pretty soon she started to come round. It took a little while but she’s in the mend.
The injection stimulates the body to use whatever reserves of glucose is left, but leaves the recipient needing to eat to bring things back into balance. Feeling sick, my wife decided she wasn’t going to eat.
Nope, not happening, She was going to have the leftover stew whether she liked it or not. Ok, she had half a bowl, better than none I suppose.
She has a strong will which, when she’s ill, becomes stronger. Let’s face it, if she’s effectively not conscious of what’s happening whilst it’s happening, she cannot understand the impact.
So I’ve downloaded her blood sugar monitor app to my phone and will make no secret of checking readings throughout the night.
Not feeling particularly merry yet, this Christmas. But the sight of the mince pie, carrot and glass of milk left out by my youngest daughter for Father Christmas has at least restored some seasonal cheer.
An empty glass and an empty aluminium foil tray on a plate, a possible indicator of Father Christmas’s visit to our home early on Christmas Day. A carrot previously on the plate is no longer there. The milk once in the glass and the miniature mince pie once in the tray are curiously also absent.
A long time ago on a network far, far away I started to post quotes I thought notable or relevant to current events. On Sundays. With the hashtag #QuoteSunday.
I wasn’t the first, merely carrying on a tradition I think started by the estimable @nitinkhanna.
It’s often fun to find one, unless I’m commenting on current events. But I still try.
A screenshot from January 2015 of some App.net (ADN) weekly events I participated in. #QuoteSunday being appropriate for today. Others shown are #WorkChat, #MondayNightDanceParty, #TuesdayChallenge, #WednesdayChallenge. Each equally rewarding.