Come She May

 Suddenly it's Walpurgis Day, and tomorrow's Beltane, May Day, International Workers' Day. 

 

 

In a few short weeks half of 2023 will be done. We're 3+ years into the pandemic. I currently have friends sick with the latest Covid variant. The usual slings and arrows seem lesser tortures in the face of the insanity that's running rampant in my country.

And, Jimmy Carter's in hospice care.

Still, it could be, and probably will be, worse. 

 

 April has brought good gatherings though. 

We have Game Nights again, and I'm making soups from around the world for our suppers together before we play. We had Solyanka first, an Eastern European classic with ham, pickles, olives, and herbs, that we loved. We followed that with Beef Tagine, which melts in your mouth with its chick peas, raisins and apricots cooked slowly for 8 hours. This week I'm making a traditional Welsh Cawl, with lamb, bacon, root veggies and cabbage.

And birthday time rolled around, with friends visiting, bearing gifts and food. I don't feel anything different about being in my 65th spin around the Sun as I did in my 64th. After a while, it's just more of the same. But it's lovely to be made a fuss over for a couple days, and to eat what I wish, damn the diabetes.

Which brings me to the weirdness.  My left hand swelled to the point that I couldn't lift the coffee pot. So I quit drinking coffee, which seems to have cleared up the dermatitis spots on my fingers. Go figure. A coffee allergy? Typical. However, nothing I did reduced the swelling, so off to an Urgent Care storefront I went. There, I waited over an hour (despite my appointment made online) to see a nurse practitioner who did a cursory look-over and prescribed Prednisone, 50 mg for 5 days. After taking the first pill, my blood sugar went up to near 300. So much for my upcoming labs, I thought. My Doc said cut them in half, which I did. 2 days later my hand had deflated a bit but my BS was still around 200. The thing was, all my pain subsided and I was sleeping like a log. Sure thing, soon as the steroid was over, the pains returned. And in another day, my fingers blew up to the sausages they'd been, and have stayed that way.

The rest goes on here as it goes. Goggles raves and reeks, the weather does odd things (97'F in April?), the town keeps persevering in the face of a brutal murder and assorted societal ills...

Words don't come to me as they used to do and I've stopped writing. This has gone on for some time now and I don't know if it's permanent. I'm overwhelmed with everything, and nothing. 

I hope things are sunnier and happier where you are. Sorry for my ennui.

x