Hummingwolf Today
Now seeing: Through the mini-blinds I see the next-door neighbors' back porch crowded with potted plants, greens and reds strongly side-lit by their back light. Some of the plants are obscured by the silhouette of a decorative fence.
Now hearing: My room fan, my computer fan, something high-pitched outside (peepers?), the rumble of distant traffic, and water dripping from leaves.
Now smelling: Mud, sweat, and peppermint.
Now tasting: Salt.
Now feeling: A little too warm. Also feeling pain (from infection, congestion, a mild migraine, and the usual fibromyalgia-type pains) and itching (from half a dozen mosquito bites received in a single ten-minute period this afternoon).
Antibiotic of the day: Ciprofloxacin. As reluctant as I am to take any drug which might possibly slightly increase my risk of seizures (and spontaneous tendon rupture? seriously??), I'm more reluctant to let this one persistent infection continue any longer than absolutely necessary. I'll avoid NSAIDs and follow all the instructions and hope for the best.
Probiotic of the day: Local business Number 1 Sons sells fermented veggies with live & active cultures, and I am currently in love with their District Dills.
Last meal eaten: Well, it was going to be something simple, some ground lamb, potatoes, and vegetables I would have eaten happily. But as I was on my way to a local grocery to pick up some more yogurt, I began to feel the patter of little raindrops. I looked at the ominous clouds in the distance, and although they weren't coming from the direction whence our storms usually come, I suddenly decided it was time to try out a restaurant I'd never been to before. So my meal was more expensive than the one I'd planned, but it was a bowl of chicken, brown rice, cucumber raita, spinach curry, and other vegetables which tasted particularly wonderful as I sat in a dry, air-conditioned restaurant watching the fairly impressive downpour through the window.
Last non-food item purchased: Well, I paid a nominal co-pay for the antibiotic yesterday. Other than that, I'm not sure when I last bought something I wasn't prepared to eat. Maybe it was that greeting card I got ten days or so ago.
Last book finished: Mark Alpert, Extinction, a sci-fi-ish thriller about an artificial intelligence that breaks free from its programming and decides it should kill all humans except for some breeding stock. Leading human characters have prosthetic implants (like a weaponized arm that doubles as a machine gun), so the machine-human interface gets a bit blurred at times. Entertaining enough, though like most novels written by people hailed as the next Michael Crichton, it's almost entirely lacking in the humor you'd find in a Crichton story. Still, with a big enough budget, it could make for a great summer action movie.
Music of the day: I've had a bad habit lately of letting myself become music deprived. In an effort to break the habit, I listened to The Police's Outlandos d'Amour and Icehouse's Icehouse, both of which have been sitting on my shelves too long unheard.
Visual spectacle of the day: The sky after the thunderstorm, of course. First there was the rainbow, which may not have been a very bright rainbow, but is worthy of mention simply for being a rainbow. Later, around sunset, the clouds came together in a combination of textures and colors (oranges, blues, turquoises, and an improbable shade of green) you might criticize as overkill if you saw it in a human's artwork; but seeing it in the actual sky, you must simply accept the fact that sometimes reality likes to go just a little bit too far.
Now hearing: My room fan, my computer fan, something high-pitched outside (peepers?), the rumble of distant traffic, and water dripping from leaves.
Now smelling: Mud, sweat, and peppermint.
Now tasting: Salt.
Now feeling: A little too warm. Also feeling pain (from infection, congestion, a mild migraine, and the usual fibromyalgia-type pains) and itching (from half a dozen mosquito bites received in a single ten-minute period this afternoon).
Antibiotic of the day: Ciprofloxacin. As reluctant as I am to take any drug which might possibly slightly increase my risk of seizures (and spontaneous tendon rupture? seriously??), I'm more reluctant to let this one persistent infection continue any longer than absolutely necessary. I'll avoid NSAIDs and follow all the instructions and hope for the best.
Probiotic of the day: Local business Number 1 Sons sells fermented veggies with live & active cultures, and I am currently in love with their District Dills.
Last meal eaten: Well, it was going to be something simple, some ground lamb, potatoes, and vegetables I would have eaten happily. But as I was on my way to a local grocery to pick up some more yogurt, I began to feel the patter of little raindrops. I looked at the ominous clouds in the distance, and although they weren't coming from the direction whence our storms usually come, I suddenly decided it was time to try out a restaurant I'd never been to before. So my meal was more expensive than the one I'd planned, but it was a bowl of chicken, brown rice, cucumber raita, spinach curry, and other vegetables which tasted particularly wonderful as I sat in a dry, air-conditioned restaurant watching the fairly impressive downpour through the window.
Last non-food item purchased: Well, I paid a nominal co-pay for the antibiotic yesterday. Other than that, I'm not sure when I last bought something I wasn't prepared to eat. Maybe it was that greeting card I got ten days or so ago.
Last book finished: Mark Alpert, Extinction, a sci-fi-ish thriller about an artificial intelligence that breaks free from its programming and decides it should kill all humans except for some breeding stock. Leading human characters have prosthetic implants (like a weaponized arm that doubles as a machine gun), so the machine-human interface gets a bit blurred at times. Entertaining enough, though like most novels written by people hailed as the next Michael Crichton, it's almost entirely lacking in the humor you'd find in a Crichton story. Still, with a big enough budget, it could make for a great summer action movie.
Music of the day: I've had a bad habit lately of letting myself become music deprived. In an effort to break the habit, I listened to The Police's Outlandos d'Amour and Icehouse's Icehouse, both of which have been sitting on my shelves too long unheard.
Visual spectacle of the day: The sky after the thunderstorm, of course. First there was the rainbow, which may not have been a very bright rainbow, but is worthy of mention simply for being a rainbow. Later, around sunset, the clouds came together in a combination of textures and colors (oranges, blues, turquoises, and an improbable shade of green) you might criticize as overkill if you saw it in a human's artwork; but seeing it in the actual sky, you must simply accept the fact that sometimes reality likes to go just a little bit too far.