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Friday April 21
I was so busy this week that I didn't keep up with the blog!
We're in Little Rock right now... David had a meeting in a little town called
Russellville this morning, so we drove there last night in the afternoon. We
stayed at the Comfort Inn and had dinner at this Japanese restaurant called
Umami, which wasn't too bad. We were both pretty tired and went to bed
early.
It's been warm all week...in the 80's and 90's.
Please check out my Instagram because I post lots of photos on there.
Tuesday I went to the doctor because my ear was hurting a little for about 4 days. I saw a physician's assistant. She determined that my pain was actually TMD, probably either from gritting my teeth, or from my upper spine problem. I need to make a dentist's appointment so I can get a mouth guard. She suggested taking a muscle relaxer (which I already have) and also gave me an exercise to try.
Linda, my driver, is working out nicely. She mostly gives me a ride to school in the mornings, but she also took me to the doctor and back, and she brought me home from school on Wednesday because David had a meeting. I wonder if she'll get the joke if I say, "Home, Jeeves!" ;)
I'm trying to do a better job dieting and exercising because I'm just too fat...180 lbs. :(
The birds have been out a lot in my backyard. I took many photos and videos
of them this week.
I refilled my regular bird feeders and move the hummingbird
feeders. My friend Vicky tells me that hummingbirds don't like to eat around
other birds, so hopefully this will entice them to feed. If not, I will try some
new hummingbird nectar to see if that helps. Perhaps the stuff I made is
not good.
I'm still getting sick, but I've been avoiding gluten, so I'm just trying to test as much as I can now. It's tough because each test takes about 3 minutes. By the time I've tested all the foods on my plate, everything is cold!
Earlier today, when David was at his meeting, I had breakfast at the hotel. They had one of those free breakfasts. I got some yogurt, OJ, bacon, eggs and sausage. I just tested the eggs and sausage, which were gluten-free. The yogurt is packaged and just said "contains: milk" so it's probably okay. OJ is usually fine, too. I tried testing the bacon as well, but I couldn't get the lid of the testing vial closed. If it's a hard piece of meat, it has trouble closing. I didn't eat much of the bacon, so hopefully it's okay.
I was going to go out and find an ATM and some soda, but it was pouring rain! Luckily it did clear up eventually before David had to come back from his meeting.
Later, we drove to Little Rock and stayed at the Holiday Inn there. It used
to be the Holiday Inn Presidential and it had cool photos and displays all over
of past presidents, and the meeting rooms were named after them, and their
restaurant was called Camp David (well, it still is). They've completely
remodeled it and now it just looks like a regular boring Holiday Inn. Too bad.
They changed the only thing that gave it any character. Did they get too
much flak from people about all of the Clinton photos? Or did they not want to
put up photos of Trump? Or was it something else, like new management?
I'll probably never know. I'm glad I took many photos the last time we stayed
here.
The room is very nice. It's a much nicer place than the Comfort Inn. The Comfort Inn doesn't even have a little store, let alone a restaurant or bar. They both have the free breakfast, free Wi-Fi, fridge etc.
After we drove here and checked in, we walked over to Dugan's. I was not that
hungry, but I settled on the Bangers and Mash (which is sausage and mashed
potatoes with gravy). I asked if they were gluten-free and had them substitute
the cole slaw for the potatoes, no gravy. I
used my NIMA gluten tester to
taste David's fries, so I could try a few; and the cole slaw, and the sausage.
Well, they told me that the bangers were gluten free, so I had a few while I
waited. The fries and sausage were NOT gluten-free. Darn it. So I poisoned
myself, stupidly. I will say, though, that they were really awesome.
Not worth getting sick for, though, only because nothing is. I had quite a
coughing and sneezing fit, too.
Originally I had an interview with an actress on Tuesday, but I had to reschedule it due to going to the doctor. It was supposed to be Thursday morning at 10. The PR people sent me two of the first episodes of this show, but she wasn't in those episodes, so they sent me the rest on Monday. I put off watching them due to being busy. Wednesday night I had to take this Title IX test online for the university. I had been putting that off, too. I can't register for next Fall until I take it. It was a complete waste of time. They make you take a practice test, then watch a bunch of videos, read some stuff, etc. and then take another test at the end. It was all about sexual harrassment and rape. Well, if you take the practice test and do well on it, they shouldn't make you do all the rest! It took me a few hours. Very annoying.
So I stayed up way too late watching the episodes and then writing up my questions for the interview. I also took a muscle relaxer before bed. I left David a note to set the alarm for 9. I woke up at 9 but said to myself, "I don't have to be up this early." I re-set the alarm for 9:40. Or at least, I thought I did! Turns out, I didn't do it right. So the phone rings at 10 and I'm VERY groggy. It was the actress calling, and I didn't realize it was 10. I thought she was calling early. Then she said something about it being 11 eastern time, and I said, 10am my time. She said, "Oh, you're an hour early?" My mind really wasn't working well. She said, ok, I'll have to call them and reschedule because I have another interview. I said, OK and we hung up. Then I realized, it's 10am and I just totally was confused, and confused her, too! Oops! I felt so stupid. I emailed the publicists and thankfully, they said they can reschedule for next week. Thank goodness!
We're probably going out to karaoke tonight, so I'm happy about that! The karaoke place here is so-so, but still...better than nothing. We haven't been in quite a while.
We're going to San Diego as usual, either late May or early June. He's
waiting to hear about whether he has to go to this conference in L.A. or not. We
would go to the conference first and then go to San Diego. If not, I hope we can
go to Vegas instead. We'll see!
An old friend of ours, Will, committed suicide this week. It's very sad. He wasn't a close friend. David used to work with him at UCR. We just saw him sometimes at conferences. Another friend of ours, Cherie, worked with him at FSU. Still, it's pretty sad. He had a daughter and an ex-wife. Apparently he'd had depression off and on for years and no one knew (at least not as far as I know). He really did have everything. He was a super-smart guy; a tenured professor who really cared about people, especially his students. When he was younger, he was quite handsome. He had grown up, I believe, in a fairly wealthy family. To be frank, he was always kind of a weird guy. Not super-weird. Not a geek or a dork, like myself and many of my friends and family. He had good manners and had been brought up well. He just said things sometimes that were kind of odd (and apparently sometimes he said things that could sound really mean or terrible; but he didn't mean them that way). He was always nice to me, though, and I never felt like he was looking down on me. I never heard him say anything mean or nasty. He was at our house a few times when we lived in Riverside. It's such a shame that he felt so isolated and alone, and we couldn't have helped him. He posted in his blog before killing himself. That was a very Will thing to do.
Back to LIttle Rock...We were going to Cache for dinner, but neither of us was very hungry, and
they were pretty
crowded. We wandered around a bit and ended up at a pizza
place called Gusano's. They have some gluten free pizza and other foods. I just
had two hot dogs, no bun. Then we had some drinks and killed time until
karaoke, which was at 9.
The karaoke place is Dam Goode pizza. It's the only one downtown that I know about. The KJ is ok. You never know how crowded it's going to be. It was one of those rare instances tonight where there were many people there, but not a lot of singers. That's the best karaoke because it means I get to sing a lot, without waiting an hour between songs, but there are plenty of people there to listen. I sang "Heat Wave" by Linda Ronstadt, then "Bring Me to Life" by Evanescence (no duet, sadly), then for fun, "Billy Don't Be a Hero" by Bo Donaldson and the Heywoods, and then "Respect" by Aretha Franklin. It was a lot of fun. I had a blast!
We went back to our room around 10. I stayed up way too late. I'm always keyed up after karaoke.
Saturday April 22
David woke me around 10. I was very tired still. We just had to pack up all
of our stuff and take
it to the car, then check out. We walked over to
Dizzy's for lunch. They have a
really great salad that they call a brie plate that's really good. It has greens
with slices of brie, and some other kind of cheese, grapes, chicken, apples and
pecans. It was good and way too much for one meal.
After we walked back to our car, we drove home. I dozed on the way. We stopped at the rest stop in Prescott so I could stretch my legs, go to the restroom and get a soda. It was drizzly today.
After we got home, we both napped. Then later we got dressed to go to
the SAU musical, "The Little Mermaid." They did a pretty good job. I enjoyed it.
I love any musical, of course. I saw the movie a long time ago and didn't really
remember it. The students were on roller skates, so that was kind of cool.
We went to McDonald's beforehand for dinner. For some weird reason, they put mustard on my cheeseburgers! That's not supposed to be...
I had to work on getting my grocery list together for tomorrow and working out a schedule of what I'll be doing this week. It'll be really busy.
It's the last week of classes, and I've got a lot of work left to do. Also, I need to start studying for finals. I've got two interviews this week that I need to record and type up. On top of that, and work, I've got to prepare for this party. Yikes!
I cleaned out the fridge today -- I got rid of old stuff.
I went to bed very late again, around 5:30am.
Sunday April 23
I got up around noon. David had a thing at school again.
I cleaned out the freezer while I was waiting for my breakfast to heat up in the microwave (Atkins sausage and egg). It really needed cleaning!
I've just been working on my site, and watching a little TV. It's great to get things done. Later we'll go to the grocery store.
The person who hosts my site isn't returning my calls, emails or texts. I'm getting a little annoyed with him. He's a very nice person and has been hosting my site for a long time. But I am paying him, and there is a problem with some of my domain names, so it's really annoying that he won't get back to me. I mean, it's been almost 2 months. He said he was very sick, but that's really not an excuse. At some point, you do your job, or you pay someone else to do, if you can't. It's very unprofessional. I really don't want to move my site because it's really huge and I get a good deal on it. Plus, that won't guarantee that my domain name problems can be fixed since I don't know exactly what the problem is. SIGH.
We went to the store, but I was sick, so I didn't get everything I needed to get. I'm having pain today as well. :(
I did the dishes and laundry, and I finally unpacked from our trip. I worked on my presentations and papers for my classes as well.
I tried to go to bed early, but I wasn't able to, even though I only got about 6 hours sleep last night. My sleep schedule is still really screwed up. It's going to take a while to get it back to normal....
Hope you all have a great week!
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This page updated 3/29/17
