Now I know just where my heart is

[gwyn]

Eeeee, it's intoabar sign up time! In just two years, this has become my favorite challenge. Each year, I've got my assignment and then freaked out about finding any kind of story for the characters, but each time it's turned out well, and even gave me ideas to use in crossover fics that weren't for the challenge but inspired by it. I'm struggling with what to request for this year, but I'll figure it out before signups close, I'm sure.

Thanks so much to everyone who said supportive things after my fiasco with getting my first COVID vaccination. What a difference a couple weeks make: about ten days ago, the city announced they had thousands of appointments available, so I sat on it for a while and then decided to go ahead and make an appointment at the mass vaccination site near me, so I wouldn't have to drive off peninsula again during weekday rush hour. (They say our bridge will be repaired by mid-2022, but they haven't even started designing the repairs or picked an engineering firm yet, so...I remain doubtful.) I didn't really trust them not to cancel on me without explanation, but then a few days after that, they announced they were now taking walkups at all the city's mass sites, so I figure that even if they fuck up again, I can just show up somewhere and get the jab.

I still want to get up to the cemetery; I wasn't able to bring flowers with me last time and it would be nice, after all that tough digging around to find the flower vases on both my dad's and my mom and sister's plots to actually use them, but this way I can do it on a weekend when the traffic sitch will be different and the limited routes out of here less crowded.

Thursday I'm taking the feline to the vet, and I'm glad my appointment situation shook out so that I had my second shot on Friday, because I have a feeling I'm going to get the second-shot whammy like most folks I know. I won't be in a state to take the cat anywhere, let alone sit in a hot car for who knows how long while they check him out. I wish they were doing regular checkup appointments, because his teeth are so unbelievably bad, but they're still not allowing people inside. But his arthritis (and the teefs) is getting so bad, he really needs to be looked at. He hasn't been to the vet in well over a year, outside of the emergency vet when he was so sick last summer I was pretty sure he was dying. No one's ever been able to tell me what might be causing these emergency episodes, and I wish I could be in the room with the vet to talk about it--talking on the phone in the car is just...it's not conducive sometimes to explaining things and it's not like Blues can tell them himself.

I've discovered a new health problem of my own, which I cannot afford to treat, like the other health problems I have (horrendous deductible means out of pocket financial bloodbaths). The other day I noticed a sudden new weird little bump on my left palm, and there was like this dent in the hand above it, leading toward my ring finger. It had not been there the day before. I googled "weird bump dent palm under finger" expecting that nothing would come up with such a bizarre string of words, so of course, right away something called Dupuytren's disease (or contracture) came up and my heart sank. I looked at it and was like, yup, that's it, that's exactly what my hand looks like. I'll have to have the doc confirm it, for insurance at least, but it's pretty obviously that. And there's no cure, and most treatments are invasive. Some people only get mild cases, some people have really advanced cases where their fingers contract so much they can't be straightened. Just what I needed, claw hands, especially on the hand that's already so painful from arthritis it's impacting my work.

At some point, I need to sit down and write out thoughts about The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, but I have such complicated and not always very good feelings about it that I've been hesitant to say much at all. People get so...riled up if you don't unabashedly gush. But I've been asked a number of times what I thought and one person even sent me a tumblr ask noticing that I'd been remarkably quiet about it, so I guess I should say something.

The Oscars were SO WEIRD this year. I don't necessarily mean just because of how they held them to deal with the pandemic, but just...everything else was so strange and off kilter, and I loathed the choice to eschew performance clips in favor of the presenting actors standing there telling the nominee how amazing their performance was. Man, fuck that noise. And it ended so awfully, with the way they set it up under the assumption Chadwick Boseman would win best actor and they'd end the show on an emotional note, but then he didn't, and Anthony Hopkins wasn't even at the London awards gathering location to video accept, so they just went "we accept on his behalf, good night." And once again, Viola was robbed and it's just so infuriating. It was nice to see a lot of great formalwear, but it's not surprising that it was so incredibly low-rated. Also, man I hate watching the show alone, it totally blows. I've been having Oscars parties annually since I was like 20 until very recently, and I couldn't even live text with minim_calibre because she doesn't have live TV but we're still not fully vaxxed yet so couldn't get together. Watching that fiasco alone was unbearable.

Also, Husavik was clearly the hands-down best song, fight me. It's maybe the best best song they've ever nominated, and shame on them for shunting the song performances off to a pre-awards show that most of us didn't even know about so didn't see live.

Comments

[muccamukk]

I'm glad you're getting your shot!

I hope your hand thing either turns out to be a false alarm or a v. mild case.

I've had reasonable luck posting negative reviews of popular things under a DW cut that says it's a negative review of a popular thing.

I barely looked at the list for the Oscars this year. I hadn't seen anything because of the theatres being closed. I guess I could like youtube rent things, but none of it's on streaming services up here and *sighs* it just all seemed less relevant than it normally does (which is not very).

[kore]

Yeah, I remember at least a couple of people doing that with Captain Marvel and Ragnarok, and other movies that were popular but kind of divisive.

(I was really surprised I didn't like it, since I was like SAM CAP AND BUCKY TRAUMATIC PAST, YES PLZ. But one of the obvious problems was the showrunner admitted recently it'd been 8 episodes but they "cut the flab" to 6, and I heard even before that it had been 10. Which I doubt, but if every D+ series is going to be six hours, they really REALLY need to figure out how to make that work.)

[gwyn]

Oh yeah, it's just that even behind a cut people get pissed when you don't like something they do. I mean, fandom just seems to be a weird tetchy place lately.

I think that the oscars are going to have to start recognizing that people are using streaming and don't have live tv as much anymore. They want the numbers for advertisers, of course, but at some point when they keep getting worse and worse numbers they'll have to figure out how to make these special events/sports stuff easier for people to watch!

[ratcreature]

Urgh, I'm so sorry medical care is such a mess in the US, and causing you constant money stress on top of the stress already inherent in seeking medical care. I hope your hand issue doesn't progress and just stays mild. Though I've heard you can treat that kind of finger contracture with radiation in the early stages to halt progression? So if you just noticed, maybe such early intervention could be more affordable than needing surgery later on? Though I suppose with healthcare pricing in the US even non-invasive stuff is bound to cost a fortune if it needs some expensive machine and a specialist doctor. :(

Re Falcon and Winter Soldier, I'd love to hear your thoughts, even if they aren't wholly positive. My own feelings have been somewhat mixed, though I enjoyed watching.

[gwyn]

Yes, apparently radiation is the only effective noninvasive option, but I hear it's very difficult to find someone to do it, because they are nervous about people getting tumors or whatever. I'm old enough that I don't care about tumors 20 years down the line. The US is just basically shit capitalism and litigation.

[ratcreature]

Wtf? That sucks. They are doing it here in Germany, even though people are quite worried about any possible radiation risks from anything. I mean we are phasing out our nuclear power, even though it means burning coal for longer which is tragic for the climate, meant expensive compensation for nuclear power plant owners, and also comes with a bunch of regular pollutants that are carcinogens and cause lung issues that kill people faster.

Tbh if I was anywhere in the US Pacific Northwest I'd worry more about that famous superfund nuclear weapon production site that apparently is never getting cleaned up but has been periodically leaking radioactive stuff all over the place, increasing radiation even quite a bit away from it.

Anyway, fingers crossed then that your problem just stays mild into the future.

[kore]

YAY GETTING 2ND SHOT

The atmosphere has changed so totally -- I remember when we were all banging on the door of the Phase Finder (I hope whoever made that is FIRED) and there were conditions that made it likely you would die if you got covid but they weren't enough for you to get the shot! &c &c and now it's just walkups, and some tie-ins offering free doughnuts or a free beer or a free shot (lol) with proof of vax? Wow. I'm so happy it's going to be so much easier for people to get vaxxed, especially MY FRIENDS, even if the general level of vaxxing is going down. D:

I have seen Mucca and other people on my flist basically go "I didn't enjoy this, more under the cut, if you enjoyed this, you probably don't want to read it" and it seems to work out okay. Personally I'd love to read your thoughts on FATWS, since I bounced off it incredibly hard, which felt weird, because the only other thing I was looking forward to more was Black Widow. sigh.

Healthcare in the US sucks incredibly, even with insurance. And with insurance you always have to talk to insurance people with no medical training who get to control your care! Who came up with this bullshit (insurance companies I guess).

[gwyn]

Yeah, it's kind of ridiculous--today they said they're not even doing appointments, so I guess I don't even need to show up on time on Friday or bring my confirmation number. I hate this country so much--we finally have this thing that could make all the difference and now people won't make use of it. All that Sturm und Drang and now this.

[kore]

I hate this country so much--we finally have this thing that could make all the difference and now people won't make use of it. All that Sturm und Drang and now this.

FUCKING WORD. The scientists are just giving up on herd immunity thru vaxes I guess and are just trying to get as many people vaxxed as possible, but there's still going to be a BIG gap. And that doesn't even take into account what is happening in Brazil and India, and other places even....

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/03/health/covid-herd-immunity-vaccine.html

"Manageable threat," OMFG. For WHO? Those of us who are getting older with multiple chronic conditions? The elderly? Young kids and babies with congenital conditions? And even with mild or aysmptomatic infections, the long-term consequences can be dire. "We can just turn it into a regular infectious disease!" JESUS. //preaching to the converted I know

I dunno. I think it's going to be an okay summer, maybe even an okay fall, because vax rates are up, and it's seasonal. It could be a really rough winter. And I don't want to be that super outlying statistic of the person who was fully vaccinated and gets infected weeks past that and could still get long covid "even if it's mild." I really dread that.

[mackiemesser]

Woohoo on the 2nd shot! Here's hoping for no or a mild reaction.

Health insurance sucks. Even with "good" insurance I'm still reluctant to go to the doctor since it's still so easy to get stuck with a huge bill if the office doesn't code it just right.

Husavik was totally robbed! And it was the only song that was actually part of the movie it was in, not end credits, so it should've been weighted more heavily just for that, dammit.

[gwyn]

I know! It was integral to the film! Oh well, I take some solace that the clip from the movie has 10 million views now. That is one hell of a lot--I think I've been at least a thousand of them. :-D

[mackiemesser]

And it's the only song that won't sound dated in 10 years. I expect it's the usual thing where most people probably liked it best but didn't vote for it because it was in a comedy and because of the big bias that drama is better than comedy.

[destina]

Ahaha, yes, the google of strange words that leads to unpleasant discoveries. "Foot purring" was mine. Sympathies.

Been thinking of you. I had a feeling you probably didn't like FATWS much. Or at least, not certain parts of it. Will be interested to hear your thoughts about it.

I actually thought I was hallucinating during the Oscars when I looked up and saw Misha Collins from Supernatural sitting there at a nominee's table. Turned out he was with his Oscar-nominated childhood bestie, but I had a second where I thought, wow, hallucinations now! What next! What a year.

<3

[kore]

My sympathies, I googled "why do my feet twitch at night" and did not get the benign answer I was looking for!

[gwyn]

Oh my god, foot purring. I...yeah that is also a new one on me!

I don't know Misha Collins well enough to spot him--I'll have to look up photos because i wonder if I saw him without realizing. It was SUCH a strange show.

[grammarwoman]

Oh noes! I'm sorry your body keeps finding new and cruel ways to give you grief. *HUGS* You could possibly ping synecdochic or trawl her journal about her journey with Dupuytren's?

I feel you about FatWS - I enjoyed watching it, but I thought it could have been better.

Watching the Oscars used to be a huge thing with my family; my mom gave birth to me right after watching them at the hospital, even. But sometime a few years back, when I stopped going to movies as much, I stopped watching the awards shows too. I think I was getting too much FOMO or something, and it just never captured the childhood thrill and group dynamics, since neither of my boys like to watch with me, so I hear you on not watching it alone.

[gwyn]

You know, I thought I recalled someone on my list talking about radiation for their hand, and wondered if it might be related to this thing, but I couldn't remember who it was so thank you, I'd never have found it.

I have to say after this year's show, I wonder if there'll be a regular oscars in the future. It could shake out in a really weird way, especially with fewer and fewer people having live TV.

[sperrywink]

Good luck with your vaccine shot and getting over the second dose (if need be). I get my second dose in 2 weeks, and it is a Sunday appointment and I am worried about making it to work on Monday. I'm trying to save my PTO.

Good luck with the vet and kitty.

ANd man, sorry to hear about your hand issues.

[raine]

Don't know if you saw this or not, but this was posted today: https://www.seattlepi.com/coronavirus/article/This-King-County-resource-can-help-you-get-16158115.php?utm_campaign=socialflow&utm_source=t.co&utm_medium=referral
Sharing in case it helps you in any way. (((hugs)))