* Tropical Storm: InfraRed *

September 29 - October 5, 2025 (Monday - Sunday)
''Full Week in Review''

Rather than attending to it on Monday, as was my original intent, I held out until  Wednesday (Oct. 1)  to start making my calls to register to my pre-selected Primary Care Physician, who was supposedly staffed at the clinic just down the main road a few blocks westward, but found no mention whatsoever of that assigned Practitioner anywhere in the Anthem-Blue PDF list of medical providers, which I explained to the phone receptionist, only to be told the facility was no longer accepting any new patients and that I would have to be placed on a long waiting list.

So I put off any PCP registration follow-up until the following date  (Thu., Oct. 2),  which I was going to engage in after my Mother and I returned from a planned trip to ''Sam's Club'' after she had returned from getting her ''no hair'' cut. But when I received no sort of acknowledgment from her, neither by phone nor by shout-out after she returned to the house briefly, I decided to called around 1/4-past Noon to inquire about when to expect her to return for the trip back out, but she said she was already at Sam's, but mentioned that she had forgotten to bring something along with her that she'd needed to take with her (some sort of bill payment document) and said that as a result she would need to be going back out there next morning anyway -- so I stated that it was something that could be chalked up as a fortuitous turn of events anyway, as the delay would allow more time to re-engage in my PCP search.

The second ''nearby'' clinic I'd called, located on ''Peter's Creek Road,'' stated they were beholden to the same issue re: the taking in of new patients and the ''waiting list'' roadblock. The receptionist there suggested that I call the ''Carilion'' mainline (with whom the clinic was affiliated) for their assistance in possibly locating a clinic in the area which was still accepting 'open enrollment,' as it were: the only available location found that was still taking in new patients, and with the earliest available scheduling, was a facility on the West end of Salem City (right next to the ''Walmart'' there, just a ways past the High School), with the earliest schedule where they could fit me in was in late-October! (I could've opted for a day earlier, but I wanted the more doable convenience of having scheduled time that was not so early in the morning.)

Any idea of being able to head back out to Sam's got called into question when I received a call explaining to me that the car had decided to throw another pouty-lipped fit and refused to start normally again, so she wasn't able to arrive back to the house until late.

When morning came  (Fri, Oct. 3),  I asked if she had any plans on trying to chance another trip out with the vehicle, risking another misbehavior incident, but she insisted that she was going to give it try anyway.

After checking out with my Sam's grocery purchases, I realized that I had accidentally left with an unpaid roto-hen my Momz had placed on my cart which I'd completely forgotten about: after much mulling it over in my head (including being further assisted by conversation disruptions which kept interfering with my attempts to mention it in the first place), I finally decided to just remain silent about it, especially after she had mentioned & confirmed that the bottle of pink moscato I'd found set in the spot where I've been keeping my own wine bottles in the refrigerator she had indeed purchased for me as a gift... and so I claimed that I would accept the wine as a trade-off for a single leg-&-thigh from the chicken which she'd assumed I'd paid for on her behalf.

After putting away my groceries, and as I was prepping one of the cauliflower crust pizzas I'd purchased, my Mother had a nasty trip-&-fall in the kitchen which resulted in her breaking her ceramic bowlate in nearly perfect halves with almost no other shards. Overly confident about this, I carelessly grabbed the second half the broken plate trying to pick it up, not really realizing that I was grabbing it along the broken edge, and really not realizing that ceramic edges could/would be so sharp... and as a result I'd ended-up getting a cut on the inside the thumb on  other  hand as well.

Later in the night I began clipping/trimming away some of the loose/peeling edges around my major wound, still behaving somewhat cautiously optimistic regarding the healing process.

The attempted repair (super-gluing) of my now completely snapped hand shower receptacle went about as well as should've been expected ... so now I'm left facing the dilemma of trying to pseudo-repair it again and just try to wing it by [gently] mounting it more in accordance with the positioning the extreme majority of people would set it, or if I should go ahead and break-out and install my second/backup set and run the risk of that one getting inadvertently damaged as well....?

October 27, 2025 (Monday)
18:40, Eastern Daylight Time

Had to rush a bit to get to the bus stop (of the most crappy public transit system I've ever utilized) on time in order to keep my physician's appointment: the original plan was to have my mother to drive me out there, but one of my uncles had come by Saturday to remove her car in order to continue repairs on it to try to fix the persistent problem which supposedly required a replacement part that the manufacturer no longer stocks or produces.

The clinic and the staff were very nice -- probably because of the fact that it is so far outside of the ''poor[er]'' sections of the Primary City. During the intake process, I was subjected to blood work and received my seasonal flu/COVID update inoculations. Along with my eyedrops prescription renewal, I was recommended a medication that is supposed to aid me in easing my urination issue.

I shopped at the ''Walmart'' there for some fresh produce before heading back out to the bus stop for the return trip, disembarking at the Post Office to claim my latest  ''Amazon Vine''  order (my earphones extension cord) and to check if the replacement credit card she'd requested following a suspicious charge had accidentally been sent to the P.O. Box (which was a negative, requiring her to contact the card issuer for an update). During portions of the trip back I added & re-shuffled launch icons on my phones to accommodate new installations I'd included, most notably several additional language-learning apps to compliment ''Duolingo'' after their latest trash re-modification which is infuriating the greater number of ''free'' users of the app.

I decided to postpone selecting a personal pharmacy, because sadly, the only things in the rough general area which may be part of my provider network are a couple of ''CVS'' locations, and especially because I'd refused to placate that answering service which was trying to FORCE me to literally ''TALK'' to some automated machine!

My post-inoculation arm soreness is nowhere as discomforting this time as usual... I've still yet to see how ''out of it'' I may become as a result of the vaccination cultures themselves however.

October 28, 2025 (Tuesday)
21:00, Eastern Daylight Time

The effects of the vaccines finally began catching up with me around 5:00.

Partially because of these downtrodden feelings and sore arms, I opted against leaving the house to walk down to the ''CVS'' down the road to inquire about their ''in-network'' status with my Health Care provider, so again I tried to circumvent that disgusting autobot call transfer system they have in place, and I still stubbornly refused to play that stupid game, so I'd instead resorted to calling the ''Anthem'' number directly to acquire that information.

During the call, I also updated my ''Primary Care'' information (as I'd since made the decision to not bother trying to switch PCPs again after all the hassle I've had to endure throughout this entire process). Prior to the call ending, I was informed that I was scheduled to re-apply to renew my  ''Medicaid''  membership, whereupon my call was transferred for that purpose, as I'd not received any re-application documentation in the mail.

It was toward the end of the intake session with the Medicaid rep that I was informed that even though the system is structured to go through the renewal process annually, I could opt for a 5-year contract before being required to reapply again, which I went with, explaining that my projected income was likely not going to move that far beyond what I typically bring in anyway, so annual reassessments based on my income qualifications would seem like overkill.

Throughout the day, I'd received alerts regarding my lab results: I was relieved to learn that they did not detect any questionable issues with my liver, and that I did not register as diabetic or pre-diabetic, but they did have some minor concerns about my kidneys, and (shocker of all shockers) they said I'd tested for elevated cholesterol levels, for which they want to put me on medication.

November 4, 2025 (Tuesday)
22:05, Eastern Standard Time

Managed to break out of my ''wrapped-up in a cold room'' funk this afternoon to check on my prescription orders, and to absolutely no surprise there was nothing there to be had -- not even a call had been placed! I knew to expect this when I called several days ago to name my chosen pharmacy and was more or less forced to leave that information on a recorded answering system, following which I'd never received a return call for any sort of confirmation! After almost precisely a full half-hour of being on the phone with the Doctor's nurse, I was FINALLY able to get them to acknowledge, and later order, my medications.

On the way walking to the pharmacy I took note of the road sign at ''Melrose Market'' announcing that the AfricAm history & culture museum would be establishing their new presence at that location, and I noted (and went inside to take a snapshot of their ''floor menu'') the existence of the African Market of which I'd been previously unaware; on the way back, I'd decided to patronize the Jamaican food shack on the road-fork corner parking lot in order to try Jamaican ''Jerk Chicken'' for the very first time.

November 5, 2025 (Wednesday)
21:05, Eastern Standard Time

Received a call from ''CVS'' this afternoon, informing me that my prescribed medications were now available for pick-up, which I retrieved a few hours later and just came straight back to the house.

November 6 - 9, 2025 (Thursday - Sunday)
''Extended Weekend in Review''

After my first ''prostate pill'' dosage intake the previous night, I found myself  Thursday Morning (Nov. 6)  [finally] peeing freely and smoothly and with no hold-over only several hours after having taken it prior to turning in for sleep, and that had occurred after having been roused from my rare nighttime slumber by the requisite ''empty bladder alert'' urge... which had in this instance interfered with my sleep ONLY ONCE the entire time! I had no way of knowing with any certainty if the effect may have somehow been working in tandem with the ''cholesterol'' medication I'd taken a couple of hours ahead of the pee-pill, but I could swear that there had been a (non-placebo effect) slight improvement in my urinary flow prior to taking the second pill.

After these initial dosages, I felt a sudden twinge of a nauseous stomach after I'd woken-up and spent some time standing, for which I made myself lay back down for a while until the experience subsided, but I'd not since experienced a repeat of that (suspected) after-effect.

As to my tolerance to the two medications in general, I've since been experiencing the side-effect of a ''watery'' gurgling stomach (usually while lying down), and the anti-positive effect of the pee-pill being that Free-&-Easy flow seems to come at the cost of being able to effectively hold/delay the expulsion process once the urge to relieve my bladder strikes, in essence subjecting me to ''medically-induced incontinence.''

Later in the Evening I went to the website to place another order for my 100% Kona Coffee, purchasing three bags (which was one more than I'd actually desired, but did so in order to make their $5 ''flat rate'' shipping charge make more economic sense), after conducting a long arduous search across the InterWebs for a better-than-10% promo code discount and managing, to my surprise, to enter one for 20% which I was certain would not work at all, assuming it would've been outdated/expired.

Called the Clinic in Salem  Friday Afternoon (Nov. 7)  to inquire about how to establish Ophthalmological exams, namely, if they required a ''referral'' from my ''Primary'' -- I was told that it was something I was likely able to arrange on my own without the need of a ''middleman.''

I then called ''Anthem'' immediately after that call to get in touch with someone who could assist me in regaining access to my online account, as both the website proper as well as the app were sending me on endless runarounds and loop-backs over some supposed ''security code'' issue that it kept preventing me from receiving because the only re-access option presented to me was request a security code which would be sent to me via email... EXCEPT the email address it had listed was not only not one of mine but was also NOT ANY ADDRESS I'D EVEN REGISTERED WITH! It would then be over a full hour BETWEEN CALLS TO REPRESENTATIVES ON *BOTH* PHONES before I was finally transferred to somebody who helped get me re-established with my personal account and explained that this issue had arisen as a result of them having recently done initiated a ''System Update.'' Needless to say, I was highly pissed nonetheless, and the ''fix'' still hadn't quite been complete, as when I attempted several times to establish a updated personal password from inside the account, it would prevent me from doing so, declaring that neither my ''temporary'' provided password nor the one the Tech Geek Guy provided me with to regain access were recognizable, so I tried to attempt a workaround via their ''forgot password'' feature, which finally allowed me to reset to a permanent passcode of my choosing.

Later in the night, while attempting to find where I'd stored my remote control devices so that I could reset/update these digital wall clocks, I discovered that the box containing the anti-mosquito spray I'd ordered was discolored in evident wetness: as it turned out, two of the four cans had somehow inexplicably emptied themselves of their contents.

Ever since my medical examination I'd been experiencing my next ''disrupt getting back out in the world'' disruption, this time in the form of a ''weak knee'' condition where my left knee keeps feeling like its trying to give out with some pseudo-''joint cracking'' sensation that its interfering with my walking and discomforting and causing some concern but is not actually painful.

November 10 - 14, 2025 (Monday - Friday)
''Extended Week in Review''

Accompanied my Mother to ''Sam's Club''  Monday (Nov. 10),  purchasing a bit more than originally intended (as per usual).

Some time after, I'd decided to restore the glass pane to the screen door, but was unable to locate it anywhere in or around where I'd known I'd stored it, and my Mother was denying that she had had any hand in its absence, until I'd suggested that perhaps at some point I'd transferred it off to her for whatever unknown reason, whereupon after checking inside the garage she'd recalled that she had indeed taken it out there with the intention of repainting it, which of course she'd never gotten around to doing.

I decided on  Wednesday and Thursday (Nov. 12 - 13)  to start using that micro-''Convection Oven''-- or what is now commonly rebranded as an ''Air Fryer'' --that she'd pulled out of garage storage a couple of weeks prior after mentioning she'd had one that a friend of hers had given to her in order to make space for a new replacement. The one that was gifted was basic as hell and barely cooked potato sticks Wednesday, but did a fairly decent job with breaded fish & shrimp the following afternoon.

In trying to access my accounts to pay my credit card balances Thursday, I was slapped with my Bank's website declaring that it would no longer allow me to gain access to my account via PC without a  ''Windows 10+''  operating system and ''supported'' compatible web browser, rendering my ''Extended Service Release'' build of  ''Firefox''  completely useless! (Had it not been for the fact that my credit cards are tied to them, I'd have used this as my prod to close out my banking with them and decided where next to transfer my money.) As it would happen, one of the two ''Windows XP/7-Extended'' forks of the open-source  ''Chromium''  browsers I'd downloaded & installed over a month ago did allow me access... for the time being.

Went out to start my motorcycle  Friday (Nov. 14)  to go someplace -- but it wasn't until I'd had difficulty trying to rock it off of its center stand that I'd finally realized that it had started up cleanly with no issues whatsoever... which led to my later realization that the reason for this was because it was all a part of a lucid dream I'd been having at the time: but the irony of ironies was that I'd finally realized it was all part of a dream while I was still in a [half-?]dream state! [[insert "facepalm" emoji here]]

Mad a call in the afternoon to try to schedule an appointment with an Ophthalmologist, but was informed that I would first need to arrange a preliminary examination with a standard Optometrist and receive a referral from there: I was given a recommendation for an Opto they accept referrals from, stating that they themselves no-longer perform such routine exams for ''Medicaid'' patients, not even ''out of pocket'' payments. It took some time & effort to get my Opto appointment scheduled, but was eventually given one for early mid-December.

November 17 - 20, 2025 (Monday - Thursday)
''Week in Review''

After nearly melting the bottom of her stove-top water heating kettle due to her absentmindedness for the third (or fourth?) time of which I'm personally aware  Monday Night (Nov. 17),  I inquired of my Mother if she'd ever given consideration to purchasing an electrical unit as a replacement. After explaining all of the benefits that would make an electric kettle a better alternative, she authorized me to order one for her, the price of which I could deduct from my utilities reimbursement: into the next day, I conducted my search and reviewed a number of models (name-brands, pseudo-brands, and fake-branded generics) and settled on several models I'd set aside to elicit her opinion on.

Between the  Tuesday-Wednesday phase (Nov. 18 - 19),  while continuing to restructure my apps library on my phones, I'd begun experiencing connectivity problems on my primary phone, which had only gotten worse when performed a reinstall of my  ''Outlook''  app, which resulted in rejected account access attempts and inevitably into the phone getting stuck in an endless loop of restarts, which resulted in my performing a complete reboot, which of course meant struggling to reconnect with my Mobile Data access after jumping around through numerous hoops. Proceeded to engage in constant conflict with these issues for hours, including another restart/reboot, uncertain if any of this was due to conflicting apps, some unmentioned ''End of Support'' updates that refuse to properly operate with this phone's non-upgradeable ''Android'' version, or just product performance degradation. After a while late Wednesday Night, after reboots and numerous app reinstalls, I'd managed to get everything to  ''seemingly''  start functioning normally, but I decided to let it rest for a spell and not try to push my luck.

I also took time Wednesday Evening to let my Momz review the water kettle selections I'd pulled up for her consideration, and it was no surprise to me that she chose as her option the one that advertises itself as serving the dual function of being a tea brewer with it's included infuser. I also used this opportunity to order for myself a new rice cooker... not because I needed it or even had any real legitimate reason to ''want'' it, as I'm still quite attached to my first baby I'd brought everywhere with me from Hawaii, but I decided to take interest in its ''stay-warm'' feature (not really a particular concern of mine) but more so in its non-stick coating, which could help expand its usage beyond being just a rice cooker.

November 25, 2025 (Tuesday)
22:35, Eastern Standard Time

During a combi- ''Vine'' hunt & package delivery tracking this morning, I found in my personalized ''Vine'' recommendations list an offer [finally!] of an ''Air Fryer'' (possibly because the algorithm picked-up on the fact that I had indeed been searching the term a few times), but I was extremely hesitant about requesting it because [1] I now have the one my mother gave me and [2] if I ordered this one-- even though it had a few additional operational features --it would result in my cracking through the $600 ''untaxed'' ceiling, which I wasn't at all interested in doing, even though for about the past day or so I had been toying around with the idea of going beyond it anyway as a means of having a genuine excuse to file a Tax Return for this year, given the fact that I'd surrendered to the idea of just letting myself be carried through the remainder of the year without re-entering the workforce (or as I've been trying to entertain, that ''God''/''The Universe'' has been deliberately interfering with my every desired near-attempt to put myself back out there earning some ducats for His/It's own Higher-Thoughts-Than-My-Own reason).

I then went down to the Post Office to check on the status of my coffee (which had indeed arrived sooner than I'd been expecting and had been on hold for over a week -- long enough for then to scare me with another of their ''Final Notice'' slips) and the recent appliances orders, even though according to ''Amazon's'' site tracking that shipment was likely not scheduled to arrive until the next day, of which the clerk at the P.O. said they'd likely be open for only a half-day due to the Holiday hokum.

Just as soon as I'd gotten back on my lanai the phone began going through its insufferable ''stuck in restart'' loop, which again forced me to do a full shutdown & reboot, with the requisite ''No Data Service'' wrestling match. It wasn't until this reboot phase that I was made aware of the fact that this whole shutdown incident may have been triggered by ''CrapFone'' themselves sending out some kind of signal for some reason or other, because the antivirus program started informing me of game apps that I'd never installed... meaning that ''CrapFone'' was yet again engaging in flooding my device with unasked for and unwanted bullshit games that would be doing nothing but hogging my space and likely interfering with my device's performance that I yet again, as always, had to resort to uninstalling each and every one of them manually!

During this incident, re-connection to Data was so problematic that it seemed this time that my access to the service had finally been shuttered for a certainty (which I still have no true way of knowing definitely, since every single method of accessing their ''usage'' charts for my device are still not displaying what I'd actually accumulated over time). But just as I had flipped the deciding switch for what was going to be the final time before giving in and making moves later to try to restore it, the connection restored itself.

Afterwards, by the time I'd finally decided to take the chance on the Air Fryer, it had been removed out of rotation, so it was a missed opportunity... but again, for the aforementioned reasons given, the loss was a case of the proverbial ''bittersweet.''

November 28 - 30, 2025 (Friday - Sunday)
''Weekend in Review''

Had another ''Data Disconnect'' on my primary phone  Friday (Nov. 28)  after I'd misjudged how much ''resting charge'' I had left on the battery before connecting it on the charger... again, it seemed as though I was actually going to have to ''order'' new data to get reconnected, but it finally clicked back on around Midnight-ish. (I'm still uncertain if my ability to re-access Mobile Data, especially as difficult as it has become, is a result of my original data balances that I might still have on reserve, or if because of all of the gumming-up situations I've had to go through all this time might've earned me an exploitable ''glitch'' that I'm not supposed to have, since I'm still not 100% convinced whether I'd inadvertently drained those reserves earlier or not... thus leaving me in the dark regarding whether the re-connection problems are ''network'' related or ''software and/or hardware'' related?)

Retrieved my kitchen appliances order from the Post Office  Saturday (Nov. 29) -- really not very happy with the new rice cooker... especially with its installation of the short-azzed power cord base  on the SIDE  of the unit, instead of somewhere in or toward the  rear  of the appliance!

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