First, and this item's connection to the rest will only become apparent at the end, I missed class last Thursday through no fault of my own. The university's single-sign-on system declined to let me log into any of the school's systems, including the online classroom where the link to the Zoom conference lives. Thinking my account might have been compromised, I ran the password reset tool, to no apparent avail. Calling the IT help desk turned up the interesting information, which might profitably have been mentioned on the password reset tool's page, that changing your password that way disables your account for two hours while everything propagates.

Class is two hours long.

So that's sort of the ultimate "dog ate my homework" story for the digital age, but it does at least have the virtue of being true. Not knowing what else to do, I wrote up some notes on the chapter of the reading I was supposed to have presented on and emailed them to the professor, figuring at least he would know I'd read it and hadn't ducked the class because I wasn't prepared. He responded the next day that the session had run long, and he'd have me present next week (that is, this week, now).

Anyway, that was annoying, but it pales in comparison to what happened next.

So. Let me set the scene. It's Saturday afternoon in the Fortress of Solitude, and I'm sitting in the kitchen making a pizza when it dawns on me that I'm hearing something I don't normally hear in there. You know that feeling when it's something non-obvious, like a smoke detector doing the dying-battery chirp, and it takes you a while to consciously realize it's happening? That.

I stop what I'm doing and listen more closely. There it is again. And again. Every few minutes, something somewhere in the kitchen is making a mechanical click, like a relay tripping, followed by about ten seconds of that distinctive hum an electric motor makes when it's trying to start, but can't, and then another, louder click. Thirty or so seconds of silence, and then it happens again.

My immediate thought is that something's gone wrong with the water cooler. It's a cheap unit I bought at the wholesale club a few years ago, and its predecessor only lasted about this long before failing. So I unplug it and wait. ... Nope. Still happening. It's not the water cooler. The stove? There's nothing in there that should be doing that. The only motor is for the convection mode fan, and I'm not using that right now--almost never use it, in fact.

The fridge? No, it's running. Can't be the fridge... the hell is going on?

I fret about it for a while, but don't come to a conclusion. My tinnitus makes it hard to hear the direction of an intermittent sound like that, so I can't tell much besides that whatever's making the noise is in the kitchen, and I've already ruled out everything that I think could be making it.

You've probably figured it out already. It's the fridge. The circ fan is running, but the compressor is failing to start.

I didn't figure it out until Sunday morning, when I went to get the day's first beverage and found it, and everything else in the refrigerator, warm.

I'm not sure if you're aware of this, but you can't get a refrigerator repaired on a basis of time not measured in weeks nowadays, and acquiring an emergency replacement refrigerator on a Sunday afternoon in rural Maine, with a snowstorm in the immediate forecast, when you are not, yourself, physically capable of wrangling a refrigerator, is a) a non-trivial task and b) really stressful.

After a great many phone calls and visits to balky websites (Big Retail was apparently suffering a widespread DDOS attack that afternoon, I've since found out!), I eventually ended up buying a fridge from (big home improvement store that isn't the orange one). I had certain constraints to work with, principal among them: since the only help I was going to get bringing it into the house was my 69-year-old father with his asthma and chronic foot problems, it had to weigh as close as possible to 150 pounds or less. That ruled out anything as high-capacity or feature-rich as the one I was replacing--no side-by-sides or French-door units here, nothing with an in-door ice dispenser. The one I ended up with is better than its predecessor at one and only one thing, but since that one thing is "keeping things cold inside it," well...

Just purchasing said fridge turned out to be a mess, because the store didn't HAVE the one the website originally sold me, and arranging a suitable replacement without paying more for it required considerable back-and-forth and waiting for callbacks after management consultation. By the time we got it sorted out, Dad declared it too late in the day for him to pick it up and bring it here; he would only go get it and take it home with him (as he lives considerably closer to the city where the big stores are than I do), then bring it the rest of the way and install it on Monday.

Of course it was the right call; we would never have been able to accomplish anything other than breaking things, hurting ourselves, and falling out if we had attempted it that evening. Still, when you've got a fridge full of food on the verge of rotting, the last thing you want to hear is "mañana, mañana," you know? I was not best pleased. I ended up dragging everything out onto the porch, where it wasn't cold enough for things to stay frozen (let alone refreeze), but everything would at least stay fridge-level cool. I'd just have to come up with a plan for the thawed meat later, and throw out anything that had to stay frozen until cooked (e.g., frozen pizzas).

Once I got all that done, I was too drained and pissed off to consider cooking, so I decided to go to (popular fast-food restaurant) and get some dinner, then call it a day. I got into the truck and discovered I'd been so out of sorts I left the house without my keys, which also meant I'd locked myself out.

Fortunately, I live next door to my mother, who has a spare key to both my house and the truck, so I called her. She took a while to find them and get suited up to bring them out, and while I was waiting I started shivering violently. I assumed it was because I was cold. It's February, after all, and I was sitting in an unheated pickup.

Spoiler: I wasn't cold, I was, and remain, ill. I have no idea what with. Somehow, despite living like a paranoid, agoraphobic bubble boy for the past year, I've managed to contract what the NP at my doctor's office thinks is a viral infection (although she does not currently believe it is THE Virus). It has the following symptoms:

- a fever that isn't really super-high, but comes with really strong chills, gets higher at night, and brings along with it the usual side effects of body aches and headache; and
- ... that's it. There are no other symptoms. No cough, no nasal congestion, no digestive irregularities (beyond the ones I already have as a matter of course)... just the fever and its attendant side effects. Oh, and it switches my left hand's sensory receptors completely off, because the slightest elevation in my body temperature does that thanks to the scars from my second MS attack. So that's fun. You have no idea what this looked like before I backed up and typed a bunch of it over again.

So anyway, yeah, I had to help install a refrigerator, move the old one to a holding area in the house (ironically, the new room we built in 2019 that would have become the new bathroom if, you know, we'd been able to keep working on it), triage all the food and get what I thought could be salvaged into the new fridge, and so forth in that state. With my father, who hasn't visited since COVID kicked off in order to avoid exposure to, well... viruses. We were both masked up the whole time, of course, and only approached within six feet of each other when we had to because we were, say, moving the same refrigerator, but still. I'm super fucking paranoid about that now.

It's been two days and I've gotten neither better nor worse. I'm planning to call the NP again tomorrow--uh, later today--and report. She may want me to get swabbed, although it didn't even come up on Monday; her clinical tech, on the phone, literally used the phrase "coming down with a little virus" and seemed decidedly of the opinion that it was NBD. Fluids and rest, son, you'll be fine. Ibuprofen--oh, you can't take ibuprofen. Well, that sucks. Tylenol isn't really very good for this kind of thing, but I guess you'll have to make do.

Meanwhile, remember that deferred class presentation? I have to give that on Thursday. I'm also on the hook for THIS week's reading, which I haven't been able to concentrate on at all. John Keegan is, let me just say, a somewhat vexing historian at the best of times, and this is not the best of times. He's an academic of the "if a thing is worth thinking, it's worth overthinking" clade, which I have a hard enough time parsing when I'm not shivering under two blankets in my recliner, wishing biological life on this planet could find a way to do without RNA.

Fuck, as I believe the young persons say, my life.

--G.
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Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

Any way we can support you in this time of *Screams externally* ?

Those of you who have been here a while may remember that I had one of those in the summer of 2019, too, from which I had just recovered when I fell and bashed up my knee. According to the ER nurse, that's pretty common in MS patients, particularly men. So that's something to look forward to.

On the plus side, that's not communicable, so Dad's probably in the clear. Because one of the key symptoms I was reporting with was fever, though, they had to handle me as a prospective COVID patient under the protocols currently in force, which included taking a test swab. I should hear about that sometime in the next few days.

The COVID protocol had one unforeseen and deeply infuriating side effect: As I was getting ready to leave after being handed my discharge paperwork, the ER nurse told me, "Since you have a pending COVID test, you can't leave through the lobby. You'll have to go out through the ambulance bay."

The way the hospital here is laid out, the main entrance is in the middle of one of the long sides of the building, with the disabled parking places at the end of a little covered portico thing off to the right. The ambulance bay is around the left side of the building.

So, to get to the disabled parking--and thus my car--from the ambulance bay, I had to basically walk halfway around the building. At 2:30 in the morning, dog-tired and feverish, on my not-always-reliable MS-boy feet, through around three inches of freshly fallen snow. Maybe a hundred yards? That probably doesn't sound like very far to normal people, but I don't have those license plates because they look cool.

And, yeah, OK, abundance of caution, you don't want people who Might Have COVID wandering through a crowded lobby, maybe passing people in the entryway, and so on if you can avoid it. But it was 2:30 in the morning! There was nobody out there. And not, like, nobody except the night receptionist, no one at all. After midnight, you have to ring a bell and someone comes out of the ER.

I was too tired to be properly pissed off about that at the time--it was more a sort of baffled, annoyed disbelief with a big dash of resignation--but I'm pretty riled up about that part now.

Anyway, so here I am, taking antibiotics and Tylenol, and drinking a lot of beverages with "Cran-" in their names, and things seem to be settling down. I still feel pretty poor, but I'm not having the heavy chills or noting any significant fever tonight.

Meanwhile, one of the reasons the ER was busy that night was because my mother was in there, having finally broken down and gone in to see if they could find out why her energy levels have cratered these past few weeks. That night, all they turned up was acute anemia, but not what the cause was. They admitted her for observation, with an endoscopy scheduled for Thursday morning in order to check out the leading theory, a bleeding stomach ulcer (something she's had before).

The scope revealed that she does not have a bleeding ulcer... she has four bleeding ulcers.

So that's special.

She's still in the hospital while they try to get a handle on what to do next, but I talked to her a bit ago and she said they were probably going to send her home tomorrow.

On the plus side, class yesterday wasn't that much of a disaster. I only have a week to come up with a topic for the big research paper that is the centerpiece of the whole course, but one crisis at a time.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

In late February, not yet having gotten around to Tier 1B, the health authorities here in Maine changed course and scrapped the federal system entirely. Instead, Maine Public Health decreed that vaccination would be scheduled strictly on the basis of age, with each month earmarked for a particular decade. February having retroactively been for persons 70+, that makes this month reserved for those over 60.

If you're keeping score at home, that knocks me from "should've been done last month" to sometime in the middle of May, and means that high-risk Mainers in their twenties have to hold out until July.

I am livid about this, for a bunch of reasons. For one, this is the second time the public health authorities here in the great State of Maine have left me for dead. (The first was when then-Governor LePage dumped an entire demographic I happened to be in off of MaineCare, not that long after my MS diagnosis.) For another, there's the bait-and-switch aspect. Being told "no worries, hang on until February and we've got you" and then having that arbitrarily rescinded is doing bad shit to my headspace.

But even if I wasn't personally affected on such a profound level, I think I'd still be pretty pissed about it, because denying vaccination against a life-threatening disease to high-risk people just because of their age is blatant abandonment of the disabled in a time of public emergency. More than that, since the most deeply affected are of childbearing age, let's not mince words here, it's fucking eugenics.

The fact that they tout it on the state CDC's website as a more equitable method of distribution than the federal guidelines is just the cherry on top.

At this point I don't just regret coming back to this state, I regret having been born here.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

I don't know why I entertained those hopes, because when there are two things that can be wrong with a thing, and one is cheap and quick to fix while repairing the other is catastrophically expensive or just plain impossible, I always get the second one. This time is no exception. The compressor itself has failed, and would cost more than a thousand dollars to replace.

So rest in peace, side-by-side fridge with ample freezer space and in-door ice dispenser. I may not see the like of you in these parts again. :(

--G.
of course that was $145 and two weeks of virus anxiety for absolutely nothing. of course it was. how could it have been anything else?
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

A couple of nice kids from the appliance store tried to delivery it this afternoon... and then had to give up and take it away with them again, because it can't fit through the only doorway into the kitchen past my clothes washer. In measuring to make sure it would fit, I didn't think of checking the washer clearance, because the new fridge is slightly smaller than the dead one and it got in there, after all...

... forgetting that since that fridge was installed, I've gotten a different set of laundry machines, which are bigger than the old ones. Which means the delivery team today could neither bring in the new fridge nor take out the dead one without uninstalling the washer, which they are not legally allowed to do. Which means I, the world's least handy man, have to find the valves for the washer's water supply (which are in the basement somewhere, not right behind the machine like you would expect), turn them off, disconnect everything, move the washer out of the way, then have them come back and do the fridge shuffle, then put the washer back myself as well, if I ever want to have a Fancy Fridge again.

Naturally, they couldn't hang around while I did all that (if indeed I CAN do all that--my bad knee and the basement stairs are not best pals), so... they left. They'll get in touch to schedule another attempt, but one is not 100% sure arrangments can be made such that there would be any point. I might have to just get a chest freezer instead and resign myself to losing the other Fancy Fridge capabilities for the duration. At least until we can finish the remodel we started before the plague, which would have installed an exterior door IN THE KITCHEN and made the whole problem of getting past the washer moot.

That should have been finished LAST SUMMER, long before the old fridge died and the whole operation became necessary, but, plague.

Update #2: In plague news, I'm scheduled to be vaccinated next Wednesday... with the J&J vaccine, which seems to be the only one happening now in these parts for anyone who hasn't already had round 1 of one of the others. I remember reading the initial reports of how much less effective that one seemed to be than the others and thinking, "Well, that's the one I'll end up getting, then, you watch." And here we are. It's like life is scripted sometimes.

I hear tell it's not as bad as initially believed and that one shouldn't be picky, but it doesn't do my peace of mind any good to be told stuff like "well, you'll probably still get COVID if you've had this shot, but now it won't kill you." Thanks, news outlet, that's... really reassuring. Looking forward to that.

Oh well. At least it's pizza o'clock on Friday.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

It's like as if all the fucking bad juju I managed to live through the last couple years somehow made its way to your door. The sheer degree of "OF COURSE YOU DID!" whenever something goes wrong is utterly palpable.

Not that I'm entire free myself. You would think that a grinding "rawrrawrrawrrawr" sound from the passenger-front side of a car means "Tire issue - investigate ASAP, possible replacement needed", right?

Keep in mind, I'd just done a fair bit of much needed replacing of parts and servicing: front and rear struts, tierod ends, control arms all replaced, clutch job along with master and slave cylinders, passenger side inner CV joint rebuilt because of cracked boot, front and rear main seals replaced, and RTV sealant redone for rear main seal assembly, oil pan, and timing chain cover. (Why yes, I did pull the engine and transmission out together. Why do you ask~? :P )

Tires checked and balanced... still noisy.
Replaced tire... still noisy.
Alignment done... needed, but still noisy...
Replace CV axle (suspect due to cracked boot)... ...you gotta be fucking kidding me - STILL NOISY!?

At this point, its going to be one of two things - the CV support bearing on the intermediate shaft, or the wheel bearing in the passenger side steering knuckle. So far, my investigation online points towards the intermediate shaft bearing... but knowing my luck, it's probably gonna wind up being something absurd like some part in the differential is going bad... which would fucking suck big brass ones because that will mean a transaxle rebuild. And just after I got done doing all that other work, too!

At the very least, people in my apartment complex are goddamned impressed with how I've absolutely gone to town on my little Saturn SC1. While I've been at it, I've also replaced the front and rear bumpers (severely damaged some years by sudden unexpected LAKE ON THE GODDAMNED INTERSTATE HIGHWAY!!!), the front seats (utterly worn and nasty - managed to upgrade by snagging much nicer seats from more recent vintage SC1), and a bunch of other various little things.

On top of all this, I now have to be careful about how and how much I eat because now I apparently have gallstones. And with me having the freakish liver from hell that'll metabolize narcotics like its nobody's business combined with a relatively high pain threshold (thank you ever so much, abusive childhood!) I have to tell the ER nurses to not waste precious Morphine on me (I will literally not even feel it) and just skip straight to the Dilaudid.

Fortunately, they gave me a prescription of Tylenol-3 for flareups. Doesn't happen often, though, because I've been fairly paranoid about my eating habits ever since. Mostly I wind up using it to help out with the arthritis in my cervical spine because the 500mg Naproxen Sodium tabs they prescribed me barely manage to take the edge off. BIG DIFFERENCE between an anti-inflammatory and an actual pain reliever. Though they definitely work best together than just one or the other.

It's been slow progress, but progress all the same. Just that for once I wish I could do a major repair on a vehicle without having some ridiculous BS stymie me.

Suffice to say, I definitely know the feeling when it seems the universe itself is trying to stack the deck against you. (For a while, shit was so bad for me that my hard-ass, Type-A persona, self-made-man of a step-father who was terribly fond of setting ridiculous double-standards between me and my half/step-siblings was all "GodDAMN son, that's fucked.")