Odin's Day - T Minus Six Days

Medical
Hanging in there. Yesterday's cocktail changes: doubled dose of Cymbalta, and got Tramadol for when the pain's too much. The pain wasn't too much yesterday - stayed moderate.
Miss Kid seems a little bit improved, but is hideously cranky, so it's hard to judge. School or ER for chest X-Ray? I'm keeping an eye on her as she eats her Cheerios. Hopefully things will become clear once she wakes up a little.

Today I Must
Do everything on the to-do list from yesterday that I didn't get to yesterday because I was at her doctor's office and fighting with CVS. They couldn't find her insurance info based on her insurance card. I had to call Adam to get his social security number to look it up that way, which took forever because Adam doesn't pick up the phone for numbers he doesn't know, so I had to keep calling and leaving messages and hoping for him to pick up. Got the digits, passed them on. They looked him up - and said his plan didn't have any dependents on it. I asked them to please explain, then, how they'd managed to charge my four prescriptions sitting there in their neat little bag to the insurance company, and to please figure that out, because my daughter's doctor wants her to get those hits of albuterol right now. That whole process took about an hour.

Anyway.

Today is pretty much a straight packing day, with a call to the local kids' consignment shop to see if they're currently taking stuff.

And a photo shoot tonight.

Daily Science
Element 118 Discovered Again!

Daily Science/Daily BPAL Crossover
Athletes thus join movie stars and other celebrities in having their own signature fragrances, for sale to the malodorous masses. But, although scientists are vital to the fragrance industry, there are no fragrances honoring them. So here are some suggestions for a new line of scientist-inspired scents.
(thanks, phinnia!)

Daily BPAL
Lyonesse: Golden vanilla and gilded musk, stargazer lily, white sandalwood, grey amber, elemi, orris root, ambergris and sea moss.

In bottle: Vanilla and - something foreign. Sea moss?

On me: Ohhh. This is nice. I'm getting the ambery vanilla and the orris, mainly; the lily stays in the background. I like this one quite a lot. With the orris and the moss to ground it... this may be my BPAL vanilla.

Tenochtitlan: The greatest of all Aztec cities, and capital of their empire. Amber, hyssop, coriander, epazote, Mexican sage, prickly pear and Mexican tulip poppy.

In bottle: Something very, very sweet!

On me: Mmmm, very sweet. Delicious! I'm not sure which of the notes this is, but it makes me happy. I have never been to Mexico - this scent reminds me of Arizona. Hmm, amber coming out now under that sweet note. It's an amber day! And there's some sage.

I dream in red

I want a new comforter.

Elayna got a new comforter... one more befitting a tween/teen than her current smiling-flowers one. She got it as part of her transition from a little girl to a middle-schooler, from an Atlantan to a Bostonian.

Elayna is reinventing herself - she is dwelling in change.

So am I.

My comforter is grey. My comforter is a safe neutral, like my couch, like everything here; it is a relic of my life in Florida.

When I returned to Florida to have Elayna, I smothered so much of me. I crammed myself into the mold of who I hought I should be, what would best benefit Elayna. I bought a grey comforter, grey couch, I wore grey suits to my generic offic job - I covered myself in neutrals so I would fit in, so the comforter would go with everything, so the eye would pass over me. I covered my fire with water, one friend has said. And these choices meant more than boring decor. They led me to a bad marriage that I entered into for the holy grail of Stability. They led me to staying in a place that poisoned me.

When I moved to Atlanta, moved to Adam, things slowly started to change. I realized that I had not drowned my fire. I realized that Elayna was best served by a mother who was wholly herself, and acted accordingly. I don't dress in mundane drag anymore - I wear skull-and-crossbones t-shirts to field day. I stopped smothering my light to fit in. I have let myself be my large, shiny, ragged-edged self.

But I still have that damn comforter.

I want a new comforter to mark my change, too. I want it to be red, deep rich red; I want a patchwork of silks, velvets; I want it to look like old saris. I want to build my bedroom around something vivid, not something that goes with everything.

But I'm keeping the couch. It's comfy.

(no subject)

The writerbrain is still active. Just beneath the packingbrain.

Thought: The gifts of House Tamra are empathy and, more rarely, healing. Capri inherited the empathy from her mother and the shielding from her father, but didn't get the healing. And the Purges ensured that there were no more healers in the city.

Julia's a healer. She doesn't really know it yet, but she is.

So she'll be the first healer Capri's encountered since her mother's death.

This is going to figure into their relationship. I don't know how, but it clearly is. There is something in Julia's energy that will remind Capri of her mother. Maybe it's why she trusts her so instantly and completely. But they'll have a sexual relationship, so it can't remind her that much of her mother.

And I have... not one scene in my head to illustrate how Capri feels about all of this - her loss, and then encountering Julia - I have years of scenes, all jumbled up. The first time Capri injures herself or gets sick after the Purges, when her mother is no longer there to banish pain with her touch. The first time Capri touches Julia and feels the green warmth of her gift, and doesn't want to let go. Capri trying and trying to awaken her nonexistent healing gift as a teenager - most Dasaroi come into the fullness of their powers around puberty, but Capri did when she was a toddler, so she thought maybe, maybe that was just late...

...yup.

And no time to write!