sj, hope all is well with kidney stuff!

Man, I'm so tired today I am sick to my stomach. But I have a world of stuff to do before bed. Blargh.

I got to tour the water filtration station! And it was just as awesome as I hoped. And we got to see a filter flush and it's somewhat mind boggling how the basic design is unchanged in a hundred years, that's just how well it was thought out. Sure, the mechanicals have been updated and capacity increased, but the process is just the same. I mean, they're still using white oak in the flocking tanks (switching it out to a fiberglass, but the wood does just as good a job.)

It was cool. And the fair part was as well. Two nature centers brought in birds (owls, Hawks, vultures) and turtles and snakes. Historical societies had cool stuff to go through, food trucks, good bands. Letitia VanSant was playing while I was there and commented humorously " I had no idea a party for a water filtration plant would be, well, this much of a party!" They had plenty of stuff for kids like face painting, a huge Lego station and various art tables. Also art vendors and stuff. Oh and the mayor dedicating the new historical marker.

Oh and free bikes to ride around the lake! I went to borrow one towards the end but there was already a waiting list, so I bailed.

Really nice event, the kind that makes you want to hug the city and its people. Everyone was so dang happy...about a water filtration plant.

And then I went to Hampdenfest, but I was hot and peopled out so didn't even last to see the toilet bowl races beyond the test runs.

Thanks, Kat. The dye test didn't show any blockages or kidney reflux. So we don't know why one of ltc' kidneys isn't fully emptying. She's on an antibiotic now, and we're hoping that solves the problem before her next ultrasound.

Poor noodle. Bodies are so complicated. It's a wonder how often we survive things.

So our rain barrel is 2/3rds full. But I'd like to water the lawn. Apparently the bricks aren't high enough and we need cinder blocks instead. I guess we'll work on draining it and lifting it tomorrow?

Very cool, sarameg!

I hope the antibiotics do the trick, sj.

I think my eyeballs got sunburned.

Certainly my shoulders are. Too much humidity for the sunscreen to hold up.

Ugh. I am feeling super depressed. I'm supposed to be having a fun weekend with my bestie, but instead am just feeling left out because everyone I'm seeing on this trip is married and most of them have kids. Last night we hung out with my aunt and uncle, cousins and their spouses, and baby. Tonight with a friend of BFF's, and tomorrow meeting that friend and her spouse and two kids. Tomorrow night, hanging out with an old coworker of ours and her husband. And I just feel shitty. I've been horribly cranky all day and I hate it.

{{{meara}}} I've had that weekend before, and it is utterly no fun, and there are no words from anyone else that can magically make it better. So, just {{{meara}}} You're loved, and you are better than your self-valuation right now.

"Most of them have jobs and kids...what am I gonna say? I killed the President of Paraguay with a fork." I feel like that, at least once a week, and my job's sketchy too.(No world leaders have been harmed. yet.)

Sometimes, I even feel like a failure as a crippled person, which would seem impossible, and yet? I've known I sucked at Overcoming, since I was, like ten, and then, I didn't like, pull it together and desegregate whole classrooms or take up whitewater rafting or murderball.(And a lot of my friends are motivational speakers or fight gun violence,and, on a good day, I look up phone numbers for halfway rich people in Bumfuck County Florida(Which must be super-important cause I don't make a dime from it)