Distractions are not good

 Distractions are not good. Besides taking care of 100 things "eligible to send offers" I packed stuff, and then got all involved watching some documentaries about professional poker players. 

Thus, I did not practice. But also it was a real sock in the gut to realize that I'm not going to tear it up playing Xmas carols on the glass flute, and that it's just not possible to pick up an instrument and sound good in a matter of months. No, you have to be married to the thing. 

I woke up with time to not only label the things I'd packed last night but also pack some more things. It wasn't a ton of 'em, it was 15. 

I took off and stopped off at Tom's to drop off the bags of chips. Tom wasn't out but James was, fiddling around with his huge pile of junk in front of Tom's place. 

I did the post office and FedEx, and then went to the "Krispy" chicken place for my usual two thighs to go. I had two $1 bills and the rest was change, and after counting out the best of it there was maybe 60c or 70c in pennies and nickels and a couple of dimes, and I asked the guy if he need pennies. "You can just have them, maybe someone will be short by a few cents" so he took the coins. I explained that I save my change each week and by the end of the week will have some saved up, which I spend on chicken or something. He said I could take a free drink and I considered picking out a Coke Zero but said I'd rather have another piece of chicken, a wing or something. 

He threw in a drumstick and a biscuit too. I ate over at the tables, and wrapped the biscuit up for Tom. The medical dumpster was my next stop and a "profitable" one, where they apparently put all their pills and potions and so on into two flimsy trash bags which I was just able to get into the tub I had on the bike trailer before they fell apart. 

I stopped at Tom's again to hand off the biscuit, and he said he appreciated the chips and as we talked ate a bag of two of them. We talked a little, just catching up on things. He was wound up in watching the presidential debate on his TV though so I said I had to go and left. 

There was not much else. I rode back, picked up a big bag of fresh basil at the veggie dumpster, and got back in here. 

Ken came by the usual time, I got my check and we hung out and talked, and I actually remembered to ask him something - if he could check my blood sugar. He was like, Sure, let me change out the lancet blade, and had his meter and lancet and strips ready in no time. The lancet kind of stings but no biggie. My blood glucose was 112. I *had* had that lot of fried chicken a few hours before, and had my black coffee and so on, so it was not a fasting blood glucose reading and I'd call it "Not great, not terrible". 

I'd expect it to be around 80 or maybe 90. Ken and I started talking about all sorts of diabetes things and he checked his own since he's not wearing his monitor and he was at 300 so he gave himself some insulin. I said I've concluded that in the American food environment, you have to assume you're pre-diabetic, and act accordingly. I mentioned how the low-carb diet had helped me, made "my headache' no longer a thing and said I'm sure I'm losing weight although I haven't been weighing myself as my BMI is in the healthy range so I don't see a need to get worried about it. 

I talked about how, reading the various diabetes sub-reddits, that there are lots of people who find out they have diabetes and end up in the hospital or at the doctor's and are tested and find out their blood sugar is 600 or their A1C is 12 or something. And how there are people who get right with the program once they find out, and get their numbers really good in a few months. While other people apparently get defiant and emotional about it, and let themselves get worse. Ken said he knows people like that, and I mentioned a friend who didn't seem to even understand what was going on. 

Diabetes and health are always an interesting subject to Ken, and it's a break from rockets, nuclear science, and the usual things he talks about. I showed him a recipe for "chaffles" on the internet and maybe he'll got a bit lower-carb in his diet but it's doubtful. His "food ways" are very set. The only reason mine are flexible is there were so many times when I was a kid and even a young adult that they had to be flexible for me to survive. 

After Ken was gone I put a few hours into cleaning things up on Ebay, sorted the latest medical stuff haul, and finished the load of laundry I had going. Busy, busy, busy, that's me.