I'm back in Boston. I had a great deal of fun with My sister, niece, brother-in-law, and mom. Maddie is a little ball of energy. Well, not little, she's quite big for a 7 year old. Smart and creative, but I just can't keep up with her.

The day I arrived, Thursday, we pretty much stayed around the house and relaxed. My mom had already been there for several days and was already settled in.

Friday, Christian stayed home while Maddie, Bridgette, my mom, and I went down to Georgetown. We hit Lush and Godiva and went to Dean & Deluca for lunch. While I've seen central meter machines in parking lots, I'd never seen a central machine for street parking before. I guess it is more efficient than having a separate parking meter for each spot, I'm just not used to it. The biggest disadvantage I see with the central machine system is that if it breaks down it disrupts the use of a number of parking spots at once.

Saturday we drove into Virginia through wine country and went to Linden Vineyards (nothing to do with Second Live). That was my favorite part of the trip down. Relaxing doesn't even begin to describe the place. Surrounded by rows of grapes and vine watching the clouds shadow-dance on the Blue Ridge Mountains. The cigar Christian gave me to smoke at the vineyard not only went perfectly with the cheese and wine, but also with the surrounding tranquility.

Sunday, I got up later than I had planned, but not so late that it caused any hassle in catching my flight. Upon leaving, Christian gave me some cigars, along with a 15-pack of Rocky Patel vintage 1992s, one of my favorites. My mom gave me a wonderful dragon cane when I arrived at the house and I was a bit worried about getting on the flight with 2 canes, but I didn't have any hassle and the return trip from Reagan National to Logan went smoothly.

I had hoped to get some good bird pictures, but unfortunately my birding camera is not working. I noticed it my first day there. It seems to be a connection problem with the battery prongs, which should be repairable. But, I was glad to see that Maddie loved birds and birdwatching despite her father's hatred of them.

gryffyn gave goldmourn and me a ride up to London, where I caught the bus back to Boston. In short order I screwed up boarding the bus and spilt my entire cup of coffee (a lot of it going on my skirt).

However, things seemed to go a bit better until we reached the border. Compared to the security personal at the Canadian border, the Americans are fascist assholes. Someone in front of me put his hands in his pocket while waiting for the border guard to confirm his identification, for which he received the threat: "WE'RE NOT PLAYING GAMES! DO YOU WANT TO GO TO JAIL RIGHT NOW?". His was hardly atypical treatment. Greyhound had scheduled 15 minutes to cross the border. However it took us over an hour to get through security, and there was no one ahead of us. The imagery reminded me more of the check points in the old Soviet Bloc rather than something I'd hope to expect from the United States. How times change.

Luckily the hold up at the border didn't cause me to miss my connection at Syracuse. Other than losing an inexpensive article of clothing, the rest of the trip went smoothly — I walked out of the bus station the exact moment purpleglitter was pulling into the parking lot.

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I didn't do my normal voice post updates during this trip, because the entire LiveJournal voice post system was down the entire trip.

Still haven't heard back from the wildlife rehabilitation people. I took the squirrel down to the parking lot behind purpleglitter's apartment to try to see if it could go away on its own. I got it out of the box, but it just laid there on the ground. I tried to pick it up, and it just walked a couple steps and laid down again. On my second attempt, I put it back in the box and brought it back up to the porch. I spilt a little of the water in the box, but it is a warm day and it should dry rapidly.

I've been having "episodes" all day, more intense since around 1pm. Dizzy, twitchy, fally. More and more often I'm briefly losing consciousness. What was before extremely rare is now uncommon. I don't like the change. I've been trapped in the episode cycle for the last several hours and haven't been able to get out of it. Coming in waves, it sometimes feels I may break free then I'm pushed back down.

This morning, zarthon picked me up for therapy today and took me to the Arlington Diner for breakfast beforehand. Unfortunately, my therapist called to cancel after we had left. I waited over a half hour for her before leaving the clinic. Very frustrating because the people at the sign-in should have known that my appointment was canceled and yet did nothing. I fell down trying to find where zarthon had parked and some idiot bitch (there's some of that venom I was talking about) got security because I wouldn't get up. She didn't call because she was worried, she made that clear by the manner in which she addressed me and by barking at a nice man trying to help me up to not give me a hand. She escorted escorted the nice man to the building leaving me alone on the pavement in the parking lot. She did it because she didn't think the situation looked "proper", because she was another annoying busybody in a world full of annoying busybodies. I did manage to get up with the help of my damaged but still functional cane before security accosted me.

I talked to my therapist on the phone when I got home and have a new appointment Thursday that zarthon will drive me to.

electricube and I met in Porter Square yesterday at noon ready for our trip to Cauldron Farms. We were both hungry, so electricube treated me to an Indian food buffet lunch before we left. I enjoyed it very much and felt ready for the trip.

When we got to Fitchburg there was no one waiting at the station. We waited for about 20 minutes, then electricube went to a nearby internet café to look up Raven's number while I waited at the station in case someone from the Farm arrived. Shortly after she left to get online I started having trouble walking. At first it felt like I was trying to get up a very steep hill even though I was on level ground. Soon I couldn't maintain my balance, so I sat on the ground. Luckily I was at a transit station and sitting there didn't look particularly out of place.

The spell didn't last too long and I was up to walking again by the time electricube got back with the bad news: Raven had canceled via e-mail shortly after we had started our journey. So no reading. A waste of money and a day.

It was two hours before the next train to Boston, so we decided to tool around town. We really wanted to find a coffee house, but were unable to. We did run into a cool queer kid who explained to us just how little there was actually to do in Fitchburg. I though with a small state university that they might have at least an okay coffee house, but I guess not. We did have fun talking to him and before we knew it, it was time to head back.

On the train back I had another "spell". More intense and twichy than the one in Fitchburg. This time I lost consciousness for what electricube tells me was five or ten minutes. Nobody usually pays notice to this things as long as one stays off the ground and doesn't make a good deal of noise. As I remained relatively quite in my seat throughout the episode, I was not hassled.

I did end up going to the ground shortly after we arrived at Porter Square, but again I was on a transit platform, so it didn't look particularly out of place.

electricube insisted on seeing me home, but didn't end up staying for very long.

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Once home I tried to get my computer patched to avoid the worm that I heard was going around yesterday. Unfortunately I still don't know if it is properly patched. It has intractable adware on and I need to reinstall the operating system. I'm very very tempted to install Linux instead of XP, because I'm so pissed off with Microsoft's policy of leaving gaping security holes in their products and then charging for products that attempt to fix those holes. I've already given up on Internet Explorer, maybe it's time to ditch them completely. I would miss Photoshop. That is the only thing stopping me.

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Today I woke up quite disorientated. My behind-elbow and behind-knee were really bothering me. I was a bit stumbly. But I'm not going to let my "spells" dictate my life, so I left the house anyway. I headed over to Walgreens, and almost made it to the door before I went to the ground in the parking lot. Again, as with these things, it was not a catastrophic fall as I knew I was about to go down. I ended up on all fours twitching because I wasn't able to properly orchestrate my decent. Quickly several people came by asking if I was "okay". I told them that I was, that this happens all the time, but they were insistent on "helping" me. They even called the emergency services. Oh joy!

The police arrived first. I told the officer that I was fine, that this happens all the time. He said that I should get checked out at the hospital anyway. I replied that they checked me out last week for the same thing and said it was nothing. That going again would be a waste of time. He seemed stunned by that statement, but I didn't really care. The firefighters and the paramedics arrived in quick secession, each again trying to convince me to go to the emergency room. I refused and signed their little thing saying I was refusing treatment.

Soon after they left, I went into Walgreens. I ended up on the floor in the back isle. Apparently "customers were worried", so management called the emergency services. I left before they could arrive.

I'm at purpleglitter's now. Still a bit dizzy but feeling better. Ready for more adventures.

Out on my neitherday walks, I have noticed a dime embedded in the center of Mass Ave. It is stuck in the rubbery stuff they use to seal cracks in the road. I want that dime. I was out there tonight trying to pick the dime out with my fingers. A white SUV pulling out of a side street noticed me. They started to turn away from me. Backed up. Looked again. Started to turn towards me. I got out of the street and headed towards the house_of_clocks, but the SUV turned back away from me and drove away.

I went on with my walk. Sat down by Spy Pond and watched the silent waters. Saw many cats and a family of opossums. Walked up and down the side streets. Walking back to the house I saw 2 police cars drive by. They didn't see me as I was on the dimly lit side street. I went back and sat on the walkway in front of the house. The police kept driving by. Looking for something or someone with their spotlights. They inspected the Walgreens parking lot and kept looking nearby. They kept driving by me slowly, checking me out. But as I was on our walkway they didn't approach me. I decided to tempt fate and started on another walk. Immediately two police cars stopped me. Apparently they had received a call that someone was "graffiti-ing" Mass Ave near Walgreens. They noted that they couldn't find any graffiti. They asked me how long I'd been outside and if I'd seen anyone. I told them about my walk and said I saw no one. they didn't really suspect me of "graffiti-ing" the missing graffiti, so they drove off.

I'm guessing the person in the white SUV who saw me trying to get the dime, thought I was spray painting Mass Ave. It was dark, and they weren't very close. They probably called me in.

That dime is mine. I'm going to take something to pick it out on my next walk. That dime is mine.