Monday early evening

* I still have hives, but finally they are starting to fade. The skin on my legs looks and feels scalded though: angry red, tight, and it hurts to bend in the areas where the redness is. I had a cauliflower ear for most of the day thanks to hives. I just combed my hair over it for recording the Zoom lectures.

* Cannot shake the persistence of a couple dreams I had last night. The more fragmentary one is that I kept saying "I have to get home to do my work and order my Imperfect Foods box" but my house wasn't my real-world house, it was much larger and had a big glassed-in entryway, like a fancy screened porch and it was really quite posh in sort of a New England/Colonial old-home way.

In the second dream, a man of my acquaintance had asked me to marry him. I said yes, though I was deeply confused, because "but he's gay" (he is in real life) and I went through with the wedding still unsure and wondered what the wedding night could possibly be, and then when we got up to the hotel room he admitted it would be an "exclusive" but celibate marriage for each of us, but he picked me because he wanted companionship and I was the most companionable person he currently knew, and then we went to sleep in separate beds and I admit? it was maybe a little bit of a wish-fulfillment dream for me? Just having someone else there, and someone who thinks I'm a good companion? Even if a lot of the other stuff that goes along with being married might not happen? And yes, I suppose in the real world it might be a little selfish to ask someone to marry you given that there wouldn't be marital relations and you knew it going in but she didn't, but in my dream it didn't seem that way...

* And yeah, I did order my Imperfect Foods for the week. They had more produce this go round so I am getting more strawberries and some grapes and some green onions and even some Brussels sprouts (provided they have enough of all of those in stock) and a few things for the shelf and a pack of apple-gouda chicken sausages. And that's something to look forward to. As long as I can still get fresh milk (Green Spray had some in stock on Saturday, I didn't buy any because I didn't need it yet, but maybe I just duck down there when I need something small) so I have some decent food coming. They had the ONE brand of chicken broth I can use (Pacific Foods) that doesn't use celery in it (they put rosemary in instead; both as a preservative and a flavoring agent), so I ordered 2. I hope they have enough in stock; I still want to try altering the cream of peanut butter soup recipe to be cream of almond butter but didn't have enough chicken broth (and Wal-mart doesn't carry that brand)

* I honestly don't know if sheltering alone (as I am) is better or worse than having to shelter with a family. I can see the downside of having kids who are scared/worried/acting out and having to try to distract or entertain them, but I can also imagine there would be at least some cozy times playing board games or reading books together. It's easy to see the grass as greener on the other side of the fence.

It would be nice to have someone to talk to other than over the phone or through a screen. And to have someone secure enough to do the thing where they sighed deeply and said "Babe, we're not gonna starve" when I start worrying about the food supply chain, or something like that.

* I got an exam written and posted today, and another chapter for that class. I am down to needing to record lectures for only one more chapter for each class, and figure out some kind of last-lab for ecology, and do more short exams, and then finals. And of course keep up with the advanced biostats stuff.

* Crap, it's going to freeze tonight? I repotted my hibiscus and cut it back and had left it outside. So now I wonder: do I leave it outside to maybe die, or bring it in the house and maybe bring in nasties (bugs) with it, or do I try to drag it into my garage and will it be protected enough in there? At any rate, any option other than the first, I will have to put on "outside" clothes again to go get it.

Maybe I just drag it into the entryway and leave it there, not like I have to really get in and out the front door these days...

This is the weirdest year and I do not approve.

* I MIGHT get the binding on the chalet quilt finished tonight. I still have to change into outdoor clothes and rescue the hibiscus, and make dinner, and then I can do that.


* Edited to add: I grabbed the hibiscus and brought it into the house. I went to the trouble of repotting it and cutting back the dead parts so I might as well try to keep it alive. It's sprouted a few new leaves so maybe there's still hope for it. I've had it since I moved down here and it's not flowered in years but at least it's still alive.