Here's a few musings going on in this overthinker's brain...
GLP-1
As noted previously, my weight loss has slowed, if not completely stalled. I requested, and got, an increase in my dosage to the next tier, 5.0 mg. The way my (self-pay) prescription works, I get four vials for injection at a time, delivered to my house in an insulated cold box by UPS. I can request from my WW provider a refill 2 weeks before I run out. My provider sends the approval to Lilly, they send me a note to pay, and then it gets shipped out. Experience has shown it arrives in 3-8 days from when I initiate with WW, so I can't wait until the very end. They don't ship for it to be in transit over the weekend (because coldpack), so if it's all approved and paid for on a Thursday or Friday, it'll be shipped out on Monday to arrive shortly (last time, arrived on Tuesday).
So my increased dosage arrived when I still had one vial of the lower (2.5 mg) dosage left, but I went ahead and started the higher dosage. I'm counting the weeks and the timing of when I can re-order, and layering into my calculations that I'll be traveling for two of my scheduled injection days (requiring keeping vials cool and transporting and disposing of my syringe and needles), but also I need to skip a dose the second week I'm traveling because I've got a colonoscopy scheduled the week I'm back and they require 8 days since the last injection to be clear from my system. So, my thinking is, I'll bring the single, lower, dose with me, and a single syringe. I've already checked (via Reddit) on how to dispose of sharps in Sweden. I'll inject in the hotel and dispose of my sharps on land the morning before I board the ship, so no pesky needles around in a place where all garbage is sorted before disposal.
Further, I should request my refill from Europe, to be processed and sent the Monday after I get home, so I'll be there to unpack and refrigerate when it arrives.
Overthinking! Sometimes it's useful! More often it's not! But it happens!
TV and Movies
My TV watching comes in bursts, and my tastes change depending on my mood. For a long time, my "total veg" show has been Antiques Roadshow. I used to watch it with my mother, and I find it comforting but it doesn't require a lot of attention. I can walk away and miss a bit without it mattering. But, I'm pretty much caught up with current episodes. So now, the comfort watch is the Great British Baking Show, steered by my friend Kim. It's a competition, but far from cutthroat. It has a 10 (or so) episode season, with an arc as people are eliminated. Some of the hosts are just annoying. And, it makes my mouth water! But it doesn't take a lot of brain power and I enjoy it. Many seasons in the can! I started with the earliest season on on Netflix, and digressed to check out "season 1" on Roku. It started with a different format, where they traveled around Britain each week, and the challenges were simpler. The hosts and judges were mostly different, though Paul Hollywood was there at the start. I decided to stick with the Netflix seasons for now.
I continue to chip away at Vikings, and it is really growing on me. But for some reason, I don't pull it up very often at home. Maybe because there, if I turn on the TV I'm more into just zoning out. Vikings takes more brain power from me. But I'll have at least a season downloaded to the ipad for my flights to and from Europe, and I'm likely to want to catch up as I'm in the area!
I only ever watched the first two seasons of the alternate space-oriented history, For All Mankind. I checked, and there are five seasons total so far, and one 6-episode season of a spin off, Star City. So I'm back into it now. It takes more brainpower than a reality show, but it's less... fraught? violent? than Vikings, so easier to watch.
On movies, I watched SuperGirl. Fun! Not five stars, but I enjoyed it. The dog is a big part of it.
Books
I've drifted into too much social media time, and I'm consciously re-prioritizing reading and listening to books in an effort to keep the surfing time down. I'm keeping a queue of current and popular books on my library website, fed by reading reviews and recommendations. Randomly, they come through in bunches, and I feel the pressure to get to them all in the three weeks I'm given. But I've become brutal about not finishing anything that doesn't really pull me in. I don't have a rule about how far in I have to go before giving up. But I have started keeping track of my DNF's in GoodReads, with usually a sentence or two about why I quit. I also get a daily email from "BookBub", with lists of e-books currently discounted to $1.99 or thereabouts. Many of those are back-catalogue, and I'm filling out my collection of a few authors I really enjoy and will likely enjoy re-reading, when I see them pop up. I still only do e-books, but I have an e-ink reader that lets me have apps from all the popular vendors, not just Amazon. My preference is Bookshop.org, made by a support organization for independent bookstores. I've nominated a local store, and they get a few pennies from every book I buy.
None of the recent books I've read really stand out. I continue to mostly read mysteries, thrillers, science fiction and fantasy that include elements of mysteries and thrillers. Once I find an author I like, I'll work my way through their whole oeuvre. One series I'm listening to is "Mrs Pollifax", who as a woman of a certain age is an unlikely part-time agent for the CIA. They were written starting in the 1980s, go all over the world, and the world has changed a great deal from when they were written. It's interesting to read about maneuvering before the Wall came down, for example. They are a little bit more hard-boiled and less comedic than I was expecting when I picked up the first one, but they are all the better for that.
I did read "Yesteryear", a buzzy current book supposedly about a tradwife. It was unexpected, and I didn't love it, but it definitely has a big reveal worth staying for. But I really don't think it has important things to say about our culture today, it's just an oddity. I listened to "Heartwood", a novel about a woman lost off the Appalachian Trail and the search for her. It's told in different voices from different POVs. I found it un-satisfying as a survivalist story, but maybe a bit more interesting as a police procedural. It tries to straddle both, while striving hardest to be character-driven.
Biking
I got me an e-bike! It's pretty exciting and a lot of fun. I rode it home from the store three miles away, and have had a couple of additional rides - the longest one just ten miles. I really like exploring on the bike. It's legal to ride on trails in the area, but some of our paved trails are quite narrow and I need to get more confident about slow-speed maneuvering in close quarters. Passing pedestrians is quite fraught. I'm pretty sure I'm going to sell my Vespa, because I'm not likely to use both. The Vespa has some utility for errands, whereas the bike is really only "go for a ride" - because the theft incidence of ebikes and of parts - especially batteries - is really high. I will eventually try to figure out if I can fit it in the back of my car -- if I can even lift it into the car - it weighs 48 pounds. A rack on the back of the car would require a trailer hitch (surprisingly cheap) and a sturdy rack - which is likely to be nearly as expensive as the bike itself. Still, there are spots within a reasonable drive that would be fun to ride on.
I keep the power-assist function on the bike quite low. The way I have it set up, the harder I push a pedal, the more power-assist I get. It has eight conventional forward gears, so I'm shifting all the time riding on hills. On the steepest hills (which includes the last two blocks to get to my house), I push the power-assist higher and pump hard on the pedals and fly up the hills. My bike does have a throttle which will provide power without pedalling, but except for a cautious trial on level ground, I haven't used it. I want to experiment more, however, because I read people use it to get started from a stop while pointed up hill - something which is otherwise a little bit tough.
World Cup
I've been following it, and watched a couple of games. Very exciting - on Saturday night, Congo came from behind to beat Uzbekistan, and thus advance to the next round of the brackets - the round of 32. Our family watches these games and have a text going during it. I'm also paying attention to Norway and Sweden and Germany, especially, since I'll be in Sweden during the semi-finals and finals. I'm pretty sure the folks on the ship will figure out a way to watch those games, they will be a topic of conversation, and I don't want to be a complete ignoramus. So it's fun, besides!
