Pgh Lesbian Correspondents

Well, I’m still sick. I could list symptoms, but really – you know the symptoms. I do have a funky rash which seems like a gross thing to share, but could be helpful for someone reading this who says “I have a rash, too.”

It is day 7 since my symptoms and day four since my positive test. Remember, they lost my test week.

I am thoroughly confused about everything involving quarantine and such but I’m pretty confident that until I stop having fevers, I should consider myself sick.

Please don’t ask me about Paxlovid or whatever it is called. Obviously, I discussed it with my doctor and I am not a candidate for it.

One of the more curious symptoms is a distorted sense of taste. Most things taste like nothing – I can feel the texture in my mouth – chewy, smooth, crunchy, etc – and the temperature, but not the flavor. I ate some garlic chicken because it was easy to swallow and I could taste the sweetness of the caramelized onions, but not the onion part. I didn’t taste the garlic. I can taste the sweetness of the honey and sugar in the tea, but not the honey part or the tea part. Curious.

Time is also distorted. I wake up early every morning. I get up to go to the bathroom and walk a bit – the doctor told me to be sure to walk around every few hours – and say hi to the kittens. I come back and straighten my covers and go back to bed and then suddenly its 10 AM. I get dressed and take my morning meds and summon my energy for the day and suddenly it is 11:45. At night, we get ready for bed and it is 9:45.

I wish I had a functioning tablet. I have several old tablets that aren’t syncing with the latest software of the kindle and library apps. I don’t think right now is a good time to invest in a tablet or more importantly try to figure out which one to buy.

I’m trying to keep up with projects and such. If I owe you something non-urgent, please forgive me.

We watched Only Murders in the Building and started A League of Their Own. I put on a PBS documentary about the history of New York City made in 1999. It is fascinating, but does not hold up well over 23 years. But its just the sort of thing to watch because it is interesting, I can rewind it, and it keeps my brain engaged without taxing me.

The Garfield Trio kittens are doing great. They are so curious and social. I am sad my littlest nibling cannot come over to interact with them. When we let them out of the carrier, they marched out confidently. They were in a crate before so having the full bathroom to zoom around is great for their development. They’ve figure out how to climb onto the toilet by jumping on a cat bed, but the tub is still a mystery. They figure it out sometimes, but I suspect use the shower curtain as an assistive device.

Only Sutton has figure out how to get in the window. He’s a bit more independent than Taggert and Faison who are constantly engaged in a chasing bout. But they all sleep together. They have learned how to flip their dry food bowls so that’s fun.

They’ve also figured out that the door leads somewhere probably interesting that they would like to see. So they are being taught “back back back” to avoid midnight romps.

As sick as I feel, I do feel good knowing that we are helping with kittens. This crew is pretty healthy and low maintenance so its not a chore at all. Most fosters are overflowing with kittens. If you apply to foster, they will give you the easy ones so the most experienced fosters can nurse the weak and sick kittens.

One thing about COVID is that I don’t dream. Well, at first I had scary dreams about being put on ventilators and intubated. But mostly I just go to sleep and wake up. Laura says I cough all night long. I don’t remember.

How can you help?

So here are some things that are a challenge because no one can come in our house. We can Venmo and Paypal money.

• changing the batteries on my trail cameras and replacing the SD disks.
• taking our recycling bins around back
• picking up our cat litter (wood pellet) from the hardware store in Bellview and putting inside our entry way so Laura can drag into the house
• helping with supplies for the Garfield Trio and other foster kittens
• soup
• milkshakes or similar cold drinks. I can’t bring myself to Grubhub Starbucks.
• a recent generation gently used Android operating tablet? Does that mean it operates Androids?

Here’s a big one – we are finding the #protecttranskids stickers are in hot demand and we are searching for some foundations to help us purchase like 10 or 20k. Do you know a foundation officer who might hear us out? all the funding cycles are closed. We need between $5 and 10k. Getting them printed and out soon is important.

I was thinking we could ask the Pirates, Penguins, and Steelers charities to each donate $1500, but have no energy to write those letters. $1500 would cover 5000 stickers.

Anyway, that’s all she wrote for today.