last sunday was the super bowl, which involved a large variety of grilled food items at andy's uncle's house. it also included patriotic singing, commercials, a not amazing but not terrible halftime show, and, of course, actual football. but mostly the food was my focus. at least it was a pretty decent game, with not a lot of nonsense from either the referees or the participants.

monday was not a typical day. i worked from home, due to both the furnace and computer guys coming out that day. the furnace guys showed up around 9:45a, and after a brief rundown of parts and pieces and paperwork, they set about dismantling the furnace and installing the new. instead of the upstairs office, i set up shop at the kitchen table on the main level, which is how i learned that the main furnace guy is definitely an extrovert. holy cow. i'm just trying to work here. he was a good dude, it was just a little much every time he came up from the basement or in from the truck or whatever. i mean, about three hours in, as i was eating my lunch, he was showing me pictures of his kids. okay then. this sort of turned into uncomfortable questions about kids, which turned into uncomfortable answers involving cancer, which at some point later in the afternoon turned into the other furnace guy, on his way upstairs to the bathroom, relaying a story about his mentor who had breast cancer and died from chemo, or not taking his medication afterwards, it was a little unclear. i had this feeling when he started talking that that was where the story was going to end up, and i just laughed internally as it happened. normally i would point out, hey, pro tip, DON'T share stories of dead cancer patients to alive cancer patients, because, duh? but he was really just a young guy trying his best to relate. i gave him a pass. i do have to say i think it was actually the first time anyone has mindlessly shared such a story with me upon hearing of my diagnosis (other than family, because obviously genetic history is important), which says a lot about the wisdom of the people in my life. so, kudos to all of you!

anyway, i'm getting off track here. at around 2:30p, the dell tech guy showed up, so i switched to my old laptop (SO SLOW LORD HAVE MERCY) while he replaced the motherboard. he had unfortunately never received any messages regarding me wanting to replace the hard drive, and he was reluctant to replace it, as he was really a hardware guy, and didn't have any means of loading the windows 10 operating system back onto the new hard drive. i was more than a little upset about this, but once he realized i wasn't totally useless regarding computers, we figured out a work around. he replaced the hard drive, showing me how to do it in case i needed to switch it back to the old one (with a functioning windows 10). meanwhile, the furnace guys are finishing up during all this, so i am trying to close all the circuits at the same time. i manage to sign off on both repairs and the house is empty (but now warming up!). i have logged out of work due to all the activity, and spend the rest of the day and evening trying to get my laptop back up and running with windows 10 via a bootable usb drive. long story short, that does not happen on monday, but it does happen on tuesday, though things are a little buggy until saturday. i think all is well, and i have not seen the blue screen of death for a couple of days now.

so tuesday and wednesday were spent working on getting my laptop in shape again. thursday evening, andy and i enjoyed some indian food at aab grandview. it was sort of a late birthday celebration, as illness and holidays had teamed up to prevent a proper dinner out. birthday donuts were procured at dk diner on the way home.

friday was pretty chill. leftover aab, and then going old school and playing guitar hero. we also played a game called watergate, which is an amusing theme, as you are either the nixon administration or journalists. i was not very good at it, and lost both times, so i was pretty grumpy about it by the end. sorry andy!

saturday, i headed to franklinton to help out at a work day for church; not our usual sunday location, but an older umc church building where there are several ministries working out of it to help those in need. i had packed up my painting supplies and toolbox, not sure what to anticipate, but as it turned out, most of my morning was spent helping to clean out a closet in the church basement. WHEN IN DOUBT, THROW IT OUT. and there was plenty to throw out. our team did well at winnowing all the old junk. there was also some piano moving and bathroom cleaning, and then after some pizza and salad for our efforts, it was back home for me. the rest of the day involved a nap, board game, dinner at home, and starting to watch arrested development from the beginning. we have both watched the series, but not for quite awhile, and not together. so expect random bluth family quotes from me in the coming weeks.

today was church, lunch with andy's family, grocery shopping, dinner, and... taxes! good times! so Week 24 was basically not too cancery, which is a nice change of pace. this week will involve an appointment with dr. h, the surgeon, who i haven't seen since september. we will see what she thinks of post-chemo me, and what the plan is for surgery. good times. let's do this.