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I just got back in from picking up a space heater, some more antihistamines, and some Codis. That just about sums up why I have been low on posting energy, and concerned about sounding tediously cranky. It has not been completely outweighed by things like gardening and interesting travel.

On a brighter note, the boiler people are supposed to come back on Tuesday--first thing in the morning, but I'll be glad to see them anyway--to start putting in a new one. The one that went kaput was apparently installed long enough ago that they will have to add a number of things, such as thermostatic thingies on the radiators, to bring it up to current code. A tad on the expensive side, but having hot water and heat again will be worth it. It was chilly enough today, even trying to conserve heat letting the cats in and out, that I gave up and hied myself to Argos for a £14.99 space heater.

I almost wish I had gotten the plate number of that minicab that hit me in the leg a few weeks ago--I was just too surprised, and vatine was too busy loading things into our cab to see. Granted, that quadruceps was already prone to seizing up from trigger points (most of the knee pain, I've found), but it did not need bruising by a car. It's still seizing up at the slightest provocation, and is still too sore to try to massage some of it out. I don't want to sue the driver, but it might have been nice for him to get a ticket, at least, so maybe he'd think about it the next time he's tempted to ram someone who is standing still in a parking lot.

Since I have started making sure to get enough magnesium, the muscle spasms and twitches have improved a lot overall. With this acting up, though, I decided to start in again on a combination of valerian and scullcap. It makes me drowsy for a day or two, but it has helped a bit with spasms before.

Sometimes I am concerned about coming across as angry here. Granted, I more often do feel a need to write about things that have gotten under my skin, just to sort them out a bit and be able to stop ruminating. But, I think a lot of the angry perception may well come from some version what's mentioned in this excellent post. I hope I am not coming across as unrelentingly negative, in any case.

While I was out, I saw something that honestly made me sick to my stomach: a kiosk selling these. Not surprisingly, the few websites I glanced at made them look less appalling than they are. Most were small ones. It made me even more upset to see five or six small goldfish crammed into a container which maybe--and I'm being generous--held 2.5L of water. We recently did a tank upgrade for our (now not so) little fiends, 180L for three of them, and could have gone a bit larger. Seeing the display fish made me very sad indeed, and what made me even sadder was the number of people stopping to smile at them. I couldn't look for long, but two of these deathtraps were dragged out for customers while I was standing there.

I didn't know whether to cry or to start yelling at people, so I walked away. I did briefly consider quietly warning apparently interested potential customers that, erm, it's a deathtrap (in more polite terms), but wasn't sure I could handle it right then.

Heading home for some tea seemed like the best plan. I do wish I had a better idea of how to handle situations like that.

On the crankiness front, my mother directed me to this editorial in the Roanoke Times a couple of days ago.

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Honestly, I didn't intend to turn so ranty. This sort of thing just continues to get me worked up, and I don't see an end to all the "divide and conquer" crap.

I also can't stop thinking about this. I knew the situation was bad, but had no idea. I have run into a couple of very creepy men who were way too interested in my perceived ethnicity. That did result in a good knock up 'side the noggin of one lech, though it stopped there. Heap Big Squaw* not amused by gropy racist shitepokes.

Funny, I hadn't even remembered those incidents until that related subject came up. It reminded me, once again, that I have been lucky to have physical size and confidence working for me. When I mentioned to my mother that I must have been lucky so far, given statistics on women having physical force used against them by "intimate partners" (what an awful usage in context!), she insisted that it was not just luck. I still think it would be much harder to have the physical confidence without the size, which is sheer luck.

* Not to be offensive myself, but one jackass actually thought that one was funny!