Odds & ends

•  After two weeks of nothing... I'm spotting again. :(  I've been more active than my usual COVID couch potato mode -- washed the balcony door/windows, inside & out, on Monday; went to the bookstore, drugstore and children's wear store (shopping for Great-Nephew's birthday) on Tuesday; cleaned the oven this morning (while the weather is still nice enough to keep the balcony door open to let the fumes out) -- so that may have aggravated things. 16 days to my surgery/hysteroscopy/d&c!  
• Speaking of my surgery (and it IS considered surgery, albeit minor), I got the call from the gynecologist's office this morning with the details on timing, etc. (I knew the date but not the time, where to report, etc.)  And, oh yeah, surprise! (I guess I shouldn't really be surprised!) -- in addition to the pre-op bloodwork, I need to have a COVID test done, 48 hours in advance. Yay? 
• We were supposed to go to the dentist next week -- our first checkups/cleanings in nearly a year, postponed because of COVID-19 -- but dh persuaded me to postpone the appointments (again) until the new year. The COVID risk is (supposedly) minimal, since they have precautions in place, but I had to agree, I don't want to chance it. I want to get this procedure over with first.  
• I reeeaaaalllly, reeeaaaalllly hate to say this (and I have yet to broach the subject with dh), but I think we may have to skip Great-Nephew's first birthday celebration, for the same reason. :(  There's no big party planned, of course -- it would just be cake & coffee at BIL's house -- but the weather will NOT be conducive to an outdoor celebration by then! -- and BIL's house is not that large. Even if it's just the parents & grandparents plus us, that's 6 adults -- 8, if Younger Nephew & his wife are there (they're even more COVID-paranoid than we are!), 9 if Other Grandma comes, 10 if SIL's brother comes... you get the picture.  We will definitely go over with his presents that day, and maybe have a porch visit.  I guess we'll see what happens before making a final decision, but I'm not optimistic... :( 
• Manitoba, my home province, went into code red this week. So much for any hope of going home for Christmas (not that I had any by now). Among other restrictions, people are banned from socializing with others outside their household. I haven't talked to my sister yet, but I'm sure this means she won't be going to see my parents. :( 
• Andre Picard of the Globe & Mail, a well-respected health writer, had two blunt columns over the past week, one focused on the situation in Manitoba, and one on Alberta & Ontario, where restrictions were actually set to be loosened (again)(!). That's been cancelled, thankfully-- but frankly, the government has tightened and loosened restrictions so many times in so many different places, I have no idea what's open & what's closed where anymore. Is this any way to battle a pandemic? 
• Fun fact: the current premier of Manitoba is from the town where I lived as a teenager & graduated from high school. He's a few years older than me, so I never knew him personally, but I knew his sister, who was in Grade 12 when I was in Grade 10. 
• A record number of new cases here in Ontario today: 1,426.  :( 
• Today is Remembrance Day. I usually watch the ceremonies from the National War Memorial in Ottawa -- scaled down this year, because of COVID -- but the morning got away on me. I feel guilty. :(  I also feel guilty that this was the first year in a long, long time that I haven't bought a poppy to wear. But we haven't been anywhere that poppies were being sold, and for that matter, I really haven't been much of anywhere that my poppy could be seen either. :( 
• Stepped on the scale this morning. Not good. :(  Up again -- not by much, and not a whole lot since the beginning of the year -- but I wasn't starting from a great place either. I'm at my heaviest weight ever. :(  Too much inactivity. :(   Sigh.