This past week at work went fairly quickly because I wasn't there for half of it. I had to call out for most of 2 days due to back pain. Honestly, last weekend all I did was GET OUT OF A CHAIR. I managed to make it through PT on Monday but my back was so painful that I bailed on work after an hour and just went ahead and called in for the next day, too. I'm doing OK now but, man, it was a sucky couple of days. If my body is going to pain me, I would like the parts to take turns and not gang up on me.

PT is still going on. I started on October 2 so I'm nearing a month in. I am feeling less pain, and I think I'm building up some muscle in the glutes which is going to help with the hips. I can do some things here at the end of October that I couldn't do at the beginning. But the progress is very slow and I'm very impatient and feeling a little frustrated. Which is unreasonable, I know. I ignored this hip issue for YEARS. I know it won't improve overnight. Oh, also? I really, really hate sidewalking hooked up to the weight machine. It's my very least favorite of all the exercises they have me do but it is probably one of the best ones for my hips.

I used to have a Twitter account before hand waves ... all that happened. I didn't participate so much as just follow and lurk. I followed some authors, some pop culture figures, some handy accounts like our Dept of Transportation that was pretty quick about posting freeway issues. And then it all went to hell. I am on Bluesky now, doing the same thing. I follow a crazy amount of cat accounts because they make me happy. I used to post more when I had my kitties but now I'm back to lurking status. I guess something happened over on the hell site because just recently there's been another flood of new accounts and I've found some from the old place that I'm so happy to see on Bluesky now!

Now if only Chicago's Field Museum would move over to Bluesky - that's another museum account with an on point social media team. They have Sue the T-Rex "speaking" for them! Sue does have an account at Bluesky but no posts.

Like I said, I pretty much just lurk but if you want to you can find me on Bluesky at @wildwestcats.bsky.social.

Reading

So last week I was waffling about what to read next. I ended up buying the whole Last King of Osten Ard series, including preordering the final book which is out next month. I wasn't sure I really wanted to reread the first book. It's so long! They're all so long! I know I read that one and it's so familiar in parts but then I'll come across something that I had totally forgotten. I would rather reread from the beginning then try to figure out exactly where I was in the series and not remember important details because it's been so long! This is a chonky series and is going to keep me busy for a while.

I did, however, buy another book this past week and it's one I read about on the Prehistoric Pulp site that I linked above. The book is Terrible Lizards and is a dinosaur horror anthology meant to support the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. Is it good? Not really, according to the site. But there are some "diamonds in the rough" and I was intrigued enough by the descriptions of those stories to buy the book. I tried looking for it on the RSPB site but couldn't find it so had to resort to eBay.

Watching

It's been a while since I watched a Godzilla movie for my journey. The timing felt right so I watched Invasion of Astro-Monster last night. Haven't done the write up on it yet, though, because I've been busy creating stuff for the 32-Bit Cafe's Halloween event this weekend.

I'm still rationing the episodes of Slow Horses - I watched episode 4 when I was home from work with the bad back. Only 2 more episodes to go!

I watched the entire 6 episode PBS/BBC series of Big Cats 24/7. I was looking for something to have on while I was cross stitching that I didn't have to keep my eyes on. This ended up being such a good series! The premise is that a group of local and international wildlife photographers set up camp in the Okavango Delta in Botswana and literally film the big cats day and night. There is a massive lion pride, cheetahs, leopards and all the other wildlife you would think of when you think of Africa. This was a fantastic show although if you watch it do keep in mind that nature is often cruel. I could not be a wildlife photographer and just stand back and let nature happen. I'd be trying to save everything.

Til next week!