I still look forward to weekends, even though I never do anything on weekends anymore. I thought maybe that might change this weekend. It’s mid June, and I have left my neighborhood exactly three times since March. The weather is good, and my birthday is next weekend. I thought maybe we could go out yesterday… have some lunch or walk around Wiesbaden or something. But then my right eye started feeling weird.

I went into the bathroom to have a look, and the bottom outside corner of my eye appeared to be bulging slightly with fluid. this happened to me once before, when we lived near Stuttgart. The house we were in was next to a large field. One day, I got what appeared to be some kind of allergic reaction in my eyes and they filled with fluid. I looked up the condition on Google, and it appeared to be “scleritis” of some sort. I took an antihistamine and a nap. When I woke up later, my eyes looked normal again.

Yesterday, it didn’t go back to normal. In fact, the eye started swelling, including my eyelid. It was pretty creepy looking, although it was just in one eye. I was glad it wasn’t painful, at least…

Anyway, because my eye was all swollen, we decided to watch movies. I don’t watch a lot of movies as a general rule, but we saw Why Do Fools Fall in Love and Trading Places. I had forgotten how funny Trading Places is, and given the racial tensions going on right now, it seemed kind of appropriate that we watched it. Why Do Fools Fall in Love was also good. I remember seeing part of it years ago, when we lived in Virginia. I enjoyed it if only because Little Richard put on an entertaining show in that film. He was an amazing performer.

I took a couple of antihistamines– one Benadryl and one Advil PM (which has diphenhydramine in it). I used to have a big bottle of generic Benadryl at home because I gave it to our dogs. Both had mast cell tumors and Benadryl helps suppress mast cells, which can cause the tumors to pop up. Arran only had one very low grade tumor, so I stopped giving him meds. Zane, on the other hand, had a real problem with lumps and eventually succumbed to lymphoma, which often strikes dogs with mast cell cancer. When we lost him, I got rid of the Benadryl, because it was pretty close to being out of date anyway. I never bothered to get more.

Bill had to go to the PX to buy some for me, although I did discover that diphenhydramine is an over the counter drug in Germany. It helped a little bit… I was surprised I didn’t fall asleep.

Maybe today, we’ll get out… It might do me some good. I’ve been in a bit of a funk lately, as I’m sure a lot of people have. I’m not sure what we’ll be doing for my birthday this year. Maybe we’ll stay home and watch movies and drink wine.

On the plus side, we do have some maintenance things planned that we’ve been putting off. Arran is going to get a dental cleaning. Both cars are scheduled for work. Mine needs long overdue maintenance, and Bill’s needs an oil change and the snow tires replaced. Some readers might recall that we were victims of a crime in France back in December. Some asshole punctured one of our perfectly good tires on our brand new Volvo outside of Beaune and we had to have the back tires replaced. The only ones available were snow tires. The tires should have been changed in March, but as you know, the pandemic has fucked everything up…

We also need to get our teeth cleaned. That will require a trip to Stuttgart, unless we find a local dentist, which I’m sure we could do. I like our dentist in Stuttgart, though. He’s the best one we’ve ever had. And it would mean a visit to a city that means a lot to me, despite the troubling way we left it back in late 2018.

And maybe I can finally update my passport, now that the passport office is opening… and Bill can go back to the office more often, too. The pandemic has been a real cramp in our style, but it’s been nice having Bill at home. On the other hand, I don’t want to live this way for much longer. If anything, traveling and dining out keeps this blog going, and it’s probably more enjoyable than my main blog, which is full of piss and vinegar.