Daily Update, November 23, 2023

    I called Aunt Valerie after lunch. She seemed happy to hear from me but asked to call back. She and Kim, her daughter and my cousin, were getting ready to leave a friend's house where they'd had Thanksgiving dinner. She wanted to call back when they'd reached Kim's home. I said sure. Actually, Kim called back a while later, and she, her mom, and I had a lovely long talk. I think Kim set her phone to speaker phone, because she and Aunt Valerie were both quite audible. I hoped to give them a chance to talk to Mom, too, but Mom was sleeping, and I didn't want to wake her. Still, Aunt Valerie, Kim, and I had a nice, long talk, which was wonderful. {SMILE}

   I ate lunch and dinner with Mom and read to her before dinner. Her eyes were open the whole time, and she was looking at things when I showed them to her, but she barely spoke. I began by wishing her happy Thanksgiving. Then I read scripture and thoughts about it. Next, I picked out cards from her sisters, reading a Valentine's card from one, a Christmas card from the other, and a Thanksgiving card from the first one. Next, I started _Classic Fashion: 40s 50s Memories_. After that, I read some poems and a story from_365 Bedtime Stories and Rhymes_. I finished with the 23rd of November's story from _366 Stories for Bedtime_, "Cyclone's Tricks." Jeremy heard the circus music faintly as he left his house and headed towards the green, where the circus was setting up. He'd been in school when it arrived. He passed one of Farmer Brown's fields and saw a beautiful white horse standing on his hind legs, waving its forelegs in the air while it runed around. Telling him he was a clever horse called him over, and Jeremy gave him a lump of sugar. He ran off to the farm to tell farmer Brown. "Cyclone was a circus horse." Farmer brown explained he bought him when he was too old to perform. Jeremy wanted to give Cyclone an apple for being so clever. He ran off, hoping Cyclone would do more tricks. {Smile}

   I did my walking exercises and head exercises after teaming and paperwork this evening. Then I did my salsa dancing warmup set. Then after a break, I did my less structured salsa dancing set. I was having more trouble with cramping in both shoulders today, but treating electrolyte imbalance seems to be helping a lot. Still, I resisted the temptation to add more exercises. If I'm going to give my shoulder and arm a rest, I'd better give them a rest. {Smile}

   I read articles, comics, and web novels, and searched Wattpad, a web novel host, for interesting stories, with less luck than I hoped. It's supposed to be the largest, but so far, I've found less promising stuff there than elsewhere. Does anyone have any suggestions? After the phone call ended, I hopped into City of Heroes: Homecoming. Pierogies was there, and encouraged me to join the early long, large group event, so I did. After the event was over, he wanted to watch a show. He mentioned a couple I was interested in, but really wanted to watch a new series. He seemed to love it, so we watched most of the pilot right up to time to read to Mom. It was good, but a bit tense for me. I hope we can get back to some of the other series again soon. {Smile}

   After dinner, I hopped into City of Heroes: Homecoming in time to catch the late night short, large-group event. Then I hopped back out to start writing this. I also started chatting with folks on the chat server, mainly Nox and Radio's boyfriend, but also a little with Paradox and Kitten. I also did some more searching for web novels on Wattpad. After that, I hopped back into City of Heroes: Homecoming. I did a little paperwork, but quickly started chatting with Ulty. We teamed up for about three missions. Then I did some paperwork and a little badge-reward hunting before my exercises and salsa dance. I did more badge-reward hunting and searching Wattpad for stories after the exercise and dancing. I ended up making notes here to finish writing up from the next day. {Smile}