Snookums's first glucose curve

The good news: We did Snookums's first blood curve successfully yesterday! His poor little ear isn't happy and at one point he sprayed blood around a bit, but he wasn't too miffed about it.

The bad news: his peak blood glucose was nearly 20 mmol/L (when anything over 17 is cause for concern and we want to try to get below 15).

So he's still on a rather extreme cycle, going from 20ish (YIKES) to 4ish (a pretty healthy level) and back every 12 hours, the poor little snugglebear. I've already switched to the recommended kinds of wet foods and reduced the cats' kibble consumption according to the feline diabetes community wisdom, but not completely removed the dry food yet to avoid any possible backlash.

I'm a bit concerned still, though, because they have been eating much less dry food, and he's been on insulin for several months now.

I can still move on to the next step though, and give him a week or so of testing daily and see if the final removal of kibble does anything in that time.

📨

‘A telegram, sir,’ said Jeeves, re-entering the presence.

‘Open it, Jeeves, and read contents. Who is it from?’

‘It is unsigned, sir.’

‘You mean there’s no name at the end of it?’

‘That is precisely what I was endeavouring to convey, sir.’

—PG Wodehouse, Very Good, Jeeves

bluetooth earbuds not 100% cordless

I am a music-listening commuter and have rarely gone out alone without earbuds in my adult life, but I'm also one of those people whose earbuds always break. Regardless of the price point of the earbuds, I have always gone through them at a fantastic rate compared to that of my wife, and regardless of trying to treat the cables better and going through a number of storage methods - the wire inside always broke.

So I've been looking forward to the advent of wireless headphones and the descent of their prices into the affordable range, but I didn't want the giant kind that sit on your head - I still wanted in-ear ones, and they have to be the kind with the little silicone pads, not the molded hard plastic ones like Apple's, which never stay in my ears. I wasn't going to buy the kind that are just two tiny objects with nothing connecting them, because basically, as many people said, just looking at them I'd lost them already. A couple of years ago the sports kind that look like those straps for holding sunglasses on started to appear, but I wasn't too keen on them either; so it was a relief when this kind emerged that's a string with one earbud on each end of it. They drape around the back of the neck and hang on the chest, and I've worn them that way several times already with no problems, but I did think they needed some sort of easy fastener to hold the ends together so they wouldn't fall off when rearranging scarves and collars etc.

Actually the safety necklace fasteners you can get at jewelry-making suppliers would probably be ideal; I've seen 'earbud necklaces' (made from ones that didn't have their own cord) fastened with magnetic beads an inch below the earbud portion, but I'm not quite confident in the magnets' staying power or sure that the magnets wouldn't affect the function. I also thought of the little leather strips with a button or tab in the middle that are designed for holding usb cables coiled, but rather than making one of those I just made a loop and sewed a button to it. It's not exactly difficult to handle, but it is a bit fiddly because I used a small button.



I'm pleased with the result. But I manage to forget every time I do this macrame cord thing exactly how time-consuming it is. This one's really short and it still took two days.

Plus, I'm dubious about the wisdom of having this controller on the cord. It's functional, sure - you don't have to wake your phone up to access the music controls - but I suspect it means they've put a wire back into the cable, which is a recipe for disaster for me. Also it's pretty unwieldy in this position on the cord.