Bad back bad

      I intended to go swimming again today, but instead I spent most of the day on a heating pad. My back has been bothering me since the trip to Tulsa, and today it decided to really hurt me. I handled the pain with deep heating rub, the aforementioned heating pad and Advil. It seems better now. I'll just need to be careful tonight when I sleep and pile pillows up to keep me from sleeping on my back. Tomorrow is the last day of my vacation, and I'd like to spent it doing fun things as opposed to creaking around my house.
      Tomorrow will mark eight days that I've been away from my office. I did go back in the evening on Saturday, and I did about thirty minutes of paperwork, but otherwise I've stayed away. It's the most I've been away for at least the past five years and maybe longer. I kinda dread the work that's piled up waiting for me, but I should be able to catch up in a couple of days, depending on the number of customers and how much work there is to do.
      Tomorrow I intend to go swimming again and do a little shopping. I got a couple of cash cards for my birthday, and I want to buy a couple of shirts with them. I also want to do some more filing and writing.
      Over the next couple of weeks, I hope to finally get the plot of Murder at the Witch's Cottage clear. Right now the play wanders all over the place and leaves a couple of important questions unanswered. I want to pin the plot down and then do another rewrite of the play so that it follows a clear, intelligent plot. Then I'll go back and increase the humor and suspense. At least, that's the plan. The most important purpose of any play is that people enjoy it. Yes, I know that's not earthshaking or educational, but while I want the play to have a point, I don't want people to feel like they've been in class.
      I finally installed Scrabble on my computer again and have been playing at least one game a day. The computer is very tough opponent. I've been trying to find an online Scrabble game that's free and doesn't fill my computer with spyware, but so far, no luck. I barely have time for a quick game anyway.
      "I Believe I can Fly" shouldn't start automatically now when you visit Harbor Street. That got annoying, I thought. So you can start it on that post should you want to listen to it. After having used youtube.com, I've been expecting the bloggers in my blogging circle to start adding videos to their blogs. ER is threatening -- uh, promising to put up a video of his cat. Technology can be cruel sometimes.
      Speaking of cruelty, I've also been doing exercises to help my back. My roomie works as a physical therapist at a local hospital, and he's been most helpful in torturing me. Well, he says it's exercises, but it's no wonder patients attempt to run when they see him coming. Of course, if they could actually run, they probably wouldn't need a physical therapist. He'd told me about how elderly patients will attempt to bite him or hit him with their canes sometimes. I finally understand.
      I just heard on the news that there's a push to get rid of the penny because it costs more to make the penny than a penny is worth. I think we should keep the penny. I like them and have a huge jar filled with them. I'd hate to see them go.
      At least we don't have the British coinage, which frankly no one understands, not even the British. People are expecting that situation to get better since the euro has arrived, but so far, the British are proving resistant in giving up their pounds, pence, half-penny, penny, farthing, shilling, crown, half-crown, sovereign. Well, actually, several of those aren't used anymore having been withdrawn from circulation, but I think they're none the richer for it. We need our quirks and our pennies to stay interesting.
      Well, I think that's all I have to say tonight. Hope your day went well. Good night and pleasant dreams.