Alice in Blunderland

Tempus fugit

2008-08-02T20:44:00.002-05:00

Today, August 2, is my father's birthday. If he were still alive, he would be NINETY-NINE years old. No, I'm not kidding. He only lived to be fifty-seven, the combination of a three-pack-a-day Chesterfield habit and an affinity for Pearl beer. He had a massive stroke, and that was that. I was just barely a sophomore in high school, and it thrust me right into having major family responsibilities. Another story, another day.

Above is a digital artist's trading card that I made for a "motherhood" swap with an online group. That is my father with his mother in 1910. How about that Gibson Girl hair and the tightly cinched waist on my grandmother?

Here's another digital scrapbook page I made of my father playing dominoes with his father well before I was born. The dominoes on the page are scans of the same ones they were playing with in the photo. I still have them in a box in my dresser.

I'm going to CAPE!

2008-03-26T14:29:00.000-05:00

I'm going to CAPE!

New Year Plus One

2008-01-02T23:08:00.000-06:00

The new year for me began with a whimper, not a bang. I can't get excited over much right now. I don't feel up to it. I don't care what Mike Huckabee is doing in the Iowa caucus, because I had enough of him while he was governor of this fair state. The presidential race seems like the biggest bunch of mudslinging yet, so I tend to tune it out completely. I will vote when the time comes. Leave me alone until then.

It's cold outside. I have few reasons to go out in it, except to take the steaming pizza from the hands of the driver whose pen won't write, so I have to go find my own to sign the delivery ticket. He probably thought me rude to leave him standing on the front porch. Better than inviting him in to see how many cats we have, and that we still have nothing on the bare concrete a year after I tore it up, and that there are still boxes sitting around that I've never had the energy to unpack. It will get better. It has to, someday.

I don't have the guts to keep on this way

2007-12-23T15:03:00.000-06:00

While other people were busy shopping and going to holiday events, I've been sick. Another ghastly flare-up of Crohn's disease has knocked me in the dirt again. It started over a week ago, and I felt I could keep going and maybe it would subside. After all, it has before.

Not this time. Monday morning, I went to the local VA outpatient clinic and asked to see a doctor. When asked what was wrong, I gave the clerk at the desk a sanitized version of what really ailed me, and she was horrified. Heavens! I'll have to go confer with the nurse. Five minutes goes by, and she returns to tell me that the clinic here cannot help me at all, I should go to the ER. Meaning the ER downstairs. Now, I don't have any insurance, so I asked if the VA would pick up the tab for my visit to this local ER. She said that would have to be evaluated by the VA. I then asked if the nurse here could call the GI clinic at Memphis to possibly get me priority to be seen in the ER there. She said whoever does that would be in around 8:30 am, so have a seat. This was barely past eight.

I waited until a quarter after nine, then asked what was going on. Seems that they "couldn't reach anyone". I thanked her and said I would try something else. I just went home, because I didn't feel well enough to drive myself to Memphis.

Tuesday, I caught the DAV shuttle van to Memphis, and reported to the ER at eight. About nine, I was called to triage, and taken straight back to a bed in the ER proper. This is quite speedy, so it told me I did have some serious issues. A nurse came in to put in an IV port and to draw blood, with a promise of the doctor to see me soon.

I spent until almost 11pm on that uncomfortable gurney, but I did get seen by several doctors, had a CT scan done, x-rays, and more blood tests. The conclusion was that I had another fistula in that small portion of rectum I still own. Well, duh. When I am bleeding from two different orifices (orificii?) at the same time, I think I know what's wrong, since this is not the first time.

A note here: the ER staff was very good to me, and stayed up on my case while I was there.

A room was finally ready upstairs, and around 11pm I was transferred there. More people trooped in to see me, and I slept less than a couple of hours total. I was told I would be having a flex-sig in the morning. Oh joy.

Every time I end up in the hospital at the VA, I become a case study that they bring EVERYBODY in to see. I would reckon that would be due to the fact they seldom get to treat females there? I do have a somewhat unusual case history, and get to recite it many, many times over the course of a hospital stay. The Memphis VA uses the University of Tennessee Medical Branch to staff its residency, and there are plenty of med students to go around for the various departments. This time, I got the surgical team, the internal medicine team, AND the gastro-intestinal teams in on the party. Fun, fun, fun. No way I could complain for lack of attention.

The flex-sig was done, and they mercifully gave me a good dose of demerol before the exam. They found what they expected to find, and there are three options: treat me with increased dosages of the meds I already take, plus an antibiotic; treat me with another line of medications; or, surgically remove the offending piece of anatomy. We discussed it, and the way we will proceed is to medicate me for now, with surgery scheduled after the first of the year.

Not that I love surgery (which I most certainly do not), but this seems to be the best thing to do. I've gone through this a couple of times before, and do not want to wonder when the next flareup will send me back to the hospital. I want to be done with the problem. Or at least THIS part of the problem. There is no real cure for Crohn's.

I've had to wonder how they would do this, and the answer was that they will take the section out anally if at all possible to avoid cutting me down the center once again. I foresee a future of sitting on a donut pillow for a good while.

Wait a minute; if I don't have an a**hole, can I still be anal retentive? Will I still be able to have opinions? Questions to ponder in the universe...

A good read

2007-12-09T12:30:00.000-06:00

As noted a couple of posts ago, a friend has managed to have her first book published. It's now available at major booksellers, so go order one! Northlander, by Meg Burden. A really good fantasy book suitable for young readers, and don't take my word for it, read the review here.

I went into the local Barnes & Noble and as I was ordering the book, casually mentioned that this was a new author/first published book, and that, btw, she is a friend of mine, and her editor has already asked her for the outline of the next in the series. This piqued the interest of the lady behind the counter, who then said she would order a couple extra for the shelf in the store. Yay!

So, my copy has arrived, and the book is fascinating. I've never been a huge fantasy reader, but I find myself at the end of a chapter at three in the morning and must make myself go to bed. The characters are very believable, and the storyline keeps twisting around enough that you don't second-guess it.

Highly recommend this book. Meg Burden might be the next JK Rowling.

A little fan art

2007-09-13T01:05:00.000-05:00

This was put together in Photoshop from a photo I took of one of my action figures silhouetted in front of my computer monitor. I erased the monitor, dropped the silhouette in the layer in front, used a photo of the moon from a NASA website, on which I used a watercolor effect filter. The background is one I worked up as a paper for a scrapbooking kit. A slight bevel on the silhouette gave it a bit of definition from the background. Fun!

A monster a day...

2007-09-06T18:50:00.000-05:00

I'd like for you to take a look at Feeping Creatures, created by a fellow I met first at Wizard World Texas a couple of years ago, and have seen at the past two CAPE (Comics And Pop culture Expo) events in Dallas. Dylan is a wonderful guy, and does the most amazing little sculptures that never cease to make me smile. I own a couple of the cat feeps myself.

Great stuff. Check it out. You need one. You know you do.

Good news from someone else!

2007-09-04T18:14:00.000-05:00

An online friend of mine has a new book coming out! Her first, and I'm terribly proud of her for it. It's scheduled to ship on November 30th from amazon.com. Yay, Meg!

Meg is also a fellow cat person. In fact, she has her own cattery, Ravenpaw, where she raises purebred Siamese. Take a look at her beautiful Meezers.

Tales of the VA, again

2007-07-21T20:31:00.000-05:00

Because I know how entertaining my blog is, I give you: a new VA report! Or, how I spent time between the DAV van dropping me off on Tuesday morning, and taking me home on Thursday afternoon.

I had my blood tests drawn Tuesday morning, then found that the procedure had been moved to Thursday morning. That meant I had nothing to do at all on Wednesday, other than listen to the cds of The Da Vinci Code and play computer games. Tuesday, I managed somehow to get the laptop back to operating in normal mode. I had it going in safe mode Monday night, and decided to take it with me and work on it when I had nothing else to do. I booted it up in safe mode, took some old software off it, and restarted it. It actually came up normally! Only bad thing was that I had no Wi-fi access in hospital, and I no longer have any dialup software. So I played some computer games I had downloaded onto a cd, and that kept me entertained when I got tired of reading about making altered books and selling on ebay. (Other things I checked from the library.)

The hoptel facilities are spartan, but nice. The rooms are on the top (fifth) floor of the bed tower, in a wing to themselves. I was lucky enough to get an end room that did not share a toilet/shower with another. These rooms are the same as the patient rooms, except there are electronic key locks on the doors, and no one bothers you (nursing staff) all night long. If there were a need for overflow rooms, these would be pressed into service. They are available for veterans who have tests that take several days, or who depend on the DAV vans to get them to the facility and come back for them another day. The room I had was a double, having a regular twin bed and one hospital bed in it. Usually, that would have some old man and his wife there. ; ) But since there were no singles open, I got it. There was a view of the courtyard below, and the rooftops across from me. Not too exciting, but you could see sky, and it was quiet. I cranked the air conditioning down to about 68 degrees and enjoyed my solitude.

The hoptel also gives you meal tickets redeemable in the hospital kitchen. There is no choice to what you get, but there is plenty of food, and it's balanced. There was a pint of very cold milk with every meal, and that made me happy. About the only thing I didn't eat during the three days was the potato/corn chowder. It was terribly bland. Otherwise, I was fine with the choices. Food is food!

I had to be at the ambulatory clinic at 0630, freshly showered, the notice said. ; ) I had gathered all my things up the night before, packed away the computer and had everything in my handy-dandy Roots rollabout bag and was down there at 0615. No one else around, and the sign said: Clinic opens at 0630, take a seat in the waiting area. I did.

About 0640, someone opened the door, and we all queued up to hand in our papers for the day's event. We received our plastic wristbands, and were told to go back out to the waiting room. Tick. Tock. We all waited. Old men swapped war stories. Their elderly wives slept or played their word games in little books. I watched the morning news about the big steampipe explosion in New York City. Yawn.

Eventually, some of us were called back to the staging area. It was 0830 when I was summoned, and told to strip completely and put on that typical flaptail gown. I was shown to my bed, layered with the sheet and blankets. I immediately threw the blankets to one side, being as hot natured as I am. Three people tried to put them back on me, insisting I MUST be cold. I insisted right back that I was not; the sheet was plenty of cover for me. The nurse came to check my vitals, then put in the IV port in the back of my hand. She got it on the very first try. I was very grateful, and told her so. She said she had veins just like mine, and she knew how badly she hated it when people go fishing around.

Within about ten minutes, the escort came to roll me and the gurney to surgery. We took the service elevator down, but then we went to the first floor where I was rolled down some of the main corridors. I had forgotten that this would be done in the main x-ray lab, under the big fluoroscope machines. I was parked in a back corridor, outside the x-ray room. The equipment looked foreboding; I have never been back in this part of the lab before.

I got very anxious. Usually, I hold my own, but this time, I was shaking. Not because I was cold, because I was anything but. The nurse came out to talk to me, and said the doctor was not there yet. (Surprise, surprise.) She tried once again to put the blankets on me, but I was actually sweating. She reassured me that this was a common procedure, and I acknowledged that I was sure it was for them, but it wasn't for me, and I was a bit scared. Shortly the doctor came out, and he was fabulous! Not only nice looking, but extremely good at explaining the procedure to me and why certain things are done certain ways. It made me feel somewhat better, but I could not stop myself from shaking.

They transferred me from the gurney onto the table, which had a place for the shoulders and head that made the head a little lower than the shoulders. The nurse put a paper cap on my head, then explained to me that they would need to tape my head so that I would be looking slightly to my left to hyperextend my neck. She used an ultrasound to determine if my carotid artery was clear (it was), and then put the blood pressure cuff on my left arm. Time for the show.

The doc came in again, he told me it would take about an hour, but it wouldn't seem that long because I would be out most of the time, but only with a local because he would ask me to hold my breath at some point when he was inserting the portacath, and I would need to be responsive enough for that. I said pour that crazy sauce to me, and let's do it.

I remember just a little, and mostly it was some pain when they were putting pressure on my chest. I also remember the doctor telling me to breathe deeply, because I was sobbing, and he was having a bit of trouble getting the sutures in me. Oh, well, it was over by that point.

The escort was called to take me to chemo where they do my iron infusions every week. I'm one of the few people who come in there that doesn't have cancer, and that fact is never lost on me. I got my iron, and lunch was brought in, and I was taken back down to ambulatory surgery when it was all done. They kept me until 2:30PM, and got me ready to go back on the DAV van. Everyone was ready to go when I arrived at the bed tower lobby.

The van driver took me to the dealership and dropped me off there because Dan is there by himself this week. (His co-worker is off to Hawaii to get married.) We got home around six, and Dan ordered a spinach alfredo pizza that was wonderful. By then, the local anesthesia had worn off, and I had to take a Percocet. I propped myself up in bed so the cats wouldn't lay all over me, and crashed.

I woke up around 0300 and had to take another pain pill. The cats were all lined up on the bed, and were being very nice about staying out of my face. I went back to bed, and didn't wake up until nearly noon Friday. The pain was back, and I repeated the treatment, and went back to bed. I woke again at nearly five, and got up to watch a little tv and eat a little something. I wasn't up too long until I needed more pain meds and back to bed I went. I've been good for nothing all day Saturday as well. At least I did get a shower and wash my hair today. That is a bit of comfort.

Next appointment is Tuesday, so I will find out how things are going then.

Another fun filled week

2007-07-16T17:51:00.000-05:00

Today was my annual checkup at the dentist. I had the bite-wing xrays, a cleaning, and an exam by the the dentist, who informed me that one of my old fillings in the back has decay next to it, and will have to be reworked. That will not happen until next month, thank goodness. Just the visit today was $116. I have no dental insurance, and the VA won't work on your teeth unless you have a 100% disability rating.

Tonight I wash clothes and pack my bag for a three day stay at the Memphis VA. Tuesday, they will do the preliminary tests like the INR for my clotting levels, and to make certain I don't have any infections. Wednesday, they will do the outpatient procedure to put in the portacath. Thursday, they will give me the next iron treatment. This will allow me to ride the DAV van over on Tuesday and stay in the hoptel room two nights and come back on the van Thursday. Anything to spare me the gasoline and the nightmare of parking once I get there.

I have gone to the library and checked out the cd abridged version of The Da Vinci Code because I am too lazy to read it. I also downloaded some games to play on the laptop, and have a real book to read. Anything to keep me occupied. I'll report all the wonderfully boring details Friday or so.

~~~~~

Meanwhile, Bogey continues to make himself more and more at home. He seems to like everyone else, and he doesn't get hissed at anymore. He and Harley are really close, and I noticed last night that he was making the same sort of gutteral sounds Harley does. Sort of a low mmmmrrrrrt. Really sweet to see him get comfortable.

Black and Blue and tired all over

2007-07-12T23:39:00.000-05:00

This has been a long week. Monday, I took Bogart for his second round of shots at the vet, and by the time I got back, I was exhausted. He was just about the best behaved cat I've ever taken to the vet, never hissing or spitting, and not even flinching when the vet gave him the injections and that stuff that went up his little nose. He didn't even cry that much on the ride home. Good boy, Bogey.

Monday night, I went to bed early (before midnight)because I had to be up early to catch the DAV van to the Memphis VA. I twitched. I tossed. I rearranged the cats on the bed. I was miserably hot, and my back and legs hurt. The air conditioning was on its normal 72 degrees. I heard one of the cats throw up in the other room. I checked my watch. It was three AM. I got up to go to the bathroom, then rearranged the cats again. I have no idea how much sleep I really got, because it seemed very shortly after that the timer went off in the kitchen and I was off to the shower.

The visit on Tuesday was back to the neurologist. I was wondering who I might get on the luck of the draw because my former doctor left the system for his new practice. Turns out that I am pleasantly surprised to have a female resident this time, a tall slender young woman who seems not only to know her business, but have compassion as well. I didn't feel like just another number on the board, and she was very thorough in her exam and follow-up. She told me that the recent MRI shows some problems that are starting to show in my neck, and some additional problems in the L-5 and S-1 region. She listened to what I had to say about my pain problems, and actually got me something stronger than an aspirin to alleviate some of it. She got me a consult with the neurosurgery department, and hopefully they might have something they can do for me. No promises, but at least some action. I am grateful.

Tuesday night, I was worn out from the day on the road, even though I didn't have to drive. I went to bed early again, because Wednesday I had to drive myself to a hematology appointment. I had a better bit of sleep, most due to the new meds I got.

Wednesday morning, I hit the road around 6:15 and stopped at Hardee's for a biscuit and some coffee to make sure I stayed awake. I have no intention of rolling another car through the cotton fields on my way to the VA. I made good time, finding a decent parking place by the Women's Clinic entrance, and checked in. First stop was the lab, where I thought they would never quit changing those little tubes out.

Orange juice sounded like a good idea, so I headed up to the cafeteria since it was just past 8AM and my appointment upstairs was 9:40. I killed a little time in the canteen, buying a cool weatherband radio that you can crank if the power fails, then went on up to the fourth floor clinic and turned in my paperwork.

I watched the end of the Today show on the tv in the waiting area. Then the local Memphis morning show, and watched the other patients come and go. My name was not called. The Price is Right, which I totally detest, came on. It was now 11AM. I went back to the window and asked the person there just how far down the line was I, anyway? Oh, seems he had shelved my paper in the wrong spot. Wonder if the doctor might have left had I not said something? Was he apologetic? Hardly.

Dr. S is my hematologist. She is nice enough, but a bit cold. I spoke with her for maybe five minutes tops, including a very quick listen to my heart and lungs. She told me that my iron levels are down again, and that she wanted me to come in once a week for the iron infusions for the next four weeks, then every other week after that. No end time in sight for the moment. She also said she will be absent during August, so my next appointment with her will be mid September. Hooray.

She dismissed me to go back to the chemo room where I took my place on one of the recliners. The young man next to me, who had already lost his hair and most of his eyebrows to the chemotherapy, was very pleasant for someone in his state. He didn't appear to be much more than early twenties at the most, probably back from a tour in Iraq. I didn't ask, and he didn't say.

Another woman was curled up facing the wall at the far end of the room. I found out later that she was a former oncology nurse, and was now on the receiving end of the treatment. My situation doesn't seem near so bad to me when I meet these others in the chemo room.

That was little compensation, however, because I have become increasingly hard to stick for the IV treatments. Usually it takes a couple or three tries. Wednesday, no one seemed to get lucky. I have small, crooked veins, and they tend to disappear just as the nurse goes to insert the needle. I feel like I am fairly tough, but when it comes to someone digging around trying to find a vein that has moved, I can't help myself. I whinged about it hurting. Seven or more tries, and three nurses later, success! I got my treatment, and it was decided that I need to have a portacath put in to avoid these problems. That means another trip up the road next week just to have that done in the ambulatory surgery clinic, then once more to have the iron treatment. It can't be done the same day.

I really felt sorry for the nurses there. They all tried their best, and my veins just were not cooperating. They apologized to me for the hurt, and I apologized back for the inconvenience. They really are a caring bunch in there.

It was past 4PM when I got home. I was exhausted once again, and felt like crap. I feel so damned useless right now. Every little thing wears me out, and I have no stamina whatsoever. It sucks, and I know it frustrates the hell out of Dan. Sure frustrates the hell out of me.

So, Thursday, I slept. Dreaming some outrageously stupid dreams, one about going to a costume party wearing a Hello Kitty costume (never!), and one about being in the wrong place when another company was having a drill for fire control (yes, another "back in the Navy" dream). I was trying to get out of the way and back to my own company, but the smoke began to fill the room. I woke up, glad to find there wasn't any real smoke choking me. Just a bed filled with cats. ; )

I'm useless these days. What can I say?

Wired

2007-06-30T17:14:00.000-05:00

I've decided to try a new type of art: bending wire to make goofy stuff. This is my first piece, which I think I'll call "Ninja Fresh". I have to work on my technique a bit as I'm not great at making the wire wraps with this heavy a gauge. Looks like another trip to the hardware store for some lighter wire.

My ASPCA cat photo entry

2007-06-30T02:11:00.000-05:00

Here's my entry in an ASPCA cat photo contest.

Harley was born to a feral mother who I had been feeding outside my apartment. She had disappeared during the birth, and about six weeks later, she proudly marched up to my door with three kittens in tow. This was May, 2006.

I could not catch them at first; being feral, they would just hiss and run away. After a couple of days, I did catch two of them, but the little black one ran like the wind under a storage building out back. I surrendered the two I caught to my veterinarian, who gave them their medications and put them up for adoption in his office. They found good homes.

The little black kitten remained with his mother, and even though they would stay on my porch and come to me to be fed, they were still evasive. One day, I noticed that the kitten was by himself. The mother had evidently moved on, and I never saw her again. He lived under my car in the driveway, and I lived in fear of him getting run over.

I was diligent in trying to get him close enough to nab him to bring him inside. I set up a little device using a mesh laundry hamper, and put the cat food inside it. After several days, he was accustomed to it enough to go inside to eat. I managed to sneak around from the back and grab him. He let out a wail that I'm sure the neighbors heard! I ducked inside with him, and gave him a bath and cleaned his eyes. He was not amused, and terrified.

He was placed on a towel in the bathroom, and I brought in a small litter tray and a food dish. I kept him separated from my other two cats for the first couple of days, and he eventually began to respond to my petting. I named him Harley, because he had such a distinctive purr. He's still quite the talker.

Harley's favorite game is to fetch the cotton glove fingertips that I cut off my white gloves I use for crafts. Who would have guessed ten free kitty toys for each pair? His fetch record is forty-nine times in a row, where I toss the finger off the bed, and he comes back with it, dropping it by my hand. I was tired by that time, so who knows how many times he might have gone for it?

Harley is not a lap cat at all, but he is a love, none the less. He sleeps at the foot of my bed, after a nightly round of fetch. He does not jump up onto high places, and he still goes the long way around to get on my bed, having been so small when he first came inside that I trained him to use a little step ladder to get onto my bed. Instead of a ladder now, he jumps first onto a side table, then up onto the bed. He's the one cat I do not have to worry about getting on the counter.

One of his funniest habits is "burning out" before he takes a drink of water from the dish. One of my other cats always puts a paw in the dish to test the level of the water first, and I suppose that move has been reinterpreted by Harley to mean a quick pawing at the floor in front of the dish before he drinks.

I'm still amazed at how this big black cat who loves the foot of my bed was that scared little thing I rescued from the street.

This photo was taken in indirect sun coming in through the curtain on the window at the left of the picture. I love it because Harley is a real dust magnet, and you can see the fuzz on him in great detail. It also shows the parts of him that are not true black, which you can't see except in bright natural light.

Thank you, ASPCA, for everything you do.

Bogey boy and more VA adventures.

2007-06-27T17:48:00.001-05:00

I came home after an entire day of waiting around at the VA hospital to find my internet service down. Blast, said I, among a few other choice words. I spent my evening then watching something on the History Channel, then flipping around, found a show called "Miami Ink" about a tattoo parlor. I had company in my lap, see below.

They say that having a cat can reduce your blood pressure and mellow you out. Man, did I need mellowing last night. We had a guy catch the DAV van to Memphis who wanted to go to the ER because he had broken his hand. Well, that was fine, but we later found out, after he had sat in the ER waiting room for nearly eight hours, and the rest of us had been in the lobby for the same eight hours, that the nimrod had broken his hand falling off his dirt bike TWO WEEKS AGO! No wonder they made him sit there while the REAL emergencies were being seen. He did manage to wrangle the narcotics (oxycodone) out of them, however. Bastard. And wimp.

I've dealt with chronic pain for the past twenty-five years, and they will not give me "the good drugs". Why is that? I don't complain of #10 pain all the time? (That would be the worst on the scale of 1-10.) Generally, I'd class mine as a 6 or 7 with an occasional 8-9. To me, when it gets that bad, I'm IN the hospital. Only once has that pain been really a level ten, where I begged for them to put me out somehow. That was when they were inserting a drain tube into my side, under my liver, to drain a staph infection after surgery. I was awake, and did not want to be.

Back to our story. I did see the neurologist yesterday. Unfortunately, my test results had yet to be delivered to him. He spent a good fifteen minutes trying to run them down in the complexities of the VA system, but they were not there. It seems that the contracted service has not had them couriered over to the hospital yet. Now why in heavens name could they not have handed ME, the fecking PATIENT, my OWN RESULTS to hand carry to the neurologist last Friday when I was on my way over to see him directly (Do Not Pass Go, Do Not Collect $200) after the testing? Because they cannot trust me with my own diagnosis? What the hell was I going to do with the cd-rom? Go operate on myself? Judas Priest on a pogo stick.

All I got yesterday for my time was the last visit with Dr. M, whom I will miss. He's a great doctor, and leaves today for Cleveland, Ohio, and a new practice. He told me in short to be careful, not do anything that might damage my back or neck (I promised no rollerblading or hang gliding), because there might be something they could do surgically for my neck, even if my back is probably beyond most help. I wished him fair seas and following winds. My next appointment will be as soon as they find my fecking MRI scans.

After waiting on the whiny kid all that time, we were all tired. He gets in the van, and the driver says, routinely, "Everybody buckled up?" Kid says "I don't wear no seatbelt. Things get you killed." I turned around, and said "That's the rules here, wear it or don't get a ride home." I continued the lecture. "I'd be dead already if I hadn't been wearing mine." He counters "Mine got hung up once". I said "I'd take my chances of being hung up rather than tossed out of the vehicle. Besides, you can cut the strap." He says, "You carry a pocket knife?" I said, "Yeah, a big sharp one."

He put on the fecking seat belt. Idiot.

End of rant.

Downer Diva part deux

2007-06-24T17:57:00.000-05:00

I said I'd put an update after the MRI, so here's what I know so far.

Nothing.

I got up Friday at an appropriately early time to drive myself to Memphis to get the MRI at a facility that has an open MRI machine. I tend to be claustrophobic in regular MRI machines, probably because the first one I had, the techs wrapped me up in a constraint like a big burrito, and I had an extreme hotflash during the procedure. I had to squeeze the little bulb and have them get me out of there. They administered some sedative, and I snored through the rest of the procedure. Subsequent MRIs have been nightmarish, too, because once the fan was not working inside the machine and I got extremely hot. Beam me up, Scotty.

That's why I had to drive to the far side of Memphis for this test. I arrived fifteen minutes before my appointment, because the traffic was a bitch on Friday, and the directions to the office were not exactly right. There is no sign on the front of the building to indicate where this office might be, and I parked in the wrong lot the first time, and had to go back and move my car over to the next building. Not great for my mood in 94 degree morning heat.

The office was very plain, and the patient ahead of me was having difficulty understanding what he was supposed to do before he had whatever test it was. Something about a preparation he had to drink, and he was wanting to know if he could drink it with a Coke, because it tastes bad. The technician was trying to explain it to him why that wouldn't work, and he was becoming more agitated the more they talked. Finally, they got him sorted and sent him on his way, and called me to the desk to fill out the obligatory paperwork.

Don't you love doing that? I should carry a list of the medication I am taking. Seems like I'm asked that information at the drop of a hat. This paperwork even had a little MAN drawing fore and aft for me to point out "where does it hurt". (Where's my WOMAN drawing? What if it hurts in a spot men don't have?) After telling them my life by a series of yes or no questions, and the occasional "additional information", I signed beside all the huge X's and returned the clipboard (and the pen!) to the desk person.

I didn't have to wait long after that. The young girl sitting next to me was playing her Nintendo DS, waiting apparently for her grandmother to have her test done. Just as I reached in to get my book to read, the technician called me back to the testing area. She told me to strip and take off my watch, so the machine wouldn't ruin the batteries. (I didn't bother to tell her my watch is self-winding, so it has no batteries. I love this watch!) She asked me if I had brought something to change into. I said no, and wondered just what people brought to change into? She handed me a gown that actually had ties on it, and was big enough to wrap around me. (The VA always has you put on two gowns, one frontwards and one backwards, so your ass doesn't hang out. They are the skimpiest damn things I've ever seen.) She told me to lock my clothes and valuables in the locker, and bring the key with me. I chose #5, because I seem to have decent luck with that number. Whatever.

She directed me to the restroom first, and I complied. Then for the test. She asked me if I had taken any sedatives, and I said no. The machine was different from the last open MRI I had, but still very open compared to the VA machines, meaning you could see out the back side, and most of your person was not inside a tube. It more resembled a CT scan machine. I was relieved at that.

The bad part came when they told me that the orders were not only for a lower back scan, but for a scan of my neck. That meant they had to put this cage thing on my head. She asked if I was claustrophobic. I said, yes, somewhat. She advised me to keep my eyes shut. I should have asked for a blindfold. It's really hard to keep your eyes tightly shut for twenty or so minutes, but I did manage.

They rolled me out after the first test was complete, and had to shoot some dye into me because I have had previous back surgery. I had bruising from the last time I had an iron infusion, and from the big jab of the phlebotomist who can hit a vein where no one else can find one. They remarked about the bruising, and I wondered if they believed my explanation. They jabbed me near the same spot, and squirted in the dye. I tried to imagine good drugs, to no avail.

The next series took a little longer. MRIs are so noisy! I always feel like I'm in a barrel with someone pounding a sledge hammer on the outside. I went to my "relaxing place", which is the beach on Tokashiki Island. I visualized the blue waters, the fine sand mixed with coral, the lush tropical vegetation along the ridge above the shore. The cool water on my feet, and the gentle lapping of the water on the shore of the inlet. That took me away enough to keep me busy during the test.

As soon as I was done, I asked about the results. The technician told me the doctor would get the results, but they had to have a courier take the disk over to the VA. They would not release it to me. I got dressed and headed over to the VA hospital where I was supposed to talk to the doctor about the results.

No one seemed to know anything about my appointment with the neurologist. I was shuffled from pillar to post because no one could figure out what to do with me. I was becoming increasingly flustered. About that time, the doctor I was looking for happened to come out of a room down the hall and saw me sitting there. He told me he would see me next. Just then, one of the nurses came up to me with my appointment paper and told me I'd have to come on Tuesday next, because that was the appointment on the books. It was delightful to have the doctor tell her we had it all straightened out, and he would see me next.

Dr. M is, by my estimation of his accent, from the Czech Republic or somewhere in that region. I have never asked him, because it makes no difference to me. He is a thoughtful man, and very patient. He asked me how my new medications, prescribed to me two weeks ago, were doing. I told him I had only received them the day before, so I had no idea. He shook his head, and said that there should be no reason for things to take that long to be mailed out. I agree wholeheartedly. He went out to see if the reports were back, and was gone about five minutes. No, he said, they were not in. He apologised, even though it was well beyond his control. There was little he could tell me until he reads the MRI.

It was a good thing I have that appointment on the books for next Tuesday, because I can ride the DAV van over instead of driving myself. Parking is horrendous at the VA. I even have a gimp tag, and I can't find a place to park, because nearly everyone there has one, too. It's one place where I will use the far parking lot and wait for the little golf cart to come around to pick me up, rather than park in the reserved spots. The lot is so large that I am exhausted by the time I walk into the building, and my heart rate is out the ceiling, along with my blood pressure.

If you have read this far to find out what I know about the results, you still know as much as I do. Such a long post for such little reward. Ho hum. I hope to have a more informative post soon.

~~~~~~~~~

Meanwhile, the new kitten, Bogart, is doing wonderfully. We call him Bogey, of course. He is still not allowed full run of the house, but we let him out during the day when we are able to supervise him to an extent. He follows us like a puppy, and loves to spend time curled up on Dan's chest when he's watching tv. Too sweet for words.

The other cats are getting acquainted. A little hissing at times, but usually that occurs when I put kitten chow in Bogey's bowl in the bathroom, and someone else comes in to munch. Bogey puts on a little hissy show, and they back off. Nothing like seeing a 2.5 pound kitten bluff a 15 lb tomcat. Gotta love it.

Downer Diva

2007-06-21T23:31:00.000-05:00

I was reading an e-newsletter that I get called The Professional Quilter just now, and in it found a sad note that Gail Broadwater died today, June 21, 2007, after a long battle with cancer. I'd known Gail and her mom for many years as part of the same quilting clubs and she was undoubtedly one of the best longarm machine quilters anywhere. It struck me as how out of touch I have become with the quilting community. I had no idea she was even ill. To think I read the news online about someone who lives the next town over. I feel terrible about it.

I suppose this goes to show how isolated I've let myself become. Seldom do I go anywhere that is not necessary, like to the grocery store, UPS store, or to Memphis to the doctor. I'm not leaving a huge "carbon footprint" because my driving is down to the minimum; in fact, I might buy two tankfuls of gas a month, but only if I've had to drive myself to Memphis. I'm more often than not riding the free shuttle van that the Disabled American Veterans chapter provides.

Maybe this is all due to my feeling like crap most of the time. Tired is my middle name. The smallest effort seems to spend all of my energy. My back is giving me a really bad time of late, and in fact, tomorrow I go for an MRI to see what is going on there. The plan is to meet with the neurologist right after the MRI to determine if there is anything that can be done, or if I am totally out of luck. Guess I will know something this time tomorrow.

Play me again, Sam

2007-06-18T01:48:00.000-05:00

I am a sucker. There is an unwritten law that says I must fall in love with homeless kittens. Here I go again.

Meet Bogart. At least that's what we are calling him right now, because we are fairly sure it's a male. Bogie was found a couple of days ago by my friend under the fenderwell of her dad's Mustang. He was hiding, scared, but friendly enough to let her snag him and get him into the cat carrier. She called me, distressed because she couldn't keep him, and wasn't able to find any of the neighbors who might have lost a kitten. Bring him on over, I said.

He's a delight. We've been keeping him in my bathroom, with a blanket of his own and a litterbox, water and food. I'll take him to the vet to be checked out in the morning, to make sure he's not got anything to spread to the other cats.

Dan had him out laid up on his chest while he watched tv this evening. The little guy just curled up and purred like he's been here all along. Melt my heart, why don't you, guys?

Ham-fisted?

2007-06-10T00:45:00.001-05:00

You Are a Ham Sandwich

You are quiet, understated, and a great comfort to all of your friends.
Over time, you have proven yourself as loyal and steadfast.
And you are by no means boring. You do well in any situation - from fancy to laid back.

Your best friend: The Turkey Sandwich

Your mortal enemy: The Grilled Cheese Sandwich

What Kind of Sandwich Are You?

2007-05-01T02:37:00.000-05:00

A good, long life.

2007-04-30T01:07:00.000-05:00

A little time has gone by now, and I feel I can write this about my mother.

She hadn't been feeling well on and off.

Here's what the scenario seemed to be. She was ill with the nasty stomach virus (nausea and diarrhea) that had swept through the nursing home on the Saturday before Easter. She was fine on Good Friday night, and when my sister and brother arrived Saturday morning for a visit, we found her sick in bed. She was rather unresponsive that day, because they had given her phenergran to combat the nausea, which made her sleepy. So my brother didn't really get to talk to her. He turned around and went back to Texas after we all went to lunch. My sister and family stayed until Monday, and we all went to see her that morning. She was up and sitting out in the lobby in her usual spot, but I could tell something was off.

My sister and her family visited for a while, then left, and I went home, too. The next day, I had an infusion treatment in Memphis, and was so tired when I got back, I didn't go by to see her.

Wednesday around 11am, the nursing home called me to say she had a change in her condition; she seemed confused about why they were giving her the insulin shot, and that she hadn't eaten breakfast nor drunk her usual morning coffee. I told them I would be there as soon as I showered. When I got out of the shower and was brushing my teeth, the phone rang again. She was on her way to the ER. I got there-- almost still dripping--the same time they brought her in. She couldn't talk, and her eyes were a bit odd. I called Dan, he rushed right over. He and I took turns sitting with her, talking to her, holding her hand, all day in the ER until they got her a room around 9pm Wednesday.

I knew what she wanted, and didn't want. I was firm with the docs about no invasive procedures. For everyone's peace of mind, I did let them run tests that told us she had a massive stroke AND a heart attack afterward. All that entailed was a CT scan and a blood enzyme test. I knew what was going on. I'd seen it before. And the CT scan confirmed it to me. I decided right there for pallitive care only. The ER doctors told me that they would give her patches on her skin for sedation/pain, and to help dry up the secretions to keep her from getting aspiration pneumonia. I slept off and on at her bedside all that night, and Dan stayed up with me.

During the day Thursday, the doctor came in to examine my mother, and told me that he didn't think she would make it through the weekend. He explained to me, outside in the hall, that her cerebral hemorrhage was in both sides of her brain, and that she had indeed also had a heart attack. He said that many times, an illness of the type she had earlier in the week would elevate blood pressure and bring on a stroke in someone of her advanced age. He said that he would have hospice care contact me, and that we should move her back to the nursing home that evening. I called my brother and had the doctor explain all this to him so there would be no miscommunication this time. He said he would probably not leave until Saturday morning to come up here.

My sister had left early Thursday morning, arriving around 9 pm at the hospital. We all sat up until around 2 am, when Dan went out to sleep in his truck, and my sister and her daughter slept in their car. I slept fitfully in the recliner in my mother's room.

During the day Friday, the ambulance crew came to transport my mother back to her room at the nursing home. I had called ahead to tell the staff what was going on, and they said they would try to move her roommate out so we could have privacy. That was a good thing, as her roommate has Alzheimer's, and doesn't remember short term things very well.

I met Friday afternoon with the hospice team, and they gave me some great information about the dying process. They explained some of the signs, and what to expect.

My brother didn't arrive until late Friday night. He was going to wait until Saturday to come, and I had told him point blank that he should be there sooner. It was probably not my insistence that changed his mind. When he and his wife arrived, they were shocked to see our mother's state. They stayed a little while, then went off to find a motel room.

Dan stayed there all night with her while I went home to sleep a little. He called me around 8 am and said... I leaned over and told her I loved her, and she SAID "I love you too."

I almost fainted. My mother had not been able to speak since Wednesday. Saturday, she seemed to recognize me and the staff who came in to check on her, and she was smiling. My sister came in, and she recognized her, too. Later, around 9am, my brother came in and she lit up again. I recognized this as probably the last rally, but could tell that the rest of the family was getting their hopes up. My sister-in-law went out and bought some birthday balloons., because Sunday was her birthday. My niece was with my sister. She's really only about a 6-7 year old mentally, and so she rattled on and on, and my mom seemed to enjoy it for a time. After about an hour or so, I gently told R that Grandma needed to rest a bit. I could see her ebbing away again.

Around 2 pm, Mama fell asleep, and would rouse only when the CNAs would come in to turn her. She seemed to be distraught every time they would handle her, so I asked for them to give her some medication. Dan stayed the night with her over to Sunday, when he called me around 8am and told me to hurry over, things were not looking good. We went through this with his dad, and were with him when he died. So we knew what the labored breathing was. But since she had rallied on Saturday, the head nurse had told my brother that they would call in the speech pathologist to determine if she could swallow enough to try to eat. When I arrived, they were attempting to get her to take a bit of thick liquid, but she was unresponsive. We spent the day there with her, singing "Happy Birthday" to her (in the key of R flat, according to my brother), reminiscing about stuff that happened to us as kids, and I worked on an altered book to put some of these silly things down on the page. We all decided that we would try to go home and get some sleep that night, as Dan had to get back to work.

On Monday, my brother and sister still had that hope that there was a turn, but by noon, it was getting obvious (to me) that it wasn't. They decided to go back to TX to get the kid back in school, and so my brother could go back to work. I had been with her that morning, telling her that I loved her, and softly humming a few of her favorite hymns to her. I know I can't carry a tune very well, but I know all about that "joyful noise", and by now she had a very weak pulse and labored breathing.

My brother came in and we held hands while he whispered his goodbyes to her and told her it was ok to let go. My sister came in for some time by herself, and then I suggested that we all go out to have lunch before they got on the road. We did, and my brother dropped me back off at the nursing home.

When I stepped into her room, I knew she was gone. She waited until we were all gone.

Honestly, I had said my goodbyes a long time ago. I have no regrets.

I immediately called the nurse, and she and the administrator came to check. I was right. I called my brother, who hadn't even gotten out of the city limits, and my sister was maybe 10 minutes ahead of him. They came back, and I handled all the duties of calling the funeral home and such, arranging the burial. I even wrote the obit, faxing it before a 4pm deadline to my hometown newspaper. I asked that memorials be made to the local animal shelter. My mama did love her kitties.

Tuesday, my brother stopped on the way up to the funeral home to visit the old home place in Missouri, and he happened to catch the postmistress on the way out the door of the post office. He asked her if she had lived there long, and she said no, only about twenty years. That was long enough that she did know my mom. So the town did find out shortly.

The local paper comes out in the afternoon, and didn't make print until after the service and wouldn't have been delivered until the next day to her hometown anyway.

I also went into The Flower Barn in West Plains where my sister and I picked out the casket piece. The flower shop people were so nice to just let me step in and make a little nosegay for inside the casket right then and there. It was sweet: alstromeria, baby's breath, some daisy poms and some purple stuff I forget the name of. They did an extra nice job with their piece picking up the same flowers and ribbon, adding in some beautiful pink roses, which I have a few in some borax and cornmeal and will preserve in small bottles for my sister and brother and me.

I had to talk to the sexton of the cemetery Tuesday night before the visitation, and had to wait for him to come home from taking a horse to the vet. He had his cell phone out walking the plots trying to find where to show the gravediggers where to dig the next day. Half the people out there were related to my mother, so he had to go get the old plat mat to find the site. He was reading off names on headstones to me. Sort of funny in a way. Nope...a cousin...nope, an uncle...just a bit surreal. He wanted to make certain they didn't dig up the wrong plot, because he said that happened once when they misread the plat map.

Anyway, we had a beautiful day for the service, sunny, warm, and the cows were quiet for the graveside service in a rural cemetery...waaaaaaaaaay out in the boonies. A good four miles of dusty gravel roads. You know when you live in the Southern half of this country, when EVERY vehicle that meets the funeral procession pulls off to the shoulder of the road and stops out of respect. That happened all the way to that little country cemetery, some fifteen miles from the funeral chapel.

I know that my mother would expect me to get on with things and go have a little fun. After the responsible stuff is done, you get to play, was her credo. She was one tough cookie when she needed to be, and had a heart of gold. I should hope to be half the woman she was.

My mother was aged eighty-seven years, and one day. A good, long life. I will still miss her.

A very sad day

2007-04-16T22:59:00.000-05:00

My mother died today. She was eighty-seven years old yesterday. A long life by most standards, and until last Wednesday, she was in relatively good health.

We travel tomorrow to make her arrangements in a small Missouri town. I'm tired. I have a long way to go before this is done. I will write a more fitting tribute in the days to come.

I love you, Mama.

The Short List

2007-03-12T18:39:00.000-05:00

Rather than write an entire blog entry about this debacle, I will defer to a well-written blog here.

I'm involved in this marginally, because I was once contacted by Rick Olney to "appear" at his MightyMiniCon comic convention back in 2004. That con never happened, and neither did the one he tried to perpetrate on me by asking me to make him a custom embroidered Spider-Man quilt. I kept telling him I needed a 50% deposit up front for the materials, and to this day, have not seen one thin dime. I never got past a preliminary design phase, because I don't buy the materials for a custom until I get that deposit.

I've designed a little logo for the cause, which you see above, that links to the site that was created to help those who did get the shaft from Mr. Olney.

I also have an item up for auction for the benefit of these folks on ebay here. Take a look at the other items, and something might grab your interest. Please bid, as all the proceeds, every dime, will go to help out those creators and artists stiffed by a bad apple in the publishing industry, TightLip Entertainment.

Post-Valentine's Day

2007-02-15T14:03:00.000-06:00

Checking back here, I didn't realize I had not posted for well over a month. Time flies when you are trying to restart your life.

There are still cardboard boxes everywhere, just in a different location. D is not able to help me a lot with it for two reasons: a) he has recently gotten a heart pacemaker, keeping him from heavy lifting, and b) I have to know where all this stuff was put up, or I will never find it! So, slowly but surely, things will find a place here again.

I keep wondering where did all this "stuff" come from? The bulk of it is fabric and sewing and craft supplies, along with inventory of patterns from my business. Getting it all back into the house is a huge dilemma. Before I can put things in the large walk-in closet in the master bedroom, I must first clean it out and rearrange it. I have repaired the broken clothes rod in there, and gotten a lot of things moved around, although there is a long way to go.

Once the closet is ready, I can move boxes of fabric into there, along with containers of craft supplies. Then I can clear out the sewing room, and arrange it to be work-friendly once again. I feel like I am dealing with one of those puzzles that have the numbers in the wooden frame, where you have only one empty slot, and must move every other number to start lining them up in order. You get halfway through, then find out you can go no further until you move what you just carefully placed in order. This is very tiring.

RANT FOLLOWS:

And tired is my middle name at the moment. I had another trip to the Memphis VA emergency room in January because I was again gasping for breath at every small exertion. I was severely anemic again, and even though they took me right into triage when we arrived around 10 PM, I sat out in the waiting room until nearly 5 AM. There was literally no room in the ER for any patients. There were several others in the waiting area, one who claimed he had been there since noon the previous day. He finally gave up around 3 AM and threw his coat on the floor and slept there. (I later found out that he was a "regular", and that he was there because it was freezing outside and he was homeless. I guess it was better than the underside of a bridge.)

I was finally brought in, my blood type cross-matched, and at 7 AM, they began a transfusion. After that one ran out, they found that the night shift doctor had left orders for two units of blood, but had only signed the release for one, so they had to send more papers to the blood bank to get another unit. It came around 11 AM, and as soon as that finished, they disconnected the IV lines and sent me home. There were six people in more serious condition than I that needed the beds (only four became available while I was there). They only kept me long enough to ensure that I didn't have a reaction to the transfusion. I was just grateful that they could DO the transfusion. I certainly don't blame the system for me showing up when the inn was full.

This was a temporary fix at best. I had been through several tests before Christmas, and was waiting to find out the verdict of why I cannot keep from being anemic. At least, the trip to the ER got me in to see gastro sooner. It turns out that the Crohn's diagnosis is now confirmed, and I am having a big flare-up. The section of intestine right below my stomach is inflamed, as is another section farther down. The doctors prescribed mesalamine (Pentasa) for me, at a dosage of a whopping eight 250mg capsules a day. They told me that if that didn't work, the next step was Imuran, an immunosuppressant, which I have taken before, and I was more ill than ever on that. Failing that, they said I might have to come in at prescribed intervals to be infused with Remicade, and possibly iron, since my body is not absorbing it like it should. Oh, joy.

One week into the Pentasa, and I was nauseous and having extreme cramps and diarrhea. I had an appointment with the local VA clinic physician, and when I reported this problem (and I had lost five pounds due to it), I was advised to quit the medication. Oddly enough, I feel at least better in the sense that I no longer am dizzy and nauseous. I'm still without any energy.

Next week, I have two appointments. Both, unfortunately, for clinics that only meet on days the free Disabled American Veterans van does NOT go to Memphis. That means I have to drive myself, burning more than a tank of gas, and hoping that I have decent driving conditions (not foggy or rainy, when I have problems seeing the lines on the road). The first appointment is Wednesday, for labwork and hematology. This is a new clinic, and I'm not sure exactly what they are looking for or going to do. The second is with GI, a follow-up to the gut problem where I will get to tell them that I can't tolerate the medicine they prescribed. None of this is making me happy.

RANT OVER. (Aren't you glad?)

Next time: Saga of the new glasses, when they get here.

Arbor Mist Melon and me

2006-12-28T23:18:00.000-06:00

I am surrounded by towers of cardboard boxes, stacked nearly to the ceiling. The packing people have finally finished their arduous task of packing out the world's worst packrat, me. I could see fear in their eyes when they entered the Inner Sanctum of the Domestic Goddess, aka the sewing room. It took them a good four hours just to pack all the stuff in that one room.

Tomorrow, I return to the house I left two and a half years ago. I was asked to return by my ex. He knew I was struggling to get by on my government dole, and would never ask to come back after I had been the one to initiate the divorce. It was true. I have eaten far too many ramen noodles and cans of tuna to be healthy. I've lived on cheap macaroni and cheese and other delicacies from the Dollar Store. There were nights that the meal was homemade bread and a cup of tea. I didn't let on to most people that was how it was.

It's been rough. I've watched as my business has gone steadily downhill, because I have no capital with which to fuel new product. I fall in between the cracks of the system, because I live in a decent place that is not Section 8 housing. Due to that, I could not get food stamps. I refused to live in an unsafe, unsavory neighborhood, just to put more food on the table. The veritable rock and a hard place.

I'm exhausted tonight. The tv is now disconnected from the cable (but not my precious internet!) and my cookstove is obscured by the stacks of boxes in front of it. My phone has been transferred back to the house. The only thing left to do is to pack up what is in my desk, and disconnect the computer. That will happen in the morning, along with corralling three felines who will not be happy about it.

For now, I'm kicking back with the remnants of a bottle of cheap Arbor Mist Melon wine, and am going to adjourn to read some comics. After all, the new Daredevil came out today. ; )

Memphis blues

2006-12-08T01:26:00.000-06:00

A little late in reporting, but Tuesday was another day spent in Memphis at the VA Hospital. I caught the DAV van at 0630 down at the old shopping mall (now very deserted since the new one was finished). I had three appointments scheduled: the nutritionist at 11, neurology at 2:40, and ophthalmology at 3 pm. If you ride one of the volunteer vans, usually you can get in to see the doctors early. I went into ophthalmology first, and they took me right in.

Lucky me! The department has a new toy, and I was the very first patient to be scanned with it. The technician had to use her cheat notes, and although I have no idea what the machine is called; it does a scan to check if there is swelling around the optic nerve. I suppose all was well back there, assuming she did the test correctly. She would say look at the green dot, and sometimes there WAS NO GREEN DOT. Then she'd adjust things, and a fuzzy green dot on a bright red background would flash and little lights would buzz across the viewing area in angles or circles. Weird.

The ophthalmologist shined a lot of bright lights in my eyes, and said he couldn't see anything really new going on, but my chart tests indicate they should prescribe new glasses. Of course, they had just dilated my eyes, and I will have to go back in two months to get that done. :P

I was out of there before ten, so I wandered over to the nutritionist's office and signed in early for that appointment. I got right in because someone else was a no-show. Evidently, when I can afford to buy food, I eat fairly well. I've lost five more pounds, have no idea why. She seemed satisfied that I knew how to eat properly, did NOT give me a huge lecture on being overweight, and sent me on my merry way.

I decided to eat lunch before I went to the fifth floor neurology because I know that clinic only meets in the afternoon. I shopped a little in the canteen, didn't buy anything. I still made it up to the fifth floor before the receptionist went to lunch. She told me which box to put my paperwork in, and I took a seat in the waiting room. I had asked if I could see the doctor early. She made no promises.

Monday night, I could not sleep. I tossed, turned, and sweat all night long. So by noon, I was dead on my feet. I dozed off and on in the waiting room, too tired to even try to read the Agatha Christie mystery I brought along. The room filled up, and before long, everyone else seemed to have been summoned for vital sign checks but me. I kept pacing to keep awake, without much luck. It was after 3 pm when I finally saw the doctor.

I like Dr. M. He's a fairly new resident physician at the VA, and must be from the Ukraine or thereabouts. He is very straightforward, and I like that. He actually read my charts, which so often doesn't happen with the VA, and he said he was concerned about a couple of the results of the many tests I had last week. He didn't tell me everything, but I did get out of him that my sed rate is high, and another test that has to do with autoimmune system problems, the C-Reactive Protein was also high. According to WebMD, A recent study suggests a link between increased CRP levels and the development of age-related macular degeneration. Well, hello?

So, after all this, the doc gave me a refill on some meds for restless leg syndrome, which was one of the reasons I didn't sleep the night before. In order to get it filled, I had to go to the other end of the campus to the outpatient pharmacy, take a number and wait to see the pharmacist before the prescription was even turned in. I appealed to a volunteer who was at the information desk to help me get in touch with the van driver, who had been looking for me. The volunteer got me in to see a pharmacist without waiting, and he in turn had a few of the pills filled for me right then so the van wouldn't be delayed any longer. By the time we got out of there, it was well after 4pm, which meant it was dark when we got back to Jonesboro. Too long of a day.

Best part? I have to go back NEXT Tuesday for another of those unspeakably awful GI tests.

All this, and I've spent the last two days ripping out the carpeting in the house before I move back in. Oh, and I've sold several braille tshirts in the past few days. Maybe things will look up, just a little.

The Hurrier I Go, The Behinder I Get

2006-12-03T14:08:00.000-06:00

The harder I try to get ahead, the farther behind I slide. I've been trying to sell things on ebay for well over a year now, and with the increases in fees and the way the structure has changed, I'm beginning to think it's not worth my time and effort. A good third of what I brought in last month went right back to ebay in listing fees, store fees, and final value fees. Of course, I know that I listed probably three times as many items as I normally do, but it's really hard to justify the effort if someone else is raking in most of the profit.

My income is not keeping up with my outgo. I am on a rather fixed income, dependent mostly on my veteran's compensation check each month. By the time I pay rent, insurance, utilities, phone, and cable(which is mostly my internet ISP since I only subscribe to the minimum basic tv cable channels), it's the fourth of the month, and there is nothing left for food. I try to eek out a tank of gas a month for the car. Most of the time, I stay home, only going out to the post office when I have to send parcels, and to visit my mother at the nursing home. I don't eat out, except to take my mom lunch on Sundays. It's not like I'm a wasteful spender.

Last month, I broke down to the point of applying for food stamps. Well, guess what? I don't qualify. I have no children, live by myself, and do not live in squalid HUD housing. I own a seven year old car that I paid for entirely on my own. I don't do drugs, drink alcohol or smoke. I don't have a live-in boyfriend or illegitimate children. But I'm not far enough down the ladder to get any assistance. Go figure.

Therefore, I am taking up on an offer that my ex-husband has proposed: move back in with him. We have really continued to be friends even after the divorce, and it's not like I'd have to break in a new roommate. We are known quantities, so things will work out. At least I won't starve this way. ; )

Another happy day in paradise

2006-11-30T22:31:00.000-06:00

Time to face the music and go to the VA hospital again to have more testing. I spent three days in hospital here in town the first weekend of November with another bowel obstruction and raging kidney infection. Blah! Humbug!

This was a big part of the lack of blogging recently. Nothing great or good to tell. I've become sick and tired of being sick and tired. My anemia problems are back; I have zero stamina these days for any sort of strenuous activity. That brings me to the last day of November, and the next round of tests.

I rode the DAV van over to Memphis, thank goodness for the volunteer drivers! My appointment with the GI lab was for 0800, and I was there on time. Alas, there were others scheduled for the same time, and they took them in first since they all were having a single procedure, and I was there for two. The handsome Latino RN was very nice, but he could not get an IV to run after two tries. He called over another nurse, and she tried twice with no success. Finally, they called in Miss Gussie, whom I have seen before in the GI lab, and she got it on the first shot. I seem to recall they had to call her in the last time to stick me for the IV port. She is such a nice lady, and so calming in this sea of chaos that is the VA system.

I lay on the stretcher for nearly two hours before my turn came to go in the procedure room. I joked with the nurse who was going to do the anesthesia to please make me plenty stupid because I was very nervous. She asked if I had undergone this procedure before. I replied I had, that was why I was nervous. They gave me some foul-tasting stuff to gargle and swallow to numb my throat; she popped me with the Demerol and I vaguely remember gagging on the endoscope as they put it down my throat. I began to come round when they were going at the other end with the sigmoidoscope, and whined enough that they asked if I wanted more drugs. I most certainly did! Next thing I knew, I had been asleep for an hour or so.

The doctor came in to tell me what they found. Sometimes, I wish they would just give me a written statement, because my head was still quite fuzzy. I know he said that they found that I had reflux problems, and some ulceration in my small bowel due to Crohn's. They had also checked what is left of my rectum and said there is a possibility of a fistula there. Biopsies were taken, and I suppose I will find out within a week or so. Waiting for the definitive is the hardest part.

I have no idea how they are going to treat all this. I am going to be asking a lot of questions shortly. At least we now know where the blood I'm evidently losing is coming from and that, I suppose is good news.

The van ride home was a blur, and I made it home from the shopping mall where the van picks us up without incident. I came home, fed the cats, and we all curled up in bed for about the next five hours. They know how to comfort me, the little fuzzy buddies!

The weather has turned cold now, from 66 degrees F when I got on the van this morning, to 35 degrees with a 25 degree wind chill out right now. It rained all day, and I hope that it doesn't ice up overnight. We might get past that. Snow, I can deal with that. Ice? No.

Looks like a three cat night. Brrr.

Just a little white lie

2006-09-19T17:56:00.000-05:00

Something I have never been able to do is lie to my mother. Actually, I'd make a sorry poker player, because I just can't lie with a straight face to anyone. It's just not in my nature. (Maybe my name, which according to a few sources I've looked up means "truth", is an appropriate one?)

Today, I looked straight into my mother's face and told her a fib. I felt so guilty. This one won't hurt anyone, and today, my mother needed to hear something cheerful. She fell last week and broke her arm in two places, right above her right wrist. She's been in a good deal of pain, and the worst part is that it's her dominant hand. She can't do her needlework that she loves so dearly.

So, God forgive me; I told my mother a lie. I told her she won a blue ribbon on the little redwork sampler I entered in the fair for her, when in truth, it placed third.

I think maybe, looking at the other entries placed around it, that it got judged in the wrong category. It was a stamped cross-stitch, not a counted one like the others around it, and by comparison, it did look a little sad. My mother is eighty-six years old, and when many people are just sitting around complaining about what they can't do, she is stitching away at something. Maybe it's not twelve stitches to the inch linen, but it's precious to me. It's the Best of Show in my book. Grand Champion.

The look on her face when I told her about the ribbon was priceless. It was really the first time I'd seen her smile genuinely in a couple of weeks. For the first time in my life, I was really bragging on her. Why did it take me so long? She has always been the one to brag on me.

When I pick up the ribbons and entries next Sunday, I will carefully take one from some of my own items (I entered seven, and they all placed first), and will pin it to her sampler and take it to her. She will be thrilled, and so will I.

I love my Mama, and she's a winner in my eyes.

A Laborious Weekend

2006-09-04T12:57:00.000-05:00

Since I work at home, holidays don't mean as much any more. I have an unusual schedule because I like to work late at night when the phone won't ring and I don't have a lot of interruptions. This Labor Day weekend, I had hoped to get back into the sewing room and finish a couple of projects. It didn't happen. The best laid plans of mice and me.

I haven't been feeling very perky now for some time. Not that I ever run marathons or go to the gym, but just general malaise. It had been getting worse over the past week, and by Friday, I was totally exhausted by the time I changed the catbox. I worked on some PhotoShop stuff for some patterns I'm reworking, and around 4PM got ready to go to the post office. It wasn't as hot as it has been in recent weeks, only upper 80's, still very steamy due to the humidity.

After collecting my mail (which included a hilarious Devil Duck from a friend in Canada), I thought I'd swing by the Deals dollar store to pick up a few frozen food items. I went in, got my $15 worth of cheapie stuff, and headed out the door. The heat hit me in the face like a brick. I have a gimp tag on my car, so I wasn't parked that far away. By the time I reached the car, my head was spinning. I tossed the bags into the car, fell onto the seat and started up the ignition to get the air going. I had a bottle of cold water in the car, and I drank most of it right then, letting a little of it splash onto me to cool me off. I felt like I could barely catch my breath. I was having visual disturbances. I almost panicked, because I had forgotten my cell phone at home.

I sat in the car, face in the A/C vents, for a few minutes until I got cleared up enough to drive. I made my way home on some less busy streets, since it was now Friday/holiday/rush hour traffic. When I got home, I gathered the bags, locked the car and by the time I got to the front door to unlock it, I was almost stumbling. I fumbled with the lock, had to shush the cats to get them from making an exit, and I could hardly boost the bags onto the kitchen counter. I was breathing heavily, my pulse pounding in my ears. I knew what was going on. My hematocrit levels were bottoming out.

There was frozen food in the bags, so I began wildly stuffing the contents into the refrigerator. I felt like I was about to black out, as the visual disturbance once more loomed. I sat down on a kitchen stepstool lest I fall right over. I scared the cats. They circled me like they didn't know exactly what to do. Then Ringo came up and began to administer fuzz therapy in the form of rubbing on my feet. He meowed at me, and rolled over on his back for a tummy rub. I didn't have the strength.

My now-famous hives began to emerge, adding insult to injury. I grabbed my cellphone and retreated to the bathroom to disrobe and take a cool shower to help ease the itch. Taking off my clothes was such an effort and sent me into more labored breathing that I decided I better call for help. I called my ex, and he came over while I was in the shower. When he got there, I was still sitting on the edge of the tub, barely able to stand. I got dressed, and we headed for the VA in Memphis, an hour and a quarter away.

The ER at the VA has moved, and the entrances are different than the last time we were there, causing us to have to walk further than planned. I signed in, stating shortness of breath and fainting, and was taken directly to triage. Immediately they ran an EKG, and in a very few minutes, had me back in a cubicle in the ER proper. It was now about 8PM.

Now for the blood draw. No fewer than three people came in to try to get blood out of me. My veins had done a disappearing act. Usually they can find SOMEWHERE to stick me, but no luck. The ER nurse called the phlebotomist on the hosptial floor for assistance, and she refused to come down, saying they should stick me in the leg. I was not for that, and neither was Ralph (seriously, he was great!), the ER nurse. He finally found a place where they could draw blood, and off to the lab it went, and I waited. And waited. And waited some more. I heard the exasperated comments of the staff, trying to get beds for us patients, and there were none. One man had been in the ER for forty-eight hours, because there was no bed in cardiac care for him, and the only other heart monitor systems are in the ER. I was going to be a problem, too, since they can't put female patients in the male wards, and they would need a private room to vacate.

I waited. A doctor came in to check on me, and told me that he would bet I was "a quart low" and would need blood. We would have to wait for the lab results. Meanwhile, I was having quite an attack of the restless leg syndrome, and that made my already painful back even worse. I asked for some pain medication, and was rewarded with a Percocet. Unlike a lot of people, that drug does not make me euphoric in the least, and gives me a nasty hangover when it wears off. I was miserable and it was now 1 AM.

My ex was falling asleep in the chair. He needed to go home, and I worried about that long boring drive with him so sleepy. (Same stretch of road where I fell asleep at the wheel and totaled my car nearly six years ago.) Almost 2AM, no sign of whether I was going to be admitted for sure. I told him to go on home; I'd call him in the morning. Well, later that same morning to be precise.

The nurse came back round and told me that one of the vials of blood they had drawn was "no good". WTF? Since I don't have knowledge of how that could happen, it just makes me wonder how the others were. I had already been stuck seven times in attempt to put in an IV line, and for blood drawing. I was already black and blue all over my arms. I looked like a battered woman, and was in a sense. Nurse Ralph told me that he could probably do best by drawing out an artery on my wrist. This is how they draw blood for arterial blood gases, and it can be really painful. Been there, done that. I was nervous about it, but it has to be better than taking it in the leg, so Ralph assured me that he once worked in a prison hospital, where the junkies had no veins left to stick, and he was good at hitting this artery, carefully feeling for the pulse. Bingo! One shot and he was in there, no fishing around for this guy. I wanted to kiss him, almost. ; )

Another group of doctors, the attending physician, the resident, and a med student, all female, trooped in to evaluate me. Poke, prod, look at the rims of my eyes, etc. Questions, questions, more questions. They decided to check for blood in my stool. (With an ostomy, that's easily done.) The occult test was positive. I'm bleeding somewhere, albeit slowly, since nothing was visible. They order the blood for sure.

Four AM. The word comes from above that beds are opening up. A little scary, because no one gets formally discharged in the middle of the night on a holiday weekend. The gentleman who had been waiting forty-eight hours was taken up to a room. The man gasping in the next cubicle was carted away. Then it was my turn. The staff was so short-handed that Ralph had to roll me upstairs on the gurney. I've never seen a nurse do that before. There has always been someone on duty to transport patients to the floors.

They take me to the fifth floor, generally the neurosurgery floor. My room was a double, but both beds were empty. It was a negative pressure room, one that is used for isolation. The door had to remain closed, or an alarm would beep. I heard plenty of beeping over the next few hours. The tech came in to take my vitals, and shortly two nurses came in with the promised blood. They determined that the IV port I got downstairs would not do for transfusion. They stuck me again. At least they didn't go on a fishing expedition, either.

There is a new procedure at the VA for transfusion protocol. It's like a missile launch; two people have to be there to confirm it. While I was down in the ER, I had been tagged numerous times by different people and now had four armbands. One of them was the crossmatch band, with little biohazard red stickers for the blood match. The two nurses had to check my name, social security number, blood type, and a couple other things before they could think about starting the infusion. Actually, I have no problem with check and recheck in the least. Especially when it comes to something like this.

It took some time to get the lines ready, as there is a filter on the line, and it has to be routed through another IV line. I watched in a way I don't think I have before. The dark crimson blood is cold when they bring it in. It takes a few moments before it begins to make its way down the tubing and into your veins. It's still cool as it gets to the entry point, although you can't feel the coolness past that. I idly thought about how this was the colour they settled on for Daredevil's movie costume. Blood red.

By now it was nearly 5AM. I was exhausted to the point of dozing, but was awakened at ridiculous intervals by the automatic blood pressure cuff inflating, or someone coming in to ask more questions. It took until almost 8AM for the unit of blood to finish, then they brought me another one. I tried to sleep. The shift had changed, and a new group of people began the parade into the room. I turned on the tv. There was a movie channel in the hospital, and I sort of watched "The New World", only because it had Colin Farrell in it. Beautifully photographed, but boring as hell. Best part of it was the way they cast the Native Americans. Some beautiful people in this movie.

All this time, I had been NPO, no food or water. The docs had told me I couldn't eat until the GI doc came in. He finally showed up, and that gave me the go ahead to eat, since they couldn't do the testing yet (that will be outpatient, later). I reminded him on the way out the door to tell the appropriate people, please. I know I've waited hours for food before, when a doctor forgot to issue orders that I could eat. At 5PM on Saturday, I got a meal. Real food, too! A barbequed pork chop, baby lima beans, turnip greens, tea, milk, a slice of whole wheat bread and a chocolate chip cookie. I have never eaten turnip greens in my life, but I did then, and they tasted pretty good. Add another item to Things I Thought I Didn't Like But Will Eat Now.

No rest for the wicked. The gaggle of med students, interns, and docs wandered in, and all the questions were asked again, along with poking and prodding. This is the bane of being at a teaching hospital, but in reality I am glad for it, because you really do get some cutting edge care. And then you get the poor little medical student who has to do the dirty work, like checking stool samples. I struck up a conversation with her in the ER, and she was back on Saturday to give me a "tilt test", which checks your blood pressure lying down and standing up. Bless her. This was her very first time to use the new automated blood pressure cuffs, and she had to read to operate it. She was very sweet, and I hope that attitude can stick with her through her schooling and serve her well as a doctor. I told her so.

I was told that I would be transferred when a bed became available down to the cardiac care unit for a twenty-four hour heart monitoring. Seems that when your hematocrit levels drop like this, it can stress your heart. Once again, I was shuffled around, this time to a private room overlooking the loading docks of the hospital and the fire station across the street. It was better than the previous room, where I overlooked the roof of an adjoining building.

A nurse came in to attach the heart monitor, which has six leads to it, but is wireless as far as being tethered to the wall. A great improvement over the old kind. We had a laugh about certain parts of the female anatomy that eventually succumb to gravity, and it was quiet for a while. I watched something on public tv, and don't even remember what.

The medications that I normally take were brought to me, along with some new ones, and I fell asleep sometime after 11PM. At 3AM, the phlebotomist appeared for another draw. I got up to go to the bathroom, noticing that I wasn't feeling wheezy now, and then went back to dreamless sleep until the breakfast tray came in shortly after 7AM. French toast and bacon, orange juice, milk, Special K cereal, and undrinkable coffee. Except for the coffee, I wolfed it down.

Dozing on and off, I got a phone call from my ex, letting me know he was going to see my mother in my stead, and that he would come over when he left the nursing home after lunch. I tried to watch another movie, but it was just too boring. Instead I looked at some public tv stuff, and kept trying to sleep. I couldn't call anyone because cellphones were prohibited on that floor, and all my numbers were in the cellphone, not my head. One bad thing about flash dialing.

The GI doc came in and told me that it appeared that I do have something going on in my gut that is probably causing the anemia. I'm going to have to have a scope for them to find out. I am not amused. They will have to go from the top, as there is no way in from the other end. He suspects Crohn's disease in my small bowel, which can cause a slow leakage of blood. Hoo boy. He also said they would cut me loose Sunday afternoon. I was overjoyed by that.

Lunch arrived: roast pork, parslied potatoes, broccoli with cheese sauce, and a slice of apple pie. Not bad. I could have eaten the platter they brought it in on, so the food tasted good.

My ex called, and handed the phone to my mother, who could not understand a word I said (being now quite hard of hearing). She was confused as to what was going on, and I smoothed it over saying I was coming home, they had just kept me "overnight". I did not say two nights.

I told him that they were going to discharge me that afternoon, but had no idea what time. He said he'd be up around 2PM. I tried to watch another movie, and fell asleep.

He got there about 1:30PM and the only thing on tv halfway interesting was the women's world championship beach volleyball finals. Note I said halfway. The nurse came in and unhooked the monitor and told me that I could get dressed. We cleared out around 4PM.

We stopped at Wendy's for a hamburger, and got Frosties to take to my mother and Mrs. Harris, her roommate. Sunday was Mrs. Harris' ninety-second birthday, and the doctors told her last week when she was in the hospital, that she probably wouldn't see another one.

My mother is not eating again. This is not good. I feel that when Mrs. Harris goes, my mother will not be far behind. They have come to really rely on each other.

I should go out to see her today. I don't honestly have the energy to do it, and if she has "a bug" that is making her ill, I do not need to be exposed any more. It creates quite a dilemma. Calling her only upsets her. I've found that out from my brother calling her. Another rock and a hard place.

If you have made it to the bottom of this, congratulations. Just recalling it all makes ME tired. Wake up! You have better stuff to do than read my blog! ; )

Junk mail, the other spam

2006-07-19T16:57:00.000-05:00

I hate junk mail. My mother used to call it "dog mail", because it might as well be addressed to the dog as "Resident". Today was a whole dogpile of dogmail.

I don't ever check the mailbox in front of the house because I have a post office box. Anything that is of importance comes to that address, not here. I had forgotten just how long since I opened it, until the doorbell rang today, and the postman stood there in his little postman short pants, with an armload of dogmail. He was checking to see if anyone was living here, because not another smooth postcard would fit in the box.

He was very nice, and I explained that I had a post office box and didn't really look for mail here, and I'd be more attentive to cleaning out the "boxholder" mail. That's the postal term for stuff addressed to "Resident" or "Boxholder", adverts, flyers, pitiful pleas from people trying to sell you Christmas cards for the poor little children on the Indian Reservation or whatever. He said it looked like there might be a few envelopes mixed in, so be sure to go through it before I tossed it. I assured him I would do that.

I dragged up a wastebasket, my letter opener (the one with the loaves and fishes on it that I got for a year's service teaching Sunday School to Episcopalian brats) and the paper shredder. First I went through and pulled out all the catalogs for Casual Male and trashed them. Next came all the adverts for pizza, tire rotations, oil changes, and Walgreens. Slam dunk! Then I opened and shredded at least fifteen offers for "pre-approved" credit cards. How can they pre-approve ME? I have no real job, and my ex took me through bankruptcy a couple of years ago. About half of them now come with a little faux credit card (see pic) that says on the back "This is not a real credit card." Duh.

The shredder stalled. I had to compact the paper in the basket to continue.

Then there was Sears telling me that the warranty on my dryer had expired. Last February.

About a dozen dunning notices from a firm in Ohio that is trying to get me to pay a chunk of money that the VA did not pay to a HEART SPECIALIST who must have been cruising through the ER about the time I landed there with a bowel obstruction. If the man even talked to me, I have no proof, just a bill for $550 that I refuse to pay. I've also gotten threatening phone calls from this same firm who has probably bought the debt for pennies on the dollar from the original office. They can eat my shorts. What are they going to do? Ruin my non-existant credit?

The best junk mail today, though had to be this thing:

First of all, it's addressed to DR. Alice (last name I used to have). It's congratulating me for being outstanding in my field, and that makes me eligible to have my name in their Who's Who book. The last field I was outstanding in was the cotton field I wrecked my last car in when I fell asleep at the wheel. They assure me that this is a great honour and that I will certainly be proud to tell my friends that I am listed in Who's Who. Oh, c'mon. This is more like What the Hell than Who's Who. In what field do I have a doctorate? Yes, I have a B.S., although I'm probably just full of that most of the time. Oh, and Strathmore's Who's Who is not to be confused with Someone Else's Who's Who, according to the minute print at the bottom of the letter. It was so small I literally had to get the magnifier out to see what it said. What a crock of horsecrap.

Rip. Shred. Slam dunk.

Sweating the small stuff

2006-06-23T01:44:00.000-05:00

I had an "interesting" experience today. Went to the mail box at UPS and got a boatload of mail and my drugs from the VA. Also, a check for $25 for some patterns. Yay! Then I decided to go to Sam's club for some essentials, like toilet paper, freezer bags, milk, cheese, deli meats.

Got home to find my landlord had mowed the yard and was weedeating the drive. This was around 3:15, and it was scorching hot. I took in the cold items, grabbed a couple bottles of water out of the fridge and took him one. We talked in the shade of the house for about 5 minutes, then I went back to take the rest of the stuff in from the car. I had begun to break out in my normal prickly heat rash already. This happens everytime I get a little overheated.

By the time I was making the third trip from the car to the house, I felt like I was about to pass out. I had already downed most of that half-litre of water, so I chugged the rest, and sat down. I've had heat exhaustion before, so I knew the signs, I thought. I stripped and took a cold shower, then sat down on the edge of the tub to towel off, because I was feeling lightheaded. I went into the bedroom, put on clean undies and a tshirt, and fell onto the bed for a few minutes. I was noticing that everything looked to me as if I had just stepped out of the bright sunlight. Weird.

So I got up and nearly had a vertigo spell. This was not good. I stumbled into the living room, drank another half-litre of water, and it occured to me that I hadn't eaten today. Maybe I was also having a blood sugar drop. I grabbed a piece of this peppermint sugar stick candy that I love, and ate it, hoping that might also help.

The funky thing was what my vision was doing. Everything looked sort of splotchy, like looking at the ground under a tree where it's dappled with sunlight. I could barely read the computer screen, but I looked up heat exhaustion on WebMD, and found that I had done all the right stuff so far, except go to the ER. I seriously contemplated calling 911, but decided that I wouldn't because I didn't seem to have a fever, and I was still sweating. (If you stop sweating, it's heat stroke...get to the ER.)

I threw some cheese tortellini on to boil and sat down to answer emails. My vision began to clear, and I began to cool down. After I had the tortellini, I decided to lie down and take a nap. I didn't wake up until almost 9PM. I just can't take the heat at all any more. I probably wasn't outside a total of more than fifteen minutes out of the air conditioning. Another reason I don't go out during the daytime heat.

Twice before, I've had a collapse from the heat. Both those times were in Navy boot camp, where we were marching in the 97 degree heat of the Orlando sun. The first time, I made it back to the barracks, where I collapsed on the way to the bathroom. Next thing I knew, they had stripped me down and put me in the cold shower and were forcing me to drink water.

The next time, I was running the 2-1/4 mile run, and on the next to the last lap, I fell out. I remember people jumping over me. I got some water down me, and the drill instructors informed me that I was now joining "Special Training Division" because that made me fail the run. I spent three months in boot camp, when most people only spend two, or go home. I didn't want to be a bad statistic. I also spent my thirtieth birthday in "special training". The instructor asked me one day why I just didn't give up and go home. I told them that day I turned thirty, and I wasn't going to quit until I was out of there. The next day, I passed the drill.

Reworking the scrapbooks

2006-06-16T23:33:00.000-05:00

It's been a long time since I stuck all this stuff into one of those horrible "magnetic pages" albums. Last week I found a really nice photo album with those archival slip in pages that was marked down to $4.99. Bargain! It also has the Navy emblem on the front, and twenty empty pages!

This particular page isn't going into that particular album, but buying THAT album got me started pulling things out to do a rework of the old albums.

The origami paper doll and the paper are some things I picked up when I first got on island. I am such a packrat! Still have UNFOLDED origami paper I bought in 1984! One of the coolest things I discovered when I got to Okinawa was the brush pen. I'd never seen one before, and I just loved writing with them, and the title strip was one of the first things I did with that new implement.

Looking through my scrapbooks, I now know that there is a whole lot of material here to play with, and remember the good days I spent halfway around the world. I used to scrapbook before it was the thing to do. I can't believe all the stuff in the scrapbooking aisles of the stores now. To me, scrapbooking is putting the stuff you collected yourself into a book. Maybe I've just always been such a packrat that I have all kinds of cool stuff to use! My goal is to buy nothing except maybe some background paper and the page sleeves to store the pages. I want to keep the funky album covers I bought overseas. That's the charm of scrapbooks, to me.

Happy Flag Day!

2006-06-14T16:24:00.000-05:00

Call me a flagwaver, because I am. No apologies whatsoever. I love my country, despite her flaws. I've served my country proudly. Long may Old Glory wave!

Kitten Kaboodle

2006-05-30T19:53:00.000-05:00

I spent the weekend helping a friend move her houseful of rescued cats from Memphis to Nashville. She has bought a house, and it has the most wonderful playroom that I'm sure belonged to kids before, but will now make a great cat playhouse. There are cubbies for nearly everyone, and a great patio door that looks out onto the back yard with several trees. I would love help her build some catwalks to traverse the overhead space. Maybe that will happen someday soon.

When I came back from Nashville, the resident feral kitty, whom I call Pippin, met me at the door. She's a sweet cat, not quite tame enough to let me touch her, but recently has decided to rub on my pantleg. Suppose that means I'm ok.

Today, upon return from some errands, I got a surprise. Little kitty-heads popped up from behind the concrete border bricks along the porch. I had my camera with me, so I took a long shot, assuming they would bolt. I quietly walked up to them, and found three little guys cowering under the ledge. One is a mini-Pippen, one looked to be entirely black, and the third is orange and white, and a good bit fuzzier than the others. Two made a break for it, and the third stayed put, probably because its eyes were matted shut.

After I put up some things in the house, I came back out and gathered the little guy up and brought it in to try to wash the gooky off its eyes. Otherwise, the kitten looked fine. No matted hair, fairly clean ears for a feral, and no sneezing. Quite a voice, however, when I began gently soaking off the icky with warm water and some cotton swabs. As soon as I got it cleaned up, I took it back out and set it back on the porch, and it immediately retreated to the same corner. I peeked out later to see it munching on the moistened kibbles I put out. The other two haven't come back, but they ran toward my fenced back yard, and are probably hiding under the outbuilding.

Now, what do I do with more kitties? I can't bring any more into the house. If I can catch the mother cat, she is going to get spayed, and I will try to find homes for the kittens.

Net Neutrality

2006-05-17T14:52:00.000-05:00

Do yourself a favor: take a look at what is going on with internet neutrality.

There is a lot we all stand to lose if legislation is shoved through on this, so do take a look at this issue. Please.

New bookshelves

2006-05-15T15:58:00.000-05:00

Uffda! I've been working on these things all day long. Well, I have to admit that I work fifteen minutes, sit down for a few, then work fifteen more. Days like today are the ones where the mind is willing but the body is weak, and it takes way longer to do something that you thought it might. I know at the end of today, I might have these all assembled, but the place is a wreck from all the stuff I took off the old shelves.

It's midafternoon, and I'm beat. I might have to take a siesta and come back for round two. I already have bumps and bruises showing up where I have dropped a piece of shelving or banged against another piece of furniture. Grrrr.

What you see here is one set, with one more layer to add to the top, and the bottom layer of the second set.

Which side are you on?

2006-05-15T13:33:00.000-05:00

In case you aren't familiar with this joke, Marvel comics has a new storyline called Civil War, where the superheroes are divided over a superhero registration act. Some are siding with Captain America; others take the same stance as Iron Man. Pictured here is Toby, dressed up to play Darekitty. I think I'll go with him. ; )

I've been working toward reorganising my library space with new shelving from Ikea. I bought their Effektiv storage units, and am presently building them in the living room, six feet to the right of where I'm sitting now. They are easy to put together, but heavy. I might have to call in some reinforcements to help me get this job done. Film at eleven.

Another Great Adventure

2006-05-09T17:38:00.000-05:00

Wow, what a weekend! The Free Comic Book Day festivities at CAPE 2 (Comics and Popculture Expo) in Dallas, TX, were sponsored by Zeus Comics. We drove down from NE Arkansas to participate in an event we hadn't attended before, but had heard great things about it from others.

The first part of the trip was rather uneventful: nice weather, not too hot, not a lot of traffic, and didn't have to speed to make time because the roads are not under construction right now. We didn't get away from town quite as early as we first planned, but we had enough leeway built in that we didn't feel rushed to get going. My car was well-loaded down with the display rack for the quilts, tshirts to (hopefully) sell, my sewing machine, K's artwork, and what I now believe to be a lot of good karma.

We only stopped a few times, once in Texarkana, TX, to get gasoline and some sketchpaper and pens (ooooo! New Stardust Pentel pens!) and make a pitstop. K read Good Omens to me as I drove. That was so much better than listening on tape or cd! We decided to take a break one more time around dusk somewhere between Greenville and Dallas. It wasn't until we got to our hotel that K realised her wallet was missing.

For some reason, I didn't feel panic at all, probably because it was not MY wallet and life that wallets tend to contain. I called my ex, and asked him to pull up the Subway sandwich shops website and see where they were located along the interstate. He gave me the phone numbers, and we called all of them to see if the wallet had turned up. No one had seen it. I had a feeling that possibly there was a shop that was too new to be on the website, so we jumped back in the car and drove some forty-odd miles back across Dallas and out to look for where we had stopped.

It was not the first couple of places we saw, because we remembered it being connected to a service station/convenience store, although we didn't remember what brand of gasoline they sold. Finally, we spotted the right Subway/Exxon station combo across the freeway, and went to the next exit to turn around. The news was good. The person who spotted the wallet told the store manager that there was a wallet in the restroom, and she didn't want to pick it up, just report it. Everything was still in there. Good people still exist out there.

Breathing a collective sigh of relief, we went back to the hotel and decided not to try to attend the mixer on Friday night, because we had some things to do and were already tired. I worked on some braille t-shirts and K worked on some sketches.

We arrived at CAPE a little before 8AM for setup. They were just finishing the tent setup, and we waited a few minutes for the tables to be placed, and to find our spot. We were on the outside edge of this huge tent in the parking lot, near the power source so I could run the sewing machine. We had good neighbors with the guys from Stumblebum Studios on one side and Larry Dixon on the other. Very nice setup, very smooth, and the folks who put on the show from Zeus Comics had plenty of staff to help out with anything and everything. They had portajohns on site, lunch provided (really good pasta and salad!), table covers to make the show look more polished. They are quickly learning how to run a great show. And to think that this event is FREE to the public to meet the guests and to pick up comics, and FREE to the guests as far as setting up tables and attending the parties. You can't beat a deal like that all the way around.

More soon.

So close, but not quite.

2006-05-02T16:28:00.000-05:00

I just couldn't do it. It's about 4:30 pm, and I just shut off the sewing machine after a marathon sewfest. I was down to the last bit of background quilting, but the borders needed to be put on, and they would need to be quilted, too. I went in to square up the quilt and my brain no longer functioned. I haven't really slept in about 36 hours. I tried to nap yesterday, but my brain at that point was in high gear, figuring all sorts of cool things to do on this quilt. If you look closely, some of those things are the three dimensional belt on Gunther and the archer chick, the 3D quiver with arrows, something you can't see in this shot...a 3D scabbard for a very cool dagger on the archer chick's calf.

The lesson to be learned here is...get your act together, Alice. Starting this thing one day earlier would have made the difference. I tossed in the towel knowing that I had less than 3 hours before FedEx closes to mail my photos for the jurying of the contest. Reality sunk in when I thought about the fact that it will probably take me that long to put the binding on, once I get it cut.

Face facts, girl. You might be Darediva, but you ain't WonderWoman.

I quilted a boatload of oak leaves into the background, rather than do all stippling. They aren't really yellow, that's just a highlighter effect to show you where a couple of them are.

At least, this will be done for us to take with us this weekend when we go to Dallas for Cape 2!

Will she make it?

2006-05-02T05:37:00.000-05:00

Here's what is done at the moment. I have until 8 pm to have this done, photographed, and the photos to FedEx. No rest for the wicked.

I have the side panels to sew onto here, the background quilting to be done, and the binding. Screw the hanging sleeve for now. I can add that later, along with the fancy label on back.

The finishing stuff will go on after the quilting. I will add some shadows to her hair to make it have some definition, and the bowstring will be adding in the quilting step, as will some metal studs on the armour and jewels on the wand.

Gotta run.

On being a Disabled American Veteran

2006-04-30T23:20:00.000-05:00

Some twenty-odd years ago, I joined the Navy to see the world and get a college education. Mostly, I got to see a lot of Florida. But the point here is that during my service to my country, I injured my back on the job, which screwed up any plan of making the Navy a career. The good thing to come out of this was that college education now came free as part of my voc-rehab. The bad part would be I would find out how much the VA discriminated against women for the longest.

I was told upon discharge from the Navy that I should go directly to the Veteran's Affairs office and apply for that system. I did just that, getting an appointment for a C&P exam. I was also told that I wouldn't have to worry, the VA would up my disability rating, they always do.

Nothing could have been further from the truth. I went in for the evaluation, and the doctor there asked me questions such as "Are you married?" "Who does the laundry?" "Who does the shopping?" "Who does the housecleaning?" It appeared that if I was married, I had a husband TO TAKE CARE OF ME and therefore didn't need any compensation for an injury that usually gave a man a 100% rating. They "gave" me a 10% rating, patted me on the head and sent me on my way.

I did get into the VA hospital system; they could not deny me that because it was a service connected disablility. Twenty years ago, the way that the doctors handled someone who complained of pain was to give them enough drugs to make them a zombie, then they wouldn't squawk. I was given enough stuff to make me stupid, and I found I had little choice other than bear the pain of everyday living or take the drugs and forget about everything else. I chose not to take the drugs. I like to be able to find my ample backside with both hands.

After several years of no monthly compensation because I had drawn severance from the Navy, I found the Disabled American Veterans post, and joined. One of the local chapter members had been a National Service Officer at one point, and he kindly showed me the ropes of reapplying for increased benefits. (Even though it was painfully obvious that the old boys' club that was the DAV would rather have me sitting out with "the little women" of the Auxillary.)

My benefits increased to 40% with no problem, and the doctor who interviewed me this time was appalled to hear what the first doctor had said. But not appalled enough to raise my benefits above the 50% mark, which makes a huge difference in your standing in the VA pecking order.

A couple of years later, I went through the evaluation again, this time pulling 60%. I would have been very happy had I not known that one of the fellow vets from my post had just been awarded 100% for the very same injury I have. One the way home from the evals, he was bragging about the new boat he had just gotten, and how he really had put one over on the VA finally. I was fairly steamed.

The point of telling all this, I suppose, is to point out how the odds can get stacked against a person who is trying to get benefits. Just being female kept me from getting the same as someone else.

Today I drive a car with disabled plates bordered by a "DAV Life Member" frame. I still get countless dirty looks when I get out of my car, and people assume nothing is wrong because I don't use a chair. (Or they assume that my husband is the disabled vet. Funny now, because I don't have a husband any more.) They have no idea what kind of pain I deal with when I go shop for necessities. If I didn't have the plates, I would avoid places with large parking lots, because it would be all I could do to get into the store, much less spend a great deal of time shopping. As it is, I am dragging at the end of a grocery shopping trip. I hate it. But I am ABLE to deal with it because I did get the plates. (P.S. I never park in the "van" spaces. That just wouldn't be right.)

All is not bad, however. I would like to say that overall, the care I have received from the VA is very good. It's much better now that I have a 60% rating that makes me eligible for prescriptions without copay. Services for women veterans are also much more available. But I do see a lot of things evaporating as the government pulls money away from the VA healthcare system to pay for other budget shortfalls. That's no way to treat those who gave of themselves in service to the nation.

Thank you for reading.

Gettin' there

2006-04-29T23:54:00.000-05:00

The characters are beginning to spring to life! Pyrus is pretty much done save for a few details, and I have the hair done on all of them. I don't have the beard done on Gunther yet. I may have to take a couple of test runs at that to determine how to do the best stubbly beard.

Once I get all the figure work done, I will cut away the layer of batting that I'm working on top of now, leaving batting only under the figures. The side panels will be squared up and placed with the main panel. The whole top will then be sandwiched with another layer of batting, and the backing. The background will be quilted, and we are thinking about leaves or possibly a castle turret. Woohoo!
This isn't photographed on a flat surface, so a bit of distortion is resulting. It will all make good sense when I get it flat on a wall and get a good overall shot.

Gunther looks odd with no beard! ; ) The belt buckle is a real one, and the belt is a 3D added piece. There will also be one on the archer chick; you can see that above Gunther's shoulder, where it hasn't been sewn in yet.

Flame on!

2006-04-29T02:24:00.000-05:00

That refers to Pyrus' hair. Not a lot to report today, even though progress was made. I found out what NOT to do the next time I attempt this type of project...I will NOT use a fusible bonding agent underneath the applique pieces for this type of work where I am doing freemotion embroidery over the applique. I've found it gums up the needle and causes the thread to fray horribly.

I'm using Metafil size 80/12 needles, and Sulky rayon embroidery thread. The fabrics are all 100% cotton, some from Red Rooster fabrics, and some hand-dyed. This is what I've used on all my other embroidery projects, and it has to be the fusible that is causing the grief. I normally do almost all of the freemotion embroidery without any applique, but the size of this piece (51 inches square) would make it impractical.

I did finish the second Celtic knotwork panel, so that intricate stuff will not be making me crazy at the last minute. I hope. I'm sure that something will go awry, and make me sweat bullets before this is over. Ah, but that's half the fun!

Keeping odd hours

2006-04-27T05:01:00.000-05:00

That's really nothing new for me. It's 5 am, and I've been up all night doing the Celtic knot border for the quilt. This was fun, but quite the challenge. To keep me entertained while I worked, I put on a couple of movies. First I watched Sneakers, which always makes me think about the fact that Frank Miller modeled his version of Matt Murdock after a young Robert Redford. After watching that, and the "making of" portion of the dvd which I had not seen before. I put on the director's cut of Daredevil, which I haven't watched for at least THREE months! Travesty! Yeah, it's as good as I remembered ; )

Here's a close up of the knotwork. In the far off view, the purple part doesn't show up much. I may have to use some contrast thread in the quilting to make it show better. There's way too much work there for it to not show.

I just spoke on Yahoo Messenger with Wonder Alice. She has had a migraine today, and so did I earlier. I slept most of the day trying to get rid of it, and didn't wake up again until almost 10 pm. It was down to a dull roar, so I was able to get work done on the quilt again. There wasn't enough on the main part that I accomplished to even document. But it's progressing nicely, and I work well under a deadline.

Shaping up

2006-04-26T01:42:00.000-05:00

Not me! The quilt project! As you can gather here, things are looking up. I found some sparkly things today to use to add to the wizard's wand, and a good rough leather-looking fabric for Gunther's boots.

This is the part where I look at the project and know it will all come together, but I know other people really aren't feeling it yet...

This is most of the applique cutting, and the next step will be to start the thread painting details. That's the fun part, when the figures take on dimensions and the various textures start to show. I should have the faces all done tomorrow.

More Work in Progress

2006-04-23T23:54:00.000-05:00

This is how we build a quilt...

Step one: Trash through the extensive fabric stash for that one piece that is PERFECT for Pyrus' hair, Gunther's boots, or the archer's outfit. The inner sanctum of the domestic goddess will remain in total chaos until the project is finished.

Who wants to clean up when you are in manic creative mode? Not me.

The pattern is traced onto a fusible webbing, placed on the back of the specific fabric, and cut out. K got introduced tonight to the joys of pinning patterns to fabric.

This is Gunther's hair and his collar to his cape. On the white sheet behind are random pieces of his armour waiting to be cut out.

This is the elven(sp?) archer's face and headpiece.

We will be working this piece from the background to the foreground.

The pieces are assembled and pressed onto the background fabric with a small Clover iron. I have to wear white gloves when I work with fabric. A few years ago, I developed the occupational hazard of dye allergies. My hands crack open and bleed when I handle fabric if I don't wear these lovely designer gloves with the fingertips cut off.

Details will be added when the stitching begins. All the facial features and garment details will be done in free motion machine embroidery.

We had to quit at midnight. K has to go back to her real job, and I have to go to Memphis to the VA for an eye exam. I do hope it doesn't take all day.

Work in progress

2006-04-21T03:12:00.000-05:00

Sometimes what seems should be the easy part of a project isn't. Once you settle on a design, picking fabric can be quite the challenge, especially if you are working out of your current stash rather than going out and buying from scratch.

I think I have pulled through every piece of fabric I own, and friends, let me tell you, I could stock a small store with what I have in the collection. Nearly twenty years of serious fabric collecting, and I haven't even bought any in the past couple of years.

What you see here is the background fabrics that I have decided on for the Shining Armor project. The mossy green will be the major part, and the wheat print will be the background behind the Celtic knotwork pattern I've put together for the flanking panels. I've chosen fabrics for the characters' clothes, hair, skin tone, and the binding. There most certainly will be things that I will decide won't work, once I'm started sewing, but I have to make hay whether the sun shines or not in the next week. Photos of the completed 51" square quilt must be in by May 1, 2006.

Here is the full scale pattern for the Celtic knotwork border. It measures 7 inches wide by 49 inches long, and will run vertically on either side of the main characters. It will be woven of 1/4 inch wide bias tubing, in purple and a steely blue.

The reason for the red at the top? I forgot to change out the divider sheet in the printer and why waste a good print when it doesn't matter? These will be made by putting a piece of waxed paper over the pattern and weaving the knots, dabbing a bit of fabric glue at the intersections to hold everything together. When that is done, I will gently slide them onto the background fabric, pin and glue them in place, and stitch them down. Or that's the plan right now. 8 )

The goal for tomorrow is to get some of the first parts of the characters worked onto the mossy background. I will be appliqueing the fabrics onto the background, adding the precise details with machine freeform embroidery. Most of the threads have already been chosen, too, so what is left is to get rolling on this bad boy, and do it up right. Stay tuned.

Serendipity

2006-04-17T00:57:00.000-05:00

Easter Sunday has come once more, and I was privileged enough to get to spend it with my mother. I got up this morning and prepared one of her favorite meals, chicken and dumplings (the puffy kind, not the flat rolled ones) and took it out to her at the nursing home. I had arranged yesterday for the ex to meet me there, because my mother had asked about him. He has always been good to her, and went above and beyond the call of duty when she was living in our home. My mother was quite surprised when he walked in her room, and cried when he hugged her. I think this is probably the first time in almost two years she has seen him, because of our breakup.

Mama and Mrs. Harris, her roommate, were very pleased with the dumplings, and made quick work of them. We went out to the front parlor area, and sat with my mother and talked a little and watched a couple of old comedies on TV Land. It was a pleasant day, and afterwards, the ex and I did a quick run through at Big Lots for some groceries. He hates to shop, and for some reason lately, has been asking me to accompany him. Odd, since he would never go with me before.

The high pollen count is still giving me a terrible time, so I downed some antihistamines and went to lie down for a while. I must have been tired, as I slept until almost 8 pm. I checked email, talked briefly with a couple of online friends, and cruised by a couple of blogs. As I was getting ready to sign into this blog to make an entry, I saw on the scrolling blogs that were being updated "wonder alice". Of course, that got me curious. Down the rabbithole that is the internet I went.

By extreme coincidence, wonder alice is also going through the problems of macular degeneration, but the wet form, which is so much more devastating than what I've been through up to this point with the dry form. She lives in Japan, and by reading her blog, I got the pleasure of seeing many views of the sakuras, something I only got to do once, and it was in Washington, D.C. instead of Japan. Still a beautiful memory for me.

Through her excellent photo blogging, wonder alice has rekindled my desire for some of the wonderful Asian cuisine that I sampled during my tour of duty on Okinawa. She also has something else in common with me...a love of floral design. Even though I no longer do it on a regular basis, the skills come in handy on occasion. Just the other day, when rearranging a lot of things in my flat, I came across several of my ikebana containers and the heavy pin frogs I bought off the base in Kadena and Naha. I must try my hand at this again. It does wonders for your soul to work with nature's beauty.

I have a lot to do this coming week, and I hope I can get it all done. So, if you don't see me around quite as much, it's because I'm concentrating in the inner sanctum of the domestic goddess, aka the sewing room.

The Ides of April

2006-04-16T04:06:00.000-05:00

I've never been one to jump on a bandwagon, mostly because I couldn't catch it. If I did catch it, I'd have to have someone give me a hand to hoist me up there. So, what am I doing here, adding my blog to Blogging Against Disablism Day on May 1?

Maybe I will come up with something insightful by then. I hope so. Right this moment, it is 0416 and I am rather fried after a long day of helping celebrate my mother's eighty-sixth birthday, and doing a few other things important only to myself.

****

I would like to say that I do not think Tiger Woods would have intentionally used the "s-word" had he known the connotations it has outside the US. I know it was a phrase that I have heard and probably used over the years without having any clue it was considered bad taste in other places. It's another case of two countries being separated by that common language again. Here in the good old U S of A, a bum is a guy who is too lazy to work for a living. Until recently, when a friend sent me a great dictionary of American/British terms, I didn't know it could be a part of your anatomy. Ah, semantics.

Tied up in knots

2006-03-30T03:35:00.000-06:00

This evening, my friend K and I worked on our collaboration for a quilt contest that I want to enter. Actually, we are working on two quilts; one with her artwork, and one with her fiance's art. This is what you see here.

I decided to fill in some of the border space with Celtic knotwork. There won't be gaps in it, that's just where I dropped the repeats to see how they would fit. Adjustments will be made to fit the space. I haven't completely decided if I will do it with bias tape woven in and out, or if I will do it with quilting stitches to be less competitive with the interior art, which is rather elaborate on its own. I think I will have to get the center done first, then figure that out.

All I know is that I must get cracking on it. The jury slides have to be in by May 2.

Shock

2006-03-18T17:10:00.000-06:00

One of my best friends just told me that her longtime boyfriend had a massive stroke early this morning, and he has been declared brain dead. I missed her phone call because I forgot to stick my cell phone in my pocket on the way out the door to the post office. I had a few groceries to put up, and didn't look at the phone right away.

I had powered up the computer and was checking email when I saw her come online in a messenger service. I had just been thinking about calling her, because we are collaborating on a project right now. I casually asked her what's up, as is normal, and got one of the great shocks of my life. She first said she didn't know what to do, and I had no idea what had happened. So I learned of K's tragedy on an IM. As things go, I am glad I had left the phone, because if I had been driving when she told me, I think I might have had a wreck.

I picked up the cell and called her immediately, and they were on the way to the hospital to meet with the chaplain and make arrangements for organ donation. I don't want to be in the way right now, and my best intentions feel very feeble to me. God help me to be there for her.

My own father died in the same way. I was barely fifteen and remember it like yesterday. One moment your loved one is there, then suddenly, they are not. Words are failing me...

It takes so little to make me happy...

2006-03-16T13:55:00.000-06:00

This has been an outstanding week so far. My sister visited, her kids didn't tear up my house, and she brought me the Elektra Barbie that I wanted so badly. (I think that I have mentioned here before about her barely beating a fanboy to the last one on the shelf.)

Then I get a package in the post from R in the UK who kindly sent me one of the UK exclusive lead figures of Daredevil, along with a great magazine-style book with the highlights of forty years of the comics. It's an awesome sculpt for a figure only about three and a half inches tall.

Today was quite a surprise, though. I was lazily perusing the Bendis messageboards, and clicked on Michael Lark's board. There was a preview to some art for DD issue #85, and beside it, a note to me. Now, just how cool is that? It's the art you see here above.

I need to scrape myself off the ceiling and go get busy. Heh.

Hail! Hail! The Bang's all here...

2006-03-09T17:24:00.000-06:00

This just in...some really big hail out here. I am afraid to go look at my car. I know with hail this big, it's bound to have beat it up somewhat. Oh, well, that's why I buy insurance, eh?

There were tornados in the area, and we still have watches until 9 PM. There have been no deaths, but a lot of damage. I really hate that part of living in this area, the middle of Tornado Alley.

Tales from the VA

2006-02-25T18:52:00.000-06:00

Where do I start this? I guess with getting D to drive me to the VA, when he didn't even get two blocks from my house before he was bitching that his leg was hurting him. (He fell off the back stair at the parts dept sometime last month. Had he gone to PT like the doctor recommended, he probably wouldn't be having this much trouble, but I digress.)

As I learned to do over the course of the past 30 years, I acknowledged the complaint with a meaningless "uh huh", and let it go. There was no more conversation until ten miles down the road when he said he couldn't hear the radio, so he was going to turn
it up. Fine...I couldn't hear it either for the road noise of those gigantic off-road mudgrip tires he has on that truck. So he spent the next half hour switching stations, which has always been a source of annoyance for me. I looked out the window at the freshly plowed and very wet fields that will be planted in cotton in a couple of months. The view is different when you are way up in the air in a monster truck.

We stopped in West Memphis, AR, to go to the Burger King for lunch before we braved the VA. He bought lunch, which I said I would do, and we both got an Angus cheddar burger that was great (sorry, I cannot be a vegan, heheh). He inhaled his and what was left of my fries before I could get done with the burger. Nothing new there, except he didn't say that one more just like it and he'd be fine, which he used to always say.

We got across the river without incident, because any sort of traffic mishap will block the bridge for miles, and prepared to have to circle the parking lot of the VA. As luck would have it, there was a space near the Clinic Annex where you have to go sign in before you go see ANY of the doctors in the entire hospital. So happens that it is also on the farthest most point in the campus if you have to park in the East Lot...so we were double lucky. Whoop.

D was going to buy a paper to read, but the paper machine wasn't functioning, so he had nothing to do while I was there. I signed in at the clinic check-in, and Dan decided that he would park his oversized frame on one of the couches that was right there, and that he would wait for me in that spot. In other words, he couldn't be arsed to walk with me to the eye clinic.

I moseyed on down to the eye clinic check-in, and gave the lady there my paperwork, then took a seat in the waiting area as she directed. My appointment was for 1:15, and it was only 12:30. I sat down and started brailling out my little business cards for the shirts with the business card slate I ordered off ebay. The damn thing only has 11 cells across, so I had to do the first part of the phone number, then flip the card over and finish the line. By the time I did the fifteenth one, I had it down pat.

That was when I heard my name on the page system, and when I went back to the desk, the lady said, someone will be out in a few minutes to get you. So I sat back down and waited some more. After listening to the damn Divorce Court on tv, I was ready to blow out of there. I finally asked her why I hadn't seen anyone yet. Oh, she said, I didn't realise you were here for Ophthalmology. WTF? SHE is the one who handed me a paper when I first got there which was written in at least 24 point type with OPHTHALMOLOGY across the top! She directed me to another waiting room down the hall.

I went in there, sat down again. No one around. I decided I would go find out where the hell I was supposed to be. I grabbed the first person who looked like she might work there and asked if I needed to check in AGAIN. She hauled my paperwork off down another hall, and shortly, someone took me in to do the preliminary screening.

Was it just me, or were the letters getting smaller? She ran me through the eye chart and took my glasses to see what the prescription was. It just now hit me that they did not do a pressure check. Oh, well, glaucoma is not my problem, yet. (My mother has it.)

I was escorted to another room and young Dr. K came in. I remember him from the last time. He's very nice, but has a fishy handshake. Ugh. He pulled up my files on the computer and with an "uh...huh" turned to take me through the next phase. The requisite bright light torture, then he said they would dilate my eyes and be back for me in about 20 minutes. I had to go back out in the waiting area where Divorce Court was still blasting away. I couldn't reach the damn controls, or I would have turned it off. By this time, I was alone.

Dr. K came back for me, and we start the torture again. He says, "You really are sensitive in the right eye, aren't you?" I'm thinking, duh, no, I cry like this all the time. He runs through the eye chart with me again, this time through the funky lens thing, and I couldn't get a good focus out of any of it. When he started that which is clearer, one or two, I couldn't tell much difference unless he went way off. At one point the legs on the E's started to bend. That was very strange.

Final deal was, he gave me a prescription for a new pair of glasses, which he even told me might not make a lot of difference. (Remember, the private doc told me not to waste my money now on a new pair.) He scheduled me to come back in two months for the fluorscein angiogram, because he said he couldn't see a lot going on that was radically different, but my vision is definitely worse from 6 months ago.

I went across the hall to the optician, and actually had a choice of frames. Of course they are not GOOD frames, like the ones I have now, but they look similar. At least they weren't like the "birth control" frames they gave people in boot camp. (So ugly you have no hope of getting laid.) I asked about progressive bifocals, and was told they will not make those. I've never had bifocals with a line in them, and don't want to start now. But free is free. I also asked if I could get a tinted pair for driving, but they won't do that either. However, since I have had cataract surgery, they will tint this pair. So I had to settle for a gradiant tint. They will be on my doorstep in about a month. Who knows if I will even be able to use them? And, it's not like I'm going to get them adjusted when they arrive. Unless I drive to Memphis. Pfffft.

I got my next appointments scheduled, got my travelpay voucher, and took it to the agent cashier to collect my $9.40 travel pay. (That won't even do the gas in MY car, let alone his truck.) D was sitting right where I left him, and it was now 3:25. He said he heard them page me at 1:32.

Now the fun part. Going outside. Thank heavens it decided to cloud up sometime between when we left the building and when we crossed the bridge back into AR. I had a headache and my eyes were tearing something fierce. At least it wasn't bright sunshine like it had been on the way over.

Very little conversation on the way home. I told him about the new freebie glasses and having to come back in 2 months. I'm sure he hopes I can find another ride. This next appt is on a Monday, so I will check to see if the DAV has a van going that day. If not, I guess I will worry about it closer to the time.

He dropped me off at my place, but didn't get out. He complained that he had to go to the grocery store because he didn't have any bread. I believe that if I still lived there, he would not get off his ass from the time he walked in the door until time to go back to work. (Wait...that's how it was when I DID live there!) Things are civil, but I am still very glad to be here by myself with just two cats, instead of a herd.

So, that's the news from here.

What is it about men in tights?

2006-02-11T22:06:00.000-06:00

I've been watching Chad Hendrick, the Texan, win his gold medal in the men's speed skating event. As he was whuppin' up on the competition, I was standing in the kitchen, grilling some shish kebobs, minus the veggies (so is that a shish-less kebob, or a kebob-less shish?), and finding myself actually swaying in time to this guy blasting down the ice.

His emotions had bubbled to the surface earlier in the day, making for increased drama for the commentators. Seems this is the anniversary of his grandmother's death, and she was one of his biggest cheerleaders when he was growing up. For a guy who only rollerbladed up until four years ago, this was an amazing performance. After the definite victory, he said he had written her name across the front of one of his skates, and he was going for it for her. Kinda cool, I thought. Not to mention that Chad looks great in tights.

The pairs figure skating is on tonight too. I am one of the klutziest people on earth, so the grace and poise of skaters has me living a vicarious moment, every time I watch it. I can only skate in my dreams, and once in a while, I get to do it, without the requisite busting of my rather ample arse. In my dreams, I get to wear that sparkly skater's dress, and the glistening skates carry me swiftly across a frozen landscape. I'm thin, I'm lithe, and I'm almost floating. I am grateful for my nighttime fantasies. They make the reality somehow easier to take, as strange as that sounds.

And the guy who is skating with me? Man, does he look great in tights! And usually they are red ones. Heh.

2005-12-28T11:29:00.000-06:00

Something unusual happened last night. I went to bed before midnight.

I am trying to get back into a semi-normal mode of sleep, whatever that really is. The goal is to sleep for at least 6 hours straight, and that just doesn't seem to happen. I assume my frequent awakenings are the reason I remember my dreams.

Unusual thing #2: I picked up on the same dream after I woke up the first time. Or a version of the same dream, I guess. Some friends were getting me together (quite a task in itself) to take me to O & M rehab. I was balking somewhat, finding excuses not to get out the door, and also having trouble finding all the things I was supposed to take with me, notably my white cane. When I did find it, it was under the edge of my bed, and missing the tip.

In part 2, they were still trying to get me ready to go, but it was like a comedy of errors. I kept insisting that I pack a few more things, and now I couldn't find my sunglasses. Someone asked if they were red, and I said "Hell, no, who do you think I am, Matt Murdock?" Then all these people dragged me out to a waiting car that was already overstuffed with other people and various types of luggage. I was crawling over a large duffle when I woke up. Geez.

If nothing else, maybe someone can get a laugh out of my subconscience.

Now if I only had good sense...

2005-12-28T11:17:00.000-06:00

Ever get a little bored and want to try that Tickle IQ test? Well, I did for some reason.

Congratulations, ********!
Your IQ score is 133

This number is based on a scientific formula that compares how many questions you answered correctly on the Classic IQ Test relative to others.

Your Intellectual Type is Visionary Philosopher. This means you are highly intelligent and have a powerful mix of skills and insight that can be applied in a variety of different ways. Like Plato, your exceptional math and verbal skills make you very adept at explaining things to others — and at anticipating and predicting patterns. And that's just some of what we know about you from your IQ results.

Ok, is this what everybody gets back from this test? I would love to know. End of time wasted.

What's in a name?

2005-12-22T11:59:00.000-06:00

Was just messing around and had to look mine up:

Alice

Add to My Favorite Names

Origin	Meaning

Old German	noble

Greek	truth

Traits: Most people think of Alice as "Alice in Wonderland"--a young daydreamer who is gregarious and free-spirited. Some, though, see her as a prissy old homebody.

Famous people with this name: Lewis Carroll's children's story Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, rock singer Alice Cooper; actress Alice Faye; TV character Alice (The Honeymooners) Kramden; Arlo Guthrie's song "Alice's Restaurant"

Winter Solstice

2005-12-22T08:58:00.000-06:00

Toby wishes you all a very happy holiday, whatever kind you celebrate.

*****

I'm trying to figure out how this house got into such a state of disarray. Certainly it must be the cats, because I'm not this messy.

Things here are filed in vertical chronilogical order. Yesterday, one of those files began an avalanche, and there was no stopping it. I countered by going to bed, where there is no avalanche zone, and sleeping a marathon in which I dreamed of going to an Episcopal church with my mother (the only time she ever stepped foot in one was for my first wedding) and winding up falling asleep in the pew, and waking up with only my skirt and bra on. Then I could not find the blouse I had worn in there. To add insult to injury, they ran out of communion wafers before they got to me. Wait til I tell this one to the shrink.

I awoke midevening, with a splitting headache and no desire to clean the avalanche. I downed some pain relief, and the usual nighttime medications and decided to see if I could sleep all night, which is something I haven't done in ages. That resulted in a dream also about my family, in which I was at my sister's house, and it was a sight worse than the avalanche I had avoided in reality here. What is it about you are better able to deal with someone else's mess than your own? I kept grousing at my sister for her slovenly ways, and my mother was there, once again, taking up for her. After all, my sister has CHILDREN and therefore is not responsible for any messy housekeeping practices. This sort of dream recurrs, where my mother absolves my sister of any misdoings, but punishes me relentlessly for the same. Ah, the middle child syndrome is alive and well in me.

I have finished all my orders to be shipped out, and since I don't shop for the holidays, I am pretty much done. I have some major housecleaning to do, so I can begin the new year in a bit better shape. I hope.

There it is. My exciting life these days. Oh, and Ringo says Happy New Year, too.

New Bed: Part Deux

2005-10-28T00:39:00.000-05:00

Uncertainty as Toby sniffs the new bed. >>>
Ringo prepares to dive underneath.
~~~~~

It's taken two weeks for the furniture store to get my actual new bed. They had the mattress set in stock, and I have been sleeping (!) on it with it perched on a loaner frame.

There was a repeat performance with the cats. The doorbell rang. The cats skittered under the bed. The delivery men went in the bedroom to lift up the mattresses to retrieve the frame and cats went flying out. Oh shit, she's moving again.

I watched with great anticipation as first the headboard and then the footboard came through the front door. Then suddenly, the thought struck me that this was the first time in my entire life I had ever bought a NEW bed. My childhood bed was one of a pair of bunks left over from my older brothers, my teenaged bed was bought at a yard sale, and I had to strip layers of paint off it to finally repaint it an antiqued avocado (it was the 60's, after all). I took that bed with me to my marriage, and it was not replaced until I inherited Great Auntie's furniture. It was a good thing that at the time I was married to a very short man.

During my second marriage, we never had a real bed, just the mattress set on a frame. Toward the end, we did buy a headboard, but it never even got attached to that frame. By that time, I was sleeping in the other room in Great Auntie's bed anyway. So, that one doesn't count in my book. As far as I know, the headboard is still leaning against the wall.

Back to our story...this bed had to be assembled, as it had side rails and screwed in slats. The men put the platform back on the bed, I tossed on my new dust ruffle (the cats love that), they topped it off with the mattress, and they were on their way. The cats were still well hidden. I put on the sheets, tossed on the quilt, fluffed up the pillows, and still no cats. Hmm.

I flopped into the middle of the bed. Man, this is one tall bed. I can barely vault into it. I can't sit on the edge and put on my shoes, which is good anyway, because that ruins your bed eventually. There is a chair in the bedroom for that. Which now is uncluttered because I put a rack to hang my jackets and things up on the wall. What has come over me? I look semi-organised in there. Maybe it will spread to the rest of the house some day.

Eventually, the cats showed up from the undisclosed hiding place. The jaguar slink mode was employed once again, and both cats had to sniff the new furniture to see if it met to expectations. Once satisfied, they dived under the bed ruffle to check out the clearance beneath.

Then I pulled back the covers and dived in myself. Four hours later, I woke up because some fool thought he had dialed the contest line for the local radio station. I stumbled into the living room, as I don't keep the phone near the bed lest I answer before I fully awaken. No glasses, so no chance of reading the caller ID. This poor soul asks me "Am I the third caller?" On another, less wonderful day, he would have gotten the wrath of Khan. But I was nice, saying that he must have the wrong number, and please dial more carefully next time. He apologized. I hung up the phone.

I need to make up a snappy retort for this sort of call, because three hours later, it happened again. This time, the lady insisted she had dialed the number they gave on the radio. Impossible, I said, I've had this number for over ten years. She still argued, and I hung up on her. Next person is going to win an all expenses paid trip to the local landfill if they don't apologise for misdialing.

~~~~

Short story long: I love my new bed. I am the queen of the household. You may kiss my ring.

The Seal(y) of approval

2005-10-10T01:28:00.000-05:00

After a lot of soul-searching and heeding the ever present aching of my back, I decided that maybe it wasn't a good idea to keep Great Auntie's antique bed any longer as my prime resting spot. As much as I cherish this bed, I would have to get a custom mattress made for it, since it would not really be possible to "squish" a standard 75" mattress into its really only 72" long frame. Only a few places remain that will build a custom mattress any more, and since I don't want a round or heart-shaped one, I am not willing to go hunt for them, then pay the shipping costs on top of everything else.

I shopped one more store, a locally owned one, and found what I wanted at a price I could afford. It seems that the mattress manufacturers change the coverings they offer on the outside of their products quite often, and the style conscious types must have the latest. I am not one of those. So I bought the "so last week" fabric, at a substantial savings, and got a much nicer mattress than I first thought I'd be able to get. Top it off with free delivery, and honey, you have yourself a sale!

Therefore, the domestic goddess got herself a queen-size bed. Harris Furniture delivered the mattress and foundation on Saturday morning, with a loaner frame until the bed itself arrives. The new bed is a nice imitation of my old bed, stylewise. It's oak, where the old bed is walnut, and of course, much lighter tone because it's new. There is a headboard and footboard, and it has a nice oval sort of shape and some little decorative carvings for accents. It will blend nicely with the real antiques, and I can buy sheets that fit! To say I am tickled is an understatement.

I knew that getting a new bed would be a trauma for the cats. They knew something was up Friday night when I was in there dusting and vacuuming everything within an inch of its life. (Look out! She's hoovering! Something is going to happen! Run! Hide!) When the two college age guys knocked on the door with the delivery, it was time for them to go into action. (Quick, under the bed!)

These guys were so nice. One of them commented about my "washing machine" on the front porch as they came in. While that sounds like something you would expect in Arkansas, famous for upholstered pieces on the veranda, it's not at all the avocado green appliance you are thinking about. It's the wringer frame that holds two tin washtubs, and has a built in rub board. It's at least a hundred years old, and I normally plant begonias in it in the spring. Last winter, some kittens took refuge in the tub, and began sleeping in it. They still do, so no flowers, just dirt. Anyway it's on my porch and it's sort of nifty.

I digress. That wasn't the only thing these young men hadn't seen before. When they dismantled the old bed, they hauled the mattress out first. I'm sure they had never seen a real cotton tick before. But the fun part was they had never been up close and personal to a real, honest-to-goodness bed spring. The kind you used to see in movie attic scenes of old houses, next to the dress form that no one really ever had in their attic (where DID that cliche come from?). I had to ask if either had ever seen one, and they said only in movies. Ha. I am ancient.

I digress once more. When the guys came in the house, the cats ran under the bed. When they began to dismantle the bed, the cats hauled ass to points unknown. I could not find either one of them, but I knew they didn't escape out the door, because I was guarding it. I didn't see Ringo for about 5 minutes after they left, when he came crawling out from under my library table. I didn't see hide nor hair of Toby.

Even rustling the new sheets didn't bring him out. This is a cat who is famous for playing "Lumpy Bed". Every morning when I climb out of bed, I turn around to make it up, and Toby is dead smack in the middle of it. I simply make it up anyway, letting him play his way out of the midst of the sheets. Of course this ritual is accompanied by "Where's the cat?" Pat, pat, pat around on the bed. I come back later to smooth the sheets. So where the hell was Toby?

I was putting the pillowslips on the new pillows when I looked up and he was doing the jungle cat slink into the bedroom. You know...like he was approaching a herd of gazelle on the Serengeti, low to the ground, move a couple steps forward, hide in the dense underbrush of the carpet. He had the most WTF expression. Wish I'd had a video camera. I'd have won on America's funniest video show. (Well, maybe not. It wouldn't have involved hitting a guy in the nuts, which seems to be a recurring theme there.)

Not long afterward, the domestic goddess and the two resident felines were most deliciously napping on the new bed. A nap that lasted five hours. I guess I was tired. Man, I love my new bed.

A firm-ative action

2005-10-05T03:06:00.000-05:00

When's the last time you bought a mattress? I went out today in search of Mama Bear's perfect bed, and found out more than I want to know about them.

I don't need the box spring, or foundation, or whatever they call it now. I have an antique bed, and only the mattress will fit on it, and barely, as it's a bit shorter than the standard now. People just weren't as tall a hundred fifty or so years ago, I suppose, because this bed is only 72 inches long between the headboard and the footboard. Matters not for me, as I am only 60 inches tall.

I inherited this bed in 1975 from my great aunt, and she had told me that she inherited it in the 1930's from a doctor she used to work for, and he was born in that bed. He was 80 when he died. It's an OLD bed. I don't even want to think what that thing has seen.

It still has the mattress on it that my great aunt had. Goodness knows how old the thing is. The bedspring underneath is an open type spring that makes a very satisfying squeak when you get on the bed. It's been the guest bed (I've had very few guests) until last year, when I moved out on my own, and I've been sleeping on it since. Or attempting to sleep on it. This old cotton tick may be the reason for my insomnia.

I looked up the major brands of mattresses on the web, found who sells what in town, and set off to see what is out there. The first place I went, there was a buzzer on the front door that sounded as I walked in. I saw some movement in the far end of the large showroom, but no one spoke to me. I have a rule of thumb. If a salesperson does not greet me in some manner in two minutes, I leave. All they have to do is acknowledge my presence; that is good enough, because I will wait my turn. This first fellow almost didn't make the cut, and there was no one else in the showroom.

When a store is full of mattresses, and one is rather obviously looking at the bedding, the question "What may I help you with today?" seems quite silly. I had an overwhelming urge to say I wanted to buy a sofa. I asked if this store would sell me only a mattress, not a set, and the salesman said he could order me one, but people never buy full size mattresses anymore unless they are for kids' beds, so they don't stock the better mattresses in that size. He tried to sell me up in size, but I countered with this is an heirloom bed and I am determined to have a new mattress for it. About that time, a pretty young thing in a very short skirt waltzes in, and he drops me to wait on her. "Try some of them out", he says, and abandons me amidst a sea of foam mattresses. I left.

Another place in town sells a good brand, so I stopped by there. This store also sells only mattresses; in fact it's called Mattress King. Surely they have something in here for me. Some fat guy is sitting at a desk in the middle of the showroom, diddling around on a computer, from my angle looking like he's playing a game. About 30 seconds after I come through the door, he finally greets me and bellows out to someone in the back that there is a customer.

The fellow comes out of the back, and politely tells me he has a truck unloading in the back and he will be right back. He looks vaguely familiar. I go start looking at the price tags and bouncing on the beds. (I didn't really bounce, but I did lie down on them.) The beds are nice, but so are the prices. Holy crap, Batman! Can I afford to get a decent mattress?

By the time he returns, I have worked my way down the line, feeling like Goldilocks at the Bear residence. Some of them are too soft, some of them are totally unyielding. Then I found "just right". Of course, it was about the top of the line. The only thing I could do to make it more expensive would be to custom order the outer fabric. He asks about the wants and needs, and he suggests I might consider the new ultra foam mattress because that would certainly fit my bed. I tried one out, and it's comfy enough, but he could not give me a decent answer about how when this "memory foam" would develop dementia. I went back to the standard type.

When I mentioned to him I only wanted the mattress, not the underneath part, he did a sudden backpedal and said "Oh, we can't honor a warranty on the mattress if you don't buy the set". What the hell is a warranty on a mattress anyway? I told him I wasn't going to use it for a trampolene, so I wasn't worried about a warranty. Geez.

Ok, down to the price. He told me he could knock off $300 for the box springs. Then he started in about financing. Whoa. I am going to pay cash for this thing. How about a discount, mister? I think he must have sold cars at one time, because he did the old calculator thing back at the desk, then came back with a roughly ten percent discount.

I ask for his card and write the info down on the back. Then it hits me and him about the same time. I see his name, and it's the guy who lived next door to me when we first bought our house. He had moved down the street to another house a couple years later. He asked what my last name was, and I replied it wasn't the same as it used to be, and I didn't live there any more. A little embarrassing, after the trampolene comment. I told him that I was still shopping, but the deal looked promising, and I left.

I still have one more place in town to look, maybe two. But buying a mattress is a big commitment. This is the last one I will ever buy. I need to do it right this time.

Free at last, free at last...

2005-10-03T15:12:00.000-05:00

I just paid off my final car note. I took a small leap of faith that a large check I've been expecting from a client would be here soon, and paid it off. Now that Inferno Red 2000 Plymouth Breeze is mine, all mine. Lock stock and single barrel carb. Hooo-ahhhh.

This comes one day short of five years since my infamous rollover through the cottonfields of Arkansas. That car was paid off, too. I almost am afraid to go out and drive it, for fear of the prospect of something happening to this one, too. But, this is why a person pays insurance, no?

Off I go, to the post office. I will try to not let this joyous occasion make me too complacent about my driving.

I shall be blasting the music of the Daredevil album in celebration!

Post Rita Update and allergic reactions

2005-09-30T02:48:00.000-05:00

My sister contacted me by cell phone yesterday, and told me that they were roughing it back in their home with no water and no power. They have a natural gas range and water heater, so they can cook, and when the water is back on, they can shower comfortably.

The damage was light to the house itself. Some sections of shingles blown away, and some of the cedar shake siding, but nothing where water blew in. There was not any flood damage, and they managed to get back into the county even though it was shut down by martial law (National Guard patrolling everywhere) because her husband had a chainsaw and some ladders in the back of his truck, and he could be useful in helping clear some of the blocked roads.

Wind was the nightmare. It took down some 15,000 utility poles and the main grid power lines. I saw some footage of the damage on tv and it looked like the Hulk had been stomping through there. A really BIG Hulk. Or maybe Godzilla. Anyway, trees broken off and power lines down everywhere.

As I was speaking to her, she got the news that the water was back on. I don't know if it was fit to drink, but at least they can flush the toilets without carrying in pails of water from the kids' swimming pool.

They do have a generator, so they have enough power to run some box fans during the day. Who knows how long it will take to get the power restored? There is one store in town open, once it got the front window boarded up that were blown out, and there were people who came in wanting everything for free. Had the Guard not been keeping most of the residents out of the area until the power is back on, this would have evolved into a looting spree. Hard lessons learned by Katrina only weeks ago.

I am relieved that they are back at home, but will be worried until the power is completely restored.

***

I went to the dermatologist Tuesday to see what on earth is eating up my hands. Something I have not been able to get rid of, it cracks open and bleeds. Rather nasty looking, too, not to mention itchy and sore. They thought it might be something to do with a cervical vertabrae, because of the patterning on my hands. There is a definite line of demarcation. So I had to get xrays of my neck. For a rash on my hands.

They also decided to give me an allergen patch test. They stuck two rectangular patches on my back, taped them up nicely, and told me not to get them wet until Thursday when I could come back early to have the results read. Easier said than done. I couldn't wash my hair, as I cannot lean over the sink to do it, so I felt crusty despite taking a bath. The damn things itched like hell. I felt like an old bear, wanting to back up to a tree and scratch.

Thursday morning couldn't get here fast enough. I barely slept for the itching. Had to be in Memphis by 0830. Ugh. The deja vu of the early morning wreck five years ago was haunting me. The cotton fields are ready to be picked. That's what I plowed through when I wrecked my car. I drank a 20 oz Dr. Pepper for the caffeine.

Got to the VA hospital, and was first in line at the clinic. They stripped off the allergy tests and found I am sensitive to fragrances and potassium dichromate. Well, how do you do? What the hell did that mean? I have a list now of things with which I shouldn't come in contact. Leather goods. Green fabric. Chrome plated stuff. Some stainless steel. Building materials like drywall, brick, and mortar.

At least, it's not the cats.

News at last

2005-09-25T16:40:00.000-05:00

No sooner than I finished putting the last entry in this blog, than the cell vibrated in my pocket. I fished it out and flipped it open to find my sister on the other end. She was weeping. I finally got out of her between sobs that they had contacted a neighbour after he got a connection and that even though a lot of trees and a good portion of town are history, the house is relatively unscathed.

I do hope that in their haste to return (they were getting water and gas and getting on the road) that they don't run into the type of thing they had during evacuation. I know it's normal to want to get back to your home, but sometimes when disaster like this strikes, and there is no power and safe drinking water, it can be best to wait a little. But I think they will be ok. Someone has their back. I am so relieved for them.

2005-09-25T16:18:00.000-05:00

As you can tell by this entry, I did not blow away in a tornado last night. I had shut down a lot of stuff during the height of the thunderstorms, and had the tv going to let me know if anything were headed down my direct alley. I was packed and ready to run next door to the concrete bunker, but I am not like my mother, who would have spent the night down there with a radio and a kerosene lamp. I am way too claustrophobic to stay in a tornado shelter for any length of time.

Good news in that the thunderstorms lost some momentum just south of us, but it has rained incessantly and we are still under a flood watch until 7 pm. It's not been a hard rain for the most part, thank goodness, and right now it's just a steady drizzle which we actually need around here. That, I can deal with on an OK basis.

I was up almost until dawn, really exhausted from all the fretting more than anything else. I dreamt about taking an exam, one of my recurring dreams, and then about going to some sort of event for which I had to get dressed up. Of course, I could not seem to get my ensemble pulled together. (Anything more than a tshirt and jeans is an ensemble for me.) Part three of the dream was something I'd never had before that I recall. I was borrowing someone else's car to run an errand, and after pulling out of the parking lot, I noted it had no power steering and I was having to muscle this beast to control it. Suddenly, I was having to steer it by looking at a screen inside the car, with a birds'eye view of my location. I could not see out of the car around me and this was the only way to maneuver it. It was like a video game, but I was trying to keep from crashing into some other vehicle around me. A cat bounding across my chest woke me up, keeping me from finding out how well I might have handled the situation.

No word today on my sister's situation. My brother never did call to find out what was going on. He seemed clueless that they could even be in any danger when I talked to him beforehand. Must be nice to live in such a secure little world.

Today being Sunday, I did the routine we have established here: go get some fried chicken and hot apple pies from Popeye's, and take it to have lunch with my mother and Mrs. Harris, her roommate. They chow down on that chicken like it's prime rib, loving the little cinnamon apple pies. It makes them so happy, and it's such a small thing. I did not bring up the hurricane. In fact, well after we had finished eating, I finally said that my sister had taken her cats with her when they left. My mother did not seem overly worried about the property, so I said nothing about it. Some things are best left unsaid.

Instead, I regaled her with stories about what my cats had been into this week, and that a friend had a new baby boy, because she loves to hear baby stories. She enquired after my friends in the UK, because I always have a little anecdote to tell her about the Things, even if it's an old story, because they are new to her. She got a kick out of me playing Scrabble across the internet with Thing One. The time passed, and I left to retrieve my entries from the district fair.

I judged the quilt show in the fair last week, so was ineligible to enter that division, but there was a place in the crafts division where I entered the Daredevil origin quilt panel and the Murdock's Law quilt panel. I am pleased to report that not only did I receive blue ribbons on both, but a whopping prize check of $11.00! I didn't know you got cash at this fair. Maybe next year I can come up with more stuff to enter. Heh.

2005-09-24T21:21:00.000-05:00

It's 7 pm. My sister just called, in tears. She reached the police dispatcher in Silsbee, and the town is under martial law. A dawn to dusk curfew is in effect, and people are not allowed to go back into town. Looting has already begun. What didn't blow away will probably not be there when they get back. The dispatcher said she has not gotten a report from the street where my sister lives, but the entire town looks like a bomb went off. The worst part here is that they don't know what to do.

The weather alarm just came on the local station here. There is a possible tornado on the ground two counties south of here. I'm trying to decide what to do here. I have the emergency bag by the door and the cat kennel ready. This is insane.

2005-09-24T18:15:00.000-05:00

I heard from my sister yesterday about 6 pm. She and the family finally made it to the shelter of the Second Baptist Church in Marshall, TX. A trip that should have been less than five hours took almost twelve. I was very relieved to hear they made it safely, with all the chaos of evacuation.

Today, I finally reached her via cellphone around 2:30 pm. They have been hunkered down in the basement of the church because Marshal has been under a tornado warning. She has gauged the winds by watching a limb from a huge pecan tree rolling from one side of the road to the other. The kids have been entertaining the Church Cat (that's his name) who is a Morris lookalike, and taking care of the cats that they brought along with them.

News is not good from Silsbee. All she knew to tell me was the Walmart is gone, the Dairy Queen and some other fast food places have been leveled. Tornadic winds came right through the center of town. They have no way of knowing if their house is still standing.

She also told me of the convenience store owner who sold them the last tank of gas in town, and how he was trying to close up to gather his family from Port Arthur. She asked him why he had stayed open this long when all others are gone. He replied that the food or gas he still had may save someone's life up the road, it certainly wasn't the money. I do hope he got his loved ones out of harm's way, as Port Arthur really took a hit. His store is history, according to the scattered news my sister has been able to glean from all the reports.

It's now just past 4 pm here, and we are now under a tornado watch. Rita is not done. I have my emergency bag packed, and the cat kennel ready to shove the two cats in if I have to head into the "fraidy hole" next door. Weather can be a frightening if beautiful thing sometimes.

Stay tuned for your local forecast.

I am frantic

2005-09-23T14:56:00.000-05:00

I just got a phone call from my sister. She, her two kids, husband, six cats, the car and the boat are stuck in gridlock near Center, TX. They have been on the road for six hours already and have not yet made it to the halfway point to the shelter they are seeking. Once they get off the two lane highway that has just been turned into northbound only, they should begin to make progress.

She reports that hundreds of cars are abandoned alongside the road, from people who couldn't get out yesterday and either ran out of gas or the car overheated in the nearly 100 degree heat. Today, TDOT (Texas Dept of Transportation) trucks are bringing gas and water to stranded motorists. A busload of 40 elderly residents of a nursing home burst into flames while caught in gridlock on the way to Dallas from Houston, and most of the people on it died. Horrible. This is a nightmare.

I won't rest until I know she and the family are in the shelter. To add insult to injury, the forecasts for local weather here say we will have tornadic storms beginning Saturday and lasting possibly until Monday. I have to go out and buy some non-perishable food in case the power is knocked out here. I will get my cat kennels ready in case I have to retreat to the tornado shelter in the neighbour's backyard.

The Weather Channel is showing us pictures of Surfside Beach, and it will be toast in a few hours. The waves are hitting the houses up on stilts along the beach. In Galveston, the surf is up to 17 feet and will breach the seawall. The Port Arthur fire department is staging everything to Lumberton, which is five miles or so from where my sister lives. There are three levees in New Orleans that have been breached already, and the worst case scenario is here. As if they didn't have enough already.

I have to go now. Stuff to be done.

Educating Rita (or being educated by Rita?)

2005-09-23T04:12:00.000-05:00

I couldn't watch the Katrina coverage. But here I am, glued to the Weather Channel, since all I have is basic cable, watching and waiting for my hometown to be leveled.

I am also worried about my sister, to whom I spoke last around 3pm yesterday. She was loading up to leave. I had pleaded with her Tuesday to get out. She tried to tell me that they were fine, on "the highest spot in town". Bullshit. When you only live less than 30 miles inland and a storm like this comes up, that means nothing. Nothing. She then told me that she had things packed, and they would decide on Thursday. So I called, got no answer and left a message asking her to let me know what they decided.

She called me about 15 minutes later, said that they were scheduled to go to a shelter in Marshall, TX. That's about halfway from her house to mine. I told her she could come here, but all I have is the floor to offer. She said they would be leaving as soon as they were packed. Hmmm...thought she was ALREADY packed. I told her I loved her and be careful, call me when they get to the shelter.

I tried to call Thursday evening around 9 PM. The lines are jammed. I can't reach her. The Weather Channel reports people stranded on the gridlocked freeways, running out of gas and throwing baby diapers out the windows of the cars. I don't know where she is. I feel frantic. I am going to have to report to my mother and I have never really been able to lie to her. I have avoided telling her the entire story, but I can't lie to her. Maybe I can say that she headed for higher ground, and that she will call when the lines are open.

During all this, neither of us has heard from my brother. Seems like he could have offered my sister refuge in Central Texas. Guess he's got other fish to fry.

All I can do is stay tuned. And sleep with the cell phone next to me. And pray.

Time to adapt

2005-09-12T00:46:00.000-05:00

I got a call last week from the state services for the blind last week (now I know they refer to themselves as the DSB), and went down to the office for my interview. "Down" to the office turned out to be correct, as they are located down a flight of stairs in the basement of the Arkansas Services Center. There was a small printed paper sign pointing down the stairs, and it crossed my mind that most people looking for this place would have someone else with them. All sorts of irony has been hitting me lately.

The closer I got to the office, the more I wondered what this "interview" would entail. I don't generally get nervous about such things, but the 95 degree afternoon and the descent to the basement office had me literally in a sweat. All this was dispelled when I went in the door. These are some of the friendliest government employees I have ever met.

Much more than merely cordial, the vocational rehab guy and the independent living lady were extremely helpful and upbeat about what the service could do for me in the future. Things are not so bad right now for me; I mean, I still am driving and can still read the computer screen as long as I've hiked up the resolution and made all the fonts bigger. I do qualify for services since Mr. MacDee is never going to leave, and even though it might not be next week, things will be downhill from here.

What they did do now is take my application and start my file. They have to get medical records and such, and coordinate things with the VA. This all makes me feel much relieved. My big worry was having no resources when the time comes to need them.

So now I have this great clock with giant black numbers on a white plexiglass open face that also has tactile markings. Seems like such a small thing to get excited about, but I have been guessing at the time for a while now, because I can't read my watch or my clock without my glasses when I first get up(or, more correctly, haven't gotten out of bed yet). They gave me some cool little stickon things for the appliances, and a lighted magnifier. Woohoo! I can read the phone book! (Please don't laugh. Too much, anyway.)

Adaptive technology, and rethinking some of the ways I do things. I can handle this. Right?

Hurricanes I have known

2005-09-08T05:17:00.000-05:00

I have really been in a major funk for the past week. The tv set has only been turned on to pop in a dvd, because I cannot bear to watch the coverage of the disaster known as Hurricane Katrina. I've seen hurricanes first hand. They terrify me.

This makes me feel guilty in a way, but watching the horror and anguish of the survivors is even more gut wrenching than what we all witnessed when the tsunami struck last December. Part of it is that there was warning for this event. People knew it was coming.

Certainly, everyone was not able to evacuate from the area, for economic or physical reasons. The thing that struck me the cruelest were the jokes that were being circulated before the storm struck, like the sign that said, "We don't run from hurricanes, we drink them." There are always going to be idiots. Those people I do not fret over. They should know better, but they choose to hang around. My heart goes out to those who cannot flee.

The reason I turned off the tv coverage was seeing people smiling and waving at the camera as they looted stores, carrying out racks of sporting goods and expensive electronics. Need is one thing. Greed is a whole something else. These people stayed around because they were thinking about the spoils of disaster. They were there for what they could get because they knew they could get away with it. Bad karma, people.

I heard enough on the radio to keep me informed, but I couldn't deal with the pictures that I knew would haunt me. Maybe this is a huge character flaw in me, but knowing that there is nothing in this world that I can do about any of it left me feeling powerless, remorseful, and grieving for people I do not know.

I've been through hurricanes. I grew up on the Texas Gulf Coast, a few miles inland and at about 11 feet above sea level. Back then, we had some warning about storms, but nothing like we have now. My father taught me how to listen for the coordinates of the storm on the weather radio broadcasts, and showed me how to chart those locations on a gridded map that we kept on the wall of the dining room. He diligently watched the barometer that hung next to the map, and would try to make some best guesses about what to do in case it came to close to us. There was no Weather Channel with technicolor radar and up to the minute coverage. The only thing we saw on tv was the little hurricane symbol stuck onto the weatherman's map at 6 and 10 o'clock. Between then, all you could do is plot your own from the latest on the radio, updated every four to six hours.

In 1959, there was a hurricane that came up our alley, and my father boarded up the windows with big planks except for one on the north side of the house, so he could look out at the storm. We did not leave that time. The part I do remember is how dark the house was, and that my mother brought out a kerosene lamp and some candles in case the power went out. I played Zorro with my red cowboy hat, a red felt apron someone had given my grandmother for some reason wrapped around my shoulders for a cape, and a TinkerToy sword to make the mark of Zorro on anything that would stand still. I colored pictures in my coloring books. I'm sure I whined to go out and play in the rising water in the yard. But the sense of dread that I got from the adults in the house made me know there was something to be afraid of in this odd event. The wind howled and the rain blew sideways down the streets. The ditches filled up, and the yard flooded up to the top step. But no major damage other than tree limbs downed.

Official stats:

July 22-27, 1959 -- Hurricane Debra, Galveston: $6 million damage.1959 hurricane debra in july press 29.07. Winds gusted to 105 mph near Freeport. Hurricane force winds were experienced 100 miles inland. Storm surge 8 ft over 14" of rain.

Debra (Cat. 1 Hurricane - July 24th landfall)
Debra was called a "mild weather upset turned suddenly into a vicious storm." Debra hit Freeport with 100 mph winds only 36 hours after forming and maintaining hurricane winds 100 miles inland. The eye passed directly over Deer Park and La Porte on the 25th. Highest Houston winds were 82 mph, and 8.08 inches of rain was recorded.

~~~~~

We had been in school less than a week, starting the day after Labor Day for the new year. The weather reports were not good, and the teachers were getting antsy about how they were going to make up the time we might lose to the storm. We were released early one day, and that evening I held the nails as my father once again boarded up the windows on our house. He was doing the front side when the neighbour, Frenchie LeRibous, came across the street.

"Whatcha doin', Woody?" he said, even though it was pretty obvious.

"Gettin' ready to leave before the storm", my dad replied, still hammering nails.

"Well, hell, I ain't goin' nowhere." Frenchie boasted, "That house was built for wind."

I will never forget thinking to myself, Yeah, it was built for you, you old windbag.

We packed the 1959 Buick LeSabre, piled us four kids, my grandmother, and my parents in, and left early the next morning before daylight, heading north of Houston to Huntsville. My father worked as an electrician for the state department of corrections. The new prison farm they were constructing wasn't complete, but some of the housing for the prison guards' families was almost done, and the state offered us that as a place of shelter. We got there mid morning, and it was so hot and dry that the sticker-burrs were all over the yard and getting in my feet. There was no real grass yet, as the construction was barely done.

We had no luggage, just a few clothes in paper bags, and a box with some non-perishable food in it. I remember eating vienna sausages and Ritz Crackers, sitting on the floor in the duplex. We had a battery radio, and someone had gotten some cots for us to sleep on. We might have brought those with us, since my father was a scoutmaster. That part I don't remember.

By that evening, we went over to a Red Cross shelter set up in a school for a hot meal. They had hot food for us when we could come out and get it, and I remember not really liking the beef stew and cornbread, but eating it anyway. They had clothes that people had donated for the refugees; I got my first pair of denim jeans at the shelter. They were grey, not blue, but I thought it was great.

It began to rain the first evening, and we hunkered down in the house as the power went out. The house got very hot inside, and it was a miserable time. It stormed rather hard considering how far away we were from the coast; power was out in half of Texas. My father fiddled with the radio, trying to get some news from our hometown. There wasn't much coming out of the Freeport/Galveston area, because the water was so high no one could get in to find out what had happened. That was the first time I remember hearing the phrase "No news is good news", but I could tell he didn't believe it. We had no idea if we would even have a home when we got back.

Finally the word came through that the roads were passable. It had rained the whole time we were in Huntsville. By the time we got ready to leave the place, there was so much mud that one of my brothers carried me piggyback out to the car so I wouldn't get stuck and nasty. A far cry from the sun-parched yard a few days earlier.

The closer to home we got, the more evident things were bad. Power lines were down. Trees were flattened. Water was in ditches everywhere. We heard that people needed to watch out for snakes in houses. The radio reported dead cattle were hanging in powerlines and in trees. We figuratively held our breath as we turned down our street and headed to the house.

It was still standing. Our cedar trees were uprooted; the huge antenna for my father's ham radio was wrapped halfway around the house. Water was still in the yard and when we got out, our cat came out of the neighbor's garage, looking half drowned. She had evidently been up in the rafters. The worst damage was the warped hardwood floor where the water had been so high under the house, and the water leaks where some shingles had blown off. But we were very lucky, indeed.

Official stats:

Hurricane Carla, September 10. 1961: Hurricane Carla was the largest and most intense Gulf Coast hurricane in decades. On September 8, Carla's center took aim at the Texas coast. By the 9th, Carla's circulation enveloped the entire Gulf of Mexico with fringe effects along all Gulf Coast states. On the 9th, the largest mass evacuation to that date occurred, as an estimated one-half million residents of low coastal areas and islands off Texas and Louisiana were evacuated to higher ground. As the center approached Texas on the 10th, winds near the center were estimated at 150 mph. Reconnaissance aircraft indicated a central pressure of 931 mb just prior to its striking the coast. Only 46 lost their lives because of early warnings. Severe damage ang a wide expanse of the Texas coast was caused by unusually prolonged winds,high tides and flooding from torrential rains. Damage was about $2 billion in 1990 dollars. [Source:www.aoml.noaa.gov/general/lib/mgch.html]

Hurricane Carla. 465 injured.
Winds: 150mph. Pressure 931 mb. Hurricane force gusts were reported all along the Texas Coast from a short distance north of Brownsville to Port Arthur. 26 tornadoes. Hurricane Carla is the largest storm on record.

***

The thing that stands out most for me was the story of the family at Oyster Creek who decided to ride out the storm. This family had several adopted children, and they all drowned except for one, who was found floating on the roof of the house miles away. His story was told on the cover of Life Magazine. The most ironic part is that to have survived this horror, he was later killed in Vietnam.

***

Now for the last big one I experienced: Allen. My husband and I had already lost a car to a flood in Houston, and we decided that we were leaving town when Allen approached. Everyone else had the same idea. We attempted to get a taxi to the airport. None available. So we took the car, and it was several hours before we could get across town to the airport, and by then, it would be morning before we could fly out. We sat up all night in the airport, taking an early morning flight to Atlanta, then Virginia. By the time we reached Virginia, the storm had turned southward and made landfall near Brownsville. We stayed two days in Virginia, looked around at possibly where we might live, and when we went back to Texas, we began plans to move away from the Gulf Coast. I've never moved back.

Official Stats:

Hurricane Allen. Auqust 9-10. 1980: When it was over the open waters of the Atlantic Ocean, Caribbean Sea, and Gulf of Mexico, Hurricane Allen was one of the most intense hurricanes ever. Allen reached Category 5 status three times. It obtained a 911 mb (26.89 inches) central pressure in the eastern Caribbean on August 5 while south of Puerto Rico. After weakening near Haiti and Jamaica,Allen again strengthened and a minimum pressure of 899 mb (26.55 inches) was recorded by a NOAA aircraft on the 7th when it was off the Yucatan Peninsula. Only Hurricane Gilbert with the all time low pressure reading of 888 mb in 1988, and the infamous Labor Day hurricane of 1935 with a central pressure of 892 mb were lower than Allen's 899 mb central pressure. Allen lost strength again near the Yucatan Peninsula but regained it over the open waters of the Gulf of Mexico with a central pressure of 909 mb (26.84 inches) on 9th.

The center of Allen did not cross any land until it moved inland north of Brownsville, TX on the 9th. Just off the Texas coast, Allen hesitated long enough to weaken to 945 mb (27.91 inches), and then moved inland north of Brownsville bringing highest tides and winds over the least populated section of the Texas coast.

Only two deaths were directly attributed to Allen. The strongest measured winds were gusts to 129 mph at Port Mansfield, TX. A storm surge up to 12 feet along Padre Island caused numerous barrier island cuts and washouts. [Source: www.aoml.noaa.gov/general/lib/mgch.html]

Now, maybe you might realise why I could not watch all the coverage of Katrina.

Coming to the bend in the road

2005-09-01T02:35:00.000-05:00

I did what I said I would. I called the state services for the blind and talked to a really nice lady who explained to me what type of things they could do for me in the rehab and life skills departments. Things depend on what the doctor's report says, as I have to be at 20/50 corrected vision to be eligible, or I have to wait. She said she would refer me to the vocational rehab specialist, and he would call me later.

Wow, all this happened in one day! He will be over on Thursday if he can work it into his schedule since I live here in town not far from their offices. He said he would evaluate what type of skills and equipment I use now and determine what it will take to either keep me doing what I am now, or get me the training to do something else. This is exciting news, because I do not want to feel like I am on the dole. So tomorrow will tell me more.

~~~

In other news, dealing with my lack of organisational skills, I could not locate the renewal slip for my car licence. Holy shit, today is the last day. I called the DMV, or whatever Arkansas calls it, and asked what happens if you can't find the renewal notice. She said I needed proof of insurance, last year's registration, and proof that the car had been assessed and the taxes paid on it. Holy 'nother shit, Batman! I had no idea if it had been assessed. Another problem you run into when you divorce. She gave me the number to the tax office, and I called to see what that would entail. She told me I would have to come down to the office to sign papers with the name change.

I have a list of things I have to do now, and it's growing longer. I hate running errands. I go to the tax office, get a primo parking space for once, and was in and out in less than five minutes. That has to be some sort of record. Then to the DMV for the tags (actually only a teeny sticker to cover up last year's number) and was second in line. Stopped by my post office box, and had a new book waiting for me! (Thanks, V!) And there was no waiting at the post office to mail a parcel, either. Today, I wished that Arkansas had a lottery. I would have bought a ticket.

Hope tomorrow is half this good.

Dealing with it

2005-08-31T01:55:00.000-05:00

Ok, now that I've spilled my guts finally in public blogform about my latest news, I have decided that I will try to talk about what I am doing about it here, too.

In the real world, few of my friends and even fewer acquaintances have any idea about my recent diagnosis with macular degeneration. I don't know how to abbreviate this, because the MD acronym belongs to muscular dystrophy already, and the technical term for what I have is usually age-related macular degeneration, or ARMD. Since I fall outside the real parameters of it being age-related, I am going to christen this little speed bump in the road of my life MacDee, for my own purposes. Beats spelling it out every time. Besides, McDonald's already has Mickey D, and they would sue me if I used that.

Last year, about this time, I was at a county fair when some gentleman thrust a little credit card sized magnifier with advertising on it into my hand. I made a little fun to a few people about what it said on it: Promoting Independence, State Division of Services for the Blind. That wasn't funny, but I thought it was odd that it would also have a TDD number for the Deaf listed on it. That little bit of sport has come back to haunt me.

I had the thing in my purse, because it really is handy for telephone books and roadmaps which can be infinitessimally small. I dragged it out yesterday, and decided to call the toll-free number and see what sort of advice they could give me for the future. I dialed the number, but I hung up the phone. I couldn't find any words. I was...embarrassed. Maybe that's not the right word. I just didn't know how to ask or what to ask.

So I copped out and went online. There it was, Arkansas State Services for the Blind. Ok, now what. Look at the "qualifications" section. Here's where it gets tricky. I don't fit the first two categories, and the third is iffy. That says that you have rapidly deteriorating eyesight. How quick is "rapid"? It's all so confusing. What am I doing here? Are they going to disqualify me for not being "blind enough" yet? When do I reach that point? Do I have to wait until I can't read the print on the page to ask for some assistance?

I take a deep breath and fill in the form for consultation. All they can do is tell me no, right? I get down to the comments section and try to decide how to phrase this. I just lay it out there: "I have recently been diagnosed with macular degeneration, and I need to know what questions to ask and to whom I should be asking." That was it. How hard was that? I hit send.

~~~

I worked all day today packing quilt patterns to ship out to my vendors. I took a couple of phone calls that led to new clients to sell my patterns. With the packing finally done, I drove out to UPS to drop off the box to Keepsake Quilting, the catalog people who sell my patterns internationally. Swinging back around through town to my mailbox, which was empty, I drove into Taco Hell and picked up a kid's meal for myself. Two tacos and the crunchy cinnamon twisty thingies and a small Dr. Pepper. Cheap eatin' and I'm sick of ramen noodles. Tomorrow the eagle shits and I get paid. I hand the cashier my pocket change that I dredged up from the couch cushions and the car seats and drive away happy with the fragrance of the tacos tempting me from that brightly colored kid's meal bag.

My landlord is next door when I drive in and I think about how this looks...me carrying in tacos when I have asked him to let me pay partial rent during the verrrrrrry lean month of August. He's a wonderful guy, so he waves, and if he thought anything about it, it sure didn't show. But it makes me ashamed anyway.

I walk in my front door to be greeted by the cats, and find the caller ID blinking. It reads "AR STATE", and a local number, and there is a message waiting. I dial the message number, and it's a man from the State Services for the Blind. It's after 5:30 PM, so I don't return the call. Wow...was that fast. I am used to dealing with the veteran's affairs, and you are lucky to ever get a callback.

I will call him in the morning. I don't know what I will say, but I suppose it will come to me. Stay tuned.

Good news/bad news

2005-08-27T03:48:00.000-05:00

Today is my birthday. I am getting past middle age now. My crisis, however, is just beginning.

Yesterday, I went to the ophthalmologist at the Veteran’s Hospital in Memphis. I wanted a second opinion, or a confirmation, or whatever on news I had been given a few months ago.

It started late one night with a bright flash in front of me like a photographer’s strobe. I panicked and rushed myself to the ER, thinking I might be having a stroke. Good news was that wasn’t it, but the bad news was I needed to see my eye doctor immediately.

A sleepless night and several expensive tests later, I was told that I might have macular degeneration in its earliest stages. Oh great. Nine years ago, the same doctor told me that I had early onset cataracts. I am one lucky person.

Dr. Kelly at the VA was thorough in the exams, and began to question me about family eye history. The only thing I knew to tell him about my dad was that he was not drafted in World War II because his eyes were so bad. He died almost 40 years ago, so I don’t remember much else. Must have been pretty bad to be rejected for that war.

The doctor did all the usual shine the bright light stuff to me, giving me a considerable migraine. He asked a few more questions, saying he wanted to confer with his superior. A few minutes later, she came in and ran that set of tests all over again. She commented that my cataract surgery was a “beautiful job”. Then she sat down. Uh oh.

She said she wished she had better news for me. Yes, you have macular degeneration. Worse in the left eye. Good news: you won’t go COMPLETELY blind, because most people retain some peripheral vision (Yippee.) Bad news: we can’t tell you how long before it gets really bad, and the type you have can neither be corrected nor stopped. (Boo.)

After that, they said little, waiting I suppose for me to break into uncontrollable sobbing. I didn’t. I just wanted to know if I would get any sort of assistance dealing with this when the time was deemed appropriate. My biggest fear is having no mobility training or assistive devices. I’m not going to crawl into a hole somewhere and die. It’s not the end of the freaking world. Adapt, adjust, and get the hell on with it.

Like a story one of my nurses told me once when I was in Intensive Care: A little kid asks his father for a pony. His father tells him to go out to the barn and clean out the stalls. A little friend comes by and asks what he is doing. The boy, shoveling furiously, replies, “With all this shit in here, there’s bound to be a pony in here someplace.”

I’ll find that pony yet. After all, it’s my birthday.

Little Shooters

2005-08-12T16:12:00.000-05:00

No, not talking about shots of tequila, although in this dry county today, that might be nice with a little salt and lime.

Instead, this is about something that is one of those events in a person's life where you know exactly what you were doing when it happened. March of 1998, I was sitting at the computer in the local quilt shop, surfing the web, because I didn't have internet service at home yet. (Imagine that.) The talk radio was on, and I was mostly ignoring it because I am not a fan of Rush Limburger. Suddenly there was something that was breaking news, and Rush announced that there had been a shooting at a school...in Jonesboro, Arkansas.

I immediately pulled up the local ABC affiliate's website, and there it was, breaking news that someone had fired shots into a crowd of students outside the Westside Middle School. Police had two suspects in custody. Ambulances were on the way to the scene. This town, our lives, would never be the same. Talk about the end of the innocence, this was it.

We were all stunned, sitting in silence where moments before there had been the cacophony of the modern day quilting bee. We tuned to a local station, and the details began to flesh out the horror. Five dead, many wounded. Four young girls and a teacher. A fire alarm had been pulled, and the entire school had filed outside according to the protocol, and two shooters with deer rifles had picked them off as they came outside. Then the most chilling part of all: the shooters were students at the same school, one 11 and one 13, using rifles stolen from the 11 year old mastermind's grandfather's hunting rifle locker. They had stolen a van, and were going to flee in it, but were apprehended in the woods near the school.

Eleven year old Andrew Golden and thirteen year old Mitchell Johnson had sneaked away from home and gotten the weapons and the van, hid in a nearby wooded area, and waited for the time. Golden ran into the building just after lunch and pulled the fire alarm. He rejoined Johnson, and the two of them began firing at the unsuspecting students and teachers.

I've often wondered what went through the minds of these young boys as they were firing and killing people. Did they think this was sport? Was it just a "video game" to them? Did they have no idea that death is permanent? That you can't say GAME OVER and nothing is the worse for wear? What possessed them to even consider doing this?

Ok, why am I thinking about this now? Because yesterday, Mitchell Johnson turned twenty-one and he was released from prison. State laws cannot hold someone convicted of a crime as a juvenile past their twenty-first birthday. The law was actually amended because of this case from no detention past eighteen. So, today, Mitchell Johnson is a "free" MAN, no longer the weeping thirteen year old who asked for his mama in jail. No one knows if he has truly been released, or where he is headed. It is safe to say that he will not return to this neck of the woods.

Andrew Golden will be released in 2007 when he turns twenty-one.

I just wonder if this is a good thing that they get a clean slate and a fresh start. One part of me says maybe it is because of the Christian concept of forgiveness. But more of me tends to think about the five lives cut short by their callous and calculated juvenile "mischief". Once a sociopath...?

~~~

Not much is being said locally about all this. Hopefully it manages to get past the media circus that surrounded this town. For weeks, there were cable news crews and satellite trucks invading us. A year later, on the anniversary, they were back camped on the town steps. Somehow, a reporter from CNN found his way to the quilt shop where I was trying to piece together some quilt blocks to send to the victims of yet another shooting. He interviewed me while I was sewing. Fortunately (for most), my "news feature on CNN" was pre-empted by the news that the US had invaded Bosnia. Ted Koppel himself did a live town meeting from here. He ambushed the families of the victims, by bringing the mother of one of the shooters in through the back door and putting her on the spot in front of them. Yellow journalism, anyone?

All I could do then, was tie a white ribbon on my mailbox. I thought about putting another one out, but it would not do any more good than it did then.

My thoughts are with the families of the victims, and those who recovered from the physical wounds of the event. My prayers are that these two individuals will truly be "reformed" in mind and spirit, and that the remainder of their lives will be put to some good use, since they were spared further incarceration. Heaven help them.

Sh*t Happens...The story continues

2005-07-26T00:44:00.000-05:00

Since someone asked, I will tell a little more to this story. How do I remember the details? Because I don't get put down by the drugs for some reason, and I stay wide awake. I'm just a detail oriented person, and one of those who can tell you stuff that's around me when I walk into a new place. I'm a quick scanner, I suppose, and that's something I will miss in the future.

Where was I? Oh, yeah, pulling into the emergency room at the Memphis VA with the two stooges. Once they parked me in a cubicle in the newly remodeled ER there (which is quite nice, by the way), passed my CT scan and Xray films to the doctors, and signed me off, the ER staff began to hover about. First another round of vital signs, then they brought me more blankets, which I did not want, because being the post-menopausal woman I am, I am NEVER cold indoors.

The preliminary forty questions were asked for the third time since I had gotten ill, and then the doctor came in to look over the films. He asked the same questions again, and disappeared outside the curtain. A very swishy male nurse came in, practically rubbing his hands together in glee, announcing that "we" were going to have an NG tube. I told him, no "WE" were not! He looked like I had slapped him, and slinked back out, and I could hear him tattling to the doctor "This patient refuses to have the NG tube" like a little girl telling the teacher that I wouldn't let him skip rope with me. Ugh.

It became a matter of wills at that point. I have had bowel obstructions before. They didn't put an NG tube down my nose then. Why now? I wanted explanations. I got them, and they made sense. A very kindly female nurse came in and talked to me about it. She explained to me how she was going to do this procedure, and was extremely patient and nice about it. Attitude is everything to me. I was not going to let Mr. Nancyboy shove a tube down my nose. He was way too eager.

Before they did the torture routine, the doctor authorized a good dose of Dilaudin and Phenergran, and that gave me a wave of feel good that relaxed me enough to finally give them the go-ahead for the NG tube. True to her word, this nurse had a technique that made it not so bad, and I will remember it if I ever have to do this again, heaven help me. She sprayed a numbing solution both in my nose and down my throat, and that made all the difference. Bless her.

~~~

There was a room ready for me, but it was a semi-private. They wheeled me in for the transfer to the bed, and the tv was blasting from the other side of the curtain. I was on the inside away from the window, and it was hot in the room to me. Damn, usually I had a private room at the VA because there are so few women. I just hoped I would sleep through this dastardly barrage of bad talk shows, Jerry Springer, and Maury.

The roomie had been through a mastectomy the day before, and I thought I had it good compared to her. But she was out of there shortly after noon that day, as they don't keep mastectomy patients very long at all. That is so unfair.

All day long, I had a parade of the Doogie Housers. The Memphis VA is staffed by the medical students and interns from the University of Tennessee Medical School, and I swear that some of these people were fifteen years old. (That's when you know you are getting old, heh.) The good news is that they are eager to learn, very thorough in their examinations, and even though I have to recite my medical history ten times a day, I do feel like I get good care there. Having a female in this facility is quite a novelty for them, so they send everybody in to scope me out, literally.

That afternoon, the nursing administrator came in to do his paperwork with me, and he was a bit of a swish, too, but very nice. After Fred introduced himself, he commented on my watch. I had to chuckle to myself, and handed it over for him to look at closer. It's an old braille watch that I got off ebay, antique-y looking and who knows how old. He was fascinated with its pop-open crystal. Nice conversation starter, that, and he had to finally excuse himself because we got way off the track of my medical history. Fred came back later with some Smithsonian magazines for me to read, bless him. Boredom is my big thing in the hospital, because I don't like to watch tv.

Shortly after Fred returned with my reading material, the staff came in to announce they were moving me to a different room. Oh, brother...now I thought...put me in with someone with forty relatives that trek by me all day. But, surprise! It was a private room with the best view in the hospital, overlooking the main intersection and the fire station across the street. Entertainment value at least.

For the next five days, I would lay in bed and watch the goings-on out that window. The fire trucks would leave the station on the average of a dozen times a day. I could see The Med, the medical center which is the home of the Elvis Presley Memorial Trauma Center, which I could also see from my window. Countless ambulances a day came roaring up to that entrance. It was there that Elvis himself was brought after they found him at Graceland that fateful day. (A bit of trivia here: it was a Jonesboro, Arkansas, ambulance driver who had brought a patient for transfer to The Med who saw Elvis coming into the trauma center that day and called his dispatcher with the news. The dispatcher called the local news station, and the rest is history.)

My ex came the second day, and brought me a bag of my books and some clothes. It was odd trying to tell him where things were in my apartment so he could gather them for me. I did have a book bag with my braille study stuff in it, and he brought that. It was fun to have that with me, as I'd practice into the night with the lights off, and the nurses would come in for vitals or whatever and wonder what the hell I was doing. I had a word puzzle book with me, and they thought I was a little nuts, but let it be. I wished that I had asked him to bring the first part of Harry Potter to me, but that would have been too much to ask for him to find it, even though it was sitting on a bookshelf in plain view. I'm so slow that I might have gotten a couple of pages read.

A friend who works at the VA in research brought me some novels and magazines. I read "The Secret Life of Bees" all in one shot one night, and got caught up on the Newsweek and Time accounts of the London bombings. What horror that must have been. We don't know how lucky we have been in the US. Dana also smuggled in a Dr. Pepper and some pretzels for me. I was supposed to be NPO, but that damn tube in my nose sucked everything back out, so I very sneakily enjoyed the salty treat and left the DP in my water cup to get flat before I enjoyed it too. Nothing harmed, so I got away with it.

The fourth day, the team came in and decided that they could pull the NG tube and get me out of bed. I was estactic. I still had the IV drip for antibiotics, but didn't have to be tethered to it all the time, so bathroom visits didn't involve dragging the IV stand with me. Yay! I told the intern who came in to remove the tube to please not act like she was starting the lawnmower. Someone did that to me once before, and it was awful. She was gentle, and all I had was a slight nosebleed after the fact, and a bit of a sore throat. Not too bad.

Once I got loose of all the equipment, I begged for a shower. The nursing assistant came in and plastic-wrapped my IV port and I went in to shower in the semi-private bathroom that adjoined the next room. I had no shampoo, so I used the stuff in the pump on the wall. My hair felt like glue, and I couldn't get it to rinse out. Stupid me...I couldn't read what it said without my glasses, and it was a lotion-based cleanser. (I read the container later.) Geez, I looked worse than before I showered.

But getting a shower made all the difference, sticky hair or not. I was able to get up and sit in the side chair and look farther down the street, which was nice. There was a storm coming up, and I watched the clouds roll in. At one point, I saw something I have never seen before, and I moved around to see if it were a fluke, but it was a piece of rainbow that curved upward in the sky. It started as a small section, then got longer in the arc, and I leaned over to look toward the 2 pm sun and there was a second section, also curving upward. I suppose had I been in a certain spot, I could have seen the full circle. Very odd. I've seen a double rainbow before, but only curving toward the horizon. I took it as a good sign.

My temperature evened out, and the antibiotics seemed to be doing their job, so the team decided to let me go on Monday. I called my ex to see when he could come across the river to pick me up, and it was going to be late afternoon before he could come. I went in after they pulled the IV port out and grabbed another shower, this time washing my hair in real shampoo that Dana brought me. It took three washings to get the goo out. Nasty. I got dressed in my real clothes, and suddenly realised I was breaking out in hives. Dammit...something had triggered an allergic reaction. They were all over me, from head to toe, and I ran out to the nurses station to ask if they could possibly get me some antihistamine. Lucky me, it was lunchtime. The docs were at a lunch meeting and they had to approve the drug. I thought I'd go crazy itching.

If it hadn't been for another friend that I got on the phone for about an hour, I think I'd have gone nuts with the rash. Distraction is a good thing. That's why I was glad to have a couple of people that I could call while I was laid up. Thank goodness for cell phones and unlimited nighttime minutes.

I was glad to get home to Ringo and Toby. They missed me, I could tell. They don't seem to want to let me out of their sight now.

So, that was the excitement (yawn) of my week from hell. Big whoop.

Thumping the Melon

2005-07-25T23:57:00.000-05:00

No, this is not like jumping the shark, although some might disagree once they read this blog.

Yesterday I bought a watermelon. Big deal, you say. That depends on where you grew up, and when, I suppose. In the coastal part of Texas where I lived the formative years of my life, watermelons were summertime, and their selection was not taken lightly at my house.

One of the things I remember about my father was that he was the only one in the house to select the family melons. He might not do jack shit around the house for my mother, but he imparted a mystic ritual every summer, The Thumping of the Melons. We would go sometimes to a roadside stand, which actually was just a farmer from the valley set up on the tailgate of his big flatbed truck on the side of the highway, and peruse the various melons. Less eventful would be performing the ritual at the grocer's, but I have seen it done there, too.

The family would pile in the Buick, whether it was the '52, the '56', or the '59, and head out for the melons. He'd drive up and down the highway, checking out the prices, because there were always melon wars along the road. Cantaloupes were the gauge: this guy would have ten for a dollar; half a mile down the road they might be twelve for a dollar. (Yes, they were that cheap in my childhood. Gas was also twelve cents on occasion of a gas war.) The watermelons would be priced in accordance, usually by the pound. Having found the vendor with the best deal and the best looking Charleston Greys, he would park along the roadway and our clan would exit the car like clowns in the circus.

We would all gather round as my father would curl back his nicotine-stained second finger and give the long green orbs a thump. He'd successively narrow his choices until he was down to two. To this day, I could never figure out what tone he was aiming for in his criteria for selection. Once satisfied that he had the perfect melon, he'd hoist the behemoth onto his shoulder, pay the man, and ceremoniously load it in the trunk. The last pictures we have of my father are some home movies that my oldest brother took. He is bringing in the prize melon from the car, smiling his toothless grin for the camera, the big melon cradled in his arms like a precious commodity. My brother and his new wife were home for a visit, and I would bet it was the 4th of July. That was when we had THE Melon of the Summer.

There were three holidays when I was growing up: Christmas, Easter, and the Fourth of July. We generally went somewhere on the Fourth, either to the beach at Freeport, or to Hermann Park Zoo in Houston. These events for a time were well documented because my father was a bit of a camerabug, and I can remember all too well having to stand at attention facing the sun and tears streaming down my eyes because he was fiddling with the shutter on his Argus. There are a lot of squinty pictures of us kids.

These family outings were always accompanied by The Melon. If we went to Hermann Park, The Melon was done before we went to the zoo. If we went to the beach, The Melon was passed around with the caution not to drop it in the sand. (Duh.) The point was to eat your slice as sloppily as possible, juice dripping down your elbows, and spit the seeds farther than your brothers. (Alice's Rules of Melon Eating.) My father always cut out the center part of his slice and put it aside on his plate for the last to eat, and he referred to this as "the goody bite" as it had no seeds and was the sweet heart of the melon.

So yesterday I bought a watermelon at Kroger. The sign said "Seedless Melons". (How do they reproduce these things if there are no seeds? I know, it's just another miracle of science.) They all were uniform sized, little round dark green melons about the size of a soccer ball. Nothing compared to the Black Diamonds of yore. I grabbed one out of the bin, and thought, wouldn't do me any good to thump it, because I have no idea what it's supposed to sound like. Forgive me, Daddy, for I know not what I do here. I just hope it's ripe.

Sh*t Happens: Day One

2005-07-18T22:15:00.000-05:00

Or in my case, it doesn't. Which makes for a sudden, total emergency.

DO NOT READ ANY FURTHER IF YOU DO NOT HAVE A STRONG CONSTITUTION.
This is the story of how the sh*t hit the fan last Tuesday night.
There, you've been warned.

~~~~

This wasn't the first time I've had a bowel obstruction. Ewwww...gross, you say. (And I warned you to proceed at your own risk.) Uh huh, it is. Hurts like a beeyotch, too. Forces you to confront your own mortality in none too subtle terms.

Here I was, minding my own business on a less than regular type of day. I had a couple of braille tshirts to finish packing for shipping (brailling the care instruction labels and the extra packet of iron on crystals), and some patterns to get processed before I took off for the annual visit to the dentist. I hate going to the dentist because of a bad childhood experience, and that didn't have me in the best of moods. I knew that it was time for the big gun panaramic xrays that they like to do every 5 years, and there was no way I had the money for that. It was likely that I wouldn't have enough to even pay for my cleaning. I bargained my way out of the comprehensive xrays, and they did the bitewings and discovered a hairline crack in a front tooth. Damn. Thankfully, they didn't schedule enough time that day to do it, so I rescheduled for later. I was right...$117 for cleaning and xrays. I wrote a check for $50 and promised the rest as soon as possible. I felt like a pauper. Albeit one with shiny teeth.

I had not eaten before I went to the 1PM appointment, so shortly after 2 I checked my post office box (yay! it's my braille Dymo labelmaker!) then headed through the McDonald's drive thru for quarter-pounder with cheese, some fries and a Dr. Pepper. Why I went there, I don't know, except that it was the easiest place to get through right then. I really hold McD's right in there with Walmart as a general rule. Don't go unless all else fails.

Took the heart-attack-in-a-sack home to eat and get online to check mail and see who was online. The burger was a little less hot than I like mine, so I nuked it for a few seconds, remembering why I like Wendy's so much better. It was passable, the fries were too greasy and the DP was flat. I was too busy reading and scrolling to really notice anything else.

About 4PM, I began to notice that there was little output in my "bag". (Short terminology for the "appliance" needed to hold what my gut used to. Appliances, to me, are things that go in the kitchen or laundry room.)
It was far too flat for this point in the day, considering I had packed away the combo meal. Trouble was brewing. My gut was not percolating like it should.

Five PM. I signed off for a while and decided maybe I needed a short nap, like I do on a fairly regular basis these days. Didn't happen. I began to have some dreadful cramps, and still nothing passing through. I gave up with the nap around six, and went back to chat online.

I was conversing with three friends when the nausea began. As soon as it did, I knew what was up. One of the most important things my ET nurse told me when I first got my ileostomy was to pay attention when things aren't coming through, and if you begin to throw up, go to the emergency room at once. I was fighting against throwing up, not only because that is the worst sick there is, but because I knew I would have to go in. I still haven't paid the bills from the last time I had to go to the ER. And that was no xrays or anything. Nearly a thousand dollars for less than 3 hours. I called my ex. Got his voice mail. Damn. Left a semi-coherent plea to call me, figuring that he had cut the phone off for the night. He has no land line any more, and only recently have I been able to convince him of the folly of leaving the cell in the truck overnight.

Ok, backup plan. I was online with another friend who has a key to my place to feed the cats when I am out of town. I asked her if she could stand by if I needed a ride to the ER. That's a terrible thing to spring on someone in the middle of a conversation. She agreed, but I hated having to ask.

I put a couple other conversations on hold when I felt a big wave of nausea hit. I decided to take the cell phone in the bathroom with me, because I had called 911 from the bathroom floor once before, when I couldn't stand up to get to the other phone.

I sat on the edge of the tub, and the phone rang. It was my ex, who said he would come over if I wanted. No sooner did he say it than I felt the need for sudden supplication to the porcelain goddess. I just said...hurry and bring your key to let yourself in. I know it seemed like hours, but he was here in about 6-7 minutes. I was still in the floor, and he called the ambulance while I called for Ralph several more times. I leaned back against the tub, still on the floor, and heard the siren coming. ("Hear that? They are coming for YOU....") Nothing like entertaining the entire neighbourhood on Tuesday night, now that there is nothing good on tv during that time. : P

The paramedics arrive, and later the ex tells me the look on their faces when they stepped into my apartment. I had been busy earlier, there was stuff stacked on my desk, my braillewriter was out on its little tv tray stand, and comic books were strewn around. Add this to the shock of my Daredevil shrine in the corner of the living room, and two panicked cats running for the cover of the bedskirt, and it was some sight, I'm sure. The ex says my place has the look of ten pounds of shit in a five pound bag. C'est la freaking vie.

I'm gathered up onto the waiting stretcher, and it's only hours later that I realise that I have no shoes and am wearing what I normally only sleep in: my favourite huge Ekco tshirt that is so long that it covers the black running shorts underneath. On the front is the Sienkewitz DD in faded red; the back is the same, smaller image in black outline. That ought to freak out the sisters at St. Bernard's hospital. But that's not where we went. It was much closer to Northeast Arkansas Hospital. Four stoplights and seven turns and we are there in about five minutes, bouncing everywhich way on the washboard pavement of Stadium Drive.
I hear the paramedic call in my vitals to the waiting ER staff. BEEP...BEEP...BEEP as we back into the unloading dock, and the noxious diesel fumes bouncing back into my face when they pull me and the gurney out into the steamy night air. It ain't easy being green.

They slide me through the automatic doors and the nurse points back to bay 8. Damn. Three times I've been to this hospital and all three times, I have landed in bay 8. At least give me a change of scenery. That would come soon, as they rolled me into a smaller room because they needed the heart monitor for a chest pain patient who was on the way. It was going to be a sleepless night for me, even though I was given a dose of Demerol and Phenergran that normally knocks people stupid. I kept praying it would knock me stupid. Never happened.

My ex stayed with me into the night, way above the call of duty. We watched out the door into the corridor as they brought in a "code". The whole ER scrambled, but to no avail. The phlebotimist comes in and draws umpteen vials of blood from me, after trying three times to find a vein. Suddenly a nurse slammed our door shut. The ex got up to see what happened, and they were calling the funeral home because the person in #2 had expired. Very shortly after that, one of the morticians came in with the stretcher with the body bag, but found out his person was still up on the third floor. That scene repeated about an hour later, when another came to take away someone's mother who had died of cancer. She must have been tiny, because the burgundy shroud barely registered a form underneath as he wheeled her out.

I was sent out to have some xrays done, and when I came back to the room, someone else was being wheeled into #2 . I thought that the family would freak if they knew that someone had just died in there. It seemed like people just kept showing up for this person, and they were taking shifts since only 2 at a time are allowed with a patient. Meanwhile, I was given a nasty concoction to drink for a CT scan.

More waiting. Now it's after 1 AM. The contrast dye has had time to settle in me, and I'm wheeled off to CT. The radiologist apologises as she has to put in a port for the contrast dye. Lucky me...it's in the bend of my right arm. At least this tech was honest about that "Don't breathe" stuff while they are doing the scan. She says as long as I don't move on the table, it will be ok. I can do that. Even as that warm feeling invades my body as the dyes injects, I remember that people just used to die from bowel obstructions before they could get in to see what was the problem.

~~~

By now, if you are still reading this, you are probably bored shitless. Sorry that I feel the need to recant this experience. I'm going to keep writing. That doesn't mean you have to keep reading.

~~~

Two o'clock in the morning. The ex has to be at work at 0730, so he calls it a night. The doctors have decided now that I am stable enough to be transported. They are waiting for the results of the CT scan to call in to the Veteran's Hospital in Memphis. They are done with me. I am a charity case. I have no insurance and they have done all they are obligated to do, unless the VA is full and cannot accept me on transfer. Then they will be forced to finish treatment. I wait some more.

A nurse comes in with a jar an sets it on the end of the bed. "You need to pee in this for me" she practically yells. "Not too much. But I need it quickly." Yeah, like I pee on command. I have no liquid in me. I threw it all up and have been NPO for the past four, five hours. I trot on down the hall anyway and find the loo. No sooner than I get my pants down and am hovering over this tiny jar, someone lets out a blood-curdling scream.

"Dear Jay-sus! She's gone!" Room #2 is two for two tonight. I have just pissed all over everything but the jar. If it weren't so awful, it would be funny. Someday, I might laugh. Not at that moment. The wailing in the hall continues as all the relatives race in.

I get myself back together and secure my vessel in a brown paper towel because I don't want to be carrying a cup of piss down the hall in front of the bereaved family. One of the wailing women is beside herself, and someone shakes her. She wanders off down the hall to collect "Mama's favourite blanket". I see her bring a tattered blue blanket back, and in a few minutes, she returns with a small child wrapped in that same blanket, and she goes back in with the deceased. I just hope the child is too young to remember any of this.

Shortly the coroner arrives. He questions the staff in the hall before he goes in and asks the family to step out. Time of death? Two-forty-two. I never hear the cause, but they must not have been expecting this. The coroner leaves, family members troop back into the room, and I hear the doctor discussing my fate with the VA on the phone.

Yes, they can take me. Am I coming by private vehicle, or by ambulance transfer? I hear the cranky nurse who stuffed that Demerol into my backside say that she doesn't give a damn if I go by Greyhound Bus. Just get me gone. Gee, thanks, Florence F*cking Nightengale. Holy shit, she's come back in with another syringe full of Demerol to give me right before they load me in the ambulance for the seventy-five mile trip to Memphis at four AM. She jabs me again, I'm transferred onto another gurney, and loaded like a side of beef into another meat wagon. I resist the urge to flip FFN the bird as she waves goodbye at the door.

And....we are off. There is a female paramedic driving and the guy stays back there with me. I'm locked and loaded back here, facing backwards, thankful I also got another ass-full of Phenergran so I won't get carsick. Only problem is...I can't sleep. Not in a frickin' ambulance, bouncing all over these fine Arkansas highways. Even the paramedic notices. We end up talking about useless stuff all the way to Memphis, like why the cabinet doors in this ambulance all have a sticker that says "Cabinets". Maybe it's like the freakin' BatCave from the 60's tv show. We get to the big Hernando DeSoto bridge that spans the Mississippi River and I notice that there are eight span lights out on my side of the bridge as we go under them.

Then I realise that this driver has no idea where she is going once she crosses the bridge into Tennessee. The other paramedic thinks she is kidding at first, but she's serious. He directs her around a route that I just don't understand how it could be faster than the one I use. We get to the VA, and they can't find the ambulance entrance for all the construction. She drives in the wrong way of one entrance, then backs out, running over a curb, or something. They circle the block, asking someone in the parking lot which way to go. Of course, the guy they ask is more than likely stoned, or he wouldn't be out there at 0500. We end up going in the admissions entrance. They drag me up a hall to a desk, where they ask a very large woman where the ER is. She points vaguely up the hall. We follow the overhead signage, going about a hundred yards into a darkened corridor. The signs keep pointing us in a circle. I have been in this place enough times to know this isn't right, but shit, I'm just the passenger in this circle jerk, so I shut up and let them do their two stooges routine. We wind up back in front of that same desk. She can't be arsed to give us directions the first time, but she points again to the corridor right beside her, that we passed up the first time. Though those double doors. Exit only they read. My charioteers go back and demand better explanation of how we get from point A on the outside of the door to point B on the inside. There is no signage, and the fat woman is shouting around the corner to press the button. There appears to be no damned button. She finally waddles out from behind her desk, and hits a small square near the floor and the doors swing wide...toward us. Before they can slam shut again, Mutt and Jeff push me through and present me to....a bunch of people sitting around the ER who look like they have no idea why I might be there.

I am uncerimoniously dumped off this litter onto one of the VA's, and the paramedics take leave. I assume they found their way out of the building.

~~~~

Ok, I'm tired, it's late, I'll write further adventures tomorrow. And yes, I swear all this shit is true. You can't make up a clusterf*ck like this.

Another day of infamy

2005-07-09T14:46:00.000-05:00

I'm not old enough to remember Pearl Harbor, but that event coined the phrase we have heard countless times in old newsreels spoken so eloquently by President Roosevelt. Alas, we now have another "Day of Infamy" to add to our history books.

It's two days after the bombings in London, and I think that full realisation has just hit me. It's as if I've been somewhat in shock, just like I was after 9/11. A certain feeling of powerlessness to help, but a resolve to resume normalcy (whatever that really is) to keep the bastards from getting what they want: fear.

Neither of these cowardly events were in "my backyard". I live in the southern USA, and the last horrific event here were the Westside schoolyard shootings. That WAS in my backyard. The 'terrorists' in this case were an 11 year old and a 13 year old. How that changed the whole character of this community! Parents were afraid to send their children to school. Schools became fortresses patrolled by uniformed police. Personal belongings were searched to gain entrance to classrooms. CNN was here, camped on the doorstep. It was the end of the innocence in Northeast Arkansas.

So, I can only imagine how the bombings affected those so much closer to them. My first news about the bombings came from the internet, almost at noon Central time. I had slept late, and gone over to help sort out some new computer gear for someone, and the tv was recording movies, not on a channel. When I checked my email, Yahoo news had this headline about 37 people being killed in subway blasts. My heart fell at my feet. I have friends there! I know it's a big place, but so are New York, and D.C., and I had people in both those places I cared about on 9/11, and just like this I had to know that they were safe, and couldn't rest until I knew they were. I frantically blasted off a batch of emails, knowing full well that my friends had much more to deal with than answering them. I could only let them know that I was concerned. Concerned isn't a strong enough word here. I'm not sure what the correct one would be. To put it in crass terms, I was scared shitless for them. That's more accurate.

Like the way the populace rallied in the world for the WTC victims, the Pentagon victims, and the plane crash victims, I feel much of the same support system for the people of the UK. There is little I can do as an individual across the vast pond. I went outside a few minutes ago and tied another red/white/blue ribbon on my car antenna, next to the one that has been there since September 12, 2001 and is barely a shred. I vowed not to take it off until our troops were safely home. I will probably send this car to the scrapyard before that happens.

But I can hope. It's all I have.

All together now, let's fall apart

2005-06-26T01:11:00.000-05:00

That was the title of a cut on one of Ronnie Milsap's early albums. The irony of it has never escaped me.

What is it about getting older? I remember my older brother talking about this phenom of older people always talking about their aches and pains, and the sudden realisation that he had started doing it, too. I guess it's that mortality thing setting in, the fact that we are "all terminal, baby!"

That recent class reunion is a good example. If I had really told people how I was, they would think I was lying. This much shit doesn't happen to one person, does it? I was taken aback by a friend who stopped over where I was staying, and almost the first thing said was, "Ok, tell me what the deal is with your license plate." I haven't seen this person in years, and that's the first question? (I have disabled plates on the car.) Little does this person know, but next time I might not even be driving myself to the reunion. Hell, who knows if either one of us will still be alive? Life doesn't exactly come with a money-back guarantee, now, does it?

Two trips to the doctor in one week gets tiring. The fact that I literally cannot take the heat doesn't help matters one bit either. I have slept more in the past two days than I have in the past two weeks. The hardest part is cutting myself some slack for doing it. I feel like I am wasting time when I sleep. But, damn, I have had some interesting dreams. That's the beauty of only sleeping a couple of hours at a stretch.

A couple of them had to do with gathering up belongings before a big disaster happened. I guess a joke about earthquakes on the New Madrid fault (not far at all from here) and tsunami warnings from the Mississippi River started all that. Who knows? Another one had to do with helping with a renovation project like the ones on Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. Whole lot of colour going on in that one, more than usual. Still another was that old favourite that haunts me...the end of school is near, and I can't remember where my locker is, or what the combination to the lock might be, because I haven't been to class all semester, and it's exam time.

Good news is that my CT scan showed nothing, and the rest is nothing that won't heal up. At least I did get a consult to opthamology with the VA. Heaven knows when I will actually get an appointment. Hopefully before they have to enroll me in O&M...heh.

Geez, after that rant, I think I feel better!

Class Reunion

2005-06-19T02:05:00.000-05:00

This is hard for me to believe, that I have been out of high school for this long.

Reality check: time again for another class reunion. I drove nearly 800 miles two days ago to come to this event held every five years. I have to say this one was a lot more fun than the last one.

I went with my best friend (since fourth grade) over to the American Legion Hall in my hometown this morning to help out with the decorations. I wasn't in on the main part of the planning, because I don't live in town, and nobody asked me. So I contented myself with putting the cheesy white plastic tableclothes out and placing the purple crepe paper circles in the center, topped with fake greenery, white-painted tuna cans that held purple votive candles, crowned with a hurricane lantern globe. (Actually, it looked better than it sounds. And once they started serving the alcohol, no one cared anyway.) Another old school chum helped me put twisted purple and white crepe paper streamers up on the walls, topped with purple cardboard stars. R and I were reprimanded by the others for giggling over in the corner where he and I were finishing up the decor. We were just laughing at overhearing one of the other classmates talking about her ex bringing some girl half his age to the party later tonight, and another saying that she was dating someone seventeen years younger than she. Someone discovered that we needed to go pick up balloon bouquets in a nearby town, and he and I volunteered to drive over to get them.

The last time I saw R was at the last reunion five years ago, and before that, I had not seen him since high school. He is a tall, slender, handsome guy with the type of dimples that just are wonderful. We were not good friends in school, but had a lot of classes together over the years. In fact, in the first grade, I pushed him off the ladder of the slide when he tried to cut in front of me. He fell, bit either his tongue or his lip, I forget which, and ran in crying to the teacher. Since there was a bit of blood involved, I got spanked and had to sit facing the corner of the room. The big traumatic moment of my first school year. I remember it well. R did not. We had an excellent laugh over it, though.

R has done quite well for himself. He drives a Cadillac, which he claims is because he likes a large back seat in which to hang his clothes when he travels, as he hates to pack. Sure enough, his back seat had all these neatly pressed shirts and trousers all lined up on the rod. (I haven't ironed that much since I left the Navy.) I am certain that these did not come from the laundry this way. There were no cleaners' bags on any of them. His car was spotless, of course. A couple of things that I found quite funny, however were the teddy bear dressed in black biker garb on the front console, and the sparkly star shaped fairy wand tucked into the headliner by the passenger door. I asked if there was a story behind these objects and he just smiled and winked at me. "Yes." But since he said no more about them, I am drawing my own conclusions, which I have thought since back in school.

We went in the party store to discover that the order was for more balloons than even his big Caddy could hold, so we brought back all we could and called for reinforcements to bring the others. We delivered them to the Legion Hall, then went in search of a frame for the memorial table. (Our class has lost over a dozen members already.) That took us to Walmart, where I decided to look for a purple tshirt to wear to the party. All they had were plain ones, as the clerk said that the school logo shirts sell out very fast. We found a decent, respectable frame for the memorial list and headed out.

Driving through town, I spotted a shop that sold school spirit gear, and we made a dash into there. Excellent, they had one my size and much to my surprise, R bought it for me. I was extremely grateful, because this whole trip has been on such a shoestring budget that I wasn't quite sure if I would have enough to buy gas for the trip home. It was such a sweet gesture. He said for me to just remember what a fun time we had today every time I wear it. Believe me, I will.

The reunion itself was a lot of fun. R and I staked out a table towards the back, and he had brought in a nice bottle of red wine. Everyone mingled before dinner, and I saw a couple of people that I seriously did not recognise, and several people obviously did not recognise me until they read my name tag. One person flatly told me that she didn't remember me at all. Pfffft.

There are always a couple of people that haven't changed hardly at all. But most of the women are fat, and a lot of the men are bald, or headed that way. I could care less. One person showed up that was the major talk of the party, mainly because she has had so much work done that she doesn't resemble herself anymore. Extreme makeover deluxe. Looked like she got her money's worth.

There is one fellow, D, who claims that I am the reason he made it through high school. He says that he managed to copy my test answers over my shoulder. He even says he was so intent about copying me once that he looked down and had put my name on his paper. We sat and laughed about goofy shit we all had done in school, and it was really a blast from the past.

One thing I have to agree with R about, however. The people who were assholes in high school are STILL assholes. So we sat back and christened one table of the former "in crowd" as the asshole table. They do tend to run in packs.

I hope to see most of these people back again in five more years. Probably at the American Legion Hall, probably over a good barbeque dinner and a candle stuck in a tuna can.

A bloody awful thing

2005-06-15T00:06:00.000-05:00

What am I? Disaster central? Today I had a nosebleed in the middle of a Chinese restaurant. Give me a break!

It was one like I've never had before. I began to wonder if I should fish the cellphone out of my pocket and call 911, after I had soaked up a pile of napkins. Ick. Took me a good five minutes to get it under control, and as soon as I made it to my next stop, it started again. The people in the copy shop gave me a stack of wet paper towels. I quit dripping long enough to write them a check, and then three times was the charm when I got to the bank. At least no one around me fainted at the sight of my blood.

So, tomorrow I start my trip to visit with old friends at my high school reunion. I just hope that my arm doesn't fall off, or something. Sheesh.

The Whole Kitten Caboodle

2005-06-11T15:01:00.000-05:00

The hardest thing about my recent divorce was leaving behind the kitties. We have seven, and I could only take two with me, as per the apartment lease provisions. I had to determine which two would be the most compatible and least affected by the move. I chose the last two we added to the household, Ringo and Toby.

Ringo was grown when we got him. His owner was elderly, had a stroke, and was placed in a nursing home. The son-in-law is the guy my ex buys his bulk cat litter (floor dry) from. He knew we had other cats and asked if we could take in this big orange neutered male. He didn't even know what the cat's name was, so we had free reign at what to call him. He has a wonderful thick tail with distinct rings on it, so he became Ringo. It would have been easy to call him Morris, because he looks just like the cat food commercial cat. He is a love, very easy-going, and likes Toby a lot.

Toby was dropped off in the neighborhood of my ex's workplace when he was barely weaned. I could hold him in one hand he was so tiny. Dan (the ex) called me and told me to bring the cat carrier to work because he thought this kitten was adorable. That made seven cats...I was really getting where I felt like I had too many with six. Toby would be a curtain climber if we had not declawed him at a very young age, and he still has no idea he isn't supposed to climb. He literally runs up the walls on the door frame of my bedroom, sometimes reaching almost 5 feet off the floor, and sliding down like a fireman on the brass pole. I wish I had it on video. It's a riot. Toby gets called "Toby-wan Kenobi" on occasion when he looks too serious, and he has an orange fish that he likes to drag into bed for me to toss and him to fetch.

The two of them together keep me in good company and a good humour.

Strange dreams

2005-06-11T01:40:00.000-05:00

Lately, I seem to be having a lot of strange dreams. Maybe it's due to my sleep schedule (or lack thereof), or I need to lay off those spicy foods. I dunno.

The other night(or day, actually), I dreamed I was talking to a friend of mine, who walked in and asked me point blank what was bothering me. There were a couple of odd things about this dream, but the strangest thing was that I have never met this internet friend face to face, but I KNEW who he was. And it seemed so natural that he be here.

Skip a few days, and I'm dreaming about cats again. Many times I dream about my cats getting loose from the house and how I frantically try to collect them, to make sure they are safe. But this one was a topper. I was with a family...not mine...who were going to an amusement park of some sort. We stopped at this attraction, where the focus was on a display of cats who could catch fish from a running stream, or so the signs said. (?) The children ran ahead, and we caught up with them leaning over a railing watching the cats do their thing with the fish. The fish were in a kind of recirculating waterfall, like they were swimming upstream, and the cats would wait alongside for one to get too close to the edge, and would snag the fish, trot over to show the spectators, then trot back and drop it back into the water. (Cats doing catch and release???) Not exactly entertainment value to me, so I wandered away, where there was sort of a carnival sideshow thing that had men doing caricatures of paying customers up on a sort of platform. I remember that one of the signs touted the artist as having worked for Disney. He was drawing this guy, but putting him in a cartoon setting. Another guy was drawing people in their favourite sports pose, the particular one happening was this fat guy being portrayed as a baseball player. I rounded a corner, and there were the "extra cats". They were hanging on a canvas wall, their heads stuck through holes in the canvas, suspended by bows tied around their necks. Someone was feeding them, and they all looked contented. I made the remark that it must take a lot of kitty valium to keep them that way.

I'm going to have to lay off the jalapeno Pringles.

Mysterious Benefactor

2005-05-19T23:30:00.000-05:00

I had a bit of a shock today. Last week, I went to the opthamologist for an exam, and had to pay some on my account for some tests that I had run back in the winter. I was not given a follow-up exam that day, because I still owed on the last batch. It struck me odd, and I openly questioned, why Lasik surgery, a vanity procedure for the most part, could be had on time payments, when something necessary for me could not be paid for over time. I didn't have enough to pay for the $65 office visit that day, so I signed a promissory note that I would pay it within the next week. Today was the day to pay the piper.

The lady at the desk took my check, and entered the info into the computer. She made an odd frown, then looked up at me and said, "What is this payment for?" My visit last week. "What is your birthdate?" I told her. "Just a moment...I don't see a balance that you owe." But I owe that and a bunch more for previous tests. "I'll be right back", she said, and took my check with her to the back part of the office where the huge file cabinets are and conferred with another person back there out of my sight and earshot. She was gone about a minute.

When she returned, she handed my check back to me, and smiled. "Your bill is paid."

I was dumbfounded. No way. I have no medical insurance. How can this be? Who paid my bill? She smiled again, and said "We can't release that information." I asked one more time if she was sure she had the right account, and she assured me she did. I turned away, went into the restroom and cried for a good five minutes.

It's late at night now, and I still don't know who came to my rescue. It wasn't my ex-husband, although he continues to be very friendly with me, does not pay my bills. I asked my cousin, who would possibly do it, but he didn't know who my doctor was, and he denied it too. No one else knows the details that lives around here. If I find out, I'll put it here later. But, until then, thank you, whoever you might be. I will pay it forward when I can.

No Justice in TV Land

2005-05-18T00:49:00.000-05:00

I'm really annoyed. The final decisions have been made by the networks about what shows stay and what go. Of course, the only show that I have been following, Blind Justice, is on the cancellation list.

It's not that some of us rabid fans haven't been campaigning in the show's behalf, because we have. The various internet forums dedicated to this show worked together to make Project 308, so named because the first episode of Blind Justice aired on March 8, 2005. People from Japan to the UK wrote ABC and Steven Bochco Productions to voice our support. I added a little extra "touch" to each of my letters and cards: I brailled something on each one. Surely someone noticed that? Not that it changed any minds.

Try as we did, though, it appears that it's more socially redeeming to watch Wife Swap or The Bachelor. Jiminy Christmas, what is with people?

Maybe they started out marketing this show to the wrong demographic. What started out as a pitch to the young male crowd soon was soon recognised as a show that appealed to women. The first shows had advertisements for macho trucks and erectile disfunction drugs, but the switch is almost complete as the season winds down, and we see ice cream and the Olive Garden pitched at us. They should have been running the promos during Oprah instead of the evening news.

Blind Justice replaced NYPD Blue in the Tuesday night time slot, against some stiff competition of Law & Order, SVU, and a lead in of The Amazing Race on competing networks. Factor in all the possibilities for watching something on one of the gazillion cable channels, and it's a wonder that Blind Justice had a snowball's chance in hell of even airing all 13 episodes.

The cast is great. The characters have begun to flesh out, make us care about them. The writing has been really good. Many issues have been raised that have sparked a lot of intelligent conversation. It's been interesting and fun. A lot of new friends have been made over the brief time we've all discussed how nasty Russo can be, and how sofa king cold Christie can be.

Man, I am going to miss this show.

Warped sense of humour

2005-05-07T23:00:00.000-05:00

Some of the strangest things set me off. I was driving through Birmingham, Alabama, recently on the way home from a business trip. We had somehow gotten onto a truck route through a less than wonderful part of town, and it widened out into a bigger road through a row of non-descript buildings.

Emblazoned across the side of one of these was "Alabama Center for the Blind". Ok, not funny in itself, but in context. Plain brick building with absolutely no windows. I snickered. My friend who was riding shotgun looked at me like I was crazy. I elaborated on what I thought was funny. She was less than amused, I could tell. Oops. I just crossed the crass line.

Two blocks later, other side of the street. "Alabama Limb and Prosthetic Company". Hmm...do we have a pattern here?

A couple more blocks and a huge sign proclaims "Limp in....Leap out!" What the hell was this? A faith healing place?? It was an establishment that sold auto and truck springs. I lost it. I began to look for the street sign now, sure it would read "Gimp Alley" or some such. Ok, guess you had to be there. And be going on three hours sleep. Told you I'm warped. Forgive me.

Spring Cleaning

2005-03-25T22:23:00.000-06:00

I wish I could get into spring cleaning, but it isn't there for me. This is one time that I really feel 180 out from everyone else. I'm fighting allergies of some kind, but I'm not going to go through a battery of tests to find out the culprit. It will pass. Might be the Bradford Pear trees, because they have been beautiful this week, or it could be all the daffodils. I love spring flowers, and I would love to get out there and dig in the dirt and plant some stuff. Ain't gonna happen. My eyes are watering and my nose keeps stopping up even when I'm indoors. Benedryl is my friend...up to a point. When other people are feeling lively and coming out of the winter doldrums, I am staying in the house. And why should I stir up the dust to add to my misery? Spring cleaning can wait until fall. *sniff*

******

Yogurt covered raisins are pretty good.

******

Toby is one of my cats. He is a real treasure, most of the time, and right now he's sitting in my lap, paws around my neck, being a love. Before I got my new clothes dryer, I had a large drying rack that stood in the kitchen. Toby decided to use it for his personal training device, climbing it on a regular basis. I christened it Mount Washmore. I have no idea how Toby could climb this thing, as it's made of round dowel rods spaced about a foot apart, and it stands about four feet tall. Also, Toby has no claws, but that never stops him. That bad boy can run straight up the door facings too, sliding back down like he's on a fire pole. He's a little pissed off at me now because Mount Washmore has disappeared into the storage shed, so he has retaliated by climbing through the mini-blinds whenever I'm involved in something where I can't get to him. Keeps me entertained.

Ringo is the other cat, and he and the Tobester are best buds. At least twice a day, they make this apartment into the Indy 500. A couple of furry streaks flying over my shoulder as they CATapult over the loveseat and over my head into the hall and disappear under the bed. At rest, Ringo doesn't look like he could move that fast at all. A Morris look-alike, this big ginger tom has a passion for yogurt. Although, he doesn't like my yogurt raisins. It's a good thing to have a couple of fine cats around the house.

Comix today

2005-03-23T23:28:00.000-06:00

It took me years to admit this publicly. I read comic books. There...now the whole world knows. I'm out of the closet, no longer do I have to smuggle them home in Kroger bags inside the latest copy of Woman's Day. Although, now, there is no one to hide them from. The cats don't care if I have this insane passion for Daredevil, as one of their favourite things is to scratch their clawless paws on the handle openings of my comic storage boxes. It makes the most absurd sound, and I know exactly what they are up to when I hear it.

Today was the seventy-first issue of the second volume of Daredevil. It's the beginning of a new story arc called Decalogue, and the premise is a good one, based on the Ten Commandments. Brian Michael Bendis is a genius. He has been writing DD on a regular basis since issue twenty-six, and held me spellbound. Accompanying his master storytelling is Alex Maleev, an artist with such a distinct style in this title that when they both depart the book at the end of the year, I am not alone in thinking that I will be grieving. No one else draws Matt Murdock like Maleev. I'm in love with a line drawing. Sigh.

It's not easy being a fangirl. We are so outnumbered in the comic readership world. Thankfully, my local comic shop is nice to me. I don't spend exorbitant sums in there; I don't read forty titles a month. Comic shop Dave meets me at the door with the latest issue of Daredevil in hand. He knows what else I like to read, and if there is even the most obscure reference to DD in another title, he knows I want to know about it. This is really nice, because I have gone into other LCS and endured the silent treatment. The looks that say "she must have wandered into the wrong store" or "her grandchildren (EEK!) must have sent her to buy the latest Spider-Man". That was a little while ago now, before I decided what the hell? Go ahead and wear that DD tshirt into the store and while I'm at it, why should my hair be grey? Now they think I might just be shopping for my kids. I don't have any of those, either. These comics are for ME, fanboy!

I now enjoy status as a full-fledged comic-reading fangirl geek. It's wonderful. Thanks to the internet, I have other people to talk with about my obsession over my favourite superheroes. I have successfully defended my title of World's Biggest Daredevil Fan at a comic book convention. I have met some of my artist idols, and even have gotten my name (and a very small picture) in the pages of a real comic book. It's geek love. Heh.

A good friend, after seeing my Daredevil shrine atop my computer desk and my comic boxes full of the forty year saga of Daredevil, christened me with my blog name, Darediva. I thank her for that. I wear it proudly.

Oh, and I picked up New Avengers today, too.

*********

PS to yesterday: the cable guy said my problem was that cheap Walmart coax cable from my tv to the wall. I did get to successfully tape Blind Justice last night. Great episode. I do hope this show makes a second season.

Beware the Ides of March

2005-03-15T13:49:00.000-06:00

As I was paying bills today, the date hit me. Every year, I think on this day back to my sophomore year in high school, when Mrs. Winder so cleverly timed our reading of Julius Caesar so that Brutus did his deed on the very day. She ranks way up on the list of people who shaped my young life, as she was not only my English teacher, but also the yearbook advisor. I worked three years with her on the high school yearbook, and the literary magazine we published. What a fun time! And we did it all by hand, because I am back there in the B.C. era. We shot real film, cropped real photos (with cropping tape!), lettered the title pages and did the art with india ink. We had to have our pages approved by the school board, and I got my first taste of rebellious act when I dared submit cover art for the 1970 yearbook that was NOT in the school colors of purple and white. The school board viewed the mock-up, and one member reportedly said, "Of course, this WILL be purple and white, not yellow and orange on black?" Mrs. Winder stood her ground, replying that it was to be done as shown. There was no rubberstamp approval that night. Instead, the issue was taken before the student body for a vote. After a bit of rousing debate on campus, my design was narrowly approved. For once, the art won over the athletic department. To appease the jocks, we put their group picture in with a purple tint.

******
I'm still battling someone's idea of a joke...this about:blank that is plaguing my computer. What makes people so desperate for attention that they need to destroy things? Et tu, Brute?

I'm late, I'm late...

2005-03-05T22:40:00.000-06:00

It always seems that it's true that the hurrier you go, the behinder you get. Case in point, going to the post office. I hate to go to the post office. This is not a good thing if you are in the mail order business. One of the best things to come along was the online label service the USPS has now. Or it is when it works. Yesterday, when I had three orders to ship, my printer wouldn't correctly put the indicia needed on the labels, so I had to do it the old fashioned way. By standing in line.

The post office isn't that far from my house, but at 3 PM on a Friday, the traffic around it is heavy. What are they thinking when they only have one person at the window on Friday afternoon, when everyone is in there buying money orders on payday? I'm the third person in line, and the guy in front of me asks about a package that was not delivered to his office. The lone clerk goes over to another part of the office, and I hear her TURN ON A COMPUTER! Jiminy Christmas! Don't they keep their tracking computer online?? Five minutes goes by, and she has still not found this guy's package. Fact was, she never could log on to the site.

By now there are six people in line behind me. Two are having loud conversations on their cellphones. (Another rant, another day.) I have one package that needs to go overseas, and even though I already have the customs form filled out, I have to fill out something else that I didn't have ready, and I have to put the contents in a different envelope because the one I had was not an Express Mail Flat Rate. Nothing is every simple at the post office. Heaven forbid if you get it all done before you get there. And I'm way more prepared than most folks who step up to that counter. Twenty minutes after I walk in, with only two people ahead of me, I get done. I walk out to see another four people have walked in behind those other six and the line is out the door. I mutter under my breath that my timing could have been worse.

I console myself with the fact that the Priority Mail envelopes and boxes are "free", and head home to pack more stuff up to mail the next day. Just hope I can make the printer work.

Or...through the fooking glass

2005-03-02T21:33:00.000-06:00

Goodness knows why someone might want to read any of my adventures, but once in a while, funny stuff does happen.

Take today for example. After returning late yesterday from a sixteen hundred mile road trip, I rolled out of bed at what for me is the crack of dawn (0730) because I had a doctor's appointment at 0900. The parking garage was full, until I got to the roof. Winding up five floors to the roof revealed to me that the power steering is going out on my car. Wonderful.

I needed to go back to the first floor for the appointment, so I waited...and waited...and waited for the elevator. Yes, I could have taken the stairs faster, but by the time I got there, I couldn't have made it to the end of the long corridor. This getting older is getting old in situations like that. Damn that radial neuropathy!

It was a good thing that I had left the house fairly early. I arrived at the check-in only ten minutes before the appointment, so I signed in and took a seat. Almost immediately, the nurse called my name. This had to be too good to be true. It was. My appointment is next week. Unfortunately, that is not what my appointment card said, but I had left it at home. Rats.

Muscling the car back down the ramp was not fun, and I realised I forgot to have the desk stamp my parking ticket, so I had to fish out fifty cents to pay for my fifteen minutes in the garage.

Off to pick up all the mail that has collected in my rented box at the UPS store. Mostly a pile of garbage that has begun to find me after changing my address six months ago. Three applications for credit cards. A bill from the opthamologist that I have to settle before I have to have all the tests run again. Why I love having no health insurance... Oh! One of the little red slips of paper in the box that says I have a package waiting for me!

Wooooohoooo! Another of the mystery boxes that come to me. I just let the UPS store guy wonder why I'm getting stuff marked "Free Matter for the Blind". Once it was a huge box that had my new (to me) electric Perkins brailler. Then it was the big brick of brailler paper. Today, it's the contractions dictionary I ordered. I'm taking the correspondence course from the Library of Congress to try to get my certification to transcribe braille. (Another story, another day.)

I grabbed a breakfast burrito at Sonic, and came home to answer my phone messages from last week. Someone left me a wrong number; two were orders for my quilt patterns. Too early to call the west coast, so I tried to get some of the gear I dragged in last night stowed away. The three hours of sleep I had last night began to catch up with me, so I decided to take a nap.

The cats curled up next to me, and I was down for the count. Two hours later, I heard the computer announce someone messaging me, so I got up in time to find the ISP connection disconnecting. No matter what I did, I could not get back online. I suppose this six year old Dell is going to gasp its last before long. Please! Not before I get it all backed up!

I switch to the laptop, and when the Yahoo comes up, there is an ad that promises me a free scoop of Baskin-Robbins ice cream in honor of the tenth anniversary of Yahoo. (Can it be so?) What the heck, I decide, this is my junk email address, so I follow the link to print out the coupon. My printer jams. I take the guts apart and pull out the shreds of paper, and try again. Yippee! I am now going to get free ice cream tonight. It's in the same store as the Steak Escape place, and I rationalise that since I am making a second trip to the UPS store, and it's on the way back...

Never had tried the cheesesteak sandwich there, so I order one and take a seat as directed to wait. I see the entire staff standing around. Five minutes go by. No sandwich. Someone else comes through the drive in and they get their order. Someone else comes in to place an order. No sandwich. Finally, I go back to the counter and ask just how long it takes to get served. Fully expecting to get the usual lackluster response from another fast food worker, I was surprised to see them all snap to and before I knew it, I had my sandwich, a coupon for a free sandwich on my next visit, and the manager trotting out with my refund in her hand and a profuse apology! I not only got free ice cream for supper, but also free supper.

This put me in a much better mood, keeping me from tossing the computer and the printer across the room tonight when I could not get the online package labels to print. Maybe tomorrow will be a better technology day. Can't hope for another free meal, however...