Poor Sweet BattleAxe...

Needles died last night, in ttk's arms.
She put up a good fight the last few months but it was time for her to go...she waited until ttk got home last night, and died less than an hour later.
10:18 pm.

Funny how you notice the little things like that.

He made a simple but beautiful box for her, and for now we'll bury her in an oak half-wine barrel until we have our own home. Then, she and all the other little ones will be buried in their own home. Our own home.

Sweet Battleaxe, I will miss you.

Romance...

He brought me flowers!!!!

Real, live, flowers!

Without having to be prompted, even!

Long-stemmed purple tulips. :-)

I didn't even know that tulips grew so long!

Funny thing was trying to find a vase--we've purged so much that the only thing I could find was a latching jar that had popping corn in it.

As I was arranging the flowers in the jar, TTK came in and said, "huh, I would have thought you would use something from your glass jar collection," and pointed upward.

DUH!!!!

So now they are beautifully arranged in my vintage Chemex coffeepot. :-)

eeeeee! He brought me flowers!!!

If I could have sex, he would so not be able to walk today...l

Ow.

Ick.
Just got one of my molars ground down and prepared for a crown.
Have I mentioned I hate tooth issues?
The procedure was horrible--I can't breathe through my nose when my mouth is open, so I had to hold my breath, wave a hand and gasp for air, then hold my breath again, for an hour and a half.
Not fun.

ARRRGH--Broody chicken!

Small prelude: when chickens go broody, they stay on the nest all day and night, and leave it once a day to eat and poop...consequently the poop is a MASSIVE one. Now on to the story...


I have been seeing a massive poop on my back porch for about 2 weeks now, which means a chicken has gone broody OUTSIDE of the coop (a couple of them have figured out how to fly-climb out of the coop, using wood struts to get them over).

Now, I do NOT need more chicks, so, I have searched the entire yard trying to find this darn hen and her eggs--around the fence line where the grass is tall, behind the wood pile, under the redwood trees on the far edge of the lawn...NOTHING.

So, today when I actually saw her on the porch, I decided to follow her...do you know how boring it is waiting for a chicken to return to her nest? I'm sure she figured out I was watching, so she took her own sweet time (and mine!) returning.
I had just about given up because she walked to the FRONT porch (our
yard is weird) and was walking around there, with no signs that she was gonna go out and get on her nest...she started nosing (or would that be beaking?) around under the trailing edges of a planter MASSIVELY overgrown with mint...suddenly, she disappeared!

I spread the mint plant apart, and there in the center, lo and behold, the chicken!

And about 20 eggs!!!!

So she's had her nest right on the front porch THIS WHOLE TIME, and here I am, searching all the far corners of the yard [thunks head]!

I can't pull the eggs, since they're gonna hatch any day now...not counting
my chickens before they hatch, but I am now waitng for about a dozen and a half chicks to be running around the yard...

Anyone want a chick or two?

Note to self: Next time, search closer!

More on the Shakiness

One thing about this shakiness: it feels like my whole nervous system, not just my hands...it manifests itself in my hands, but it's kind of like if you whack a stick in the middle, the vibrations go all the way down, and increase as they reach the ends...

This, combined with the dizziness, is really making me want to cut. I'm reining the urge in as hard as I can, though, because I know EVERYONE around me will freak, and probably take me off the steroids immediately. But...

nnnnn... cutting... control...


nope, nope, nothing to see here, I didn't say this, didn't happen, nope nope nope...

Baby cornsnakes!

Woo!
11 little spaghetti strings...several already all hissing and striking, as if they were real snakes, heh.

Dizzy

Okay, this dizziness is really driving me crazy. I know I *just* complained about it a few days ago, but considering how bad it's gotten, it bears repeating.

DIZZY                                 DIZZY
                  DIZZY
                             ~.,~-"`~
                                                                            DIZZY

DIZZY



DI            Z  Z     Y             D   I   Z   z        Y                    d       i  Z        ZZ       Y

Side Effects

Well, I've been on the budosenide for 3 weeks now, and things are not really getting better...the side effects of the steroids are *almost* overwhelming (if they were overwhelming, then I'd get off of them pronto...):

The shaky hands thing is what's really getting to me--that, and the dizziness/short of breath/if you stand up or move too fast you are going to pass out...

Shaky hands make for difficult typing. I find I have to curl my fingers under and use my knuckles for control when I am trying to use my trackball...

Dizziness makes for scary moments of the Oh-shit-I-am-going-to-pass-out variety. I find I either have to sit down abruptly (which really sucks when you're in the chicken coop!) or lean on something until the wave passes and I can move (SLOWLY!) again.

Short of breath is scary because I don't really seem to be doing all that much when I start having to gasp for air. Just talking on the phone or carrying in a load of laundry is enough to do it--I can't lift ANYTHING and this has added more reasons to why I don't drive anywhere.

Actually, the shakiness isn't just in my hands--it seems to be stemming practically from my spine and going down all my limbs. Can you say "NOT FUN!!!"?

The worst part of all this? My UC does not seem to be getting better. I'm still experiencing the urgency, the frequency, and the PAIN. I've had friends say, "Why don't you just wear Depends or something when you go out, instead of staying at home?"
Well, we're not talking about a tiny amount, here, and we're not talking about solids. I am not about to go somewhere and risk having an accident, Depends or not! Just HOW would I clean myself up in a public restroom? I can't exactly stand at the sink in my altogether, washing myself down... I would much rather stay home, near my own private facilities, thank you. Even visiting friends is scary, because what if I have to use their bathroom? It's not like a wave hits and is over--sometimes it's 10 minutes of pain and blood and spasms...then yeah, I want to go out and talk more with someone after that, right.
Frankly all I want to do after an episode is curl up into a little ball and cry...and at home, I feel free to do that.
This weekend should be interesting, since we are going to try to go to a Crohn's-Colitis Patient/Family Symposium in Sacramento on Saturday: 2 hour drive, 6 hour event, 2 hour drive back. I dunno about this...but if anyone is going to be understanding, it'll be this group of people.
Sigh.

ARRRGH--Broody chicken!

(small prelude: Some of you know this--when chickens go broody, they stay on the nest all day and night, and leave it once a day to eat and poop...consequently the poop is a MASSIVE one. Now on to the story.)


I have been seeing a massive poop on my back porch for about 2 weeks now, which means a chicken has gone broody OUTSIDE of the coop (a couple of htem have figured out how to fly-climb out of the coop, using wood struts to get htem over).

Now, I do NOT need more chicks, so I have searched the entire yard trying to find this darn hen and her eggs--around the fence line where the grass is tall, behind the wood pile, under the redwood trees on the far edge of the lawn...NOTHING.

So, today when I actually saw her on the porch, I decided to follow her...do you know how boring it is waiting for a chicken to return to her nest? I'm sure she figured out I was watching, so she took her own sweet time (and mine!) returning.
I had just about given up because she walked to the FRONT porch (our yard is weird) and was walking around there, with no signs that she was gonna go out and get on her nest...she started nosing (or would that be beaking?) around under the trailing edges of a planter MASSIVELY overgrown with mint...suddenly, she disappeared!

I spread the mint plant apart, and there in the center, lo and behold, a chicken!

And about 20 eggs!!!!

So she's had her nest right on the front porch THIS WHOLE TIME, and here I am, searching all the far corners of the yard [thunks head]!

It's a little much to hope that the eggs will hatch in time for me to bring chicks to the potluck, sigh.


Note to self: Next time search closer.

Second note to self: Trim mint and bring to potluck. Heh. Mint tea anyone?

-cobalt

Momma's home.

I just talked to her about 2 hours ago--she's back in her nest, with a new medication, and a horde of small dogs that are so happy she's back in her nest. :-)
Apparently it wasn't a stroke--it was a TIA, or transient ischemic attack. A TIA "is a short-lived temporary impairment of the brain caused by loss of blood supply" which sounds really damn scary, but it doesn't do as much damage as a full-on stroke. http://www.medicinenet.com/stroke/index.htm

So she's quitting smoking...YAY!

whew.

I just talked to my Mom...

And she sounds good. A little teeny bit slurry, but she said that she was actually able to eat with her right hand...she wants to go home tomorrow (of course!) but the drs will probably keep her for a few days.
It was amazingly hard to get her to talk about what happened--she kept asking me about ME and how I am doing!
I asked another question about how she was every time she tried to get the conversation onto me, and FINALLY she told me about what happened.
What she described was a lot worse than Amber had made it seem--Momma said she was curling her hair when she got dizzy...when she tried to walk into the bedroom, she couldn't get her body to walk straight but instead kept peeling off to the left.
When she reached the bed, she couldn't climb in, but kind of fell in instead. Amber just happened to call at that time, thank goodness, and when momma reached for the phnoe, she couldn't push the on button with her right hand. She said she could see the button, and see her hand, but she couldn't get her hand over to the button.
Scary.
When I mentioned that TTK wanted us to fly down immediately, she told me "Absolutely not. There's no need."
I agreed, saying that I would rather come down and see her when she was NOT in the hospital.

She got to have an MRI, which I told her is like "Having a band play african drum rhythms on the outside of a trash can--while your head is IN the trash can."
That got a laugh. :-)
I am going to call amber tomorrow and get an update.

Scariness.

My mom just had a stroke.

My siser called me 2 minutes ago to tell me they're at the ER...but that momma is mostly ok.
My sis had called my mom to make plans to go shopping, and momma was slurring and complained of being dizzy. Amber called my aunt Nyla immediately (Nyla's a PA) and told her...Nyla called momma, then called Amber back (A was already in the car by this time, heading over there) and said "ER. Now."

The Drs confirmed it was a stroke, and though she was feelig better, they are keeping her for a few days to run some tests as it's very likely it could happen again in the next few days.

Momma is having trouble with her right side movement, but is lucid and already acting like it's no big deal.
I told Amber "Do NOT let her pretend nothing happened! You know how she is..."
Amber agreed, and said momma was already telling her to fix some lunch, go get gas in your car, etc. before she agreed to go to the hospital.

I want to move down there...I miss my momma and want to be near her.
This really scared me. I go now to check on airline flights and pack an overnight bag, just in case.

Short?

strange note: TTK is sitting next to me, programming, and I heard him mutter "short testicle zero."
?
I asked him WHAT he just said, and he looked at me from waaaay back in his brain as he tried to come back to humanland and translate what I said...then he answered "short test equals zero."
I started cracking up and told him to mutter it, very fast...he did, bemused, and shook his head like "what?" so I told him what I thought I had heard...heh.

I Hate This.

Okay, I hate this.
Side effects? I don't know.
But, I'm dizzy. REALLY dizzy, and when I stand up or bend over I feel like I am going to pass out. This is not just today, either--it's happened several times in the past few weeks.
Another thing is my hands are shaking. You know when you've had so much caffeine that you can berely type?
THAT kind of hand shaking, although add a complete lack of hand strength in there as well.
I don't like this!
I keep hitting the F keys on the top of my keyboard by mistake, and Apple has them all mapped to some really weird behaviours, like all the windows retreat off the edges of the screen, including the active window, so all of a sudden you're staring at your desktop picture. Then I have to figure out which one I hit and hit it again, to revert.
Another side effect which is just *delightful* is I've been having night sweats. Serious, soaked to the skin wake up freezing night sweats. ICK!
I've also taken to sleeping on the couch because ttk's cat Needles, the old decrepit thing, has developed this new technique of cruising the bed, in order to avoid Fancy. (she's blind as a bat, and if she gets too close to Fancy Fancy will explode from under the covers in a loud high-pitched yapping lunge, to keep from getting stepped on.) So now Needles makes her way from the foot of the bed along the very edge, my edge, and then proceeds to walk across my face, throat, or forehead, to get to ttk. She then walks across HIS face to get to his chest. Mind you, she's doing this 4-5 times a night as she's gotten really restless in her ancientness. And every time she wakes me up, often when I've barely gotten to sleep (another side effect is I've been unable to sleep for more than 3 hours--I finally took a Klonopin last night and actually SLEPT for 9 hours!)


Other news: Fancy found a loose board on the back fence and was busily trying to pry it up so she could get into the neighbor's yard and die. Can you say "little brain?" When ttk got home yesterday evening, we walked the fence line and boarded up any holes or loose spots we could find.

We have a bunch of shares or MPWR stock, which we've been trying to get AWAY from Merrill Lynch and to our new brokerage (cf 2 posts ago) so we could sell some...it finally made it over Monday, so we sold a huge chunk at $14 a share...then Tuesday it shot up to $18 a share. Of course!
No use counting chickens and all that, but I was still pretty irritated with our crappy timing. Since I'm pretty much irritated at everything right now, that's not saying much, but still it would have been nice to have that extra $4 a share...

More later--I seem to have gotten back into the desire to post...

Update. Tme for An Update.

Okay, I've been remiss in posting...the main reason I keep this is so I can remember what happened a year ago in my life--my brain is that bad. So, every once in a while I have to do one of these "summary" posts...


•Health: I am now on oral steroids as of yesterday--My current condition is acute Ulcerative Colitis in my descending colon--8 inches. My doctor was hesitant since I have had a psychotic break from steroids in the past, but it's either steroids or Remicaide. I begged for steroids...first he would only give me the dreaded E-word type (with the non-oral method of entry...) but I've been on those for 4 weeks now with no improvement. In fact, i would say that the pain level has INCREASED.
So now, with the orals, we're watching my mental condition carefully so if I start into psychosis, we can taper me off and get me help. I've only had a few reactions to the e-steroids: inability to sleep and some tension. TTK is a little gunshy and is checking me constantly to see if I am going insane...it's a *bit* irritating, but nothing I can't handle.

I'm still pretty much housebound, as well--if I'm not on pain medication, I'm too incapacitated to drive, and if I am on pain medication, I'm too incapacitated to drive. Plus, the thought of dealing with public bathrooms while I'm in this condition TERRIFIES and HORRIFIES me.

•School: I've dropped all of my classes, for obvious reasons. I hope to pick back up next fall.

•Home: About 3 weeks ago, we met with a realtor. And a loan agent. We're hopeful, but until I can get out of the house reliably, we haven't looked at any houses. We're pretty hopeful we will find something we can afford. WHEN is the question, of course.

•Other; I'm sure there's other categories I should be updating on, but I figure I'll just amend this post when my brain kicks out another thought.


We were planning on coming down to SoCal for Anson's bday, but my system just isn't going to let me go anywhere yet.

I am SO FUCKING PISSED!

I HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE MERRILL LYNCH!!

We have been trying to close our accounts there since February and since there's a big chunk of stock there, they are not being responsive or cooperative at all!
THe latest reason they are refusing to transfer it is that there is an annual account fee...that just appeared in April.
FUCKERS!

I called them today---they wouldn't even honor the requests of our new accounts firm, so I had to call them, AGAIN.
I started out nicely, but as more and more refusals piled up, I lost my temper...while I didn't exactly yell, I got very unpleasant. I told them "I am no longer being nice--I've tried this for 3 months by being nice, and now I am pissed."

At one point, she put me on hold, to "check if the fee could be waived." When she got back, she said it couldn't be removed.
That's when I lost my shit. I started ranting, and said "I WANT MY MONEY OUT OF YOUR HANDS NOW. Am I going to have to file a lawsuit to get you to let go of my money?"

She got very calm and said she needed to speak to her supervisor Amin and she would have him call me back.
I said WHEN. She said, as soon as he's off the phone.

so now I am sitting here, brooding, pissed, furious, tense, and hungry.

-----
update:

Poor little Naly (the hapless woman who answered the phone and made the mistake of saying "She's on the phone right now. Is there something I can help you with?" when I asked for Michelle) did NOT call me back. Nor did the supervisor.

Instead, Michelle called me, all professional...


The 65 debit is erased.
The MPWR is being transferred.
The account will be closed within the week.


And all I had to do was be an utter ***** and ask if I had to initiate a lawsuit to get my money out of their hands, and tell him that the account fee was ridiculous since we have been trying to get our account moved for 3 months now.


Steroids are good for something, eh?

Frankly, I hate this agro bullshit. It's nice to know, though, that I can channel my dad when I need to.

Sigh.

I haven't posted for a while...

Basically, I'm scared.

This health thing has gone on too long, the doctors can't seem to fix it, and I can't leave the house without utter and total fear of having an accident in public.

Way too much blood and pain. EVERY DAY.

I'm exhausted all of the time (gee, I wonder why /sarcasm) and we have all of these plans for the future that don't really allow for so much volatility in my schedule. I mean, really, how are we supposed to go out looking at houses with this going on? I have enough trouble going in public bathrooms, can you imagine having to use the bathroom at a house for sale?

I don't want to die from this. But the fact is, I probably will. If not this round, then the next time they can't suppress my immune system and get my body to stop attacking itself.

Steriods have been suggested, but I go insane on steroids. Right now it's sort of, steroids, or Imuran?

Insane, or so immune-suppressed that a simple cold could kill me?
I think we're going to opt for the insanity, but that means my life will have to be put on hold.
I just can't picture shopping for a house while out of my mind on steroids...although, I might be great at the bargaining table...

Childhood Memories...

When I was at camp, we sang this song:

now we are marching,
down to the gallows
Step by step
we now approach our doom.

Somewhere tomorrow,
we will be lying
bodies stacked up
bloody cold and dead.

The sunlight is fading,
the gallows are waiting
Oh, oh, oh, oh
the gallows overhead!

(scream)

The Best Invitation I've had in Years...

"Hey, you wanna come to New Mexico for Christmas and slaughter a goat?"

hehehehehe!

This was from a friend of TTK's...

I find it wildly humorous that it occurred to his friend that we might be interested in this...
shows you that TTK talks a lot about me and my whole "homestead thing" I've got going.

TTK asked me this on the phone a few minutes ago...I don't know what TTK was expecting, but how many people do you know whose reaction to being invited to slaughter is to start cracking up?

"Hey mom, sorry I can't come for Christmas...I'm going to go to TTK's friend's house, and kill a goat."

Wow. He said that his friend's family is huge [jealous pang] and that he'll just pass us off as distant cousins.

My current bout of insanely painful and humiliating (more on this in a less cheerful post) colitis better be over by then!

If we're lucky, there will be so many people to feed that we'll get to kill a pig, too.
I already know how to process a chicken...

You're still here?

What, still checking to see if I've written anything else?
or if I'm alive?


I'm still alive, mostly.

I think animals have it right--winter is hibernation/brumation time.

Trying to function, to smile at people, converse, be nice,
trying to get laundry done, bills paid, homework done,
trying to get to class, to the store, to the post office,
is all just way too fucking difficult right now.

This is not the world's cheeriest entry...
I just had to drop my CSS class because I keep missing it--I'm taking it online, and the live class is from 10-12. You'd think I could make a 10:00 class that meets AT MY COMPUTER, but I can't seem to. So I dropped it.
I'm really bummed out about it, though, more than I thought I would be.
I guess it's that whole not wanting to admit I can't do what I think I can do thing--ever since the brain surgery this has bounded my life. I am constantly having to stop and ask myself if this is going to overload me.

What's really overloading me this semester, though, is the "Coping Strategies for Brain Injured People" or some such thing. It's like group therapy twice a week, all talking and sharing and positive outlook shit. Just WAAAYYY too much social interaction for me.
I resent it, and the energy it pulls out of me, that I then don't have for my other classes.
Yes, to be fair, I am learning a lot, but I'd rather be coding.

Like yesterday's class--it was supposed to be about learning to manage stress. Instead, the message was we could CHOOSE to be stressed out about something, or CHOOSE not to.
Basically, it's all in your head, kiddies, just choose to be calm and it'll all go away.
Oh, yeah, that works.

While I am CHOOSING not to have a stress reaction, why don't I also choose not to have a brain injury? I know! I'll choose not to have ulcerative colitis, too!
And migraines, all in your head, right?
Wow, I like that house right there--I think I'll CHOOSE to live there!
Hmmm. I don't seem to be managing my stress very well, I wonder why?

Interlude #190

him: BRRRAAAP!

me: So much for your "one cheek sneak"...

him: No, I wasn't even trying for the "one cheek sneak"--that was more of a "two-ball burble."

me: AAAA [buries face in shirt]

him: I made you lose your shit!

me: Just don't lose yours!

woo! Baby kingsnakes...

I just peeked in the incubator to see a little black string go sliding under the container full of kingsnake eggs...yay!

A baby mexican black kingsnake just hatched! A second egg is pipped and the baby inside is resting and absorbing his yolk.
Weird thing is, two eggs had hatched fully, but I only found one baby--and it wasn't all fat and full as if it had eaten the other one, either.
Theories abound: perhaps it got out through one of the vent holes in the incubator's underside.
Perhaps I didn't get hte lid on fully last I checked the eggs, and it crawled out.

Finding the little bugger will not be fun--that room is too full of hiding places that would fit something that can curl up as small as the chunk of silly putty that comes in that little plastic egg...


-------
update: The pipped one finally decided it was time to greet the world...

Heh. TV.

It's been so long since I've watched TV that I have no idea where the remote is.
We have a long pink ribbon tied to it, too, so we don't lose it in the couch.

IN OTHER WORDS....

I FINISHED!!!!

Final projects are in, exams are taken, everything is done until next year.

whew :thud:

'Graine Ate my Brain

Friday was evil.

I worked on my webpage final project for about 5 hours, which hasn't given me problems before, but every time I've pulled a marathon stint this semester it's been at school, in their proper chairs and desks, not here at home with my crappy "printer table as desk with couch as chair" setup. About 9 pm I started really hurting...I took a flex and a blue, but my head kept getting worse--by about 10, I was at the "I'm going to puke my guts out and I HATE puking" stage--about an 8 on the Migraine Richtor Scale. The agony was such that laying down hurt because then all I could do was focus on the pain, and walking hurt, and sitting hurt, and OW OW OW OW...
TTK turned out every light in the house, then put tape over the microwave's glowing readout, to give me relief from the pain of light in my eyes.

It was definitely not a good time.
Saturday I was so wiped that though we ran errands, the whole day was quite distant and everything was distant, like I was watching it. Around 6 I was so tired I went to bed...

So my project has not gotten done, and it's due tomorrow.

The teacher reviews the sites in class.

Ah, public humiliation, here I come!

In the Locker Room...

...a surreal moment. I'm in the adaptive swimming class (part of APE--what a stupid name! Adaptive Physical Education) and it's mostly older folks, with some young puppies as student assistants. The SA's are really nice, but oh so young!
Anyway...
I'm in the shower in the women's locker room, and finished and started to dry off and dress. One of the SA's popped in a cd in their stereo and hit play:

Out comes the opening strums of "You Sexy Thing" by Hot Chocolate.
!
This was one of the songs from the movie "The Full Monty" that the guys used to learn to strip to. HEE!

So it was very surreal to be PUTTING ON clothes, in a room full of people who are mostly past their sexy days.
Heh.
I was so tempted to break into a strip tease in my underwear, but I feel like I fall into the above category of unsexiness, so I didn't.
Instead, I came here to post about it. Heh.

Now I go pick up the Ginsukitten, who just got her baby-making parts removed and is coming out of anaesthesia nicely.

I'd like to buy a vowel...

or actually, a new spine. This one is giving me no end of trouble.
It used to be that my hip only hurt at the end of the day, and only if I had been sitting too long.
Now, it hurts all night and is already aching in the morning. By afternoon it feels like a hot, tight, band of pain across my lower back, and just continues getting worse.
And on top of that I am going to be spending a lot of time sitting--final projects are due next week and so I need to put a LOT of hours in behind the computer. My desk situation at home is so icky and painful that I spend all of my time at school in the computer lab--the lab assistants all know me, and call me one of their "frequent fliers" heh.
Pain medication is what will get me through this week, I'm afraid.
Note to self: refill purse, car, and schoolbag stashes when you get home.

Ginsu-Roomba is going in to the vet tomorrow to get spayed...it seems she is going to live after all, and a cat in heat is a miserable creature (as is everyone within earshot), so snippage time.

She's a great fluffy awkward ball of love--just pure love. Her main senses that are still operable are smell and touch...unbroken cats enjoy being touched, so imagine how much she loves it. She runs into things a lot, poor spinny thing, but I can't find a little football helmet her size. Heh.

Life is...

...Pain.

I know this. Yet, I would REALLY like to have just ONE day without pain. I would probably fall over dead from the sudden lack of input from my body and mind, though...

Migraine follows me everywhere. It's nestled in at the base of my neck, close to my spine, a little demon with dull teeth. Even when he's not OUT I know he's there, just waiting.
Sometimes I can feel his fingers at the base of my skull...tapping impatiently, or stroking lightly, sneakily.
Little questing fingers that dabble at my consciousness...
sometimes he's able to get into my brain and steal whole chunks of knowledge, like he did this afternoon, when I got into my truck and was completely unable to remember where the hood release is.
He's doing it to me now, even as I type, getting bolder and stealing words, whole thoughts, even my knowledge of CSS and HTML.
No homework will be getting done tonight--I am going to throw some blues at him.
They're no longer blue--the pharmacy changed to a different generic years ago a plain white oblong, but by then ttk and I were so used to calling them "blue pills" that the name has stuck, as has the term "blue pill babble."
Hey demon--catch!
He'll still be there, just less able to get to me, so he'll slink back to his crevice in my skull until he thinks he can come out again.

Which is way too frequent.

Scope Creep...

a very useful phrase that describes the phenomenon that occurs when I am trying to work on a project. TTK coined it and it fits me perfectly...

I Love that Man...

...but he's insane. I just got a call from him:

Him: "This is kind of embarrasing. I let myself run out of gas...I'm somewhere near Ignacio...but everything's all right, I'm just calling you while I catch my breath to walk back."
!
[boggle]
Me: "Honey, WHY didn't you call Triple A?"

Him: "Because I only have like one call left this year!"

Me:"HON, there's ONE more month left of the year! You don't need to save it!"

Him: "Oh. Now I feel stupid."

Me: "How come you don't call me BEFORE hiking to a gas station? I could have told you about the full gas can in the trunk!" <--I'm evil.

Him: "You're kidding!"

Me: "Yes, I am. But, you wouldn't have known either way until now...did you buy a can at the station?"

Him: "No, I just filled an empty water bottle."

Me: "That's what, less than a quart? So you'll pour it in your tank, and drive a quarter of a mile before running out again and having to walk back."

HE IS INSANE!

So now, he's walking down the highway at night carrying a plastic Arrowhead bottle filled with gasoline. Let's hope he doesn't forget and try to take a swig, like he did with the lamp oil.
(We now have a bottle in the kitchen, wrapped in duct tape with the words "FUCKING LAMP OIL!!!" on it.)

Winter's Coming.

Sigh. It's that time of the year again...the first bloody nose last night. You'd think that with it so rainy and wet, and COLD, that I wouldn't have a problem, but no, it doesn't work that way.

Hair

Boy, you know it's bad when NO ONE comments on your new hairstyle...
I mean, I went from all over brunette to a really badly patchwork bleach-blonde highlights that are more "chunklights."
Heh.

Since I'm swimming twice a week, I can't do a temporary color like I usually do, so I'm not sure what to use to "fill in" some of the blond sections.

And in other news, I've been geeking forever today.
At school.
And I don't want to leave because my hip and back are NOT hurting.
Have I mentioned my "desk" at home is one end of the couch?
And not even a real couch, either--it's my old (OLD) bed-into-couch futon frame with two different futons on it, one for the back and one for the butt.

Geek geek geek...but I'm getting hungry...geek geek geek...

almost.

Sitting in my computer class yesterday, I was discussing website development and bemoaning the fact that a website I've agreed to create has no CONTENT (which is the number one thing you need, BEFORE layout, and cute graphics, and rollover buttons!) and I said "I can do the code, but I can't _write._"

That struck me:
I used to write.
I used to write well.
Then a chunk of my brain decided to grow all wonky, and after 14 hours of surgery and months of confusion, dizziness, and migraines, I discovered that something was missing.
A lot was missing. What wasn't missing was damaged.
My hearing.
My balance.
My memory.

I used to hear music in the center of my head--I loved loud music and live concerts...now it's all on one side and kind of flat.

When I read poetry I could hear it, like music, in my head. Incredible depths and far off whispers, and a sense of something greater than the words alone.
When I wrote, I could reach that level, where as I wrote I could hear the different stories and worlds building. I could _feel_ it, I could direct it.

I no longer read poetry. Even stuff I loved, before.
Now it's like sensing something just beyond the edge of the light, something huge and ponderous and incredible, but never being able to see it.
It's like remembering how music _really_ sounds.
It's like seeing a photo of yourself, and having no idea when it was taken or what you were doing.

My writing is like that, now.
I can feel it almost becoming music, but I get lost in trying to get the words out of my head and the tune falters, dies.
Even this whole entry disgusts me--it's _almost_ what I wanted to say, and how I wanted to say it, but that's like saying a little melody is _almost_ an orchestral score.
.

New Meds

The doctor's appointment went fine--it was just a chat, really, not an exam...she says that it is most likely that I have Irritable Bowel Syndrome on top of (or would that be in conjuction with) the Ulcerative Colitis. Oh joy. Basically that means that my body has gotten used to the pain and movement, and so though the inflammation is trying to subside, the rest of my system is still in turmoil and fighting. (Remember your basic biology classes? "-itis" means "inflammation of..." so laryngitis is inflammation of the larynx. Bronchitis is inflammation of hte broncheal tubes. And so on. )
So now I get to try Lomotil too see if we can slow the momentum and calm the system.

By the way, have I mentioned that I have a feces issue?

I cannot deal at all with discussing this in person...I can write this here because, well, almost no one reads this.
I know this because I installed a statcounter...the people who read this already know me, or have navigated here through blogger's "next blog" button.
Statcounters are great...they remind you that though anyone can read your public pages, that doesn't mean everyone does.
Since I have so little traffic, I use http://www.statcounter.com/ for my stats--it's free, if you only want to save the 100 most recent hits. You want more, you gotta pay...but with those 100 hits, you get to use EVERYTHING--the landing page, the exit page, the search they used (if they used one), where their ISP is hosted, all sorts of interesting stuff. Go play--you'll like it, I think.

It's definitely a lesson in humility if you only have a few hits a week, and if you have lots then your ego gets a boost.

Boy, talk about changing subjects in an entry!

Crepuscular

American Heritage Dictionary -
cre·pus·cu·lar /[kri-puhs-kyuh-ler]
adj.

1. Of or like twilight; dim: “the period's crepuscular charm and a waning of the intense francophilia that used to shape the art market” (Wall Street Journal).
2. Zoology. Becoming active at twilight or before sunrise, as do bats and certain insects and birds.

Doctor Time

Well, I get to go back to see my gastroenterologist, Dr. M. Last time I saw her was 3 months ago, and was NOT fun.
Now I get to go in and tell her that the drugs aren't working.
Who knows what evil meds she will give me next...

Surprise!

So I'm about to go outside and check the laundry.
There's this white towel that is just outside the back door, whose reflection through the glass looks almost like a snake.
I open the door, and there's...
a big white snake!
It's the cornsnake that got out back in MAY! Just lookin' up at me, like, "let me in! It's cold out here!"

Heh.

He's incredibly healthy looking--a few new scars, including what looks like a bite mark, but otherwise perfectly okay!
Woo!

The Food We Eat

It really says a lot about the food you're eating when you give the dog a *tiny* sliver of meat and she promptly pukes. Luckily the newspaper was there on the floor so I could hold her over it--burying the sex offenders article in a copious amount of I don't even want to describe it.
I've been slightly nauseous all day, and when ttk almost dropped the newspaper, he almost had a hell of a lot more mess to clean up.

Daisy 199?-2006

She's gone.
My vet gave her a small injection in her hip. She stopped her frantic, constant movements and relaxed into my hands. She licked her nose, yawned a few times, and then just kinda went to sleep. Truly, just to sleep. She was relaxed and no longer intensely desperate. I felt her little heart beating in my palm as the doctor went to get the syringe of drug that would stop her heart.
The first vein he tried was too hard to find. He tried the other leg. A backwash of blood into the syringe, and the clear pink drug slid into her system. Her heart beat steadily, then stopped. No flutter, no hesitation. Gone.
I thanked him, for being able to do that for her, for us.

We brought her little body home, so light now, and curled her up in her tiny bed that came with her when we adopted her so long ago. She loved that bed, and would prefer to curl up in it rather than snuggle in the copious amounts of bedding I had provided.
She hated all other ferrets in life, and would savage them while screaming at the top of her lungs, but in death she curled into the same tin with little Miranda.
When our first ferret died, we interred her in a metal tin
gaily colored with a christmas scene
since we wanted to bury her in our own land, and not some soon-to-be-forgotten rental. Her sister followed soon after, and fit next to her. When Fatboy died so suddenly, we found another tin
this one gold with fluer-de-lis on the top, both once held butter cookies but are somehow well suited to their new task
for him, and for Azrael when she passed.
We have three of these tins now, lined up in the front yard like some sort of eccentric art.
We know what's in there, why they're there, though others don't.
Tiny crypts.

Ahhh, technology!

How's this for good use of combined technology:

TTK calls an his cell phone and says traffic just went to a dead stop, in Novato.
I go to 511.org and pull up the map.
Downed powerlines and car accident, and brushfire blocking ALL northbound lanes...they "suggest alternate route" so I googlemap the nearest offramp for him, and figure out how to get him home (there's all of one other way and it goes waaaay east, but it's better than sitting in a parking lot for an hour.) from where he is.
I give him directions...he'll call me when he reaches Petaluma or is hopelessly lost (fingers crossed for the former!)...

interlude #145

conversation with my sister (her youngest just turned 1 last month)

Her: Owp! Hold on...
[running and small child googly noises in the background]

Her (picking up the phone, out of breath): Sorry! She headed into (her brother's) room...and he's asleep.

Me: She's toddling now?

Her, flatly: Toddling? NO. Not toddling: she's running. Full on, as fast as she can.




heh.

Working...

I'm still at school, in the computer lab.
My brain is melting.
My final project isn't even close to being finished.
I have no color sense.

I take that back--I have a poor color sense.
I am trying to come up with a workable palette of colors for this damn website that I am creating, and everything is either boring as hell, or makes my eyes bleed.

And we're supposed to code it using tables, although tables as layout is old school. Can you say frustrating?
And as I am trying to do this, things that I can simply type up in code, I am searching all over the Dreamweaver program trying to find the button, lever, or switch that should insert said style directly into the page all easy and shit. The easy part is just typing it in, but since I am trying to learn this software, I am doing it the hard way: assuming I have very little hand-coding HTML skills.
Bleah.

OW, my brain.

What I really need, really really, more than an exercise class or a computer class, is a GOOD, ERGONOMIC work area!
This whole "end of the couch" thing has got to go--3 years of this, and my back is like broken tinker toys.

Ow, my brain.

Yes, I am repeating myself. You wanna see my lame project?
Well, too bad--I am not posting the link here until it's all done, so nyeah.

But, you can take a look at my origami page that was homework #4:
here
Enjoy.

I'm going home, if I can find my car.

TTK, you want me to bring home a chicken?
Heh.

Just Another Day at the Ranch

How many people do you know would be happy to have this happen:

I'm geeking, and I hear the neighbor call "Hellooo?".

I open the door, and Bob is standing at the gate, all grubby and gloved...

I open the gate, and he hands me...

a HUGE dead gopher.

"Here, I thought you might want to feed this to one of your critters."

Me--"Oh, Thank you! Man! That's the KING gopher!"

Him: "Yeah, it's been eating well. Too well."


Heh!

I don't know which was more weird: that my neighbor knew me well
enough to present me with a corpse, or that I was pleased about it....

Interlude #50

Me: I think that potato soup has gone bad...smell it.

Him: It smells...funky!

Me: I'll give it to the chickens.

Him: ...and we'll see if _they_ die.

Me: They eat all sorts of shit, it won't hurt 'em. Hell, they eat Pocky's shit...which is a little too much recycling for me.


[note: Pocky eats the chicken's shit, hence the recycling. -- Ed.]

[I always wondered who Ed was when I'd read that...]

No Swimming for Me...

..today, because Wednesday I was in so much pain I was crying by evening...between my back and my gut, I feel like I just can't get a breath without pain.
On a good note though...

Woo! Baby sand boas!
8 little tiny copies of their father!
--the mother is anerythristic, and the father is a normal, so all the babies are orange and brown like dad and not black and grey like mom...but, they are all heterozygous for anerythristic (blogger's spellchecker is freaking out on me, heh.) so if THEY are bred to anerys, then THEIR babies will be black and grey. Dontcha just love this genetics stuff?

My other female sand boa is gravid, too...all boa species are live birth, what is known as ovoviviparous: meaning that the eggs develop inside, with a soft membrane rather than a shell, rather than being laid and hatching later.
I have yet to see them give birth--they are SAND boas, after all, and live in sand...buried, I should say.

Oh, and one lone cornsnake egg hatched. There's still another, but it's stubbornly staying eggish and not even pipping.

Steve

Steve Irwin has died.

I keep hoping it's all a bad joke, and they're gonna call it off any minute now...I felt this same way when Jim Henson died: Like we just got ripped off--the creativity and changes he made to this world have been pinched. Yeah, there's all the stuff we already have, but there's not going to be any more--no more wondering what he's going to come up with next, no more awe and joy at what he does come up with.
Ach--I'm not saying this well at all.

Normally I find the concept of the Rainbow Bridge to be sappy and maudlin...but this post is fabulous: An interesting day at the Rainbow Bridge.

The Internet is completely glutted with stories, comments, and pictures about Steve and his life, and his death.

Opinions range from "he brought it on himself, tormenting the creature" to "he's a hero!" while facts are being repeated, rumored, misquoted, created, and basically mangled. It's hard to find an accurate, objective news story...some are reporting that he was filming for one show, then another, then that he was filming coral, filming stingrays, that he was attacked, that it was an accident, on and on.
I trust the CNN versions more than the People Magazine or USA Today versions...but here's a few:
Steve Irwin's death clogs Web sites
and another:
http://www.usatoday.com/life/people/2006-09-05-irwin-mourned_x.htm

http://news.google.com/news?num=30&hl=en&ned=us&ie=utf-8&q=Steve-Irwin

And let's not forget an article on Stingrays:
http://www.potamotrygon.de/fremdes/stingray%20article.htm

Chai...Masala Chai

Chai means Tea in Hindi.
SO know that you sound like a dork ordering a Venti Chai Tea Latte...try to learn what the terms mean, okay?

Chai = Tea
Masala = Spice
Garam = Pungent/Hot/Fiery

A great site I found whilst trying to find a recipe for Masala Chai is a hindi translation page: http://www.wordanywhere.com/.

So anyway...
If you do a search for a chai recipe you will find about a thousand different versions...basically, it's black tea boiled with a combination of spices--usually cardamom, ginger, black pepper, cinnamon, and cloves. Let's not forget some sugar/sweetness, to bring out the robustness of the spices...

Since it's all about taste, and everyone has a slightly different spice preference level, you pretty much are left with personal trial and error to get to a spicy chai you like...

As I brewed my chai today, TTK had to bail to the front yard to get away from the profuse aroma--he went into a severe headache reaction...when he tried my chai last week, his tummy got so upset he had to take Pepto.
To me, the house smells heavenly...

I think I used too much cardamom, though--it's easy to do since cardamom is so powerful if it's fresh.

Interlude #42

Him: Ooooh, Titan has METHANE! Let's go there!

Okay, that was NOT Fun.

I ended up getting really sick while at school today...I made it to the pool, but then while in the water, still migraining, I had a panic attack. I just stood there in my swimlane and cried...I couldn't hear anything the echos are so bad there, I couldn't see anything because my glasses were at the opposite end of the pool, and my head was hurting so much I was dizzy and wanted to puke...It all came to the overload point.
Only one person noticed I was losing my shit, and she isn't one of the 80 instructors--she is a fellow Broken.
After class was over, I went to the computer lab and basically just sat there in the air conditioning, hidden in the Mac section, for about an hour. No, wait--they have a login/logout program, so I sat there for 82 minutes, exactly.

I still feel like shit--my neck is so tight you could use the tendons as violin strings...

On the bright side, the dogs were happy to see me.

Yes, a Negative Entry.

A few things I hate:

Waking up with a Migraine.

Cat puke.

Dog puke.

Entropy of the material world.

The telephone.

Cat puke on the bed.

Bridges.

Snake puke.

Stepping on a gopher foot in the morning while getting out of bed.

Mornings.

Puking.

TTK's constant losing his keys.

Anything having to do with puke.

Undiagnosable injuries/illnesses.

ARRRGH!

THE FUCKING DOG JUST CRAPPED IN THE HOUSE--AFTER GOING OUTSIDE TO PEE!

That does it. I am not a dog person and I just am not coping with this crap everywhere, piss-mark everything behaviour.

Slammed!

Okay, I just got slammed, unfairly, on a public board about a private matter.
What the hell!
The whole blame dance is the reason I've pretty much separated myself from this group, and the shittiness and backstabbing that seems to infect the so-called leaders.
I've stepped away almost completely, but still someone had to take the opportunity to malign me.
Sigh.
It makes me feel all sick inside...my hands are shaking.

I WILL NOT BE A PART OF THIS.

The only reason I'm doing the little that I am is that no one else has stepped up to do it.
And yes, I'm being deliberately fucking vague because I DON'T want to get into the bullshit.
I can say how sick it makes me without saying just which group it is...

I wonder if I'll get accused of trying to take over again. Fuck this. I'm gonna go shower.
I'm so hurt I want to puke, or cry...I'm hoping I will get mad about it soon and stop feeling so sick.

Interlude #3 of a Series

Me: Do you have someplace else you could use that new 250 Gig?

Him: What 250 Gig?

Me: The one you just bought!

Him: It's a 300 Gig. They're advertised as 320, but when you convert them into 1024 byte blocks, they're 300.

Me: Okay, can you use that new _300_ Gig in a different computer?

Him: Well, I could put it in the server. The server is using a Maxtor 200 Gig, that is old and has been cooked and I don't know how long it's going to last. Maxtors are--

Me (interrupting): So you could put the new drive in there and buy the 750 Gig for home.

Him: I'd rather spend the money on memory for my computer.

Me: Didn't you JUST BUY memory?

Him: Yes, that was for my OTHER computer.

Me: The server?

Him: No. (pause)

Me: Typhon?

Him: No.

Me (exasperated): Then WHAT other computer?

Him: The one I haven't set up yet.

Me: aaaAAAAaaaaa!

Him: You look like you are trying to study a new bacteria that keeps scuttling off the slide.

OW.

Okay, school just kicked my ASS.

I walked all over the campus trying to find everything--library, bookstore, classrooms, restrooms, computer lab, geek lounges, everything...and it decided to be a hot day, so by the time I got done, got over to Al's and checked on all critters, and then got home, I was BEAT.

Wednesday I used for recouperation--and tried to clean up this house. Amazing how dirty the place gets in 2 days when I'm not there to maintain it...

I got to swim Thursday, and enjoyed it so much I stayed in the water for an hour and a half (the teacher has two classes that overlap, so I was able to get in early.) This was probably--no, DEFINITELTY-a mistake. I was so sore that when TTK got home and I got up to greet him, he asked, alarmed, "Are you okay? You look horrible! You look like you're in pain!"
I did the octogenarian shuffle around the house getting ready for bed, at ten o'clock at night.

I woke up this morning with 3 dogs, two cats, and a kitten on me, and a raging migraine. And cramps. And colitis.
So why am I still awake? That's easy--I fell asleep at 7pm and just now woke up.

Believe it or not, I am REALLY going to enjoy these classes. Hell, I already have my homework done for my computer class! It was scary, though , to realize just how out-of-shape I am...I was winded after 10 minutes of slow-motion water exercises with the other partially mobile members of my "APE" class.

My "acquired brain injury" specialist wants me to take her class, "Coping with an ABI" which I would be fine with (I need the coping skills!), but it meets Mondays and Wednesdays, and I REALLY don't think I can deal with a 4-day a week school schedule. Making it 2 days a week will be quite an accomplishment for a person who has left the house on her own probably 6 times in the last 4 months...
We'll see--I'll give it a chance, 2 weeks, then drop it if I can't keep up with it.

Bob's Chicken Gravy, part 1

Today's lovely event: My Bob's Chicken Gravy disaster...

I prepped and pureed an entire chicken (the pressure cooker method is fabulous, BTW) and then went to add the other ingredients, and couldn't find the recipe, so I guesstimated the amount for the ferretone. BAD idea.
I remembered 1 cup--the recipe is 1 TABLESPOON.

My sick girl won't touch it--she tried a little and later she had the seedy poop, and refuses to have any again...she never liked Ferretone...

The other furkids, who love Ferretone, won't go NEAR the stuff...

It's not a total loss though, since the dogs go bonkers when I microwave any of it, so they're getting a very labor-intensive "treat."

Shopping Therapy

When depressed, go shopping. When depressed and agoraphobic, go shopping online.
These are way cool: Threadless tees...
if you type the word "thecityonfilm" in the coupon code, you'll get 3 bucks off.
And right now is their ten dollar sale...xmas shopping time!

down.

Damn, I hate this. I am so incredibly crashing. What is wrong with me today?

Everything is looming:

••School starts next Monday--I still don't have the Disability authorization so I can take an adapted PE course, nor do I have the prerequisite challenge authorized so I can take Dreamweaver or CSS. (all the paperwork is in, just waiting now)
Plus when I do get that authorized, I have to get myself there, somehow getting past my agoraphobia fears and my confusion/stress reaction (aka, "meltdown") and I'm already all stressed just thinking about dealing with traffic and parking and hordes of people and buying my books and finding the classroom and and and...

••A friend of mine is going on vacation this Friday for 8 days, and asked me to tend the rescue while he is gone. It absolutely didn't occur to me to say no...but now I'm so scared that I am going to fuck something up! I kind of know what's expected of me, but he has people coming by his place at random times, _all_ the time...how do I deal with that? How do I keep his place safe and his animals and everything? what if what if what if...

••Our stock is crashing, and hard, and we keep getting calls from ML asking us what we want to do, telling us we should sell, and basically being pests. How come they never called us, and even gave us the supreme brush-off, when we were poor? And suddenly we get this gift of stock, and now ML is calling us EVERY week--at first, it was every DAY. Fuckers. Their desire to make money off of us is so brutally transparent that it pisses me off, and I don't want to deal with them--so I need to find us a new brokerage.

••I've volunteered to work on a friend's website and get him a physical presence in the online world (the same friend mentioned above, who runs the reptile rescue that I'm tending for 8 days), but my coding skills are really not up to the task--hence the classes I am taking. I won't have the knowledge to get said webpages up until the end of the year, but there's a push to get the site active ASAP. I really don't have the skills yet, as much as I want to do it!

••All sorts of our critters are sick:
Tasha has hyperthyroidism, and is now on methimazole. The options are medicate for ever, or surgery to remove her thyroid (or at least the tumorous part), or allow them to inject radioactive iodine, which the tumors will drink up and die from. What to do?
Daisy has either a brain tumor, or had a stroke, so now she gets phenobarbital twice a day. She staggers about, in circles to the left...she's getting stronger, but will probably be in the "sick cage" for the rest of her life.
Atlantis has been acting very lethargic, beyond the depression expected for losing his best buddy Fizzbinn a few months ago, so I took him in...his blood sugar was low, and the vet ran an insulin test, but I have yet to hear back from the vet.
Ginsu was staggering and acting REALLY weird this afternoon, so I made an appointment for her for tomorrow...I just checked on her, and she's still wobbly--I don't know what happened to her!

And here I am making a blog entry instead of cleaning or folding laundry or feeding snakes or something. Sigh.

TypePad

As I'm surfing around, I am really liking the TypePad blogs...I like that there is a "category" option so you can categorize your posts--if someone just wants to read all of the pet entries, they can, or all of the sewing entries, etc.
Note to self: must learn how to use/code Typepad.

Adventures With Pocky

Pocky puked on my tummy this morning.

I awoke to the sound of retching, and suddenly something warm on my stomach.

Luckily I was too groggy to freak out and puke on HER...

TTK gathered up the dog as I gathered up the sheet, both of us grimly silent and hurried....
dog went into the bathroom, sheet went into laundry.
Woman got scrubbed vigorously by her husband.

Peace and tranquility were restored to this lazy Sunday morning in bed (if you ignored the retching noises emanating from behind the closed bathroom door, that is)

Go, TT, Go TT!

I love my man!

He's kickin' ass and takin' names...

and blocking stupid ass hackers who are trying to do a dictionary hack of our server.

Ha!

[insert silly little dance here]

from ttk "well, that stopped 'em."

Give Me Your Answer True...

Daisy survived the night.
She's very weak, so even though she's still having seizures, they are really small--dunno though if it's from the weakness or that the surgery reduced the cause but didn't stop them completely.

I was hoping that this was "just" insulinoma...the vet did find a tumor on her pancreas, which he excised, but the seizures are still happening.
One thing (well, two) that he found: a full, whole and discrete second spleen.
!
Both were misshapen and tumorous, so he removed them both. (We can live without a spleen..but she had a spare?!)

I'm feeding her very diluted chicken gravy, about 2 ccs every hour or so...she is actually licking the end of the syringe now, whereas earlier I was having to squirt it in the side of her mouth.
My vet also suggested Carnivore care, so I bought a packet, but for now I'm just using the chicken gravy.

When she seizes I hold her head and her front paws gently until it's over...she's deaf, so I don't verbally comfort her, but I know my presence and smell comforts her.

Atlantis and Daisy are the last of my geriatric crew. Azrael, Fizzbinn, Fatboy, Miranda, and Oliver all came to me as rescues, and this was their forever home until they left me this last year.


Daisy crashing took me completely by surprise: Atlantis was who I feared would be next, since he was bonded with Fizz for 7 years...I helped Fizz on his way less than a month ago, and Atlantis has been like a limp sock without him.

I'm hoping, and I won't stop hoping, but I know chances are pretty good that I lose both of them before the year is out.

-update!-
Daisy just dragged herself out of the little round dog bed full of blankies I have her in, next to me...she dragged herself across the floor until she felt she was far enough, and peed.
YAY!
(you never thought I would be excited about an animal peeing on the floor, did you)

First action she's done on her own, and first fluid she's passed today (so I'm hopefully getting enough fluids into her.)



The vet has prescribed Phenobarbital for the seizures...now I just have to get myself OUT OF THE HOUSE.
Yesterday to pick her up was the 4th time I've left the house on my own in something like 3 months...I don't know if it's because of the UC, or something seriously mental, but I just can't go out alone.
*sigh*

I almost hope it is medical and not mental, because I am getting tired with and frustrated at myself. It's like there's this big invisible block that I can't get past.

And I have TTK's car today, too--he borrowed my truck so he could pick up some big awkward piece of computer equipment and store it in the shed for months until we move--so "no air conditioning" is not an excuse I get to use.

He asked if I minded him dragging home a server rack...hell, half the shed is filled with big ole awkward SNAKE TANKS, mine, so how could I complain?
Heh.
We're both such enablers.

Back

Well, I'm back from the vet. We're back from the vet.
Daisy has definitely had better days...
She apparently started seizing again at the vet's today, after the surgery, so even though he removed a great deal of tumorous tissue, the cause of the seizures was not found.

There's a lot more information but I'm typing this one-handed, so I'll leave it 'till later (if ever--I'm a flake, I know...)

If You Were Keys

...where would you be?

Vet Time

Well, Daisy is now at the vet. Exploratory surgery.

She was fine Sunday afternoon. Sunday night, I went into the critter room, and didn't see her in her cage...I rummaged through her bed, nothing. Then I saw the end of her tail sticking out from behind the litter box...my heart curdled as I reached for her...she was alive, but filthy with crap, and just kind of twitching.

I screamed for my husband as I carried her quickly into the bathroom so I could see what was going on. I washed her off gently, checking for broken bones (did she fall out of her hammock?) spider bites, anything.
Nothing.

My next thought was, "Maybe she's in an insulinoma crash? She _is_ about 8 years old, although she doesn't have the dots of death..."

Out came the honey...we smeared it on her gums, hoping she would perk up, that this was just (just?) insulinoma.
Nothing.

Her eyes looked unfocused, and she was pretty out of it...as I held her, she went into a seizure.
!
A panicky conversation about what to do ensued...

we decided not to go the emergency vet here, because they pretty much have no clue about ferrets (oh, the joy of being in California, where a certain domesticated housepet is illegal)...the last two times we went to the emergency vet they had no clue what a ferret was--one of the techs even thought it was some kind of rodent. (!)
That's one of the essential problems with living (semi-rurally) in California and owning a ferret--the dearth of good vet care.

She was seizing about every hour, and was pretty vacant and still the rest of the time--I even arranged her in my lap so I could feel her heartbeat through the baby blanket so I wouldn't have to unwrap her and check her breathing, she was so still.

We called our vet early Monday, only to find that he was not in until Tuesday...so we made an appointment (he's excellent, and one of the few "furkid" vets around here) for today (Tuesday)..I pretty much just held her and syringe-fed her water (she wouldn't take food, not even liquefied "chicken gravy") from Sunday night to Tuesday morning.

Our vet did an ultrasound, and found a mass in her abdomen. Blood counts were high on hemoglobin, normal on all other counts, and low on blood sugar (55). Whether it is insulinoma or not, she still has the mass in her abdomen, so we agreed for surgery to check it out and take it out if it's a tumor. We'll figure out the next step if she makes it through...

This last year or so has been a hard time.

Five of my sweet little furkids, in the past 18 months. Too many losses.

I'm just kind of numb right now, not grieving yet...maybe I won't have to: she'll come home, shaky and weak but all right, and I'll get a few more weeks, days, years, hours with her.

Is losing a loved animal really less important than losing a loved human?

Maybe for some people...but I love deeply when I love, whether it's an animal or a person.


I throw my heart over and it carries the rest of me through.

Crashing

I'm crashing really hard. I don't know why...ah, the joys of being BiPolar.
The medicine only smooths out the major highs and lows: It doesn't fix
every crash, and I never know how low it's going to let me go.

My comforter gave up the ghost today--completely ripped apart.
Pocky shit in the house AGAIN.
Hamachi got a hold of my big male leopard gecko last night
(who knew he could climb all the way up there!) and crushed
its head.

I just went in and huddled in a ball in bed for 3 hours...I'm a little better
but not really.
*sigh*
I hate it when I'm this unuseful and pathetic.

Suddenly, a Visitor

So we had the house open last night, trying to cool it off (the last three days have been BRUTAL), and Pocky started spazzing and barking and running backwards.
I tried to calm her, which really didn't work, so I went out onto the front porch to see what she was losing her mind and nerve about, and I saw...

a kitten.
a tiny little fluffball, about 8 weeks old, trying desperately to cram itself back through our fence and escape into the night.
So of course I ran over and grabbed its back end.
I screamed "help!" and TTK came running...he opens the gate, and grabs the well-equipped front half. And promptly screamed, and bled.

But, he had distracted it long enough that I could scruff it, and disable those formidable needles...still bleeding, ttk got the scruff from me and pulled the kitten the rest of the way through the fence (there was NO way this little demon was going backwards).
This whole time, Pocky had decided it was safe enough by now to come onto the front porch and was barking madly behind us...

So now I have a struggling ball of black-tufted white fur in my hands, and I can feel her (his?) bony little body under all that fluff: so thin!

I carried her into the critter room, grabbing a can of cat food on the way, TTK bleeding along behind me.

"If you've got things under control, I'd like to tend my hand." He gestured, disappearing into the bathroom.

I popped open the can and little demon instantly buried his/her face into the dish...

I decided to solve the mystery and parted fur until I saw...no parts! A girl! Maybe. (It's been a while since I sexed a kitten.)
She never once looked up from the dish--I could feel her sides bulging out as she ate.

Long, soft white dirty fur, with black ears and black blotches on her butt and tail.
Just the mere fact I was able to catch hersays that she wasn't born to a feral mother, and the fact that she's bone thin says she's been away (without?) a home for a while.
It's possible she was dumped here, or perhaps she came from the college students renting the house 2 doors down.
TTK set up a cat carrier with towels for her, in the tub (where else? Everything goes in that tub) and disappeared--out onto the cool porch, I figured. I was a bit occupied, so seeing that he wasn't going to bleed to death was enough for me.

After she ate, I pet her for a while (such a purr!) and picked burrs out of her fur, telling myself the whole time, that we would clean her up, find her owners, and if she had none get her shots, spay her, and adopt her out to someone.
We could NOT keep another cat, I kept telling myself firmly.

Finally, I tucked her into the cat carrier and went out onto the porch.
I guess I had been "kittening" for a while, because when I got outside, TTK held up his Anniversary present...

Scrolling across the screen, in a slow march. was a long message (most of which I've forgotten already): There was something about "SHE HAS TASTED OUR BLOOD" and "I'VE BEEN THINKING OF THE NAMES OF DEMONS..." But the final line got me: "I GUESS THIS IS CAT NUMBER SIX..."
!
It wasn't until we were in bed, about to sleep, that I asked him "Were you serious about keeping her?"
He said, eyes closed, "Ask me tomorrow."
Then a few minutes later he said, "Ginsu."

Great. She now has a name.
The next morning I said, "hmm...eight hundred dollar dog, or free dirty kitten. Guess which one I like more..."
TTK looked at me, a very serious expression on his face, "If we gave Pocky to Momma, and she didn't want to give us Fancy, how would you feel about that?"

My response? "Well, I would be fine. I don't really like having this many dogs--we can't go anywhere without an ordeal."
His response was, "It was worth a try--now we know how much work is involved in more than one dog. And we didn't realize how GOOD Willow was, how well-trained and behaved, until we got these other dogs."
Me--*nod*
He went on, "And I think while Willow has had fun with Fancy here, she is a bit overwhelmed and misses being alone."
So that's that.
Pocky shat all over the house last night, I forgot to mention.
Lovely.
Diarrhea.
Which isn't surprising, because she eats EVERYTHING.
She eats her own shit!

We set her up in a crate last night after she shat up the house, and she settle right in like she was used to it...so the woman we bought her from lied: she wasn't a house dog, she was crated.
Sigh.

BTW, diarrhea is a really damn hard word to spell--I can never remember what letter to double, or where the H goes...I finally came up with a way to remember it: Dia is easy, but then I thought of the bird, a Rhea...that way, I know that RHEA stays together, so the only place to put a double letter is the R. Heh.

Yes, I know about spell-checkers. I like to do it right myself and not have to rely on an outside tool.
So bleah.
And now, I go shower so we can get out of this hotter-than-fuck house and buy an air conditioner.
(I can't believe he finally talked me into it. Well, he and htis 98 degree heat wave, that is...)

Of Tea and Men

I found a really neat website, TeaChef, that encourages people to create recipes using tea and submit them...there are some really damn good cooks there too--some of the recipes are incredibly creative and fun.

I signed up for them, and the first sample I was sent was...
Chamomile.
TTK is allergic to Chamomile.

I'm not going to cook anything he can't eat--he's my biggest fan! So, of course, I didn't make anything or submit any recipes, and didn't get sent the current month's sample, which is Pi Lo Chun, which sounds delicious. Sigh.
Maybe I'll get next month's, which is Assam Melody...which of course I don't like. But then again, I've never tried their version of it, which they describe here as being "a burgundy-red cup with rich aroma and strong malty taste." So who knows? I'll brew a cup of it, then decide what it would be good in.

Most of the recipes I've seen there involve brewing a strong cup of it, then mixing the elixir into the recipe...there have been a few chefs who have actually mixed the leaves directly into the recipe, but not many.
The first time I cooked with tea it never occurred to me to just use the elixir...I used Gunpowder green tea leaves in the water I boiled pasta in though, so I kind of used the liquid. They are little balls that unfurl into whole leaves, and though I strained the pasta I didn't rinse it, so there were a lot of the leaves left on the pasta that then ended up in the sauce.
Was tasty.
I'm waiting for a good one to use as a rub, though.

Um, I guess I forgot the "Men" part of this post...so here goes: of the mammals in the house, just a mere 35.7% are male.
Heh.

GAG.

The new dog just fucking SHAT in the bed.

oh, yeah, she's housetrained, mmm hmm, right.

And just now, stripping the entire bed, we found yellow piss stains on the mattress pad.

Unbelievable.

All I can say is, THANK GOD we bought the waterproof mattress cover for our NEW $1300 bed that this dog has pissed in 4 times and SHAT in.

Maybe now we're learning why the woman wanted to sell this dog after having her for 5 months...

And the Ark Grows...

I hate having to do these update entries, but when you don't log on for weeks, all sorts of stuff has happened "in the background."
So.
We have a dog.
I should say, we bought a dog.

She's a chinese crested.
A hairless crested.

Will wonders never cease?

Me, not only getting a dog, but a crested, and a hairless one--and paying money for it, too!

Lots of money.

She's small for a crested, but much larger than Willow or Fancy.

She came with the name Kara, but we've named her Pocky...
she's kinda vacuous, and happy and excited about everything.

And I mean, EVERYTHING.

She could be a sweet dog, with work. She's completely non-housebroken.
Just really has no concept of Potty is Outside...

I'm getting really tired of cleaning up dog poop, and we've only had her for 5 days...

After we (I) bought her, I had serious Buyer's Remorse: I called my mom up, all subdued, and talked to her...I called her when I saw the ad in the first place, so she knew we were considering it.

She "talked me down," so to speak, and said that if we decided that we just really don't like Miss Thing we could bring her down there and she would take her. And buy me the camera I was going to get with the money.
!
SUCH a relief to not be worrying about the $$!
Miss Thing is very girly, which I am not used to, and she's pushy.
She wants to be Alpha.
WILLOW is Alpha.
We'll see how this works, and if Willow can deal with the competition.

Farrago

Just some bits and pieces, no particular order:

-I've been enjoying the demented hummingbird battles over the feeder I put out a few days ago. A great hummingbird resource is http://www.hummingbirds.net/feeders.html--don't add color to your syrup, and don't do what I did--get the ratios mixed up! I put 4 cups of sugar in one cup of water, and basically made candy that crystallized in the feeder and greatly confused the little birds. And wasted a lot of sugar!

-I've gone out of the house alone one time in the past two weeks. My colitis is so bad that I CANNOT leave the house between the hours of noon and three...dunno why they all group together there--it probably has something to do with the timing of eating the night before...I tend not to eat during the day and just drink a lot of milk because, well, eating results in colitis and HURTS.
I have an appointment with a specialist in July.

-I've been making Fancy (the dog) little sweaters--I bought one of those Knifty Knitters (the round looms) and have been experimenting with different stitches and yarns. Note: don't buy it online, you'll pay too much. I got mine at Wal-Mart (as much as I hate the store)--the set of 4 looms and a hook for 12 bucks. Oh--and buy an extra hook! I've lost the damn thing so many times from setting it down to wrap the next row, then having to get up and do something.
The advantages over crochet are you don't have to count stitches, so you can zone out and do it while watching tv, and you can easily use the fancier yarns without having to guess or fight where to put the hook for the next row. The disadvantage is that I am way too used to crochet, and being able to back up when I made a mistake a few rows back--with this, you have to obsessively unloop all of your work, rather than just pull on the end and unravel.

It's fun to ad-lib, though--the learning curve is short and when you use the super fuzzy fancy yarns, the mistakes are very difficult to see. Heh.
The smallest ring fits over Fancy's head, so I can just stick it over her to see how far I still need to go. Poor dog. ;-)

*Note to self: change colors on blog to be more readable. Also remember to SPELL-CHECK!

...But not a Dollar Short...

So, um, our 8 year wedding anniversary was yesterday.
We were so stressed out from the IRS thing, that we didn't really do anything special for it.
I take that back--we didn't go OUT somewhere...I crashed at like 5:30 after dealing with IRS from 8:30 am to about 2:30 pm, and TTK went to the store and got hamburger fixins and lots of chocolate and treats...
when I woke up from my nap and he offered to make us dinner, hamburgers, I got up and kinda ended up taking over and making the burgers myself, heh.
I apologised later for taking over when he was trying to do this sweet romantic thing, and we both laughed and things were good.
We're going to renew our vows during our 10th year, but probably not on the same date as our wedding anniversary--our official "one night stand that never ended" start date is September 13, 1996, but there's no way we're going to get ourselves together to make that our ten year renewal. Besides, we want to hold our wedding in the backyard of our new and fabulous house that we're gonna get, yessiree, any month now, really...

VROOOM!

WOOO!

That massive juggernaut called the IRS just swerved and missed us completely!
We're alive!

Our case agent called us mere seconds ago to tell us he reviewed our fax (all 74 pages of it!) and he is dismissing the case against us--and that he couldn't believe that we made it through 2003 on only 17 grand...

Woo!

This only cost us about $100 in printing services, 50 or so hours of labor, and TEN months of stress, fear, and worry. FUD.

Now we have to pay the accountant, who knew the magic words to say during the phone call Thursday to the IRS...

Is it over? Really over? I can finally file away 2 years of tax paperwork?

...fingers are crossed until we get that determination letter (makes typing hard, but hey)...

In Memoriam

Fizzbinn, my sweet little old man, goodbye.
Sleep well.
I don't know how your nose got crooked--looked as if you had had your face shut in an door or something.
You would have these funny little moments where you'd be running around playing, then freeze in place, totally stiff, then *clamp* on whoever or whatever was near you. And boy, could you bite! Very much into biting the top of my feet, so I always had to move fast when I saw you lock up.
5 years you shared with me. I'm so sorry three of them had to be in this crappy little house, with much less room to roam.
You were the first ferret I have ever known who would eat a pinkie mouse...at first, both you and Az would take the pinkie from me and go hide it somewhere (then I got to find it before it went nasty), but when Az was still hiding hers you started actually eating yours. The past year you started eating them so fast that you'd make yourself sick, so I stopped giving them to you. You still glutted yourself on Bob's Chicken Gravy, all the way up until the end. TTK fed you a small dish of warm food for breakfast, and held you up so you could eat since your back legs were completely unstable.
Despite daily feedings you shrunk away to skin and bones (could I have done more? Oh, always the guilt must gnaw), and I'm so sorry I didn't take you in for the gentle death sooner--I didn't want you to suffer but I couldn't let go and I know doing this was the right thing, but still I miss you.
Fizzbinn, what is Atlantis going to do without you?
We put you in the same cairn as Azrael and Fatboy...when Atlantis follows you (as I know he will, and soon, because he almost doesn't remember when you weren't there) I will put you all in a bigger space so you all will fit. I didn't worry about you fitting, although Fatboy was pretty big--you had wasted away so far you were like a little skeleton.
I saw your spirit go away, watched it in your eyes and felt your heart beat once more, then nothing. I thanked the vet for helping us give you such a gentle death, surrounded by your loved ones and all warm and snuggly in a fleece blanket.
Goodbye sweet Fizz.

Letting Go...

My little old man, Fizzbinn.
It's time.
We're going to the vet Monday, where we'll say our final goodbyes.

I've been saying goodbye for months now, knowing just from watching him stagger about the room that it would soon be time.
He's down to skin and bones, and has lost almost all of his hair.

When he first got the hind end weakness, the vet couldn't find anything wrong with him, so I've been nursing him as he has gotten weaker and thinner and more staggery and just--old.
I've said that as long as he has gusto, joy de vivre, any sign that he was still happy, I would not put him down, no matter what I had to do.

Three months ago I padded the cage and put down vinyl on top of that so he wouldn't hurt himself falling.
He gets Bob Church's Chicken Gravy every day, which until the start of this week he would suck down every drop.
Despite the amount of food he eats, he has lost weight dramatically in the last month...I would take him in for surgery, and would have ages ago, but there's no surgery to be done, and he's no longer a good surgery patient--he's so thin that he would probably not wakeup from the aenesthesia.

Friday I noticed him crying out when he tried to poop (he's almost completely incontinent) and I knew it was time for me to let go.

He's in pain. It's my responsibility--nay, my GIFT to him to release him from that pain.
My sweet little crooked nose Fizzbinn.
I don't know what Atlantis is going to do without him--they've been together for 5 years. When Fizz goes, Atlantis will be alone.
I know they bond, and I know they pine...and I am so scared of losing Atlantis too.

Sybil, Eve, Azrael, Fatboy, Fizzbinn. I miss you all (yes Fizzbinn, I miss you already, even though you are in the next room curled up in a tiny ball, sleeping).

Which is easier--losing them, young and healthy, to an injury or an accident, or watching them grow old and sickly and stagger around until YOU have to make the decision to euthanise them?
I've had both happen, and both carry their own emotional load, and guilt.

-sigh-

I love you Fizz.

Certianties

Well, we've FINALLY got an appeals date with our lovely friend
the IRS. Funny, they promised a date within two months, to give
us a speedy trial as is our right--back in JANUARY.

I'm not going to mention details, so as to not poison the waters,
so to speak...the basics are someone filed saying they paid us
lots of money as a contractor, and the IRS says we owe them a
chunk of that $$ (that we never got).
Oh, and penalties.
And interest.
*sigh*
From now on we're using a CPA, so we have someone who can speak
the language if there are any repercussions.

New Graphic Site

Yahoo! has done it again. Ah, the joy of crappy software being implemented without fully examining for security weaknesses...
There is a worm that exploits a flaw in the Yahoo! Mail Service (and currently only hits Windows users, so I'm safe there) and embeds javascript into the html code of an email.
When the user simply OPENS the email (titled "New Graphic Site") with the script, BAM the script is run, the user is redirected to an advertising site, and their Yahoo! addressbook is copied and the email is sent to everyone in it...
[sigh.]
So every Yahoo! list I am on is getting these mails, and list owners keep assuring everyone that the list is safe sindce they don't allow attachments.
Um, sorry, guys, but this one isn't an attachment!
It's not an attachment!

So far the best article I've read on it is at the Register.

Symantec insists that it's a minor worm, but they're not seeing all the panicked emails hitting the lists.

Once again, in case you missed it: It's IN the email, NOT as an attachment!
Ah, STDs of the modern age.

Convo

Me: Please don't die.

Him: I'm not gonna die--I just need to keep breathing.

Some Fun Links

..Print your own Necronomicon!
Optical illusions and toys

Boomerang

So I had a very surreal chicken moment this evening, about a half hour before dusk. I was cleaning off the back porch, and this little red rooster comes sauntering across the yard, heading for the chicken run.
I recognised this rooster.
I KNEW this rooster.

I had taken him and his two brothers to the feed store about 2 months ago.

And yet, here he is, all confident and assured, acting like he never left.
His wings were clipped, even.
!


I opened the run gate, and in he strutted...and promptly got into a rooster head bobbing match with his brother, the frizzle.
I ran and got my camera, because they were posturing and dancing as if they were big roosters, not little nerf footballs.

By the time I got back, they had gone from posturing to actual fighting, so instead of taking pictures I grabbed a rooster--the Prodigal Son...

He was bleeding from his comb, but was totally calm and let me pick him up...I set him on the outside of the chicken yard, and he stayed all the way until dark, pacing back and forth, waiting to be let in.

TTK said we could make lots of money--sell him, and when he comes back, sell him again, and so on.,,,but this is a ROOSTER.
No one pays money for a rooster.


If he's still here in the morning, I think I'll take him to a DIFFERENT feed store--one further away.

Conversation

Me: Would you go get the mail?

He: Didn't I go get the mail this morning?

Me: Yes, but it comes every day.

He: Smartass!

Tegu+Chicken+Tub=BAD

OH. MY. GOD.

I am never going to take a bath in this house again.

At least, not without bleaching the entire tub and shower and shower curtain, that is...

Carnivore shit is pretty nasty.
Carnivore shit from a carnivore that ate chicken is EVIL.

I discovered a new treat for the tegu a few days ago--chicken wings.
On sale at Safeway, they were in a "value pack" with the whole wing--tips, "drummettes," and, well, forearms (what they called in food parlance, I don't know).

So I hacked ten pounds of wings apart, vacuum sealing up the drummettes for the humans (appropriately marked "human food" in the freezer) and the rest for the Tegu, aptly named Goose.

He ate 8 pieces of chicken Tuesday, and was scratching at the glass today for more.

Into the tub he went: this is not a smart tegu--if there is anything else under his food (carpet, cage bedding, toes, his drinking bowl, etc,) he will try to eat it, so the tub provides a nice flat surface, and he doesn't end up trying to eat the wallpaper. (Natural selection would have eliminated this guy years ago!)

He ate 4 more chicken wing parts, so I left him in the tub while I defrosted more for him.

Suddenly the house filled up with this TOXIC odor. I figured Nefertiti or one of the other big snakes had pooped, since they are the only ones in the front room. The odor usually dissipates, but this time it wasn't.
Ten or so minutes went by, and it was getting stronger, not weaker.

By this time the chicken had thawed, so I took 2 more pieces in to the tegu.
Opening the bathroom door just about sent me into a coma from the odor wave.

Goose had not only shit in the tub, he had spent the last 15 minutes or so busily scraping this "lovely" grey-brown effluent it ALL OVER the ENTIRE tub.
That includes the sides, as far up as he could reach, which is not quite over the edge far enough to climb out (thank god!).

I promptly hosed down Goose (all sorts of goose/shit/slick jokes are coming to mind), and as much of the bottom as I could get, carried the tegu out to his sun cage (where he got his chicken), and sprayed the entire surface down with scrubbing bubbles.

Next I get to get on my hands and knees and scrub, since those bubbles don't really do the work promised in the commercials...

OUCH!

Well, last Friday at the herp meeting in Palo Alto, I fell on my ass.
HARD.

Foot went right out from under me, and splat! I went.
We were all so startled that I fell--both my friends who I
was talking with froze and stared at me, speechless.
I was stunned for a second, then started cracking up
as they both asked me "are you all right?"

For some reason, since the brain surgery, when I fall or lose
my balance badly, it makes me giddy and I start laughing.
It's kind of like I get dizzy from the fall--I am my own
amusement park ride.

I haven't fallen in years, though, and no one expects it nowadays--
least of all, me.

Of course, I migrained the next day, which usually happens when
I jar my skull.

The Ciar Finishing School

We have a visitor for the summer.
She's tiny, and cute, and has a fuzzy black butt.

Her name is Fancy, and she's Willow's cousin...
she's here for some self-esteem and confidence lessons,
as well as leash/recall/command training.
Oh, and some exercise/fun for Willow, who has gotten lazy
in her old (4 years) age.

So far she has learned "Fancy, COME" and a variation
of "Leave it!" which is a kind of a sharp scolding noise
(she's a chicken chaser, and our sedate roosters aren't
stopping it at all!).

She'll be walking on a leash soon, I think.

Willow is having a few jealousy issues, but mostly
she's happy to have someone to chew on and romp
in the grass with.

Sleep at Last!

We bought a be-ed, we bought a be-ed!

Okay, we bought a mattress-and-founda-ation, a mattress-and-founda-ation!

(doesn't scan quite as well, does it?)

I slept for the first time without pain last night!

For the detail-obsessed, it's a Simmon's Beautyrest Cunningham Plush Pillowtop.

When you go buy a bed, there's a few things to remember:

-lay on the mattress in question for at least 5 minutes, better is 15, to see if you like it (they expect this!)

-be aware bed salesman are like car salesman, and prepare accordingly. (if that's even possible)

-ask for a discount...we made noises about going elsewhere, I said I was tired and just wanted to buy now, and TTK said we should check for a deal elsewhere, then asked me if I could deal with spending more by just buying now...I turned to the salesguy and said, "Can you do better on the price?" (or some such thing)...he said "Yeah, lemme see what I can work out for you..." a bit of typing on the computer, and he offered us a 400 dollar discount.
!
So, with a $1500 price tag, and a $100 mattress protector, the total came to $1230.
And that was with delivery AND removal of 2 boxsprings and our mattress...

Still, that's the most money we've ever paid for a bed--but we budgeted it so I'm not all worried or in debt or anything.

Consumer Reports recommends that you shop around for deals because the discounts are "steep" but we just don't have a lot of good days for shopping around where we're both functioning and able to deal with salesmen, so we just bought on the spot.

Tealess no longer, but...

Yay! My tea arrived!
I ordered from Peets Coffee and Tea...it arrived the day after I ordered it. (!)

I had a free shipping code, so the price for the tea was as if I had gone to their coffee shop and
purchased it on the spot...I've become a bit of a recluse, not really wanting to drive anywhere
for days. I hate it, but most days I just can't get myself up and out...instead I clean, or tend
critters, or geek for hours, or do all the household things that have to be done.
Problem is, I don;t have the strength or stamina to get everything done that needs to be done,
so the chores start piling up. I've failed "stay-at-home-wife," I think.
Anyway, back to the tea:
So my tea arrived, and guess what--it's looseleaf!
Um, I forgot to order an infuser...

Tealess

Arrgh! I've run out of my favorite tea! It's called Lapsang Souchong...
It's definitely a "love it or hate it" kinda tea--ttk says it smells like burning tires. It's very piney and smoky and roasted tasting.
And I'm out!

[crave, crave, crave]

You know how when you want something but you can't have it, it makes you want it even more?
I know it's getting too hot to drink tea in the morning/afternoon, but I still want some.

Twinings makes an okay Lapsang, but none of the grocery stores carry it.
The other place I can find it, Cost Plus, has pulled all of their teas and are redesigning the labels. ! I don't care what the label looks like, just gimmee!

Okay, so I'm being a little over the top on this...but I've been without for 5 days now!


----NEWS FLASH!----

Peet's Coffee carries it, and there's one in downtown Santa Rosa!
Tomorrow is definitely a "shower and go out" day (as opposed to a "muck out the chicken coop" or "feed dead things to the reptiles" day)...!

Ick

The dog just jumped up next to me, all cute and snuggly...then proceeded to puke.

Lovely.

And I'm in the midst of doing bills and business paperwork, so it's not like I can leap up and get away, plus even if I could I would still have to return eventually. Those of you who know me know how -sensitive- I am to puke: it makes ME puke.

TTK is Puke Patrol.

If I were PP, I'd be cleaning up my own puke alongside the cat's, every time.

Now, I've had the stomach flu for about a week now...

I think my body is just done throwing up, though--I did quite well with the dog chunks just now. I simply got up, picked up the papers she conveniently puked on, carried them into the bathroom without looking down, and dumped it into the toilet. No, not papers and all--these were important Merrill Lynch papers, so I couldn't, as much as I wanted to (I DID run them under the faucet to get the last little bits off, though).