The year of pain.

Well, I wanted to write a year-ending/new beginning post way back in January, when the new year officially began, but I've come to the realization that starting around December I head into brumation (the reptiles have it right!) and don't really come out of it until the start of March or so. Witness the pattern of my last 5 years or so of blog entries, and you'll notice big gaps in posting frequency, the presence of pale, humorless entries during my time of withdrawal, depression, brumation. (I wish I could be reptilian enough to not eat, not move much, and just drink a little water from time to time while waiting for the warmth and light to return to my life.)

So here's my philosophical year-end review. If you're at all medically squeamish, just stop here. I won't tell. ;-)

I call 2007 my Year of Trying to Die.
My Ulcerative Colitis had come out of remission in 2006, and I went to my doctor in SF, she did a colonoscopy, and prescribed me steroid enemas and a triple dose of asacol. (Enemas are evil. That's all I'm going to say on the matter.) (Have I mentioned I have what my friend likes to call a "feces issue?") By December or so, I was still hurting A LOT, but she ran a blood test and found no infection from the results of the blood test, and declared me well, except for some "irritable bowel syndrome" brought on by the "Inflammatory Bowel Disease" (UC--just so you have all the terms) and prescribed me Lomotil, an anti-diarrheal.

So, through December and January, though I was feeling worse and worse, and it got to the point where whenever I ate anything I would be in the bathroom constantly, I didn't call her back since I was "cured." In February of 2007, my GP told me he thought since my symptoms were worsening, that I obviously WASN'T better, and would I go to someone local for a second opinion. I agreed, and said specialist decided to schedule ANOTHER colonoscopy (can I just say here, how bloody unpleasant these are?). He found that I had, indeed, active disease 20 centimeters up my descending colon. Now, it was obvious that the Asacol was not working, and I would NOT do the ever-so-painful steroid enemas again, so he decided that before we brought out the so-called "big guns" of Remicaide or Humera, that we should try oral steroids.

Mind you, I was diagnosed as a bi-polar 10 years or so ago, about a year after the brain surgery (old history--it's just that it's all daisy-chained together, so if you don't know the past you won't understand the present :-/) and that's when it became known that steroids were contraindicated in my case. In other words, steroids are a BIG BAD thing. (I ended up in the hospital with Steroid Psychosis after the surgery, because they used megadoses of them to try to shrink the tumor and compact the tumor to make it easier to remove. Or something.)
Nothing like an extreme psychotic episode while dizzy, disoriented, and partially deaf, to really make your day. Week. Year. Life.
But, I digress. back to the gut.

Since a new form of oral steroid had come out that was supposedly 80% absorbed in the liver after it did its work (and so kept from being "systematic"), Dr. Denigris put me on that. I think TTK and I knew, even before a week had passed, that this was Not A Good Thing. Not only was I weak and in pain, I was snappy, vicious, (more) unpredictable, and generally heading psychotic on the little red and brown steroid bus. This was now about March of 2007, and I was so exhausted and weak that I had to quit my classes a the JC. I was pretty much housebound at this point, and my food options had narrowed to about 8 things. Milk, milk, and more milk, with protein powder and Ovaltine (we call them "Provaltines), baked potato, rice, and fruit. Nausea was a constant companion at this point, as was pain and depression. Thanks, steroids, and body!

I tapered myself off of them, to the dismay of all my doctors, and refused to take them again, EVER. Which now meant that we had tried all the low-level options, and we could now press my insurance company to cover the Remicaide (ahh, now you see! It's all about the money!). Considering the stuff is about $600 a vial, and I need 4 at a time, plus the $5K per visit at a specialist clinic, it's understandable that money would rear its ugly head.

By June I had lost about 25 pounds, and was almost completely homebound--in our filthy little hovel, since I had so very little strength to clean or even walk across the room.

Paperwork still processing...July, August...
September. I was down 40 pounds from 190, to 150. I was weak and dizzy and depressed. I was also FINALLY approved for the Remicade.
First infusion was in September. Second one was 2 weeks later, third one is was the 6 week mark, and now it's every 8 weeks for a year.
By October I was having no blood, no infection/mucus/icky bodily functions 5 times a day, basically all FABULOUS news.

I started gaining a little bit of weight even--stabilizing at 157.
I was still exhausted though, and I asked my GP for a blood test. Seems we hadn't done one since March...turns out I was SEVERELY anemic--to the point that my doctor said that if I was 10 years older he would have insisted I get a transfusion.

So I was put on iron supplements, 3 times a day. My energy started picking up, to the point that we could actually go down to family for Thanksgiving in November, after my infusion.
We went to see ttk's grandmothers and family for Christmas (we actually flew out xmas day, to Texas, which was quite surreal)...my next infusion was January 20th, and the most recent one was March 12 or something.

In January of last year, we were given a gift of stock from ttk's parents, and we decided we could finally afford to buy most of a house (and get a loan for the rest!)...by the time we sold the stock, I was already heading down so far health-wise, and we were only able to go out and look twice before I gave up with the body battle.

Until you've been seriously ill, you can't really know what it's like, IMO. Just like I'll never know what pregnancy and labor is like. I really withdrew and closed off--I think I had TWO people come and visit me the entire time I was housebound. None of my family even came to visit me. It may be because I never really let on how sick I was. Maybe. I mostly blame the pathetic littleness of our current house, since there's not even any room for company to SIT since either end of our couch functions as TTK's desk, and my desk. Mostly.

So, that was my year. Our cats Needles and Tasha both died--the former from old age, gently, and the latter from a violent accident. Two of my favorite little chatty ridiculous chicken died--one crushed accidentally by me knocking over a piece of plywood, the other by ttk accidentally dropping a bale of hay on her. So many deaths. Sad thing is, I can't remember if it was last year that both Fizzbnn and Atlantis died. The year before it was Daisy, Azrael, and FatBoy. All ferrets...all who I promised would have a great room to play in when we moved to our new house--this place was supposed to be a temporary stop before we bought our own place. We moved in here March 2002 ! We figured we would be here for a YEAR and it's now been SIX crowded, crude, dirty little years.

My goals for this year?
Move to our new place without losing my mind, melting down, or hurting any of my friends and family who have offered to help.
Start a garden and start getting regular exercise.
Figure out (and maybe solve?) this damn insomnia bullshit--perhaps by going to a sleep study center.
Get all my critters into nice cages.
Throw a party or three!
Purge excess baggage.

There's probably a lot more that I could write, but for now I'll leave it here.

ps the spell check on blogger doesn't recognize the word "colonoscopy." Or "brumation."
Sigh. The dumbing down of America.

Perchance to...

"If there's any illness for which people offer many remedies, you may be sure that particular illness is incurable..." -Leonid Andreyevitch Gaev, in Anton Chekov's The Cherry Orchard, 1916.

"Try a little hot milk"... "A shot of whiskey does it for me every time"... "Stop worrying so much" ... "Counting down from 100 works.".. "have you heard of melatonin?" ... "Take GABA" ..."Marijuana helps me" "definitely DO NOT try counting" "Don't eat anything before bed" "Sleeping pills work great" "Sleeping pills don't do anything" You just need self-disclipline" "It has nothing to do with what you do, it's a problem with your brain" "Exercise at least a half an hour each day" "try Valerian" "just try to relax"

The problem is, insomnia is not only an illness that stands alone in its own right, but also is a symptom for dozens of other underlying issues, and is also caused by certain lifestyle choices,
so what works for Tom isn't necessarily going to work for Bobby or Susan.

Now that the Ulcerative Colitis is mostly under control, and the migraines are managed with pain medication, the next thing to try to fix is the insomnia. Wish me luck.

Disambiguation

Sorry, I just realized that I missed mentioning a few things in the last few posts--we went into escrow on a house east of Sebastopol, on a gorgeous piece of property out on a winding country road, but the house inspection showed the house itself to be a mess, so we used our buyer contingency of inspections failing to live up to our standards, and left escrow. Two days later we went into escrow on a house that is the polar opposite of the first house--great house, incredibly built, well-laid out property, but smack up against a busy road.

Now we've released our contingencies, and the seller has 4 days to release their contingency (of finding a property) so we'll know by Friday if they wish to renegotiate, or just cancel. If all goes well, we should be closing escrow by mid-April, and starting our moving process by the end of April.

I'm alternating between hoping they'll cancel, and absolutely and totally wanting them not to cancel...this is all such an emotional, stressful process, that if this deal falls through I don't know if I can do this again. Of course, we would start all over and do this again (because the alternative would be staying here for longer), but I might lose some serious sanity points in the process.
My internal gyroscope has hit this place of almost calm--a wait and see kind of feeling.
There's a whole bunch of job stuff going on for my sweetie as well, so he's a mess about that AND whether we get the house...

He's cooler than I am...

So TTK got his pictures up online into his own webpage, all laid out and annotated, so I'm just going to send y'all there rather than try to get mine together. For now, anyway--I have a whole lot more pictures, but his commentary is more entertaining than I feel like writing right now, so here's where to go: http://www.ciar.org/ttk/mkindex.cgi?dir=images/house/2008-03-17

Oh--this is all about the house for which we're in escrow, in case you were wondering.
We went in today and removed our final Buyer's contingencies--now we just have to wait until Friday, for the Sellers to remove their contingencies, and we'll move into closing escrow. !!!!!!

I keep alternating between being overjoyed at the yummy house and property, and being all sick inside worrying about how busy the street is. It's not the quiet country road property we wanted, although it is on a country road, rural rather than residential. Problem is, it's a road that is straight, and connects two sections of the countryside, and people use it quite a lot. The speed limit is 45 MPH on this road--I don't know how, but somehow we compromised on one of the crucial issues we both said would be a deal-killer for us.
I'm worried the traffic's going to get worse, but my primary fear is that Sam or one of our other cats are going to end up splattered on that @%&@$!! road...
and yet here we are in escrow.
I don't know if these are normal buyer's regret quavers, or if we're doing the wrong thing, or what. I do know that we both have hit the point that if we do not get out of this cramped little rental, soon, we will either kill each other or ourselves, so we're doing this, even if we decide to move in 5 years.

migraine surges

Migraine stopped about 7 pm yesterday evening---but then sleep was nowhere to be found. And now, today, both dizziness and no sleep are my companions...
Yesterday was the home inspection, which I could NOT go to--so TTK went, and the inspection was over 4 hours and according to him, "very intense."
The house is in incredible condition--which is what happens when a master craftsman owns a place, I think. Our 10 day deadline for our inspections is Monday, and their 14 day deadline for opting out if they haven't found a place to move is Friday...so we'll know in a week whether or not the place is ours for sure. SCARY!!!
The migraine keeps threatening to return, which really sucks because tomorrow is supposed to be a busy day. :-(

We'll see.

Ow.

I'm on hour 27 of migraine.
Every once in a while I try to convince myself that I won't get one of these ass-kickers again, that they never get this bad, that my brain is fine and everything is hunky-dory and I have no brain damage or scar tissue or a big jagged hole in my skull and that if I just have will power I can do all the things I need to and and and..
and then one of these hits.

This is one of those that adjusts the scale, like the kid that's too fucking smart and everyone gets a lower grade on a test as a result.

If it weren't or the pain pills I would probably be puking my guts out right now from the pain. As it is, the pain is there but held back at a distance because of the meds...it's like being in a room that's all duct taped up and sealed against the evil terrorist gas, but you can see through the window and see it swirling and trying to reach its greasy little fingers through any crevice it finds...and the pain meds are the duct tape holding those questing tendrils back, but for how long before the glue weakens under the assault and the pain starts shredding me again.

I used to be a good writer. I used to hear a kind of music when I read poetry, or great prose, and could even achieve that edge, that distant symphony when I wrote. Not anymore. Now I fumble for words, I wiggle my fingers in front of me with my eyes closed, trying to connect the words to the image, the words that are just out of reach.

Hell, some days, especially after a migraine, I can't find basic words like "dresser," or "cup."

Today is the anniversary of the war on Iraq.
I know this because ttk got stuck in San Francisco after a business meeting today, trapped in his car through a maze endless detours and surging crowds.

He finally headed back to his work and napped on the couch...I talked to him about an hour ago and he's finally headed home.
This entry is going to be lots of little snippets just cause that's what happens when my pain medicine kicks in--we call it "Blue Pill Babble."
See, years ago when I was first given the prescription for the pain meds (my migraines are atypical, because of the scar tissue in my brain from the surgery. If you don't know that story by now, go to http://www.ciar.org/cobalt to see my ANCIENT hand-coded webpage that I haven't gotten around to redoing, for the whole sordid history.) the generic form of the pills were round, and blue, and bitter as all hell. They're still bitter--I always say you know I'm in pain if I'm taking these, because they're so bloody bitter that I wouldn't be able to overcome that unless I am in dire need. But I digress.
Anyway, they were round and bitter, and blue. It was just easier to ask for a Blue Pill from ttk than to remember the name of the drug (plain old Fioricet, if you wanna know) so we got used to calling them that. Then a few years ago they changed the generic to a white oblong (still bitter as a bad fuck) but we've kept the habit of calling them blues, which has confused our friends to no end.
Weird thing is when they kick in, they make me babble. Noone is here to babble at, so I'm typing this whilst laying down, with my eyes closed. I intend to spell check this, so I'm not too worried about the monstrosities appearing on the screen. Mostly.
TTK called--he's 6 minutes away, so I can babble at him soon. I can feel the pain trying to get in through my blue duct tape. I would say "heh" at my silly metaphor but that might hurt my head.

Time...

It's been more than 10 years, and I still love him so fucking much it hurts.
We have a deal that I die first--he's not allowed to leave me on this rotting planet alone.

...considering my piss-poor health, it's not going to be too hard for him to outlive me, unless he dies in a fiery crash because of this damn commute that we thought would only be for a year or so until he found a job closer to home, but that has turned out to be 4 YEARS...

...and yes, damn this fucked up cerebellum--I've been awake all night AGAIN.

I've been in a piss-poor mood all weekend, a mood which I decided that I would not inflict upon the few friends I do have, so all sorts of phone calls and emails are owed to the people I've left hanging. I even need to apologize to our real-estate ladies, because we met with them on short notice on Saturday, and I was in such an unpleasant state that I don't doubt for a second that I was difficult to be around. I even let slip my utter disgust for humans--I got to talking about reptiles and how many neglected and dying animals I have rescued from people who would rather let their kid's pet die, and just replace it, because it was just a "five dollar turtle."
but I digress. Of course.
Love was what prompted this post. Sad that hate should end it.
It's hard to feel loving and not irritated when he starts snoring enough to scatter his piles of mammals that suck up his warmth at night...right now even the old "elbow in the spine" trick is not working--if anything the snoring deepens.
Sigh. Love. Love. Love is a good thing [snooooore].

We Walked Away.

Well, we decided that house needed more work than we were going to be able to afford, both timewise and moneywise, so we Walked Away. It actually felt really damn good to know we're strong enough to let go and be able to move on. 

So, we're in escrow on a different house. Heh.

The first of the inspections for THIS new house is tomorrow--the Well Inspection. It WILL go well.

This house is much nicer, but more expensive, and we're being much less over-the-top excited about being in escrow, now that we're all experienced n' shit. I've decided that buying a house is rather like getting pregnant, 50 years ago: you wait to tell everyone until you're sure you're not going to miscarry...

I am in the process of trying to get photos uploaded to my Kodak account, which is not public, so if you're interested in seeing them email me and I'll send you a link. WHEN I get the darn things up--I keep getting distracted and end up wandering all over the 'net doing research, reading blogs, and I get back on track and suddenly I am wandering through my computer files, looking at photos and oh, I need to do a little editing in Photoshop on this one, and I should upload it to my Flickr account, oh but I need to finish the crafty blog post I was making about this project, and oh oh oh oh

and suddenly instead of uploading photos, I am here writing in my blog about how I am NOT getting it done.

Ah, the joy of the easily distracted....

This is just miserable.

We had our house inspection yesterday, and the pest inspection. I swear, everything that could be wrong with this house, is. The roof is sagging, it has both dry wood and subterranean termites (I didn't even know there was sub-t!) the septic is for shit (literally!) and needs new leach lines and possibly a new tank, there's fungus growth around the edges of the roof from lack of gutters, the roof needs replacing, a "vapor barrier" needs to be installed in the crawlspace, etc. etc.
We thought about it overnight, then after my infusion this morning when ttk left, I sat down and started thinking this through, and I realized: I AM NOT UP TO THIS.
There is so much work that needs to be done before we could move in--at least 50-100 THOUSAND dollars--so why not spend more money and get an already fixed and nice house, that we can move into when escrow closes?
We told ourselves that if there were major problems we would just walk away--and I think that we need to acknowledge that now is the time. It feels like we have put so much work into this already, but realistically it's been a week. 5 days. We can find another house. I KNOW we can. We love the location so much, but the house is in miserable condition.
Are we going to have regrets if we walk away? Yes.
But I don't have the strength to manage a house rebuild, while ttk commutes and is gone most of the time.
Amontillado!
For the love of God, Montresor!

We are going to talk more tonight--I juts talked to him on the phone and he is going to call our real estate ladies and put a hold on the next inspection.

Anticipation.

I CAN NOT WAIT until we have a HOUSE!!!!!

With the brutal (but not as torrential as the weather dudes predicted) rainpour this last week, I've been completely unable to do laundry.

Our laundry area is OUTSIDE.

Have I mentioned how much this sucks?

Through the back door, on the side of the house/porch, is a pair of doors that open onto a closet-like area that is just deep enough for our washer and dryer. Nothing else. 

Not even a basket of laundry can sit in front of the washer and still have the doors close, so we've added a bungee cord to the doors so they can be kept closed most of the way when I have laundry out there. There's only about 4 inches of roof overhand, so I can't do laundry if it's even drizzling, since everything (including me) will get wet.

It's really evil to get a whole bunch of laundry done, have it hanging on the door all fresh and clean, and FORGET to close up the laundry area and have it get rained on.

When we take possession (knock wood that all the inspection reports are positive) the first thing I am doing is buying a fab-ola washer and dryer (front loading!) and having it shipped, and installed. No more doing laundry in the rain and cold and having the summer sun bleach my clothes if I leave the doors open!

This HAS to happen.

please

please

please

please

Waiting is the hardest part.

[sigh]

Um, so..

we just we bought a house.
Yeah.
Eek.

I suppose once the shock has worn off, I'll be really ecstatic, but right now I feel really strangely unemotional.
Kind of a solid feeling, really.
I'm not freaking, or assailed by doubts, but I'm also not overexcited and bouncing.

We just signed the papers yesterday, submitted our bid, and the seller accepted it this morning.

WE'RE IN ESCROW!!!!!!!

Okay, saying that makes it feel more real, since we have 30-45 days to close of escrow.
We're really in this!
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Okay, moment over--I prefer the calm.


WE JUST BOUGHT A HOUSE!

Now, if ttk doesn't lose his job before the loan papers are signed, and if all the inspections go well, and if I don't get sick again, and and and and...
We'll be in our new house in about 4 months.
June.
Just in time for our tenth wedding anniversary, and our renewal of vows we're hoping to do!
[thud]

We're back, really

Yes, we came back months ago, but I got sick on the plane ride home and was sick for 2 weeks, and then I just never quite got back into the habit of posting again. New year and all that.
really, I still exist. I just tend to brumate in Jan-Feb-March...

Leaving, on a Jet Plane...

Well, we leave for Texas in 3 days. Yep, we fly out Christmas morning, for 5 days.

I had more to say but I'm being assailed by one hell of a migraine which started out mild but is really amping up...the brightness of the screen is starting to hurt. Life sucks sometimes...

Interlude 449, plus Sam Thoughts.

Him (calling from the bedroom): This is NOT a cat.

Me: What?

Him. Sam is NOT a cat. He is a BEAR.

Me: ... ?

Him: I was making the bed and I went to move him, and he whacked me. Hard.
He hit me in the side! It HURT. It STILL hurts! This is not a cat!




heh. I weighed Sam last week--he weighs 16 pounds. Mind you, this is not a laze about obese cat--he is solid muscle, and brings home gophers the size of squirrels. I think he brought in that damn spider last week...

When we moved in here, we closed all the doors and wouldn't let the cats out so they would decide that this was now home--I had read that somewhere, and it worked every other time we moved, but this was the first time we moved with Sam, and I guess he didn't read that article. The first thing he did when we opened a SCREENED window was wait until neither of us was watching, and proceeded to CLAW his way through the screen because he wanted OUTSIDE, dammit.
5 years later and the screen is still in shreds, since it became the "cat door" and replacing it would have meant he would have something else to tear open.
Unfortunately, said cat door is actually our bedroom window, right at the head of our bed, (of course, I'm the light sleeper--notice the timestamp on this post?) which makes my side of the bed Cat Highway.
I actually bought a cheesy 3 tier plant stand from Pic 'N' Save and set it up outside our window, screwing it into the wall, so the cats wouldn't be thumping and scrabbling in their travels. Last week we bought two doormats to go on said plant stand to try to control the amount of mud that gets tracked all over my pillow and side of the bed during the rainy season (read: NOW).
It's not working, but I'm pretending it is.

Timeline.

I keep trying to remember various things, and I've realized that I mark most of my life as either BT or AT...Before Tumor and After Tumor. TTK and I keep forgetting when we married, so I've decided to write a timeline of events. Not all of them, mind you, just AT...


1995
January: Insurance kicks in: Diagnosed with Ulcerative Colitis.
April 10: Diagnosed with Acoustic Neuroma (now called Unilateral Schwanoma)
April 2?: Surgery
May 20: My birthday, and back into the hospital for Steroid Psychosis
July: Record heat wave in Chicago--500 people die, and I almost joined them.
October: Moved to Santa Cruz with Evil E.

1996
January-ish; Broke up with E. Moved out.
July-ish: Moved into McMillan House.

(somewhere in here I met TTK online, then in person, and got interested in him...)
August: Flew to Chicago for a visit.
September 5: Declared celibacy.
September 12: TTK offered via /m a back massage. I postponed until the next day.
September 13: We start our relationship. Monogamous.
October: TTK moves into McMillan House.
December-ish: After months of proposing to him, he finally said yes! Heh.

1997

We plan for wedding in November. November cruises by.

1998
May: I announce, frustrated with trying to plan a wedding, that we were getting married in June, damn it.
June 27: We marry. Me, him, Sara Homan as our Officiant, my sister as my maid of honor and his best friend as his man of honor. Party of five, in the middle of a field. :-)

1999
Moved to Seattle (Burien). I hate it.

2000
October: Moved to Cotati.

2002
March 1: moved to Sebastopol (Hessel area.)

2004
December: Doctor took me off celexa, put me on Wellbutrin which sent me loony.

2005
January: Partial Hospitalization Program for insane me.
February: Flareup started (and is still going.)
May: Finally decide to see the UC specialist. Made it down for my nephew's 2nd birthday.
August: Got to witness the birth of my neice. Wow is all I can say.

2006
Somewhere in here TTK decided to contact his parents, so I got to meet my MIL and FIL (and SIL) for the first time (after 7 years of marriage.)
May: Said new in-laws gift us with some stock (none of your business how much). Woo hoo! And eeeee!
I head to L.A. for neph's b-day party, and I take frogs to show (party is frog themed!).
August: I start school.
September: Ginsu appeared on our doorstep.
December: Dr. M declares me "in remission" but says I have residual irritable bowel. (HA!!)
December 25th: We fly to Texas to meet TTK's grandmas. Weird but fun trip.

2007
January:
Cramping and blood get worse despite being "in remission." I decide to get a second opinion. Which meant another colonoscopy, whee.
March:
Almost completely homebound now. Had to drop all of my classes. Weight loss is getting noticeable. I get a blood test check and my iron levels are 34 (normal is 35). No biggie, right? Keep reading...
April:
I go on steroid enemas. These are evil and painful.
May:
I go on oral steroids (Budosenide). Evil stuff. I start having extreme dizziness when I stand, that I attribute to the steroids (but, oh, was I wrong!)
June:
1st: momma has a stroke. (okay, TIA, but it's still serious).
Dizzy and sort of breath all of the time now. Hands are shaky.
July:
More of the same. Down to 155 pounds. (was 190 at the start of the year.) Somewhere in here I decided to take up crochet hook again.
August:
8th: Needles died.
16: Woke this morning by TTK...he found Atlantis dead in the cage. Was expecting it, since he was so depressed about Fizzbinn, but it was still a shock.
16: Down to 151 pounds. Finally approved for Remicade! Decided to taper myself off of the evil steroids, since none of my doctors wanted to, and they were making me insane.
22: First Remicade transfusion. Whee.

September:
5th: Second infusion. Feeling better every day.
13 11 year anniversary today.
28 Tasha died. :-(

October
Finally off the steroids.
3: Infusion of Remicade. Up to 155 pounds. Still incredibly dizzy and shaky, though.

I make an app with my regular dr, and ask for a blood test (last one was in March!)
Hemo score is at 23, when normal is 35. Dr is freaked, puts me on megadoses (3X daily) of iron so we won't have to transfuse me. THIS explains the dizziness, weakness, short of breath-ness, and shakiness! ARRRRGH!

November 28: My 3rd infusion of Remicade. I've gained 10 pounds (now at 160), and dizziness is gone. I think we can safely say I am in remission for real.

I need another blood test, but it's kinda fallen back in my schedule of TO DO's, since there's so much other stuff I need to get caught up on.



------------------
Okay, so the later years are not filled out much, but that's because it's always hard to separate the significant events when you're still close to them. I'm sure I'll be adding more.

Interlude 447

"Don't kick over that funnel next to you..." (he gestures towards the kitchen floor) "there's a Jerusalem Cricket under it."

EVIL, EVIL MAN!!!!!

Fun, but not Scary

Heh. We've been spending our holiday down in L.A. with family...
the first few days at my mom's house, and then yesterday and today at my sister's, with her partner and their two little kidlets.
Wow.
After just an hour with these two little creative, energetic critters, I was exhausted yesterday!
Today, they created their own game called "fun, but not scary" which involved hanging over my sister's leg, and then sliding off headfirst onto the floor, cackling madly the whole time. :-)
We had french toast and syrup for breakfast, and sis said, "They're working off that litte sugar rush." and sure enough, 20 minutes later both have melted into sippy-cup-and-laying-down mode.

Vascillating...

Okay, so now that I've announced that I am going to just use this blog for everything, I am once again wondering if that's a good idea--I mean, if you're cruising for crafts, are you really going to want to read all my intimate and nasty little life and health details? And if you know me and are wondering about the latest, are YOU really going to want to read about all of my little creative projects?
I don't want to scare the crafters, while disillusioning the geeks and weirdos (heh!)...and y'all know who you are.

So I think what I'll do is this: I'll do a full-on overhaul of my craft blog, get all the links satisfactory and all the bells and whistles, THEN I will re-open it "to the public." In the meantime, I'll just post creative stuff here, and scare whoever with whatever.

Sounds like a plan, man!

So here's a craft update: I'm taking pictures of my finished projects, organizing my patterns and stash, and planning new projects. It's kind of surreal--our place is so small that the only nice area to take pictures in is the bedroom, by making the bed and putting up a backdrop...so I have my camera set up on the tripod next to the bed. We're not filming porn, really!

A health update: I just went to the gastroenterologist guy...since the Remicaide is suppressing my UC so well, he thinks it would be a not-so-good (as opposed to COMPLETELY bad) idea to start the immunosuppressant therapy as well, so no Imuran for me. I'm actually quite relieved about that, because there's a serious side effect of the two drugs when taken co-comittantly--there's an extreme chance of developing lymphoma. Uh, no thank you!

So, gut is almost completely under control--I still can't eat normally (no salad, no beef, no raw vegetables, easy on the fiber and fried foods, etc) for at least 6 months (according to my dr) but I have gotten to expand my variety, and I can actually eat without the panic or fear. Or PAIN.

Family update: My dad went into the hospital with acute pancreatitis, my sister is having a severe endocrine problem that none of the doctors can figure out or fix, my MIL broke her foot, my FIL had hernia surgery...basically, I get better and everyone around me falls apart. TTK is not physically ill, thank goodness, but he's having some issues mentally because of all of the strain of caring for me and the household and keeping down a full-time plus plus job.
We're leaving to go to L.A. in 2 days, and trying desperately to batten down the hatches and basically make the place seaworthy (to carry the metaphor waaay past its usefulness!) so the petsitter will survive intact...

Well, that's enough for now--I have to go clean something. Heh.

Merger...

Okay, I was trying to keep a separate blog for my craft stuff/creative side, but I've decided to just merge them. It's easier than trying to update/keep nice looking two different blogs at the same time. I tend to tinker with the template code, and if I figure out a new function, it's a pain to add to both templates.
On another note, I just got my invitation to Ravelry.com, as a Beta tester...so it got me up off of my butt and got me to take some pics of my projects (well, some of them, anyway), get the pics converted to smaller more manageable images, and open a Flickr account to upload them, and actually upload them! Go here to see what measly bit I've done so far. Heh.

All this stash organizing and book-listing, project exploring, and reading has me wanting to start MORE projects!
Woo! Off to amigurumi!

Okay, THAT was Funny...

Y'all know how I hate the phone, yes?
Well, I finally got up the gumption to face the first of a hlaf-dozen calls I need to make...
I decided to call my friend Al first, since I really need to get the whole pet-sitter thing figured out before TTK and I go off to L.A. ...
Al is quite a joker, and likes to mess around with people's minds by making dirty jokes, so when I called him, and he answered, I said "Hi! You got a minute?"
When he replied, "Who is this?"
I said, "it's me, H----."
"WHO?"
So of course, my instant reaction was to say "You've forgotten me already? But it was just last night!"

There was this dead pause, for about three heartbeats..
then, "Who are you trying to call?"
"Uhhhh, Al?"
Another pause. "No, you've got the wrong number. But we can still get together if you want to!"
Mad guffawing from both sides of this conversation ensued, and I could even hear someone else in the background cracking up...

I answered, after I got my breath back, "Uh, NO. I think I'll try dialing the RIGHT number this time."
Still chuckling, he said "I'd remember you if it was just last night..."

HEH!

So much for getting up the nerve to use the telephone... I'm still grinning about this, as I type.

I think I will check his number and REMOVE the one that's written on the side of my monitor...

STILL anemic!

I had another blood test, on Thursday...the doctor called today and said that I'm still anemic, even worse than before (normal is 35, last test I was 23...he didn't say the exact number this time tho) and he wants me taking iron _3_ times a day...

Since I started the Remicade I have been feeling better and better--my next infusion isn't until November 28, so we'll hopefully get this anemia thing kicked before then.

You know, when you're sick all your energy and focus is on being sick and trying to get better and even just trying to be mildly functional...but you start getting better, then you start noticing that there's OTHER things out there besides blood and pain.

Anemic...

You know all those symptoms I was attributing to the steroids--the dizziness, the lightheadedness, the rapid heartbeat? Well, I got a blood test yesterday, and my doctor called this morning: "You're quite anemic. If you were younger I'd insist on you getting a transfusion."

He went on to describe what effects I might have been having--dizziness, lightheadedness, and a rapid heartbeat when I tried to do much of anything. Surprise!

So he has me taking iron twice a day, and I get another blood test next week.

Brutal, unexpected, and sad.

This one is a hard one to write. I'm a mess, and so is ttk--about 2 hours ago ttk accidentally stepped on Tasha, our black cat. She bolted out the window, then he heard her yowling in the garage, and it sounded bad, so he came and woke me up, and brought her in to me. I took one look at her, panting, body cool to the touch, and said EMERGENCY HOSPITAL. Then I told him she was probably not going to make it.
She died at the vets.
She's gone. We're burying her now.
We're going to bury her in with Needles.

I go help dig. And cry some more.

TTK is going to stay home tomorrow and we are going to do our best to comfort each other and keep me from cutting. Klonopin and hiding in bed are both in the plans.

It was an accident, a total accident, where she ran out from something she was hiding under, straight under his foot. But we both feel guilty--I had stuck the crap in the hall that he couldn't see her behind, and well, you know why he feels guilty.

One of her nicknames had become "S&M Kitty" since every night ttk had to shove a pill down her throat, which she fought quite admirably, drawing blood frequently. Then, 10 minutes later, she would be all over him and purring like a mad thing.

I love you, my sweet tough dog-taunting black cat.
I go cry more.
-me

Ahh, Memories...

Lincoln Park Pirates
from the Steve Goodman LP "Somebody Else's Troubles"


The streetlamps are on in Chicago tonight,
And lovers a'gazin' at stars;
The stores are all closin', and Daley is dozin',
And the fat man is counting the cars...
And there's more cars than places to put 'em, he says,
But I've got room for them all;
So 'round 'em up boys, 'cause I want some more toys,
In the lot by the grocery store...

To me, way, hey, tow them away,
The Lincoln Park Pirates are we,
From Wilmette to Gary, there's nothin' so hairy
And we always collect our fee!

So it's way, hey, tow 'em away,
We plunder the streets of your town,
Be it Edsel or Chevy, there's no car too heavy,
And no one can make us shut down.

We break into cars when we gotta,
With hammer and pickaxe and saw;
And they said this garage had no license;
But little care I for the law!
Our drivers are friendly and courteous;
Their good manners you always will get;
'Cause they all are recent graduates
Of the charm school in Joliet.

To me, way, hey, tow them away,
The Lincoln Park Pirates are we,
From Wilmette to Gary, there's nothin' so hairy
And we always collect our fee!
So it's way, hey, tow 'em away,
We plunder the streets of your town,
Be it Edsel or Chevy, there's no car too heavy,
And no one can make us shut down.

And when all the cars are collected,
And all of their fenders are ruined,
Then I'll tow all the boats in Belmont Harbor
To the Lincoln Park Lagoon;
And when I've collected the ransom,
And sunk all the ones that won't yield;
I'll tow all the planes that are blocking the runways
At Midway, O'Hare, and Meigs Field!

To me, way, hey, tow them away,
The Lincoln Park Pirates are we,
From Wilmette to Gary, there's nothin' so hairy
And we always collect our fee!

So it's way, hey, tow 'em away,
Now citizens, gather around,
And I think it's enough, let's call his bluff,
Let's throw the bum out of town!


Transcribed by Rich Kulawiec, rsk@ecn.purdue.edu

http://www.songlyrics.com/song-lyrics/Goodman_Steve/Miscellaneous/Lincoln_Park_Pirates/70648.html

I adore this poem.

anyone lived in a pretty how town
by e. e. cummings

anyone lived in a pretty how town
(with up so floating many bells down)
spring summer autumn winter
he sang his didn't he danced his did


Women and men (both little and small)
cared for anyone not at all
they sowed their isn't they reaped their same
sun moon stars rain


children guessed (but only a few
and down they forgot as up they grew
autumn winter spring summer)
that noone loved him more by more


when by now and tree by leaf
she laughed his joy she cried his grief
bird by snow and stir by still
anyone's any was all to her


someones married their everyones
laughed their cryings and did their dance
(sleep wake hope and then) they
said their nevers they slept their dream


stars rain sun moon
(and only the snow can begin to explain
how children are apt to forget to remember
with up so floating many bells down)


one day anyone died i guess
(and noone stooped to kiss his face)
busy folk buried them side by side
little by little and was by was


all by all and deep by deep
and more by more they dream their sleep
noone and anyone earth by april
wish by spirit and if by yes.


Women and men (both dong and ding)
summer autumn winter spring
reaped their sowing and went their came
sun moon stars rain




From Complete Poems: 1904-1962 by E. E. Cummings, edited by George J. Firmage. Used with the permission of Liveright Publishing Corporation. Copyright © 1923, 1931, 1935, 1940, 1951, 1959, 1963, 1968, 1991 by the Trustees for the E. E. Cummings Trust. Copyright © 1976, 1978, 1979 by George James Firmage.

This just appeals to me...

Apparently this was a Christmas song parody written up in Mad Magazine ages ago...I haven't been able to verify the truth of this, so take it with the grain of salt you would for most things you read on the internet.

It's sung to the tune of "It came Upon a Midnight Clear"

"It hangs down from our chandelier;
We have no idea what it does.
Its shape is weird and
It drips with goo,
And lets off a high-sounding buzz.

It grows a couple of feet each day,
And wiggles with kind of a twitch.
We keep it 'cause it's a present from
A visiting uncle who's rich!"

Heh.

We've been tapering me off of the steroids, and there's definitely a tradeoff: as I decrease the steroids, the blood has come back and the pain has increased, but damn I feel so much more functional and sane.

I cleaned the rodents, I did 3 loads of laundry, i learned a new crochet stitch, and I'm actually posting in my blog.

Did I mention that I am down to 150 pounds? Not a diet I recommend to anyone, but it feels good to be lighter...

Heh. A review.

Kind of silly, but fun.

Approval Finally...

The Remicaide Nurse called today, and my insurance company has approved 3 treatments of Remicaide (and at $2,400 a visit, that's saying a lot!)...my first appointment is next Wednesday! Yay!

I'm down to 151 pounds, which would be great if I had lost it through diet and exercise, not diarrhea and blood and tissue and constant nausea and pain. Now we just need to get me off the steroids before I go into psychosis...and so we can get rid of all these evil symptoms that go along with the steroids--MAJOR dizziness, mood swings and some serious depression, severe body/hand weakness (such that I run out of breath and have to pant for air if I try to talk on the phone and walk around at the same time).

Here's a description of the disease I just found that is incredibly accurate:

About Crohn's Disease and Ulcerative Colitis

Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis are painful, medically incurable illnesses that attack the digestive system. Crohn's disease may attack anywhere from the mouth to the anus, while ulcerative colitis inflames the large intestine (colon) only. Symptoms may include persistent diarrhea, abdominal pain or cramps, rectal bleeding, fever, and weight loss. Many patients require hospitalization and surgery. These illnesses can cause severe complications, including colon cancer in patients with long-term disease. Some 1.4 million American adults and children suffer from Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis, with as many as 150,000 under the age of 18. Most people develop the diseases between the ages of 15 and 35.

Everyone who has been calling me has been asking about my health, which is understandable, but I'm so tired of talking about it!
(Which is probably why I haven't been posting about it...plus the profound depression kinda gets in the way of EVERYTHING.)

TTK and I discussed it at length, and decided last week since the Remicaide was pretty much guaranteed to happen, we would start an INCREDIBLY slow taper off of the steroids since they are destroying me...

which is probably why I have energy today and yesterday, and am posting, and feel better than I have in months.

I've also started crocheting as I felt way too limited by the Knifty Knitter and always working in the round. Plus the dizziness has kept me homebound (I am NOT driving a car like this!) so I've had a lot of time on my hands and not much strength to do chores...

Right now I am making monsters, for my neice (who just turned two). I am basing them on the amigurumi concept, and I'll talk more about this whole craft thing in another post. :-)

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!