Saturday

31 October 2009

Nope, I don't think it's possible to do anything around here without feline help.

A small peek


Still have to paint the kitchen, and I'm toying with painting the cabinets, but there's no hurry.

And where the heck were all the trick or treaters tonight? 'Twas very disappointing here...

Sunday

25 October 2009

Damn, my kid can act...

Last night was the opening show of Grease, and the Boy is playing Sonny in it...I would have been there then but the Spouse Thingy had to work and I can't (well, shouldn't) drive at night, so I went to the matinee today. Yep, by myself, a shocker. I wanted to go early on so I can go again before it closes.

It was just an all around fun show to watch, partly because it looked like the cast was having a good time on stage...and now those songs are stuck in my head and probably will be all week. It was a little bit of a surprise to see the Boy totally clean shaven...I haven't really seen that since he was 16, other than a picture he took a couple weeks ago. With his hair slicked back for the role and the facial hair gone, it really blew me away how much he looks like my dad, especially from pictures I've seen from my dad at the same age the Boy is now.

So now I kinda wonder if waitresses hit on my dad in his 20s, too...

Fun show...made a little funnier by using a Miata as Greased Lightning. "What is that futuristic looking car?" LOL

Thursday

22 October 2009

I spent a part of my morning trying to figure out why William Shatner once again invaded my dreams, and why in the hell he was in my kitchen grilling chicken for the cats.

I posed this question on Facebook, and Murf figured it out right away.

William Shatner = Denny Crane.
We bring chicken home from Denny's for the kitties.
Max loves Denny.

Duh.

I should learn to think in smaller circles...

Monday

19 October 2009

At 6:30 this morning I was in the kitchen scribbling a note for the Spouse Thingy: Please feed the kitties. Normally they eat at 9:30, but I had no intention of being awake at 9:30 and every intention of being fast asleep…this would displease Max, causing him to body slam my face repeatedly until I dragged my sorry self out of bed to make use of my nifty opposable thumbs on those cans of Stinky Goodness, so I dragged myself out of bed early and wrote the note.

It was only dragging because the bed was warm and the house was not. It’s not as if I was asleep.

I wasn’t not sleeping through lack of effort…I went to bed at 12:30, but didn’t fall asleep until nearly 2 a.m. At 3:30 I woke from a dream that had me driving a ’67 Mustang at insane speeds, hitting a rise in the road and going airborne, headed straight for an overpass. I jolted awake just before impact, relieved that it was just a dream, and that I had woken up, lest the idea that if one dies violently in a dream they die in their sleep has a bit of truth to it (like, who would really know? But I’d rather not test it out…)

It took another hour to fall back asleep, long enough that I nearly got out of bed to play online for a little while, but almost as soon as that impulse hit me I realized I was this close to nodding off again, so I pulled the blankets around me a bit tighter, and let myself fall.

I woke up at 5:30, so freaking sad I was nearly in tears. I’m not sure if there’s any symbolism here, but I’d been dreaming that the Spouse Thingy and I had split up, but for whatever reasons we were still living in the house together…and he had remarried to someone who had, in a previous lifetime, been my best friend, someone who is still a friend. It was supposedly a marriage of convenience, but when confronted with the reality that it was not, I was on my way out the door, bags in hand, the Boy there to take me to wherever. The Spouse Thingy was there begging me not to go… I woke up before my foot stepped outside the door, but an hour later I was still wrapped in the sheer sadness and grief of a dream, I could make no sense of, so I got up and wrote the note asking him to feed Max and Buddah.

At 7:15ish I heard his key in the front door—Max bounded off the bed in hopes of crunchy treats, simple reaffirming that yep, it was him—and I finally fell back asleep, the sense of grief finally fading away with the drifting back into the next dream.

Luckily, whatever slithered through my brain after that wasn’t disturbing enough to pry me awake again, and Max didn’t try to nap across my face after getting his breakfast.

Still…I’d like to know what the hell those dreams were really about…

Friday

16 October 2009

We moved my office into the spare bedroom, the boxes that were in that bedroom into the library (for now) and I'm prepping the family room (formerly my office) to be painted.

Max and Buddah think we're moving again.

They are not happy.

Poor kitties.

Wednesday

14 October 2009

A week after my spur of the moment surgery, the Spouse Thingy went in for a little under the knife work of his own. His was scheduled--a bladder biopsy, and no we don't have the results yet, but it all looked inflammatory--so there was no surprise there, but still... I had barely recovered and he was getting his junk reamed out, and he needed the weekend to heal up.

So we didn't have much fun over the last couple of weeks.

Yesterday I was scheduled for my post-op appointment with the surgeon, but a little matter of pounding rain and 55 mpg wind convinced us it wouldn't hurt to reschedule that... sure, lots of people drove in it, but we didn't have to, so we didn't (well, in the morning...I did drag him out in the afternoon to go to Walmart which is only half a mile away. Where I then sat at a table in Subway while he shopped. That's how wonderful I am...)

back patio 1 This had us a little bit worried.

By late afternoon the area had been pounded with a little over 4 inches of rain, and it looked like part of it wanted to come inside to warm up.

So the Spouse Thingy was outside in pouring rain, heavy wind, digging around in the yard to make sure the drainage inlets weren't clogged.

(Yep, the fact that we have drains in the back yard is a pretty good clue that we have drainage issues. We didn't notice them until after we'd bought the house, however. It might have made a difference...might not have. But still...)

I kind of wondered if we'd need sandbags, but after he cleared the drains, the water started to recede.

My hero.

And it is good to know that we can take rain that hard and not flood...

Still...this has been kind of a sucky couple of weeks, so it can only get better, right?

And by better I mean more fun.

I want to go bowling and ride my scooter...though not necessarily at the same time.

Well...that could be fun...if I could figure out how.

Thursday

8 October 2009

Read the very bottom of the sign...



Obviously, they really want the patients to rat 'em out...

Tuesday

6 October 2009

About a month ago, the Spouse Thingy and I were at the base bowling alley, thoroughly embarrassing ourselves with the quality our skills have devolved to...and since we suck so much, why not buy new bowling shoes in which to further suck!

They did not have the ones I wanted, but they were willing to order them. And while I was whining about the comfort level of the hospital bed my ass was stuck in, the shoes came in.

They are very spiffy.

We picked them up yesterday, and promptly shoved them into the locker with our balls, because I won't be able to bowl until Hot Doctor says I can. And I won't see her until next week, so who knows when I'll actually be able to sling a 16 pound ball down the lane?

I have very little pain already, it's well managed with just Motrin, but there are a few twingy spots that tell me there's no way I'm bowling even one frame much less 10. But dammit, I have spiffy shoes! I need to wear them!

Life really is not fair.

Monday

5 October 2009

Man, I knew Bush could be a bit of a hard ass, but damn...



So glad he wasn't gunning for gall bladders last week...

Saturday

3 October 2009

You know how on TV when surgeons butt-bump their way into the OR it's this gigantic room with spiffy tile walls and massive pieces of equipment that damn near beep in synchronicity?

Real life, not so much...

I was awake until I was in the OR and strapped down onto the table, and let me tell you, that was a major disappointment. They rolled me into a room that could have been a typical patient care room, but with a giant overhead light fixture and a way-too-narrow bed in the middle. No shiny, spiffy tile walls...just walls. No massive equipment taking up an entire wall, just an anesthesia machine--there may have been more but it wasn't THERE so I didn't see it.

They had me slide myself over to the tiny table--really! no one counted to three and then lifted me!--and then they strapped my legs down and then my arms out to each side. My last coherent thought was "holy hell...I'm being crucified."

Still...

We did not go to the base hospital because face it, retirees are low man on the medical hierarchy totem pole there*. Similar pain a few years ago had me sent home from the base ER with orders to follow up with my PCP within 48 hours...and that 48 hours turned into a month without seeing her, with another ER visit thrown in for good measure. They never did figure out what was wrong with me. I wanted to go to the civilian hospital, and that's where the Spouse Thingy took me.

I don't think he got the paperwork completely done before someone was taking me to the back, and as soon as they ruled out an MI they gave me an IV and pain meds. PAIN MEDS THAT WORKED! I totally love dilaudin (sp?) now. I didn't wait 3 hours just to see a doc, I saw him pretty freaking quick, and he took my pain seriously. Hell, everyone there did.

Instead of waiting a month for an abdominal ultrasound, I had one within an hour (or so...I may be fuzzy on actual time here. Drugs may play a part in that...) and was in surgery (and suffering crushing disappointment over the actual OR) by noon(ish.) From the time I hit my room until I was released, I had incredibly attentive care and didn't have to beg for pain medication. (And yes, they really do ask you repeatedly if you've farted yet...)

Gotta admit, Vacavalley hospital in Vacaville gets a big thumbs up from me.

Oh, and the at-home nursing care has been top notch, too. :)

*I don't blame the people working at the base hospital; I blame how terribly short staffed they are, and how crappily Tricare schedules appointments...after over a year trying to see my endocrinologist there, we had to get a civilian doc. The medical people care, the insurance grunts? Not. So. Much.

Friday

2 October 2009

Right now, we should be in Las Vegas, sipping stupid drinks and wandering around seieing what there is to see. I should be mentlly preparing to meet a potential client (sorry, T...) We should be looking forward to seeing Terry Fator tonight.

Instead, the Spouse Thingy carted me off to the ER between 5:30-6 a.m. on Wednesday, and by noonish a fairly hot (female, but hey I know hot when I see it) was poking holes in my belly to yank out a nasty looking (so I'm told, I did notsee it) gall baldder. So yesterday, the day we were supposed to leave, I lounged in bed enjoying dialudin (sp? no idea how it s spelled byt my typing sucks right now so I guess it doesn't matter0 and Vicodin, hile I ignored the water-based cream of wheat and pureed vegetble soup they tried to feed me.

They let me leave yesterday afternoom and I was modtly pa free when I left, but the ride hoem wiped me out and I made the mistake of trying to lie flat in bed when we got home, which was inatanseou OW, necessitating the Spouse THingy doping me up with Vicodin the rest of the day. Today is much better, only one dose of pain meds so far, so I expect tomorrow to be a whole lot better.

We'll shoot for Vegas again next yearm maybe in January or Febraury. Danm glad I bought trip insurance...we might lose out ona few hundred bucks but tyat's beter than $1500...