My Summer Vacation, Part 1: Thank Yous & Credits

Since I am so far behind in my postings, I figure I might as well start with the important thing - thanking all the people who made my first trip "home" in way too many years such a fantastic time.

First, of course, to Auntie Cheryl & Auntie Kathleen for starting the whole thing. The trip might have started out to be all about Anna, but it turns out that I was pretty glad her daddy wouldn't let her fly alone, because I had the time of my life! Being able to hand her off to you guys, where I knew she was having a blast & in the best hands in the world, gave me time with my friends that was the biggest gift I could ever, ever have. You guys really are incredible, and everything you did with and for Anna was a priceless gift that neither she or I will soon forget. It was really neat for me to give her not just cool new experiences, but also a peek into my childhood, in the same places I went at almost exactly the same age.

Mel, that goes for you too! Did you love having a mini-me shadow for a week? Anna worships you even more than she let's on. The time she got to spend with you was probably the high point of the entire trip for her. Now I just have to figure out when I'm flying you up here, because **I** didn't get nearly long enough with you at all. There are conversations to have and knitting to do!

Next, I want to thank everyone who came out for the BBQ that my wonderful Auntie threw for me. I had ALL my Aunties there!!!! And both my favorite uncles, my sweet cousins, and my very best friends. That was absolutely friggin' cool!! You all went to so much trouble, driving so far, cooking and baking for me, baking cherry pie for me...drool! In a lot of ways it was like a very happy flashback to all the great family gatherings when I was a kid.

A then POOF!! It was over way too fast! I didn't get enough time to sit and talk with each of you, which I really wanted to. I was really sad when everyone had to leave to make the too-long trek home.

I definitely miss you all at other times, but I don't think I have ever missed you as much as when that party ended. I need another two weeks down there by myself, just seeing family & friends. I might have to find a way to swing that somehow...
But all of you that made so so SO much effort for me - Thank You!. Those words seem pitifully inadequate. Very pitifully.

The other priceless gift I got on this trip was time with two of my oldest, bestest friends in the world. No matter what we did, just sitting with you and talking over dinner is something I haven't been able to do in years. It always still kind of surprises me how easy it is to just pick up right where we left off as if no time at all, no years and years, had passed in the interim. Sometimes, being isolated up here in the boonies so far from you guys is a lot harder than I let on. "Friend time," sans husband or kids is very seriously good for my mental state! No matter how dearly I love my husband and kids, friend time is just a whole 'nother animal; especially with the people I've very literally grown up with.

And speaking of animals.......!! I spent three days at the beach watching buses come and go, almost all with the giant San Diego Zoo "Elephant Odyssey" ads on them, thinking what a bummer it was that there was no way I'd make it down there this trip. I was exhausted from all the driving I'd done already! So a huge thank you not Darcy for being fearlessly spontaneous and hauling us down there for a most of a day. I can't believe I did that whole trip on foot. I sure as hell paid for it after, but it was worth every Advil. I think the munchkin was pretty damned impressed too, despite the carefully postured teenage indifference at times. The huge genuine smiles and giggles broke through often enough for me to know the truth! Me, I felt like I was about 5, seeing animals I'd never ever seen in real life. I think I had more fun than the five-year-olds there. Next time, gotta remember to hit the children's zoo though - you get to touch things in there! ;->

So, as I sign off and go get ready to head up the mountain with Daddy for my pre-chemo checkup and labs, the point is this:
To each and every one of you, a huge, heartfelt thank you for every minute of that trip. I'd list you all individually, but I ran outta time! ;-p

I love you all, very, very much!!!!!!

I found my notecards!!

Now how exciting is that? Now I can regale you will all the exciting minutiae I've got jotted down on them, but not today.

Today, Daddy is coming up to babysit me while Lloyd's gone on a motorcycle ride that might turn into an overnighter. That's ok, because WE are going to dinner and a Dave Alvin show at the Sierra Nevada Brewery tonight. I scan the email list I get of upcoming acts hoping Dave will come back, and I got lucky- he's here, and Dad is able to come up and go to the show with me.

So, since Dad will be here about the time the kids get home from school, and I have a couple hours free till then, I am laying down and closing my eyes like that little guy over there----->

The next few days will be pretty busy with doctors and labs and chemo and having Dad to talk to, so I don't figure I'll get in another entry till after I come out of the chemo fog. Monday I go see Andy, and Tuesday I go see Dr. Davis for my six month Pap test... Yeahhhh....I'm going to be tired.

So, that's where I'll be. Have fun till I get back.

A Happy Doggie & A Tired and Ooky Me

Well, the most important news there is is that my girl is feeling better.

The meds that the vet gave us seem to be doing the job, and she's been holding down water and bland foods for over 48 hours now. I feel terrible that she's starving to death, getting just tiny bits of canned-bland or boiled chicken & rice, but she's so happy when she gets anything that I guess its ok. We were able to up the amount a little and mix in a little kibble for her dinner last night too. I think just eating dinner at the same time as the other dogs made her feel better, even if I was still hand-feeding her. I've been doing that since the beginning - feeding her off a fork or spoon so she wasn't able to wolf down the whole meal in 3 quick gulps.

That really is the only news there is. I'm not feeling terribly well myself right now, so I don't really feel like being a terribly witty blogger right now. I still want to find my index cards with all of my witty blogger notes on them, so I will probably be obsessive and look for them again.

Most of those entries are going to require lots of typing and photos, so I'll have to migrate down to the laptop anyway. I just don't know what the helll crApple's problem is with letting me upload photos anywhere, but it's really pissing me off!!!

Anyway, I don't have any idea why I feel so crappy this weekend, but I suspect that tha smart thing to do would be to take it easy, rest, SLEEEEP, and consume lots of liquids. And so I shall.
More later!

The Catching Up With Everything entry

Well, there are so many entries I've wanted to write, and I haven't got to any of them, AND I've lost the index cards with all my notes on them, so I'm just going to have to wing it. ::sigh:: I'll be trying to catch up on everything, but I'm realizing that it'll take me more than one entry, otherwise I'll take about a week to write it. So, one thing at a time.

I guess I'll go backwards, most current news first.

My Peadog
My baby girl is sick, which of course is the most important news there could be. She doesn't ACT sick, thank god, but she's barfed six times in 24 hours. A few times I thought we were past it - she went 12 full hours overnight - but nope. Many vet phone calls and we're off to the doctor in just a few minutes from now. (10:10 am Friday Sept 24) Update, and finishing this entry when I come home, of course.

Well, a very large sum later, we're home, with pretty much no idea at all what's causing her to be sick. She hasn't barfed since morning (jinx...just wait) and has kept all her meds down for almost an hour and a half now. Cross your fingers. We've got her on Prilosec, Compazine and something to coat the mucosa in her digestive tract and we're just hoping it all stays in to do some good. She had blood, urine and stool tested and everything there looks ok, which is the big relief. Now we just wait. I'm keeping her upstairs with me again, where I can confine her to the bathroom if needed (it's big and open, so I can see her and she can see me, which helps) and most of the time, I can keep her on the bed, on the crib-pads we had to buy when Stella was having bladder leaks. I think I'm going to take a nap while she's sleeping.

Stay tuned and pray for her to have a strong stomach, at least for an hour or two. I wasn't planning on being up at 7 am, and I'm tired.

The idiotPad
Well, my lovely little device apparently comes with some limitations. We went to the crApple store at the mall out in Roseville, which lived up to its name right away by the nicely insistently firm young lady at the podium telling us that in order to ask some questions we had to have an appointment, and that the first such they'd be able to give us was over 2 hours away. If you wanted to buy something, you could talk to anyone you wanted, but if you already owned it, you needed an appointment. That did NOT improve our feelings toward the crApple brand too terribly much... I went and explored Sephora for the first time ever, and after that improved my mood a bit, I went back and tried again. This time, instead of going to the official person at the official podium, I found a nice young man and cornered him.

And, after all of that trouble, it turns out that the answer to almost all of my questions was: No.
Uploading photos into Facebook though the normal web interface? No. Apple's fault? Of course not; it's a software thing, and until Facebook changes their site, sorry. Blogging on blogger in the normal "compose" box, instead of this, the "edit html" box? No. Apple's fault? Of course not; it's a software thing, and until Google changes their site, sorry.

I see.

Unfortunately, there was absolutely no way in the world for me to find out about these kinds of things before I bought. Every website is different, and some of the programming plays nicely with Apple's technology, and some doesn't. And, of course, Apple's technology doesn't play nicely with anyone, so it has to work the other way around. The good news is that supposedly these things will become far less common as the rest of the world catches up with the idiotPad. I do believe that, because I think these things are going to be pretty much everywhere pretty soon, so I will hang in. If I returned it and got a net book, I'd have different problems, and it would weigh nearly twice as much. ::sigh::

Well, at least the nice young man did tell me how to get my idiotPad to sync with my laptop, even if it did take about 3 hours the first time, and that wasn't even transferring all my photos. I have a loooooooooot of music.

Ok, time for a nap before my gorgeous girl decides it's time to wake up and be active. Luckily, with her age and my illness, we move at about the same pace these days.

And we like our naps.
Soon, more exciting posts, with topics such as:
*What I Did On My Summer Vacation
*Why My Stuffed Animal Collection Is So Much Cooler Than Yours
and
*Why "The Passage" (the book, in case you have been on Mars this summer) Sucks So Seriously That It Pissed Me Off

Stay tuned.

Attack of the idiotPad

Can I type here now?! So, if I try to type in the "compose" pane, I get nowhere. If I go to the "edit HTML" pane, off I go.
Frustrated would be a mild description.

And I CAN NOT POST PICTURES TO FACEBOOK EITHER.

WHAT THE HELL?

If the fancy idiotPad can't do what my cell phone *can,* we're going to have a real problem.

Well, here goes nothing

Well, it really was nothing!

The magical iPad is here. Sadly, it is SO magical that it's kind of like something out of Harry Potter, and I don't have the spells to unlock it yet.

This was technically my first post from the iPad. Unfortun

ately, while I was able to enter a title and (accidentally) hit the "post" button, I could not find a single mechanism by which to access the field to type the body of the post. You literally just can't go there. Aaaaannnnywhere else...but not there, nuh-uh, no way!

I feel like Pooh with his head in the hunny pot - it's all very nice and sweet, but you can't really get anything done....

(I'm writing this on the laptop now, having gone in to "edit" the post originally started on the iPad.)

In knitting, there is something commonly known as "i-cord," so named because, supposedly, it's so easy any idiot could do it. I'm starting to think of the name "iPad" as a similar abbreviation; only, in this case I AM the idiot who can't figure the damned thing out.

My kingdom for a cursor!

Or a real instruction manual!

Or navigational arrow keys!

But mainly a cursor!

Is there an "iPad for Dummies" book? Can I get it on the Kindle? Or on the iPad?!

Stay tuned for the solutions to these and other equally exciting mysteries as I continue my quest.

I will say that the idiotPad has a couple of things going for it so far-

When opening the bookshelf app for the first time, it gave me a free book to play with. Does it give every user the same book? The book *I* got was the full-color original (not Disney-style) "Winnie the Pooh." Some of you out there are going to understand what a delicious coincidence that is.

And it is pretty. It is really, really, really pretty!!

Circus? I have one right here at home!

Well, those who know me well know that I was really looking forward to going to the circus this weekend. Didn't happen.

In the big picture, it was a good thing that I didn't go, because me not going meant almost everyone else DID get to go, and it was very important that Anna get to go, as it was her birthday party substitute.

Me? I got to experience my first massive teenager-meltdown. You know, the kind where the teenager in question stomps off and disappears, prompting a neighborhood search wherein he needs to be boxed in by two parents while a third on the phone begs him to stop being stubborn and get in the car.

That kind. Many mentions of police involvement were made, but they didn't seem to interest him one bit. Nothing broke through - not yelling, not sarcasm, not being calm, nada. I guess when teenage boys get that angry, the testosterone takes over and they don't care about ANYthing.

AND, then once he has been transported back home (and I have succeeded in begging Lloyd to take Trevor, Anna and Anna (her twin/best friend) to the circus as planned, since it IS Anna's birthday party equivalent, and because by the time we mapped out directions for me to drive them, we'd miss the show), the child locks me out of the house (luckily I had insisted Lloyd not drive off until I made sure my keys were in my purse), and then when I go upstairs to his room, he's throwing things at the inside of his closed door, attempting to barricade me out.

I had to push my way in against his throwing things, getting rather bruised and battered in the process (I was already DEEEEEP in the middle of a massive lymphedema attack and other side-effect fun, which was yet another reason for Lloyd to go and me to stay), so I could demand his cell phone.

He responded by screaming at me to "take it," which I calmly refused to do, explaining that I would A) never do such a thing and B) that if I actually tried, he would doubtlessly hit me in some way as pure reflex, and I wasn't going to let that happen either, because *that* would have to have severe repercussions beyond my control. ::sigh::

"WHAT THE FUCK IS LIFE ANYWAY?!" was his response to that.

A ****very**** calm speech from me later (explaining that life was actually about people who love you, and continue to love you no matter whether you are sad, depressed, happy, triumphant, etc., and never stopped loving you even through shit like this; and that nothing he could do at that point was going to change MY feelings about him, because I chose him as my stepson, etc, etc, etc. AND discussing ways of getting out aggression, such as why smashing things was both therapeutic and a very bad idea, AND some deep sarcasm thanking him for the workout, since I was trying anything I could think of) he finally handed over the phone without incident and threw himself on his bed like (in his mother's words,) "a little girl."

She pretty much nailed it. She and I must have spent over an hour on the phone that day, in 2 or 3 conversations, which I know helped me - I hope it helped her, because we were both really upset.

After a couple hours of letting him calm down (and collecting all the things he was no longer allowed to use AND locking all my meds in a lockbox; yet another exhausting round of exercise), I went up to see if he was even awake, and tell him to start his homework - huge, ridiculous piles of homework - found his door barricaded AGAIN........had to push my way through it AGAIN....and found him still as pissed as he was in the first place. Actually, I think the fact that I was capable of getting in pissed him off more than anything.

After that one, I explained to him that if he kept up with the barricades, his father would *probably* take the door off the hinges, and he seemed to believe me, because he finally stopped that one and got to work on his homework with the door open. I gave him his iPod as a peace offering, but I guess it didn't work, because he was still verbally abusive and nasty to me yesterday.

When all was said and done, I finally had to do something I hate doing more than anything in the world and tell him that for now, I was going to step out and let his father handle him exclusively. Unless there is a real emergency, involving fire, blood, or both, he is to ask Lloyd for anything and everything, and Lloyd will handle his discipline, priviliges and anything and everything else. Period. I had to do this with Trevor a few years ago, and it was MISERABLE, and I'm not going to enjoy it any more this time.

The really fun part? I don't have the faintest idea why he was mad in the first place!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And so begins another enjoyable period in my step-mothering career. NOT!

Right now, I am tired. I am swollen with huge amounts of fluid. I have bruises up and down my right leg and random other places from fighting through barricaded doors. I have sore muscles in every part of my body.

I am depressed beyond comprehension.

But other than that, things are peachy-keen!

I'm going to go sit downstairs (I spent the day in bed yesterday, which did help immensely) and elevate my legs and sort through photos, as I await the receipt of our neato-coolo new photo scanner, so I can finally get them all digitized.

In the meantime, for your entertainment, I'm going to post the big pile of pics from our trip down South on Flickr, but be warned - I'm not sorting out all the blurry or strange ones yet. I'm too damned tired, and my hands hurt too much. That will come later. I got some incredible pics at the San Diego Zoo, so you should enjoy it anyway.

More when I can... Advice for the day: Don't have teenagers. Force your children to skip from about 8 or 9 to 25 in one step. Or send them to Hogwarts to wait it out. ;-)

Ch ch ch ch ch- changes....

I hate change. Really, I do. Change is bad. But, Google gave me cool new blogging tools and backgrounds and I plan to use them to express my overall blogging mood for the day. Evolve or go extinct, like that dude there, right?

There are actually going to be a lot of changes coming down the pike, so be ready for it, people. I do not take change lightly (you might already know that about me by now!) but, it's time.

First will be a change to my email address. I will not be ditching my beloved Blue Blvd, but I'll be changing my personal email name. That is going to be given out to friends only and not randomly strewn about the internet as my current name has been. A decade of domain ownership, small business ventures, association memberships and lord knows what else has left me miserable. I dread looking at my email! When I came home from vacation, I had an inbox with well over 600 messages waiting for me. On average, about 8 or 10 of those will be directly for me, something I did subscribe to, or at least not spam. Those numbers just don't add up for me.

So, the old one will remain up and collecting spam for quite some time while I make sure everything that should be moved gets moved. Then I'll convert over to a private address @blueblvd.com, for use with all y'all, and a "business transactions" gmail address for things like registering on websites, signing kids up for things and all those other random things that come up where I don't want to give out my private contact just yet.

Anyone like the new blog background? I kind of like the idea of changing it to reflect the mood of the post. New look, new names, new blogging ideas, the whole enchilada. I want to make some changes, and this is a good place to start. Good as any, I guess!

So, the update on me today is that I feel crappy. NOT as crappy as I have on other occasions, such as last night, but I feel like hell. I had the Taxol chemo (low dose, ha ha) and the Neulasta follow-up shot, and if there's a side effect possible for either of them, I got it. I've also felt like I'm getting a bit of a cold or flu on top of those. Last night and today was a really fun lymphedema adventure, but I'm better now.

Most of my today has been sadness and worry for others. One of those stories is not mine to tell, so all I will say is - it's on the way, so hang on tight!

The other concerns my dear Auntie. As you might have figured out from reading my blog, my Auntie has never met a stranger, and never failed to make a friend. She is the kindest person on the planet and has an entire galaxy of friends. Those friends become part of her heart, and losing one of them is almost a physical injury.

I just found out today that one of my Auntie's dearest friends (I'll call her J.) went into hospice a couple days ago. I know that Cheryl will be there with her almost night and day while J finishes this last bit of her dance with this disgusting, insidious fucker called cancer.

I haven't met J, but I've discovered that I'm devastated all the same. I can't fix anything for J, I can't make my Auntie or any of her friends any less sad, I can't give some little kids back their mom, nothing. So, all I can do is be sad with them all, and send every bit of good karma I can spare speeding off to Southern California.

I know I can count on all of you to do the same.

I also know that I'll be counting each and every one of you when I count the stars to go to sleep tonight. All of you are what keep *me* going. Love you all.

Weekend forecast: very bloggy ahead

Saturday....

Well gang, I have been seriously remiss in keeping up this blog lately. And by lately, I mean over the last, oh, what - year? Um, yeah, that's about it. And that's going to change.

I am hereby committing to becoming a regular blogger again. I kind of liked it when I was keeping up with this every day and getting your feedback. Since I'm back in chemo, starting the "pretty much for the rest of my shortish life" phase of the chemo experience, it seems like a logical time to get back to it.

The only problem with my newfound urge to blog constantly is that I'm constantly not here lately. The chemo experience itself is a 3-day program - Dr. visit & labs; chemo; Neulasta shot & hydration. I'll also be trying to get a bunch of dental work done, I have my gastric tests next week, etc. You know what I mean.

Point is, I'm not near my laptop very often, and its pretty impossible to drag it with me places, because, at nearly 5lbs, it is way, way, way too heavy for me. How sad is that?! When I bought it, I was thrilled at how light it was compared to my past laptops. Now, I'm such a weakling that 5# is very painful to hold after a few minutes.

Thus, I'm considering investing in a netbook, or even an iPad. Then I can take it to chemo, everywhere, and be mobile. At this point, I have a zillion questions running through my head as I try to figure out which option is best for me.

I was able to see an iPad in person on my vacation thanks to Darcy, so I've started my quest by asking her some of my zillion questions. I'd love to hear what

you guys have to say too.

Here is the big big question:

My biggest hesitation, after the fact that it's made by Apple: Can you REALLY actually *type* on the fucker?!! It would defeat the entire purpose if I had to get the keyboard.

I want one of these devices because I want to be able to blog anywhere, without having to do it on my phone. Blogging is thing one, period. But, ditto email - the phone is just damned small. If I could take the laptop everywhere, I would be SO caught up on my email, blog, life... It's too big and too heavy for me anymore. The places I frequent all have wifi, like the chemo center. The real keyboard makes the netbook come out ahead. The size and weight wins for the iPad. There are a dozen pros and cons on each side, to the point where it's damn near even.

Needless to say, this is NOT a small investment for someone who lives on a fixed income and has bad teeth, but my idea is to convert my entire online world to the small device - you know, blog, facebook, twitter, email.

That means taking the laptop off the internet entirely, cleaning the hell out of it and making it "sterile" for safe documents, photos, etc, with much less chance of a kaboom. Hopefully that would make good sense in the long run, as carrying around the smaller, lighter device would be much better for me physically, and hopefully sterilizing the laptop, with its heftier computing power for photoshopping and pagemaker-ing, would make it last longer.

I'm also looking at a dedicated photo scanner for the laptop, so I can work on the 8 or 9 boxes of prints and albums Dad has deposited, so I want to get it cleaned up, and good. There is a lot of family history at stake.

So anyway, that's what's been going on today: contemplating my computing future while trying to ignore lots of side effects. Sadly, they will get worse tomorrow, and then, Monday, I get to prep for my enema on Tuesday. I am not having near as much fun as this little guy over there----->

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Sunday....

I have this very bad habit of writing blog entries and then forgetting to post them. Oops. I'll be working on Sunday's entry soon, but I thought I'd post Saturday's column first.

The ultra-quick update

Well, Anna and I just got back from LA for our little trip to the beach and visiting friends and family. It was....well, it was a vacation. We had an absolute blast at times, and some things were a royal pain in the ass. I absolutely promise to write about it all very, very soon, but tonight I have to be in a bit of a hurry.

Tonight is just a quick note to make sure everyone knows that I'm back in chemo tomorrow afternoon. We knew I would be going back to chemo this month, but I thought it would be later in the month. I came home, and poof!

It's going to be a fun-filled several days. Tomorrow, I go see Andy at 9, then up to Paradise for chemo by 2:30. Monday, I have to do the oh-so-fun PREP for my barium enema on Tuesday. Don't you wish you were me?!

So now, I am going to go upstairs and change my sheets, clean up my room as much as I can and prep things for post-chemo coma time. Oh, such joy!

I promise to write lots, huge lots,more, about vacation and everything else going on. I promise!

Right now, I'm as tired as this guy!