A few thoughts on cars, high school reunions & color-coordinated duct tape

Note: This entry is the chronicle of my rather ill-fated trip down to the Bay Area to attend my class reunion. I'll be posting the info about my upcoming surgery in a separate post so that you don't have to dig through all of this to get to it!

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Friday:

Have you ever had one of those times where you just KNOW you shouldn't go - wherever it is that you're supposed to be going- and you go anyway, and everything else that happens from the time you leave the house confirms your first instinct, that you shouldn't go?

I shouldn't have gone. But I did, and here I am, at the beginning of what is proving to be the most expensive trip from Gridley to Santa Clara in the history of the universe.

The drive down wasn't bad at all. I took just about forever to pack, and I think I brought the kitchen sink. After I finally got my shit in gear, got loaded up and got out, I headed out to Yuba City to pick up my favorite vintage 50s party dress at the dry cleaners and get my nails done. A quick trip to Target to wander the clothing department didn't yield a dress alternative for tonight, sadly, but I did find THE best pair of leather gloves in the history of leather gloves. Nice.

I think that during the time I was in Yuba City I almost turned around and went back home about 6 or 7 times. But I didn't. I went.

The drive down actually wasn't bad at all. Shockingly enough, I didn't even have to stop for a potty break! I ran into a bit of traffic just over the bridge, into Concord and Walnut Creek, thanks to two accidents, one on each side of the freeway, in the exact same place! How weird is that? Otherwise, it was smooth sailing in my direction, but looking at the other side of the freeway confirmed that there was no way in hell I could turn around and go home. Ever! Well, it looked like that.

I got to the hotel in great time. Unfortunately, 99.9% of the parking lot was closed off to have the stripes repainted. It would open in the next afternoon, but meanwhile, any parking was the garage behind the hotel.

I pulled up to the valet to get my pounds of stuff unloaded, and, fatefully, rolled down the passenger side window.

THAT was the end of the trip being easy.

Why? Because the god damned window wouldn't go back up.

Not with the switch on my door, not with the switch on the passenger door, not from being pulled up by a bellman, while the car engine was on, and not, eventually, by the nice AAA Road Service guy, an hour+ later, after I had to unload my car down to the registration and garage door opener and everything else in there, check in, get my shit hauled upstairs, call AAA the first time and get left on hold for 17 minutes, call them again and have them not put me on hold, go downstairs again and beg the valets to let it sit in front of the hotel and put into on of the only 12 valet spots they had, so that someone could make sure the car didn't disappear.

There's where it started to get expensive!

But…it's under watchful eyes of the great Hyatt bellmen who know about my window problem, and it's even very easy to see from my window up here on the seventh floor. That gives me some nice peace of mind.

The plan was to first to the smartest thing I can ever do - call Daddy. I asked him if he could come and help me put something over the window, which he could, and then I'd call the shop that the tow truck guy came from first thing on Monday morning to get the window fixed and rent a car to go to the doctor in the afternoon.

Then I came back up to my room, and after eating a little snack, discovered that the tub of fresh mozzarella balls marinated in oil that I had in my cooler had cracked, and my cooler was now an oil slick of seasoned oil.

Later, I barfed a few times.

Saturday:

Well, the next morning, Daddy came to the rescue to help me close up the window with plastic and duct tape. Daddy always comes to the rescue, thank the deity of your choice, and this time he came with duct tape to match my car. How cool is that?

Eventually, it was time to go to the reunion, the whole reason I was here. MY DRESS FIT!! Yes, I was very afraid that it wouldn't, thanks to my weird weight fluctuations! So, I had my favorite vintage party dress, and I felt comfortable, which makes "the" difference in how much I enjoy myself at an event.

Darcy came and I lent her shoes, since hers were way too big. Then I gave her surgical tape so she could tape herself into her dress. These are perfectly normal Darcy-related activities.

The reunion was very nice. It was great to see people and get a chance to catch up a bit. The evening just went by so quickly that is was a blur! There are some truly horribly embarrassing pictures of me out there, mainly because Darcy was doing something to make me embarrassed in all the pictures. Our reunion committee worked their little butts off making the night wonderful. I think, as a former event planner and Certified Meeting Professional, I can say that they did an exemplary job.

Thank you guys. You deserve a big round of applause.

The high point of the evening, for me, was when Pauline got there, because she actually CAME!!!!!!!! We did a lot of sitting and talking, while Darcy did a lot of walking and mingling. I am not so good at mingling. Darcy has no such problems. Unfortunately, the low point of the evening was when I came up to the room mid-party to barf up my nice vegetarian dinner. Minor details, right?

Sunday:

Well, unfortunately, today eventually brought more barfing.

Thankfully, I was able to enjoy a wonderful afternoon with Dawn though, which was another major high point of the trip.

I was supposed to go to dinner tonight with Daddy in Hayward, but right after Dawn left, the barfing started again, along with lots of other things. I was hot flash-y while she was here, and feeling kind of sick-ish, but I fought it off for a while.

I spent my evening laying very, very still and not eating. I actually didn't really eat all day long, which was probably for the best.

Monday…..Tuesday:

I didn't feel any better on Monday morning, but I got up at 6 am anyway, so that I could call the car repair shop, take the truck in, rent a car, and be functional in time to go see my surgeon.

I somehow managed to do every one of those things. The only hard part was not falling asleep in the time between getting the rental car and going to the doctor.

By the time I left the doctor's office, I was scheduled for surgery in November to correct the vaginal prolapse I've developed, which really makes me slightly miserable a lot of the time. I don't want to have more surgery, especially right at the holiday season again, but I have to do it. My next post will explain the details.

By the time I was done at the doctor, my car was ready to pick up. Sadly, it wasn't fixed, but they did manage to put the window up into the window frame in the UP position, so I could at least drive it home safely. Let me tell you, that was a very, very good thing…..

I spent the evening laying around some more feeling icky, but Dawn dropped by to visit again before she headed to work for a night shift and that was very nice.

By the time I got up to leave on Tuesday morning, the monsoon had arrived. Wind, rain, and absolute zero visibility along a very large part of the drive home became the norm. Some parts of Hwy 113 were flooded, and other parts had big pieces of tree blowing across the road. Whee.

Luckily, I got home safely, just very, very tired. If I'd had to make the drive without the window being fixed, it would have been a very different story, so let me give out a big reference for Fortes Auto Repair in Mountain View. 5 stars!!

I am still very, very tired. Today is was Thursday, and I don't even remember yesterday. I've been trying all morning to catch up on "housekeeping" tasks, like calling all my doctors to tell them about my upcoming surgery. I think, now, as soon as I put this entry up on the blog, it will officially be time for my nap.

Stay tuned in the next day or so for the detailed info on my upcoming surgery. I promise the full explanation, but right now, I've got to get some rest.

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Oops. I was so tired I forgot to post this earlier!!

Off to see the wizard....

Or something like that. Actually, I'm off to see the JFK Class of '89 20-year reunion, which has even less chance of providing me with a brain, a heart or courage.

Nothing about this trip is quite working out the way I originally planned it, which is leading to one of my classic little agoraphobia episodes. I don't wanna go! I'll be perfectly happy once I'm there, mind you, but I don't wanna do all the stuff it takes to get there. I want to lay down on the couch and hide with a puppy or three and a book and not move.

But, alas, I now have an appointment with my surgeon, Dr. Pisani, on Monday down in Mountain View, so I have to go no matter what. It'll be the first time I've seen him in forever, and now I need that nasty prolapse fixed as soon as possible. It's very likely that I'll be back down there having surgery in the not too distant future. Pooooooooo.

Right now, it's time to go get ready to run errands and get my hair done and eat something and then start sorting clothes and gathering toiletries and accessories and knitting and books and all my wardrobe options for the reunion and and and and and and and

I would like to be taking a nap instead.

Ok Mom...puppy pictures, as requested! Notice how the "puppy" is far larger than Sparky now! She's far taller than either Pea or Sparky now, and outweighs them too.

Peadog loves her hoodie. She's weird.

My biggest question is where the Border Collie

part of her got lost amongst all the Lab genes!!

She's my Labradollie. :-

Checking in...

Howdy world. I'm still out here, still alive, just kind of laying low. There hasn't been a lot to say about me lately. The one and only piece of medical news I have is that my thyroid is whacked out, and we're having to fiddle with the meds to try and get it to behave. All my other recent labs were actually pretty decent, for once.

Otherwise...just laying low. I've had some intense personal stuff to deal with, stuff which has been very upsetting, depressing, scary, frustrating, miserable and just plain sad.

So very, very sad.

Most surprisingly, it's made me realize how much I've come to rely on this blog as a way of working through my feelings, because in this circumstance, I can't use it. The stories, once again, are not mine to tell, and that is surprisingly hard for me to accept.

I have been sworn to secrecy, a manner of coping I strongly disagree with, but the decision is not mine to make either. All I could do was advise, share my experiences, beg, be angry, be sad, beg a tiny bit more, and finally remove myself from the entire situation. I just can't handle being in the middle of something which requires me to lie to everyone I know. That is a miserable place to dwell.

So, I'm still here...depressed & sad, literally sick to my stomach, just kind of hiding out, sleeping too much & eating too little.

I can not and will not lie to all of you, the people who've supported me so much over the last year, so this post is here to tell you all why I've disappeared - at least as much as I'm able. I'm

ok, for the most part, and happy to hear from folks via email, facebook, texts...I'll just be pretty quiet for a while.

Many thanks and big hugs to everyone who's been there for me for so long. I'm sorry to desert you, but hopefully it won't be for too long. I'll pull out my lab results from a couple weeks ago and share all the good news found in them, which is something I meant to do back when I first got them, stuff like that, so at least you'll know I'm alive. :-)

Happy Fall everyone!!

Happy Tuesday

Heidi's wacky calender informs us that it is "Radiant Peace Day." Whatever that means.

I just realized that I actually have a tiny bit of news to report!

We took my beautiful Peadog to the vet yesterday and tormented her with exams and blood draws, but found out that she does NOT have a respiritory infection, which I was afraid of. She actually has allergies, which are easily treated with Benedryl. So now she's just sleepy all the time! Wait - she's a dog - will we actually notice?! ;-) She's also having bloodwork done to find out if there's a problem with her thyroid, but we sure hope there's not.

Otherwise, the big news is that she's fat. Oops. She's gained almost 10 lbs over the past year and now we have to make her lose it all. I haven't got the faintest idea where she got it from, aside from the problems with her shoulder making her less active, but it's got to go. She might feel a whole lot better almost instantly if we get the weight off, so my poor girl is on a diet. I've been informed that she's a senior citizen now and I have to treat her as such, but I'm not pleased about it. She can't possibly be getting old.

As for me, I managed to pop off a crown yesterday, meaning there's an urgent dental appointment in my immediate future. Boooooo hiss!!!

That's about it..........so in my semi-tradition of using absolutely lame things and silliness as filler, I present you with the latest idiotic celebrity baby names - one of my absolute favorite spectator sports. Perhaps you'll be as horrified/entertained as I am.

• Sparrow James Midnight joins big sister Harlow
• Ezekiel Czar joins brother(?) Xen
• Someone had an Ella Betsi, which almost sounds normal, but of course mom & dad had to go for the cutsey spelling.
• Finally, someone named their daughter in honor of both grandmas, combining Nancy and Leigh to come up with Naleigh.

`Did every celebrity out there forget what elementary school was *like* when they condemned their little one to endless teasing and torture on the playground? The only thing saving these kids is that they probably ALL go to the same schools, so everyone there has an idiotic name. I still feel sorry for them.

I think that's all. I hope everyone out there's having a great Tuesday.

Weekend Update, Again

Well, my assessment of last week as a particularly crappy one was correct. It was a very crappy week.

As far as I go, things are pretty much fine. I'm battling some major headaches and other fun medical bits and pieces, but there's nothing that really requires posting about. It's the same old-same old, ya know.

I should have blood work results by the time I see Andy next week, so that will tell me how desperately my body might need blood or something.

The main reason for this post is to let all y'll know that posts might be a little sparse for a while. The reasons for that are to be found in the crappiness of last week, and I have things to cope with and go do, but those stories aren't mine to tell, so you'll just have to excuse me for a bit.

Hopefully, when I have some news to share, it'll be news about getting my nasty prolapse fixed. More surgery. Whee.

Well....stay tuned!

RIP Bogart

Goodbye to Darcy's doggie Bogart. He lived a pretty good, long life, and was around for law school, the fun of the bar exam, the wedding, and two kids.

He was loud, and he snored, and was kind of a pain in the ass a lot of the time, but he was my best friend's best friend and dearly loved.

He will be sorely missed.

In terms of people I care about having painful things happen in their lives, this week is going to go down as a really shitty one. Here's to having it be over, very, very soon!!

Happy Birthday Anna!!!

Oh my. . . my baby girl turns 12 today!!!

As the cliches say, where does the time go?! I'm half shocked every time I look at her and see how tall and gorgeous and grown up she is. And she is - tall, gorgeous, grown up, smart, funny and above all else, confident about all the other things. She stands up straight and smiles and knows she's smart and funny and she's a happy person. It makes me very, very happy. I'm more proud of her than I can express.

Last night, we all went to Chilis for dinner (her choice of birthday meals...go figure.) Tonight, I make her dinner, we do presents, and I made her a cheesecake with chocolate cookie crust and we have strawberry pie filling to go with it. I might not be allllll the way off of sugar today. ;-)

This birthday also marks almost exactly 5 years that I've been part of her life, and we're both pretty proud of that milestone. We'll be having our 6th holiday season as a family; we have traditions for birthdays and holidays that we've built over these years, and it's pretty neat to have those, because it means we've been together as a group long enough to create them.

SO . . .

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ANNA!!!

Penance

Well, now that I've publically confessed my sins, I've gotta make restitution to my body, don't I?

In absolutely random, disjointed, ADD-ish order...

FOOD

To start with, I laid in some supplies of decent snacky food to try and replace the red hots and other little sugar bombs. I'm having to remind my taste buds how much they like apples and carrots and bananas. Even though the apple tastes astonishingly bland and needs cheese to taste like anything, it's still a good start. (seriously bland...like there is no flavor at ALL. Hmm. I may have to have Conner taste test this to see if it's the apple, or if it's me.)

In other food news, I ate a real meal last night! I'd eaten the cereal for breakfast and some other things, so it really added up to about 3 little meals, which is impressive. Right now, I'm eating the apple and cheddar cheese with an English muffin, and I'm making tacos for dinner, so that should be at least 2 meals today. Yay!

One hope for all of this is that if I get my sleep schedule realigned (see below...), then I'll actually be awake and functional to make dinner for everyone. Tonight is taco night! (thanks Mom...the secret taco formula is still going strong!) Everybody loves taco night, including me, so it's almost a guarantee that I'll eat.

SUGAR

Tomorrow though, I have to make the cheesecake for Anna's birthday celebration on Monday, so all bets are off. It's going to involve dismantling many, many Oreos to make the crust, and the odds of me resisting all the leftover centers...................well, it's not pretty. But I will try to be full when I start to make it! The red hots are here...as are the Golden Oreos and other things, but I am going to be strong. I've been fighting to ignore how crappy the sugar has been making me feel, but it would be much nicer just to be feeling good.

CAFFEINE

As for the Dr. Pepper, I'm just going to stop cold turkey on Monday and see if I survive. I've planned it so that I'll still have some left, just in case of emergency. Then again, with this weird overcast weather we're having - HOT, but thunderheads everywhere, like we moved to Houston - I might be in the mood for coffee again.

SLEEP

Lloyd and I tried the sleep-switch, with mixed results. Yesterday, instead of waiting until I was bone-, dead-tired in the afternoon, I woke him up at 9 and went back to bed until about noon. Got up, got dressed, and we went and ran errands. In the early evening, I could have easily gone back down for another nap, but I stayed up till the end of Conan again, and even into Jimmy Fallon a little.

I'm figuring out that I have to figure Conan into things...I didn't really think I'd like his version of the Tonight Show, but I actually like him almost as much as Leno, so he's going to have to be part of my routine somewhere. I sometimes find myself giggling do loud I'm afraid I'm going to wake Lloyd up, and anything that makes me laugh that much is a keeper. Record and watch him at 6:30 in the morning? Ooh, I could record and watch him right after my nap, at noon when that icky Rick Sanchez dude comes on CNN.

But I digress!

The only major drawback with the nap and errands we did yesterday is that we were kind of off-kilter with our eating schedules, where he and I really needed food somewhere around 4pm, which isn't compatible with wanting to eat dinner with the kids again at 6. Going to have to figure out how things like errands are going to work, but meanwhile, I'm going to keep with the 9 am naptime and see how it goes.

SO...........

I think I'm on the right track, don't you?

Now, another player has been introduced to all of this as a possible reason for my lethargy and overall collection of problems - severe anemia. I'm going to have to get my labs done, finish some research and talk with some doctors before I know how much of a factor it is, so I can't elaborate yet. But, stay tuned. If it is a factor in what's going on with me, like what I feel is a pathetically slow recovery, this could be very interesting.

Right now, it's 9:17 and I'm just about dying for sleep, so I'm going to wake up my husband now.

More later....

Confession is good for the soul...right?

Ok, I'm going to 'fess up to all of the very bad things I've been doing lately. I've made a promise to myself to get my shit in gear and try take better care of myself, try to make myself feel better and get out of some very bad habits I've been in lately.

I figure, if I tell all y'all out there what I'm needing/trying to do, then it's public, and (in theory at least) I'll be more motivated to follow through. Right? Especially since I gave Andy the address for the blog...knowing that my doctor can read this now should act as a powerful motivator.

So is my upcoming high school reunion.

Well, and there's always the concept of feeling decent and getting better as a motivator too.

What a revolutionary thought.

So, lots of reasons to NOT eat the palm-full of cinnamon red hots I just put in my mouth...

The plan is to start going cold emu, as I'm calling it, on Monday. Why Monday, you ask? Mainly because I need to gather a few supplies, and I'm not sure if I'll get my ass out to get them today or tomorrow. Saturday and Sunday, the kids are home from school, and I'm really not sure that's the best day to cut out sugar, caffeine, empty carbs and all that fun stuff. Frankly, I don't think that would be very nice of me to them, since I will most likely be home alone with all three on Saturday for a while, and with just Anna on Sunday while Lloyd and the boys go to an air show. I will start over the weekend, but not go fully cold emu until Monday. (Emus are very big birds...much bigger than turkeys. Cold emu/cold turkey - get it?)

By now you may be wondering what the problem is. Basically, I'm in one of my phases I get every so often where I've gotten off track in my diet, exercise and medication supplements. I am taking my meds properly, don't worry - it's just that I'm supposed to also be taking a whole

bunch of supplements to go along with them and help them work, and I haven't been doing it. I've been very bad about that, and a lot of other things...

• I don't eat food. Not real meals anyway. I eat a piece of cheese here, a spoonful of cottage cheese there, a few cheddar-chipotle crackers over there, and some Double-Stuf Golden Oreos over here. And then there's the red hots... On any given day, I might eat one actual meal. Maybe. Now, there's definitely nothing wrong with my snacking on string cheese and fresh, marinated mozzarella balls. They just can't be my whole meal! I know that eating breakfast jump-starts your metabolism, and I should eat at least two more small meals beyond that. At least. I'm eating Special K with soy milk right now. Good me.

• And usually when I do eat pseudo-meals, they're pretty pathetic too. High calorie, high glycemic load, low nutritional value.
• I have been on a complete sugar binge. The aforementioned red hots have been a major player, but lots of their friends from the Penny Candy Store have made their way home with me too. I've discovered that sucking on hard candies actually really helps with the dry-mouth I get from some of my meds and stuff. That's no problem in moderation...see the key word in that sentance? Moderation does not mean constant unconscious consumption while lost in reading a good book. It's HELL on my blood sugar (and I've been getting away with murder in relation to that!) and it actually prevents me from eating food because I'm pretty much always full. I'm down to my last tiny bit of red hots and I won't get any more. I can resist everything else I have very easily, but not those! Monday, no candy at all, no Oreos, nada - gotta get my entire system cleansed off the sugar addiction.
• Caffeine is my friend.....but I have to change my delivery system. I managed to sort of accidentally get hooked back on the infamous Diet Dr. Pepper. Sadly, my favorite drink in the entire universe tends to eat holes in my stomach and give me lovely acid reflux problems. At least for a while, I'm going to cut caffeine out entirely if I can without monster headaches, except for maybe tea. Eventually, I'll go back to coffee to get my caffeine fix. It seems to cause my tummy far less trouble.
• Dogs........Yes, I have a dog problem, because I have some dramatically under-walked dogs. I've got three of the greatest exercise machines ever invented here, and I'm not making use of them! That's not fair to them and not good for me. It's a bit of a juggling act, yes, because I can only walk two of them at a time, but I need to get moving more for all of our sakes. Maybe I need to practice triple walking outside in the court and see if I can do it.

• Exercise in general has been lacking too. I really wanted to get started with yoga classes, and the universe really did not want me to. Every time it was class time,something happened. Every time! I finally gave up and started just practicing at home every day, but my practice time keeps getting smaller and smaller and I'm down to about 5 minutes a day. Not enough!!
• And sleep! Even sleep is a problem! (See how horrible I've been lately?!!!) I get up with Stella at around 6, and usually end up taking a nap in the late afternoon. That used to work - she actually used to get up earlier and I would nap for a shorter time. As time has passed, it's wound up that I'm sleeping from 2 or 3 until 6 or 7 in the evening. Since I'm not getting out of bed until 7 pm, my internal clock is totally screwed up, and my body isn't ready to fall back asleep until the wee hours. The end result is that now I'm sleeping about 8 hours total, in 4 hours shifts. Bad, bad, bad! I don't ever feel rested, I constantly crave sleep, and I could sleep any time I have the chance, except from 10 pm (when we head up to bed) to 1/1:30 am. Why is that?!! It's totally not fair.

SO, I think that explains most of the problem........and is a full public confession of my sins!!

What am I going to do to fix all of these problems?

Stay tuned for my next entry...because to start with, I'm going back to bed. I'll work on the recovery plan when I get up. :-)

A good save, lessons learned, & the wonders of the state fair

So, today's post is about some interesting things I've learned lately. It might be a little longer and more photo-laden than usual, but there's a reason, so bear with me! Or don't, if you don't want to. :-)

A little more than a week ago, before the kids

went back to school, we went to the state fair. Well, to be clear, Lloyd and I went to the state fair, before the kids went back to school and we lost our dogsitters. I'm sure I mentioned that last year, we took all three kids to the state fair, and our excursion lasted about an hour, not

counting drive time. Anna was marginally interested, but the boys moped and bitched and

moaned so much that I was sick to my stomach

pretty quickly, so I insisted on a rapid exit.

We learn from our mistakes. This year, the two of us had a wonderful date-day to the fair to look

at all the wonderful things they have at state fairs... funky kids' artwork (the artwork is funky,

not the kids - as far as I know), prize-winning produce, free trees (we got a redwood) and cows. That kind of stuff.

Well, the first lesson we learned this year is to get there early. We had a vet appointment for the doggies in the morning and just took our time meandering down to Sac for the fair, getting there somewhere around 2 in the afternoon. After spending a few minutes visiting with Carole and her GORGEOUS babies, who were in CA visiting from their home in Australia, Lloyd and

I headed off into the first complex of buildings near the entrance of the fair, where the kids' artwork was displayed and some of the year's theme displays were. It's a little circle of about 6

fairly small buildings, not big expo halls or anything. When we looked up, we'd been there for nearly 3 hours, and had only made it through 4 of those small buildings. Eeek!! The fair closes at 10, but some exhibits close at sundown, so you do the math.

Next year, we devote a whole day to the fair and arrive early. Check.

I was really almost stunned by the quality of the artwork on display in the kids' building though. I think that's where we spent the most time during those initial hours, looking at every last piece. And I'm not an art person, seriously. There are lots of friends and relatives out there who

can testify to that. But, this was really good stuff, so I took lots of photos, mainly to show Anna. She has quite a bit of artistic talent herself, and I wanted her to see what kinds of things other

kids her age were doing and winning prizes for at the fair.

The first things to really get my attention were "the cube things," as I am calling

them. What the hell was the assignment here? "Make a big ceramic cube, with feet, lots of 3D sculpture on top and 3 sides, and

one side must have a framed photo." I swear to you, that's about as close as I can figure it out!! Do any of YOU know what the hell these would be called? All I know is that they're majorly cool shit.

All the ceramics were majorly cool, like Mr. Turtle up there at the top, and Mr. Dumpty over here.

I'll sprinkle in some of the other cool pictures I took in

a little bit...but we're coming to the "good save" part of the story.

The next lesson that I learned is to never, ever, ever sit and delete huge bunches of photos off my camera while I'm out someplace, like, say, the state fair.

While I thought I was deleting photos in batches by date, like "12/25/08," I somehow managed to delete

every single picture I'd take up to that point at the fair. All the cube things, all the artwork, everything. Oh, and of course I didn't figure that out until I was at home, trying to retrieve the pictures for a blog post. Needless to say - not pleased.

Thanks to Daddy's suggestion, I finally quit pouting about it, and went searching on the internet for some sort of app that might be able to find the pictures buried amongst the flotsam and

metadata on the card. I'll be damned, but it worked.

The first program I tried was called Easeus. This one found a ton of pictures on the card, but it found all the older files, all the ones I really had wanted to delete, and none of the fair photos. The next app I came across is called ZAR, or Zero Assumption Recovery. It took forever, bringing up a screen very much like a defrag map, and busily working away until it actually found all 681 files on the card. I mean, it found stuff I had deleted months ago!

So, ZAR has my strong endorsement. I can't say it was perfect, because it

did bring some photos up with a huge gray section, like this one, that was supposed to be of Lloyd "licking" a giant lollypop on the Big Rock Candy Mountain. I'm not complaining at all though, because I thought all these pictures were goners!

I'm going to be kind to those of you who don't want to sift through all my lame photos to get to the end of the post...I'll limit myself to just a few

more! ;-)

SO, photo fiascos aside, the fair was a blast. There was so much there that

I would have loved to do that we just didn't have a lot of time for, and some things that would have bored Lloyd to tears that I would have loved to do. They had a farm section with produce growing taller than my head and I could have spent forever wandering through!

Also of note was the 9/11 Memorial. Several

pieces of steel from the towers were brought to Sacramento as part of a traveling memorial exhibit, and seeing them was powerful. These are BIG pieces of solid metal, and they're twisted, bent, folded and crushed like tissue paper!

Amazing. The memorial plaza also includes a huge

photo exhibit, replica of the towers and a campanile (bell tower) that rings on the hour.

The only thing I didn't get to see enough of at the

fair were the animals. We saw lots, true, including a calf who'd been born just that morning and tiny little piggies who were only a day old, and bunnies, and birds and chinchillas, and all manner of strange chickens. But, I'm a dork about wanting to walk around in the big livestock barns and look at all the cows and all the sheep and things like that.

When it was time for food, I scored and Lloyd struck out. He got very brave and decided to try the fair's newest specialty - the "zucchini weenie." This is a rather large zuke, hollowed out, with a hotdog stuck inside, a stick inserted, and then dipped in corndog batter and deep-fried. I shit you not. Unfortunately, he was very much not impressed. Bummer, really. There were all kinds of deep-fried weirdnesses to try and I almost did...but I got smart and stuck to the tried and

true goodies.

I found the tacos. Hallelujah, I found the tacos. Those of you who have been to the Alameda County Fair with me know about the tacos. They're legendary, and I have to have them. They're made from some very floppy corn tortillas, filled with stuff I can't identify (and don't want to) and wrapped in paper that they stick to. They fall apart and make a giant greasy mess and I love them madly. I have been known to go to the fair just to get the tacos.

And funnel cakes. :-) It was worth it. It was, in all, a way-too-long day for me in my current state, but I really had the most fun I've had in forever. I can't get away with doing too much, and I suffered for this one, as I mentioned in a previous post.

But I really had fun.

Well now, after boring you all to death with all of this, and making myself crave tacos, I think I'm

done. I've got a few more neato pictures to stick here at the end for those who are interested...

School time!

Whoo-hoo!!!

It's the most

wonderful time of the year....

Forget Christmas, I mean back to school!

When three children rise in the wee hours to scurry around with scowls on their faces, trying to remember how to eat breakfast in less than a half hour, or how to cram in as much computer time as possible without being late for the bus.... and then the house is left with those blissful sounds of silence and adults sighing with relief. Well, at least the one of us who's UP. ;-)

I'm not complaining though. My accustomed role as Stella's early morning companion changes somewhat now that school's back in, and I'm available to supervise the morning rush. It's pretty ok for all involved though - Stella loves having the kids around and the activity in the kitchen, and everyone stops to pet her as they fly by. I'm here to sign forms, answer questions, and be a general helper, like when someone sleeps through their alarm on the 2nd day of high school and is in a total flustered panic-rush. And when they leave, it's suddenly very, very quiet...the contrast is almost shocking.

It's only day three, but so far, so good. Conner is very pleased with the teachers and classes that he got for his sophomore year. The high school here has a funky schedule-picking concept called "Arena" wherein those above freshmen get to build their schedules themselves, picking their teachers even, and are about 90% guaranteed of getting what they pick out, barring some sort of administrative changes, of course. He got everything he planned out last spring, and four of his teachers are the same ones he had and liked a lot last year, so that works out well. One of those, his multimedia teacher, is the one who first accepted him into the class as a freshman (first time that ever happened - usually the class isn't open to freshmen at ALL!) and then groomed him to be sort of a TA *and* got him the gig over the summer videotaping another teachers wedding for real money. This is a good teacher to have on your side! I told him that if he gets good at the camera work as well as the editing, that could be a great little side job during the summer, hiring himself out as an affordable wedding videographer.

Trevor is cautiously happy with high school so far - so far as I can tell. He didn't get into media as a freshman (which I think secretly makes him INSANE, because for once he didn't get what he wanted and get to be an exception to the rule) and so he's actually starting Spanish before Conner does, which should prove interesting. The counselor actually told us (when we were doing Conner's scheduling) that the odds of a freshman getting into Spanish were slim, because all the juniors and seniors were clambering to get in after they'd served their two-year sentence in PE, which is why Conner didn't even try. He'll only get two years, but that's all the colleges require anyway. But, this is Trevor's first foreign language experience, and I'm genuinely curious to see how he does with it. He's brilliant in English, both technically and creatively, but I have no earthly idea if Spanish will come to him with the same facility. But overall, so far, so good.

Anna is perfectly thrilled with being a seventh grader. If you ask me, I think what thrills her the most is that she's the only Irwin in the school, with no big brothers with big shadows to hang over her. I don't blame her - she's the baby of the family, and has always had to follow behind the boys, and they leave some mighty big figurative footsteps. She was in tears at Trevor's graduation because he got so many medals, plaques and awards and she herself had only ever earned certificates. I never knew it was such a huge thing to her until then, but man, is it.

Now that I know how much it matters to her, I'm trying to help her earn some of those shiny things she wants so badly. I've told her to try and find out what all the awards are and what you have to do to earn them - things like CJSF (California Jr. Scholarship Federation, an honor society) and the Principal's Award, etc; they have about 20 different ones at this school - and then she can set some goals for her year. *I* personally don't get it....seriously. I can't wrap my mind around the idea of being desperate to earn a little gold disk on the end of a ribbon so badly that it makes me cry, but she is, and it does make her cry, so ok, by golly, I'll help her earn her little gold disks!!

But mainly, I think she's excited by the fact that she gets these two junior high years all to herself, and that is pretty cool. She'd never attended a school without at least one brother until we moved up here, when she was in 5th grade. Since Gridley has a middle school system (6-7-8) instead of junior high like Fremont did, as soon as we moved she got to be at the top of the food chain as a 5th grader, with no brothers above her, and man did she shine. Bright, sparkly shine!!

I have a very strong suspicion that these next two years will be much the same, so I'm really encouraging her to go for it. Join things, run for things, earn things, go, go, go! I think it will give her some much-needed confidence and ego boosting. She does pretty good in those areas these days anyway, don't get me wrong - she's a far cry from that little girl I met who thought she was ugly and dumb and I am SO happy about that - but a nearly-teenage girl can NEVER have too much confidence and ego boosting. Trust me.

ANYway, she's in 7th grade, and got into the multimedia class at her school, which is pretty rare for a 7th grader. That's one time where her big brothers came in handy - they were both stars in the media class as 8th graders, so at Trevor's graduation last year, the media teacher asked Anna if she wanted in and promised her a spot. Sweet!

As for me, I'm a tad tired, but otherwise not too horrible. I crammed in way too much end of summer fun last week (state fair, county fair, circus) and I'm trying to recover from it. I ended up lymphedema'd to a really ugly point, but it went away, thank god, and am generally really tired, achy and painful. Andy gave me cortisone injections in both hips last week, but then I went and walked on 'em, and now the right hip hurts almost as much as it did before the injection. Crap. And, I'm quite prolapsed, which is causing me more than a little problem in the bathroom and driving me insane. Really, if I had the option, I'd go into surgery tomorrow to have everything put back in place, because I'm going bonkers. Really bonkers.

But overall, I'm not going to complain too much. I certainly could, but I'm not going to. We have the daytimes to ourselves again, which means I can take the time I need to rest, dream up some new slow-cooker dinners, work on some small crafty things when my hands allow, and begin my new big hobby - obsessing over what to wear to my 20 year reunion.

That, folks, will keep me busy for a loooooooooong time...

It's been a rough week for dogs.

This is Sebastian. He was my Auntie Jeanne's baby boy, and we lost him today to a mysterious autoimmune condition.

After a whole lot of vet visits, tests and trips to the ER, his poor little body just couldn't fight it.

My aunt and uncle, my cousins and grandma are all deeply saddened by the loss of their sweet boy, and my heart just breaks for them. My whole life, my entire family has been just full of dogs and they have always been members of the family.

Another friend's dog, Tif's Sugar, is happily back at home where she belongs, after being missing for several incredibly sad days. This is a dog who's always looking around the corner for an open door; she's a runner, Tif says. A very kind stranger found her wandering without her tags, took her in, and gave her a home...but found the courage to bring her back to her family when he discovered who they were. Tif says he was a man who loves Boxers like Sugar especially, and had already named her, making it doubly hard for him to say goodbye to the companion he was falling in love with. This is a very, very good man, and the world needs many, many more like him.

So, it's been a rough week for dogs.

Mine are all fine, thank the deity of your choice, although Pea is starting to show her age, the thing that terrifies me the most. Stella seems to grow more every day , and get smarter and more interesting every day. Sparky is still the best little sidekick-budddy dog anyone could ever ask for. I am incredibly lucky right now, but I know that someday I will face the kind of pain and fear that Tif and now Jeanne have to deal with.

Knowing that makes me try harder to be present in every moment that I've got with them and enjoy every minute of them. My dogs are my best friends, my protectors and comforters and sidekicks and comic relief - like when Stella just now decided that licking Conner's ice cream bowl and spoon wasn't enough...so she grabbed and made off with the entire bowl. Like I said, she gets smarter every day. ;-)

Tonight, I have a massive migraine, which makes looking at this screen miserable, but I'm doing it anyway. I'm tired, and I'm sick to my stomach. I have severe pain in my hip, and pubic area and we won't even talk about the back of my neck. But I'm not going to bitch and moan tonight.

I'm counting my furry blessings tonight.

For Tif and her family, I'm relieved and happy that Sugar is home where she belongs. For Jeanne, John, Keinan, Erik and Grandma, my heart breaks right along with yours. I'm sad for all of you tonight, and I wish I could be there with you. Love you.

I'm not sleepy...Ok, fine, I'm lying, I am sleepy.

I'm sleepy. Very, very sleepy. Headache-y and sleepy. I'm the kind of sleepy where I start talking and saying things that don't make sense to anyone else, because what I'm talking about is happening in my dream and not in real life.

It confuses them. I can't imagine why.

Well, ok, I guess it confuses me a tad too. But mainly, it means I'm really damned tired and should be sleeping, but I'm trying NOT to be sleeping right now. My sleep patterns are utterly bizarre these days and I'm trying to get them back in line. I mean, up at 6, napping from 2-6 or 7 and then staying up till 2am is just not optimal.

************************************************************************************

Now aren't you glad I shared that? It was a battle I was destined not to win, so off to bed went I. And far, far better felt I when I was done with another epic nap. I was so exhausted and confused that I was having trouble remembering if it was am or pm even before I zonked out.

But, luckily, I took the nap, got up when I was supposed to, fed the doggies, and conjured dinner for the two kids at home with me in the form of a pizza delivery chick.

This, folks, is about as exciting as it gets these days - and part of the point that I'm trying to get to. I feel like I spend half my time sleeping and the other half my time trying not to be sleeping. That combination is creating some significant problems in my life right now. I mean, if my body wants a nap, it gets a nap. No problem there. I've learned not to argue with this body by now. However, there are things I want to DO when I'm awake instead of constantly feeling like I'm either groggy still waking up or dozing off before the next nap.

Yesterday I did manage a big step, a major milestone, whatever you want to call it: I knitted an entire row. Yup, that's an accomplishment right now. It's been so long since knitting didn't HURT that it's almost like I'm afraid to do it now.

I can't figure out if I'm afraid of the pain, or afraid I'm no good at it anymore, or what in hell I'm afraid of, but countless projects lay in stages of completion, neglected out of fear. Other projects, in other media, are sprinkled around too, some barely started, some not even that far. These are the things I thought I'd try since I "couldn't" knit, and I've wound up afraid of all of them too. Has the medical community got a term for fear of craft projects? (they probably do...)

Cancer stole a lot of things from me, but I never imagined it would take away that happiness and calm I'd found in yarn. I want it back, but I'm not doing very well at figuring out how. I know there's still going to be some level of pain, but I suspect that my tolerance and ability is giant leaps and bounds from where it was a couple months ago, based on my hand and finger capabilities doing other things.

Maybe if I sat down at the swift and ball winder, and wound all of the delicious luxury yarn I bought in Santa Cruz almost 9 months ago? Maybe if I pushed through and finished something, even something as tiny as a little knitted snail? Maybe if I organized my printed-out knitting patterns? Maybe if I quit writing about it and just sat down and did it?? :-)

I did try spinning for a short while last week and was very pleased with the outcome, physically and mentally, so maybe the "get off your ass and just do it" Nike-inspired approach is the way. I just want the incredible sensation of calm and happiness that I used to have the minute I picked up my needles! I've thought about gathering my things and driving somewhere "pretty" to sit outside and knit but it's too damned hot.

Hrm.

Anyway...enough whining about my yarn problems and craft-funk. Medically, all quiet on the north-state front. I'm having bits of lymphedema here and there, which is always a bitch, but it's pretty mild overall. The prolapse is still prolapsing. I'm still experiencing lots of random pain at random times, which is significantly problematic. Significantly. But I deal with it, as usual.

Headaches, including some migraine-level monsters, have been a big player in this week's fun. W H E E. We all know how much fun those are.

Sometimes I can eat, but not any more often than before. However, there's been a breakthrough: I've found that sucking on hard candies - cinnamon red hots are my favorite; little sour candies; suckers; jawbreakers (the Penny Candy store in Live Oak is a wonderous place!!) - can help alleviate the nausea, help with my dry mouth and trouble swallowing, and generally make me feel better sometimes when I can't eat. This is a wonderful revelation.

The bursitis in my hips is acting up, causing lots of pain. The left is still far worse than the right, and when I see Andy for my normal monthly visit next week, he's going to shoot me up with cortisone again on that side. We did that last summer, and it kept things pretty well under control for the year, so I'm hoping for a similar result. Hopefully the right side won't progress to a point where I need to do anything like that. Hopefully.

I think that's about it for me... Anna's fighting the yearly battle with the gnarliest bug bites you'll ever see on a kid. She's basically going to spend her weekend kind of zonked and zombied because I have to give her benedryl when she gets these giant things. One of them landed her in the Kaiser urgent care ward on a Sunday, way back when we first found out how violently allergic she is to bug bites, so now we treat all bites as if they could go supernova on us! Cortisone cream and benedryl and lots of "watching." This time, she's got some that I can't ID as mosquito, spider or anything else known, so I've got to go Google these strange shaped boogers.

Weekend update, over and out. Goodnight(day) and have a pleasant tomorrow.

Smoke gets in your eyes

And no, I don't mean the song...

For meteorological reasons that I will never entirely understand, no matter how well they're explained to me, I am lucky enough to live in the place that all the smoke goes to. We get it from fires up here in the Sierra foothills, the Santa Cruz fires, the Santa Barbara fires, you name it. Just from taking puppykins out to go potty, I'm having major throat & lung irritation and a big headache.

Lordy, I hate fire season!! I hate the smoke, and I hate worrying about friends and family. We finally went so far as to put up a California map in the game room - it serves a dual purpose: Lloyd marks every place he's ridden to on his death machine with small colored pins, and I mark everywhere we have a friend or relative living with bigger white pins. That way I can always run upstairs and check out the map to see how close a fire is to someone whenever I need to, instead of trying to figure it out from news or online maps.

So anyway... The big news from up here is that the kids are home. The first couple weeks of them being home are always a major adjustment period for all of us. I think of it as the Mommy Hangover period. They always come home completely different human beings (in a number of ways) from who they were when they left. Mommy always manages to make some sort of change, usually on a random impulse, that affects us a lot, because we're the ones who have to handle the follow-up for the rest of the year.

This year, for example, Trevor came home with contacts. The reason for getting him contacts? When he was at the beach swimming in the ocean, he couldn't wear his glasses, so when

he got out of the water he couldn't see her. Goodness knows he'll be in THAT situation constantly, right? So she says she'll pay for them, but it's now on us to replace them regularly, make sure he's using them right, cleaning them, etc. from here on out. Gee.....um, thanks.

It's also a rough couple of weeks because leaving Mommy is genuinely hard on the kids, but especially because they have to come back to reality. No more staying up till midnight (we got email from Anna timestamped after 11:30), no more 100% playtime at the beach, pool, museums, etc - instead, it's back to a normal bedtime, cleaning rooms, unpacking their suitcases, doing laundry, daily chores and getting ready to go back to school. Like I said: reality, and we all know reality bites. I just have to remind myself that they're always like this at first, and that the Mommy effect does wear off in a week or two. It's just hard while it lasts.

I KNOW I shouldn't be so annoyed and upset by this stuff though. I know that. But I am anyway... I raise them for 11 months of the year, and in 1 month, suddenly everything is disrupted and I freak out. She and I do talk about things, and our conversations are good, both for us and for the kids. It's just that we all know I do not handle change well at all, for one,

and there is a distinct jealousy issue there that she will always be loved so much more just for being Mommy, and her time with them is all about fun and games and playtime, while I get the job of actually raising them and don't get to be the one who has so much fun with them.

ANYWAY............

On the medical front, there is blessedly little to report. My new medication for my bladder seems to be helping, just in that there is less pain from that area and fewer feelings like I have a bladder infection. I'm still working on those evil disability forms to get them done, and Andy sent me a copy of what he wrote up for them, and it's wonderful. He kicks ass. Hopefully everything can be done and mailed off to the lawyer by the end of this coming week. I'd been using my early morning time to work on it, before Lloyd got up, but I learned rather quickly that I'd have to get up a LOT earlier for that to work out now that the kids are home! Anna popped out of bed before 7 yesterday. I'll figure it out somehow though.

What else... I'm trying to get back into cooking for the family far more often. That's one of my big goals of my recovery, and I figured that them coming home, and school starting was the perfect time for me to get into that. Of course, we also need to watch our budget dramatically, so the two things are going hand in hand. I'm trying to plan out most of the week's meals so that we can go to the store once and know we have everything we need on hand for that week. To start, I'm only committing myself to cooking 3 times. I figure if I commit to more, I'll just end up burning out really quick - I need to ease into it. So, that's a major thing in my recovery. It might not sound like it, but it really, really is.

So, to that end, I'm doing a lot of skimming my magazines for new recipes to try out, to see if we can expand our repertoire, looking in my cookbooks, etc. I'm trying very, very hard to get back to knitting, too. It's been so long since my fingers were able to stand it, it almost feels alien to me and I'm really borderline frantic to get it back. I have sewing I want to do too, and felting and spinning, and it frustrates the hell out of me when I can't manage to get any of it done - sometimes because I don't feel well enough, or hurt too much, but sometimes because I piddle away my free/awake time with minutiae of the day and never get to it.

I honestly think that's about it! I didn't do so good with trying to update more than once a week, but there just hasn't been that much to talk about! I will keep trying to be better, I promise Mom! ;-)

For now, I'm going to quit piddling and get to doing something productive. Sedentary, but productive!

Weekend Update

Oh, poop...I managed to let another week go by without updating all y'all on the fun stuff in my life. There hasn't been much going on, but still!

Well, first of all, I have learned that I should be funnier. Damn. If this blog had been a hell of a lot funnier, I might have got mentioned in the Newsweek article about young people handling cancer with humor, like Megan did. Her blog, "What's up your butt?" inspired this blog, and was mentioned in the article. Yay for Megan!

Anyway... the medical news update...

I went to see Dr. Davis, my gynecologist, on Monday to see about that gnarly little prolapse problem and my bladder issues.

Basically, my vaginal canal is prolapsing because of lack of support and weakened muscles and tissues. Luckily, at this point, the prolapse is NOT bad enough to need surgery. That may change at ANY time, of course, and if it does, I will need surgery. I made sure that the doctor understands that my BCCTP coverage ends about a year from now, so if there's any chance I'm going to need surgery at some point, I need to have it before that coverage disappears. No more coverage, no surgery. We just can't afford it, period.

Dr. Davis has also figured out that I have interstitial cystitis, which is a bladder problem, and which explains a LOT of my life. I'll let WebMD explain what it is:

Interstitial cystitis is a chronic inflammation of the bladder that causes chronic pain and discomfort. Symptoms often include a sense of urgency and increased frequency of urination. The bladder is a hollow balloon-like organ that collects urine from the kidneys and holds it until it can be expelled. The walls of the bladder consist mainly of muscle that relaxes as the bladder fills and contracts to empty it. The inside walls are covered with a lining of cells that protect the muscle from contact with urine.

Inflammation associated with IC causes the lining to scar and the bladder to stiffen, which affects the way

the bladder expands. In about 90% of IC cases there are pinpoint spots of bleeding visible in the lining. And in 5% to 10% of cases, there are ulcers or sores known as Hunner's patches.

Interstitial cystitis causes mild to severe pain in the bladder and surrounding pelvic area.

Well-that explains an awful lot, now doesn't it? Dr. Davis says that the condition also acts in such a way that it inflames the MAST cells in the lining of the bladder and cause a histamine reaction.

Basically, what all of this means is that I have a possible/probable explanation for some of the constant pain I'm in, the constant need to pee, the frequent feeling like I have a bladder infection when I don't (test sticks say no), and the difficulty and pain emptying my bladder.

The good news is that there are things that can be done about this. Yay! There are medications I can take, and there is a procedure called a cystoscopy that we will probably be doing. That involves threading a camera into the bladder to look at the walls and see how inflamed the lining is, and wash the inside of the bladder with a couple different solutions to soothe and medicate it. The doctor's office is working on the logistics for that.

The only bad news is that one of the meds, which I've been on for a few days now, seems to be hitting me HARD with gastro-intestinal side effects. In short, I am SICK. Nausea, vomiting, cramps, diarrhea, painful gas bubble, stomach pain, intestinal cramps, you name it, I've got it.

So, where does that leave us? Well, for a few days, still sick, hoping that the side effects go away! I'll let everyone know when the cystoscopy gets scheduled. It'll be a Monday, it'll be up at Feather River Hospital and it will be done under heavy conscious sedation to general anesthesia, depending. Hell, put me under, I don't want to be awake if I don't have to be!!

The prolapse will be considered under observation for now, but if it gets any worse, then Dr. Davis will have to go in and surgically yank things back into place.

Otherwise, we've just been goofing off around the house, trying to get some small projects done, and preparing for the impending arrival of the children. They'll be back all too soon, and there are school supplies to prepare, clothes to get, you name it. I'm trying to get at least a little bit of something useful done each day before I collapse into "sick and icky" mode and do nothing.

I think that's about it.........but I'll try not to wait a week next time! The longer I wait, the more I forget.....