Chirp. Chirp. BANG

Birds. Lots of birds. Chirp chirp twitter. Open eye. Look at clock.

Oh, why not. Stagger into semi-consciousness, guzzle caffeine, outside around 9 am. It was substantially cooler than inside the house, so it was comfortable to work in the yard for all of two hours. That's all it took to get miserably warm. I was back inside by around 11:15.

I truly am one giant freckle now.

Good News: At least two of the ant beds by the porch are just sugar ants or a family-similar harmless ant. How do I know? I felt a tickle. I looked down. My entire left calf was covered in ants, as well as my foot and shoe. Hmm. Ants. Nothing HURT. So I pissed em off and washed the whole squirming mess off with the water hose. Never took a single bite, and ants LOVE biting me.

Zucchini has now been transplanted into the garden. Yay! That left me the huge pot they were in (big enough to stuff a kid in) to transplant my largest tomato. Smaller two have now also been split into two pots.

It's amazing what another day can bring.

All of my seeds started in the last week and a half have now started to break through the ground except for my Black-eyed Susans, which have a longer germination period. Almost all of the others came up at the low end of the expected germination.

I now have: pumpkin seedlings, blackeye pea seedlings, tomato plants, radishes, green beans, okra, yellow squash, strawberries, and zucchini. One tomato plant has blooms, at least two of the zucchini look to bloom soon, and I think the strawberries have set enough to start blooming again. I pinched off all of the first blooms on them.

Blackberries aren't looking so great, and I'm not sure why. They grow like mad in the wild, but they just don't seem to like where they are. Time to do some intensive work on them. I need to get out there and trim off the sections that the hail destroyed. I do have some new shoots, so I'll just cross my fingers.

I've got a milk jug that's almost ready to be emptied so I can mix the Miracle Gro for my roses. Hopefully that will convince them to bud so I can figure out what they are.

Zinnias are all going crazy, as are the sunflowers and the tubby rat inside my shirt that's talking up a storm and giving me a bath. I think Oracle wants to go outside. (She did, and not only made the full yard inspection with me, but chattered and discussed it, too.)

The cardinals and mockingbirds are taunting me. They'll get right up close, but only if I don't have my camera.

Was thinking about the flagstone thing. We might be able to do a temporary fix, if I can get DG to help me with the heavy stuff.

There's a VERY large stone in the ground near the arbor. He's going to look at me like I'm insane. We also have a lot of flat, rectangular concrete slabs that were probably used at some time as stepping stones. Haven't collected all of them yet, so the Things and I need to go on a hunt. We DID find some concrete edging for the flower bed (tossed against the fence in the side yard, I mean, what???) that we also need to move.

It's starting to sound like I need a wheelbarrow big time. We have a wagon for the Things, but it will only hold so much.

My back, my left elbow, and my right knee are giving me fits. Despite the Vioxx, I'm back to using the cane today. I need to get some food in my stomach so I can take an aspirin or two to fight it. If I can get the breast reduction, the force placed on the arthritic knee won't be so bad.

I still have no voice. Cracked, gravelly whisper. I'm starting to get used to it. It's been at least two weeks now. I think I've fought it past the danger point of pneumonia, but I don't know how far I am into the clear, and I still gurgle when I try to breathe too deeply.

Are we having fun yet?

Hurry up and GROW!

Have you ever just stopped and *looked* at newly sprouted plants?

Radishes are heartbreakingly lovely, leaves puffed out to the sides like green butterfly wings. They always make me giggle for some reason, as though I'm also enjoying their stretching into new life.

Sunflowers, elongated and strong, always reach for the light (I have one sprout in a glass brandy snifter in the kitchen window that I can turn away from the light three times a day and still find it turned with its face back towards the sun).

Okra gives no sign as to what its future shape will be, leaves sitting round and fat and full. You can hardly believe that such circular elegance will eventually evolve into spiny pointed beasts. But mmm, they taste good. Gumbo, anyone?

Green beans are the testosterone of the patch, always overachieving with even the first breaking of the ground. It's never happy for a single leaf juncture, no, it demands attention with tiered leaves.

I like to play the guessing game with my plants. I rarely put markers on sprout pots and just wait for them to bless me with the happy identification. The Gardener's Maternity Room, I suppose. Is it a girl? Is it a boy? No, it's PUMPKIN!

The waiting is always the worst part for me. I like the weeding and the digging and the pruning and picking and cooking and all the clean up work involved. The in-between planting and picking is what gets to me.

I just hate waiting for them to pop up and say "Hello, I'm here!" And then you have to wait for them to grow grow grow so they'll produce food and seed. Drives me bananas. I'm normally a relatively mellow person, but I lack the serenity of patience.

I want my garden, and I want it NOW.

It was getting to me a bit on Wednesday. I had survived my neurology and MRI appointments, and wanted to DO. Unfortunately, we weren't all on the same page and it's a very long book. I awakened somewhat grumpy, and wandered out for my first morning sunshine. Quite often I do it before anything else (and oh, the joys of a privacy fence so that I don't have to get dressed to do it!), and it has become a necessary part of my daily routine to just pause and sit and listen to the world and watch what happens around me. With my health, I need all the serenity I can absorb.

With grumpiness in charge, I went for my dandelion break. And stopped.

Peeking out of Thing 1's pot ... leaves! A sprout! Jubilation! No ... TWO! We have TWO! And Thing 2's flowerpot! Oh, LOOK! Another sprout here, and here, and .....

Giddy. I went from grumpy to bouncing. Look! Growth! Green things! My vocabulary went straight to an elementary education level as I giggled. Babies, and new sprouts/flowers. Get me every time.

Note to self: Beg, buy, borrow or steal the means to enroll in Tai Chi classes.

This morning, I awakened feeling a little better, at least until I moved. Arthritis was acting up, and several joints utterly refused to get with the program. Grumpy moves back in. Limped carefully outside.

I walked into a whole new world of green.

Both of the kids' pots are covered with sweet little green zinnia leaves. ALL of the radish pots have little green butterflies coating the surface. Okra! Hey, that's squash! And a pumpkin sprout!

Omigod, is that a tiny blossom starting on the zucchini? And on one of the strawberries?

I hurt too much to truly do anything extensive, but I reveled in the new life outside while staunchly avoiding the news. Sometimes you can only take so much.

A shopping trip set us up with humus, manure (and hours of fun with the kids over the "You're buying COW POOP? EWWW!), and a bag of Magic Earth on recommendation. I peeked at the label, perked up, and said what the hell. They'll all get mixed into the tilled soil for the garden plots to help break up some of the really odd soil, and help raise the beds. A new tomato plant, a different type from the others and once again I looked a fool with my face buried in the leaves.

Now ... hurry up and GROW!

SNAKE!

We found our first snake!

I'm almost giddy, really. DG and I were setting out the parameters for the garden plots, and he went to move a concrete slab that was in the way. The snake was under it.

Gloves on, I went to try to catch him so he wouldn't be in the way and get chopped up by the tiller, but I was afraid of hurting him so I didn't really make a grab before he darted off down into a deeper hole safely on the other side of the fence. Unfortunately, he made his escape before the Things could really see him.

Greenish-grey, more grey really, and a little smaller in diameter than my pinky. Never saw his head. Not really sure what kind of snake he was, but we finally saw one of them. No other colouration or markings, very subtle smooth scales.

Snake. *silly grin*



We also found our second, third, and fourth snakes. One tiny tiny, one medium tiny, one medium, compared to the larger (by proportion) first snake. Only got pictures of snake 3, the others were too quick.



Rough earth snakes, colubrids (ooo, me was right), that get aroud 13" or so and eat earthworms and slugs. They can have the slugs, lemme tell ya.

They're not only delightfully harmless, but very very mellow snakes.

Almost Stray

It's amazing what doubling my seizure meds can do. I feel functional. My God, I had a bra on *all day*. Still wearing it. Pain is minimal.

Only had 1 breakthrough today, and that was right before I came inside for the night. Freaked Thing 2 out to see my leg take off and spazz out on its own. But it wasn't nearly as bad as the one last weekend.

They're supposed to make me sleepy. So why am I hyper?

I think I'll make cookies.

Harley has lost her little kitten mind. Standard repeated phrase in the Pookastead for the moment: "Harley's Freaking Out again!" At the moment, she's smelling EVERYTHING. Cautious slinking ready to freak out and leap stalking up to everything in the room, sniffing it a few times, then stalking off to the next one. Earlier she was complaining loudly to me about something. Maybe the Mother Ship has been sending Final Orders or something.

Lot more work done outside. Went through the evil birdseeded flower bed, removing sunflower sprouts to peat cups for replanting elsewhere and weeding out the birdseed. I decided I'd try playing it cheap for weed control at the moment. Sliced up a black/green lawn trash bag, layed it out over the bad areas that weren't seeded, and pinned it down with rocks and mulch. Should be a lot of help.

Thinned some of the zinnias already. Well, thinning for me has a different definition. I hate the idea of pulling sprouts out and casting them aside, so instead I carefully ease them out of the soil with roots intact. Since the bluebonnets didn't survive the hailstorm (not after just being planted that day), I removed them to another section of the overgrown bed, opening up another large patch of flower bed. Moved a lot of the thinned seedlings over there.

The Things "helped" Mama by watering the azaleas, blackberries, wisteria, and roses for me. Thing 1 did bug patrol, looking for caterpillars and other critters camping on the plants.

My back porch looks like a nursery exploded.

Two patio tomatoes, now happily in a large pot. Roy's radish seeds are in peat pots to get them ready. Bean, squash, and okra pots watered. 'JackOLantern' pumpkin seeds planted in peat pots, along with blackeye peas.

Started flowers in terra cotta. Big black happy "girly" markered names on them, one for each Thing and one for Pooka. Thing 1 gets the brilliant Whirligig zinnias, an amazing red/orange/cream colour burst. Thing 2 gets Violet Queen zinnias with deep blue/purple blooms.

Me, I get the Black-eyed Susans.

Cacti and assorted succulent seeds in cactus specific soil. I'm hoping I can bring the pot inside the house for the kitchen window until they get going. And of course, hoping Zam or Harley don't decide they're interesting and knock them into the sink. We'll see.

You know, looking at it written down, the amount of work done seems somewhat less impressive than the steady ache in my shoulders felt it was.

Oh yes. Cookies. Hmm. I wonder if I even have the stuff to do it.

Off to find out. Ta, dahlinks.

Stars and candles and growing things

An oddity about me that is currently relevant: I usually garden barefoot. I *like* getting dirty, I like feeling the soil and smelling it. I like the sweating and the work.

I do NOT, however, like ... STEPPING ON A THISTLE. I got lucky, I only caught it with my big toe, but mother of mercy, that STINGS. Ow. Ow ow. More Roundup to be used liberally tomorrow. I hoestly can't believe how anyone could let a lawn get this bad. The yard is a fabulous size, and the idea of being unable to freely move through it is just mind-boggling. Half the attraction of this house is the size of the yard. I *NEED* to go barefoot in my yard. NEED it.

Earth mother. Hedgewitch. Tree-hugging dandelion sniffer. Oh, I've heard them all at some time or another. ;) I think it's funny, because it's all somewhat desperately true. There are few times and places where I'm happier than just being out in the fresh air, covered in dirt and making things grow.

No place closer to heaven than having the heavy earthy thick scent of tomato plants. Tomatoes are all right, I like them, but don't really NEED them or seriously crave them. The plants, however ... the vines. God speaks from them, I tell ya. I picked up two patio tomato plants today, and could hardly keep my nose out of them. Memory lane. That smell was a part of my childhood, watching my grandfather and his wonderful garden. Just brushing past the tomato plants released that smell, and it can bring tears to my eyes if I'm a bit sensitive at the time.

My green thumb came through him. Another oddity, considering there is no shared DNA. I'm adopted, and yet, some of my strongest personality traits have come through association with him. Poppie. He's been Poppie for longer than I can remember. Fields of heavy red and purple poppies along the fence of his yard, brilliant and gently fragrant. Roses of every colour and variety, the sweet tiny tufts of antique tea roses, climbers, and showy masterpieces. Pansies, petunias, lilies, flowers I can no longer even begin to name. I learned plant ID from this man. I learned to identify flowers, weeds, noxious things to avoid, the shapes of certain bird species, and the names of the birds themselves. This man has forgotten more about the world around us than most modern children will ever be able to learn.

When we lived in Washington, I didn't do much with vegetables. Strawberries mostly, but zinnias everywhere, marigolds, roses. Huge fragrant lilacs that filled my house as well as my yard when they bloomed. The scent of the lilacs lingered for a wonderfully long time when cut. My babies.

The military moved us back to Texas, and that put us in range of Wonder Man again. As we went down to Houston for the obligatory family adore the children visit, I carefully went through his yard with him at my side, picking choice stems from rosebushes to cut and root. Not a one died.

Moving here, to an apartment, killed me in a way. I was out of touch, there was nothing to help ground me, nothing to soothe.

I have a confession to make: I love weeding. I really do. Yes, it's mindless and tedious, but it's something that Always Needs To Be Done. Gently easing the weeds from around tender sprouts and watching the sprouts cheerfully grow stronger is a wonderful feeling. Doing something so basic and easy is intensely calming for me. I don't have to worry as much about fighting my body, and the distraction manages to ease the pain, at least for a little while.

Okra itches. So does crookneck squash. The spines scratch and sting. I know that feeling intimately, having wandered through the garden in search of ripe vegetables that my grandmother would promptly cook for us. And I don't mind it at all. I've an obsession for yellow squash to this day, cooked the way she did it: onion, sliced squash, cracked black pepper, butter ... and a touch of sugar. I'm drooling again, darnit.

But the garden is no longer there.

Age is catching up with the man who once caught me as I leapt from the top of a persimmon tree, convinced that I could fly. Age has taken away the man that carried me through woody fields on his back, picking The Perfect Blackberry as I pointed them out quite imperiously from his shoulders. A series of strokes have crippled the Superman of my childhood, the man who, when told by my mother not to let us go in the lake, casually turned aside as we "accidentally fell in."

It's hard to visit now. So hard to see Poppie unable to do the things he loves so much. His mind is still sharp as a whip, but his body has betrayed him. Another thing we hold in common. We raced with our canes one afternoon while visiting my aunt. He won. Go figure. Our bodies are fighting us, but for the first time in my life, I see something beating him. It hurts, oh God it hurts to see him like that. He has had to hire someone to even mow the lawn.

With our new house, I pick up the torch.

My children will learn, as I had learned. They'll absorb the appreciation for life and growing things, and learn which plants you can eat, which can hurt you, which ones need to be pulled. They'll learn how to prepare the soil, how to plant, how to pick and the joy of taking food you have grown yourself into the house and having it for dinner.

I miss him. I miss the man he was, and still deeply love the man he is. My children never knew him before age took its toll, but they already know that Poppie is the man that taught Mama to ease the seeds into the ground and coax food out of them.

Poppie, thank you.

Green Thumbs and Red Pookas

All three packets of zinnias are coming up nicely, sweet little heart-shaped leaves reaching for the light. Another few days, and I should be able to start thinning them out some. I hate that part of gardening, though. I always want to try and save every little sprout, even when I know they have to be thinned to grow well. I may see if I can't pull a pixelpusher and do some creative potting and have bunches sitting on the porch itself.

... do you have ANY idea how #@*$&#!* fast birdseed sprouts? ARGH! I'm fighting it all over the flower bed. I may end up just hoeing off areas and replacing with bagged garden soil to try to control the rampant sprouting.

I have to admit, though, that there is one nice thing about the birdseed. The sunflower seeds that were in it are also sprouting very well. The ones I tried to start just don't seem to want to take, but those are going wild. Trimmed out some of the best and have them in small starter pots to move when we get the next section of garden along the fence dug up and ready.

The roses that were here when we moved in are rather sad. I don't know if they've ever bloomed or been trimmed. I DID find my rose Miracle Gro though, so hopefully I can spark them into brilliantly fragrant life. I don't even know what colour they are.

I swear to God, the weedier grasses in the yard grew three inches since this morning. We've been talking to the landlord about our attempts to reclaim the yard, so maybe we'll get some help.

Most of the trees in the back need some serious pruning. Lots of dead branches. Then there's the hard thatch in the grass (oh, thank you SO much, stupid root grubs) that's going to need to be cleared out, the lawn reseeded, serious weed n feed time, and always the thistles.

The blackberries really took a battering with the hail. More thunderstorms on the way so I'm a little worried about them. Maybe we'll get lucky and they'll take. Mmm, blackberry wine next summer ....

After Sorcha, TMF, and Roomie took off early this afternoon, I hauled myself back out into the glories of my backyard.

Deviation: I missed this. I really, really missed this. My hands are an absolute disaster. You can totally write off my right thumb and index finger, the nail bed is just gone and there are heavy tears, new calluses, and blisters. I'm still getting over my sunburn which friggin itches like MAD. Yes, I am a giant freckle now. I don't know if the dirt will ever come out from beneath the few fingernails I have left.

And good Lord, I'm happy. I caught myself HUMMING of all things while I was out there this afternoon. I'm sure I looked like a total fool, sprawled out on my porch, dirt all over it, me, and the assortment of pots, sweaty and muddy and generally a human disaster area. I feel more centered again.

We desperately need to get our hands on a tiller so I can get the rest of the actual garden started. I've got the zucchini in a huge pot right now, but it's not going to last long. Another week or two tops. Gotta get the ground broken, dammit. Since we're running so slow right now, without a truck to transport the tools, I went ahead and started a lot of the seeds in leftover plastic pots from other plants already in the ground. Beans, yellow squash, okra. Then the zucchini.

Had to replant most of my strawberries today, too. The little pot I had them in was already overwhelmed. I thinned them out and put 2/3 into a much larger pot, leaving the one that had been in the top (a small version of a strawberry jar) in place.

Bluebonnets didn't make it. After that hailstorm, and since they tend to be picky and delicate, I knew they didn't have much of a chance. I think we'll try to seed start a bunch of them for next year so we don't have to worry about transplanting like that.

One of the wisteria is doing quite nicely, the other is just thinking about it. Time to fertilize both of them, and the azaleas as well. I knew I should have picked up more than two. Ah well.

I'm starting to think that the front yard is next to hopeless unless we go out and actually buy cut sod to try to salvage it. Man, that's a mess.

And of course, the fire ants. So far, no one has been bitten, but it's only a matter of time. Got to get stuff and get them the hell out of my yard.

June bugs everywhere last night. Harley was going totally nuts over them. Then again, the poor kitten has been having issues the last few days anyway. She is a *serious* talker now, and man, she's loud when she has something to complain about. Silly kitty.

Note: Things 2 & 1 do NOT like june bugs one bit, no sir. Total girly freaking out.

PTA or PITA?

Two acronyms that should *never* be used together:

PTA and RSD. Man, I'm flared up.

Can you just picture DG and I surrounded by PTA moms? Stop laughing. No, I mean it. Stop laughing.

Yes, we just endured a PTA meeting for the sake of Thing 2 and a school full of kindergartners that pranced up on stage and sang at us. Loudly. Enthusiastically.

From "Six Little Ducks" all the way through "You're a Grand Old Flag," some forty or so 6 year olds up in front of a full crowd for the very first time. And they did it very, very well.

And I must say that I have never in my life seen such a collection of certified card-carrying pasty-faced, four-eyed, plastic pocket protectored pencil-necked geeks outside of a Star Trek convention. You just know every one of those dads are bringing in more figures than a Playboy convention. White collar bastards. ;)

Unfortunately, they all think their children are exempt from things like manners.

I'm ... just going to leave it right there without another word. Otherwise, I might just go off in a rant and offend some sensitive goober who feels their little darling shouldn't have to wait for someone to move, that they have every right to push and shove at both adults and children alike, and that their openly kicking an adult in their way is just a cheerful display of spirit and individuality.

And for that sensitive goober, I have two important words that I'm sure will play an important role in their little darling's future: Death Penalty.

Never wanted a taser so bad in my life.

Let me clarify a bit here. Now I'm all for letting kids be kids. They're going to run and scream and play and have fun, it's what kids should be doing. It should NOT, however, be at the expense of anyone else, and should not endanger anyone else.

The child who kicked my cane because it was in his way did so with his parent sitting less than three feet away, watching him the entire time. Daddy saw me stumble when my support wasn't there. Neither child nor parent said a word about it.

The other little heathens that shoved and pushed through on the other side of me all but finished me off. Score one, and only one, for being as heavy as I am.

Isolated incidents? Not a chance. Even sitting down, I wasn't safe. No one else in the auditorium was either. I can't even try to imagine what these kids are like at home.

My children aren't angels, and I'll be the first to admit it. The Things, however, didn't push, or run and scream inside, said "Excuse me" when they needed to and hushed up when the program began.

Parents, if you're going to complain about the problems in the world, make sure you aren't part of them.

Bless You -- Twice

Have I mentioned lately how bloody frustrating Texas weather is? No? It bloody well drives me nuts.

We get most of the work done, only to have it announced that there's a high possibility of it freezing tonight.

Grr.

So, the zucchini has been temporarily repotted and mulched, ditto for the strawberries. Berries have extra soil and mulch piled at the bases, ditto for the roses, azaleas, and wisteria.

I'm sure the zinnia seeds are just going to love it. Not.

Feel awful today. Worse than yesterday, if that's possible. Can't friggin breathe, I hurt, I'm wheezing and coughing and feverish. Yuck. Luckily the Things (knock on wood) seem to be fighting it off.

Pollen Count: 3285
Dear God.

Cigna has decided once again that my doctors know nothing. Instead of the diagnostics my neurologist ordered, they decide they'll only pay for one because obviously it's not worth working to find out what's wrong with me.

Insert neurologist's office into the equation. They aren't happy. They also have a solution. There's a diagnostic testing center that is currently Pissed Off at Cigna and several other HMOs. I'm going there now, even if it means having to do some driving to get to the place. Supposed to hear from them in the next 24 hours or so.

Instead of multiple appointments, all of my MRIs are going to be done in one single day. And cost me ..... NOTHING. Woo! No copay, no deductible. Nada.

Of course, it means that my appointment schedule is now tossed up in the air again.

It's kinda amusing. I get really quiet for a long time, and people wonder why. When I finally admit why, they get quiet. Works for me, man. It's a system, yunno, deliberately and carefully calculated.

Damnit. Something bit me when I was outside getting the plants ready. On my sunburned elbow, of course, and it itches like mad.

I must sneeze now.

And now for something competely different

And to round off a perfect weekend ...

Thing 1 and I are sick. She got sent home from school today hacking up a lung and running fever. That's how I woke up. Shivery, coughy, feverish, and miserable. Phooey. You can hand my lung back now, thank you. I actually *needed* my inhaler last night. I haven't used that in ages. Might be time to switch from Allegra to something else, because this SUCKS.

I don't know if all the outdoor work with our horridly high pollen count just set our allergies off so bad that they moved in to stay and we got sick, or if we picked up some bug, but I haven't felt this crappy in quite a while.

Didn't stop us from making a noonish inspection of the plants outside.

Everything but the bluebonnets are looking pretty good. Her tree is happily budding out all over. One of the wisteria is a little puny, but they're so hard to kill that I'm not worrying about it yet. The bluebonnets may be history. Dammit. Stupid hail. Lost most of the azalea blooms, but that's no real big deal. They'll recover.

Need to get the dead undergrowth of ivy out of the front entryway. Personally, I'd rather just yank most of it out entirely. We'll see if I can get permission for that. Did yank some of the undergrowth out, but I didn't have my gloves or a rake with me at inspection time, and I'd rather not disturb any snakes or centipedes without something between me and them.

Kinda funny. I'm pretty ambivalent about insects and other creepy crawlies unless they're actively touching me. Then it depends on what it is, and how big. Small spiders, no biggie, just a casual soft brush to get them off. Anything that buzzes, stings, or is otherwise bigger than my fingernail is another matter entirely.

Things 2 & 1 and DG, on the other hand ...

Bwack bwack bwack! Hey, I smell chicken!

I'd like to breathe now, thank you.

This is going to suck. I've *got* to get the zuchinni plants in the ground ASAP or I'm going to lose them. Don't know how that's going to work when I feel like I got caught beneath the lawn mower and shredded.

And I hurt. My body is responding very well to the first Neurontin increase, but the break-through muscle seizures are a lot worse. Luckily they're very rare. And it seems to be helping me sleep somewhat now.

But I pushed really hard this weekend, and my LEFT leg of all things is tweaking and bitching when I walk too far, and my abdomen is complaining. Who needs crunches when you can sit and bend to reach parts of the flower bed while weeding?

Sunburn is still a bit too intense. Owie. My left thigh and left shoulder which is alarmingly scarlet actively hurt. The right isn't as bad, really, just annoying.

Birds are really starting to enjoy the feeders we put out. Positive ID made on male and female house finches, a dozen or so mockingbirds, grackles, crows, some sparrows, a crane, male and female cardinals, robins, and somewhere both an owl and doves.

Need to find the hummingbird feeders.

Oracle and Cassandra both went outside to play with us yesterday. Roy got to listen to talky little Oracle bitch and bitch. I think she had fun, though. Cassie is just a sludge beast and clung to Thing 2.

We've let Zam out once, and he just thinks the backyard is the coolest thing in the world. Harley thinks the backyard is super neat -- until you open the door and take her out, whereupon complete panic reigns. She'll go wild catching the mosquito hawks that make it inside, but the outside world itself is just a little too overwhelming for the little girl.

Dammit, I wanna go outside and play!!!

The Discovery Zone

Was outside by noonish yesterday. Didn't make it back inside the house until it got dark and the severe storms started rolling in.

I am sunburned. Ow. Pooka is no longer purple, she's scarlet.

BUT ... I have reclaimed the flower bed along the back of the house. Think jungle. Think overgrown for at least three or four years. Think doing 2-3 feet and having to stop and take a break. Think that this is a task of herculean proportions.

My gloves, which were brand new, need to be replaced. At least three of the fingertips are completely gone after all that work.

Both azaleas are in the ground now. DG actually managed to find me blackberries in gallon tubs, so they're already semi-started and a lot better than just the canes we found. Four blackberries in the ground.

FOUND:

-- one very angry centipede
-- twelve pieces of broken red crayon
-- eight decent-sized pieces of shed snake skin
-- dozen or so small worms
-- five big fat earthworms
-- more #*$#& root grubs than I've ever seen in one place
-- egg sacs and egg cases to things I couldn't even identify
-- one poorly-buried phone cable (ahem, DG) that for some reason still works
-- big ole spider that scared Thing 1 absolutely witless

FOUND OUT:

-- despite "help," I got five times the work done when they went away
-- DG won't do garden work without scowling and glaring
-- if you give one child a job, the other will automatically scream "I wanted to do that!"
-- the job will never be completed anyway
-- getting all dirty and blistered and sunburned again feels GOOD

The bluebonnets are seriously wilting. Don't know if they'll make it now, but that wasn't our fault.

Last night, after Roy had come back with DG to do a porch cookout, storms rolled -- no, thundered -- into North Texas. "Super cell" they were calling it -- at least until it split into three storms of equal ferocity.

Pea sized to golfball sized hail with cell one. Heavy wind. Huge sheets of rain. Under that kind of pressure, only a few areas of the backyard really even attempted to flood. I feel sorry for the houses further down the hill though.

Second round brought a lot more hail, enough to turn the grass in the backyard white, and hard fast rain, even though the hail was smaller.

Third somewhat fizzled with mostly thunder and lighting and more rain.

Wisteria and azaleas made it through fine. Not a lot of hope for the bluebonnets now. My poor blackberries took some leaf damage, but the main plant seems fine.

We were lucky. Areas a bit to the south had severe high winds, lots of reports of funnel and wall clouds, and a half dozen or so unconfirmed reports of tornados spotted. Much roof damage, downed power lines, broken trees, car damage, the works. We dodged it. This time. It's spring in NorTex, man. Though really, you never get used to it.

Roy ended up spending the night because of the weather.

Around 10:30 this morning (and looking like a freckled strawberry), I was back outside to finish off the flower bed. Final weeding, mixing in of some good garden soil, breaking up dirt clods, etc.

Remembered the sunscreen this time. Hah!

Got three packages of zinnias seeded in the ground. Lilliputs, dahlia blend, and giant fantasies, yes, seeded in height order.

Sludged for a while on the porch with Roy till DG finally crawled back into the world of the living. Things went screaming through with water guns, and ...

... Roy offered Thing 2 a dollar if she'd squirt DG, who was still scowling and surly. I've trained my mercenary child well. She did it.

The snarling and growling and swearing didn't last long. Neither did the dry state of anyone's clothing. We've got staggered sizes of SuperSoakers, but Roy was the real fiend, as he turned the hose on. After a while, the three adults (snicker) were the only ones left in the backyard, and all of us completely drenched.

Tell ya, that water felt pretty damn good.

Another fireup of the grill for dinner, then DG took Roy home while I cleaned up after the mess. Got all three boxes unpacked and out of the kitchen (HAH! One intended goal for the weekend complete, take that!), well, except for the trash box that needs to go out now. Dishwasher unloaded and reloaded, box contents put away.

Even found time in there somewhere to do a couple more poses for a Poser package Burningham is going to be uploading to the market soon.

SO .....

... what did YOU do this weekend?

Sunset on the New House

I am gloriously, amazingly, disgustingly FILTHY! Hallelujia! I SO missed having a yard. Utter contentment.

I've got two purple wisteria in the ground to twine up over the arbor. DG found some very odd windchimes that sound absolutely lovely (they look like pan pipes), so they're now up in the middle of the arbor.



The two rosebushes in the bed next to it have been weeded, but still no buds yet. Need to get some mulch in there to help control the weeds. Saw an utterly stunning peach rose bush, but didn't cave since it wasn't cheap. Need to get some artwork sold, fast.

Have some weird climbers that I need to make pics of and see if anyone can help me ID them. Might yank them up anyway. Asked the neighbors along the back fence if they minded honeysuckle back there, since they tend to grow wherever the hell they want to. No problems with em, so now I just need to get the vines.

The dead jungle-y tree by the front door has been removed. Ivy needs to be trimmed back still.

One azalea in the front yard, a second in the back that needs to be put in the ground tomorrow. Might go back and get one or two more, because the corner I'm using in the back for them looks just gorgeous against the house.

Thing 1 brought home a bluebonnet plant, courtesy of the school garden and their nifty science teacher. Bluebonnets are now in the ground. The redbud she brought home last year for Arbor Day is now in the ground out of its pot, and going bananas. Happy tree.

Grass seed purchased to try to reclaim the front yard. The people here last ... well, let's just say they had black thumbs. Still need to continue thistle extermination. God, they're everywhere.

Seed purchased for beans, squash, zuchinni, and pumpkins so far. Going to take a lot of work to get the ground ready for them. Got a package of sunflowers, several zinnia varieties, and I've now totally forgotten everything else.

Oh man, I HURT, but it's The Good Hurt. I'm worn out, dirty, sweaty, and utterly content.

Penny the Poked Purple Pooka

Why did the orange stop in the middle of the road?

He ran out of juice.

Ah, Laffy Taffy. Inane, and yet so accurate. Welcome to my day.

Neurologist appointment, check. Note on check-in that I had lost another 3 or 4 pounds, groovy.

Poked, prodded, stuck, forked, reflexed, pushed, pulled, teetered, wobbled, and generally abused in every basic diagnostic way. Tuning forks are fun on the side that works, marching fire ants on the bad one. Wee me. Nasty little pokesy things to test sensation SUCK. Or stick. Whatever.

RSD diagnosis fully confirmed, forehead to fingertips, forehead to knee on my right side.

Fibro ... is actually an Iffy now.

Immediately ruled out my medications as being a cause. One more scratched off the list.

Doc does a few tests, takes a look at my meds, has kittens over the amount of Neurontin. We're not doubling it. We're not tripling it (well, we are ... for a week). He ranted and muttered a bit about my low dosage. I'm now looking at a daily total of 1800 once we reach that point. Maybe I'll stop falling down all the time now. The muscle seizures long ago surpassed spasms.

Said that for my condition, muscle strength was good, once I could force my body to resist the pushing and pulling. Of course, I have no coordination or balance whatsoever. They just won't listen to what my brain is telling muscles and nerves to do.

Multiple referrals and appointments made.

Tentative initial diagnosis on top of the usual, Peripheral Neuropathy. Just consider that just a generic "We don't know what's wrong yet," but he agreed that something was very wrong with my nervous system. Noted the "to rule out MS" scribbled next to name on sign-in info.

I had blood drawn today for 9 different tests.

Next Friday, I have an MRI and full dye-injection contrast MRI of my skull.
That next Monday, full dye-injection contrast of my entire spine.
That Wednesday, nerve enduction and possible EMG.

I'm not a Pooka, I'm a medical guinea pig.

How many parents do you know of that have to stop and shout:

"No bloodletting, decapitations or other bodily dismemberments at the dinner table! I mean it!"

... and they aren't talking about what is being done to the food?

Moving

We are in the process of The Big Move.

If you don't hear from me for a few weeks, never fear.

I'm either:

A) ... rotting in a jail cell for strangling DG and beating his head in with a spork while hoping someone will post bail before my new roomie decides to make me her new bitch.

B) ... still trying to figure out where to hide the body.

C) ... or sitting on a beach in Brazil sipping fruity alcoholic beverages and being fanned by a very muscular mostly-nekkid cabana boy named Raul whose only English phrase is "How may I serve you?"

If C) turns out to be the case, please. Don't send help.

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(PS: Ann, got a big bag of clothes for you to go through.)

Not dead yet

We have ... a house.

I'm still in a bit of shock here. We start moving in on the 14th or so. Of March. Like, this month. Move. To a house.

It's gorgeous. Everything we've really wanted. 3 bedrooms, 2 car garage, huge backyard. Stepford wife soccer mom SUV and minivan territory.

I'm nervous.

Finished up the last artwork for BTRC's "NeoTerra" module. "The Colonies" has been out for a while and is available at RPG.net among other sites. Professional illustrator. This concept still blows my mind almost as much as the idea of finally moving into a real house.

I'll get some of the pics up from NeoTerra and other new work in a little while.

Got my new laptop at last. Jeeze, that didn't take long, did it? (ooo, sarcasm, just another service we offer) She's definitely more of a workhorse than Nemesis, but she's not as multimedia friendly. The sound on Nem was just fabulous. This is the standard laptop tinny, but otherwise she blows Nem away. Mobile P4 2.2, 40 GB drive, DVD/CD-R, 768MB of RAM (which Painter chokes on, whee), the happy ATI Radeon card that I demanded ... Still, I'm keeping the enthusiasm down. My faith in this company is shot.

Still recovering from my fall. Shoulder still tweaks out, still having headache problems and the occular migraines are back.

I'm now cutting TWO wisdom teeth. 34 years old, and I'm cutting teeth. Houston, we have a problem. And they HURT. There isn't room for one of them, and it's coming in crooked and right now with the move, we just can't afford to take me in to cut the damn things out of my mouth. Oral surgery is a serious risk for me anyway with the RSD, and the bad tooth just happens to be on the side of my head that's affected. Yay me. Not.

Still doing the monthly ear infection thing. I'm *real* tired of Cipro drops and Auralgan. Since it's "surfer's ear" (the ugly brother of swimmer's ear), there's a lot of permanent damage inside my ear, which unfortunately tends to leave some nerve endings exposed. Put in drops, scream as they hit nerves, and pray it goes away faster than usual.

The cats are nuts as usual. Certifiably insane, ie, normal cats. They're going to love the new house, tons of mad dashing space and a large tile floor in the kitchen for maximum skidding power. I wonder how long it will take Zamboni the escape artist to get locked in the garage by accident.

The Things are anxious about the house. Finally, a bedroom each. About bloody time, because I think they're going to kill each other if we stay here much longer.

Thing 2 has been doing the ear infection thing, too. Bad high fevers, the barfing which she always does with fever. Missed way too much school. The doc keeps saying that her tonsils don't look bad, so I am at a total loss for how to figure out what is wrong with this kid. We've done the unknown fever thing before, complete with spinal tap and other hell. I'm hoping the new house helps. Maybe we have a hidden black mold problem in this damn apartment. It would explain a lot.

Uh. Did I miss anything?

YOU, go to your room.

YOU, Time Out. Now.

YOU, lighten up.

YOU play nice. Don't make me come over there.

YOU, put down the lighter fluid and step away from the grill.

YOU are NOT taking that into your room. Put it up.

YOU ... well, I don't know WHAT you're doing, but stop it this minute.

I heard that. YOU go to your room, too.

YOU need to step away from the computer. Take a dandelion break.

YOU need more coffee.

YOU need a reality check. Yours bounced.

I don't care if SHE said you could, YOU can't. Face in the corner.

What the hell do YOU think you're doing with those scissors?

YOU go play in the microwave.

YOU, stop instigating. We've got enough of that already.

YOU, get a girlfriend.

YOU stop leaning on your elbow.

YOU stop trying to nuke the cats.

YOU sit down and stop walking on your damned ankle.

RSI Public Service Announcement

Attention, campers, Pooka has a few Rules of the Road for you to remember.

1) RSI is not a funny word. Repetitive Strain Injuries can be extraordinarily painful, detract from your quality of life, and impair not only your work but even your daily activities.

2) Any unusual signs of tingling in your limbs that aren't 'normal' like your foot falling asleep, and tend to repeat, need to be checked by a doctor. (especially to rule out something far more serious)

Tingling is usually the first warning that something isn't right on several fronts, though it doesn't always show up. Different people have different 'tell signs' that an RSI is occurring.

3) Early warning is just that. Watch yourself. Watch how you sit, how you sleep, how you type, even how you brush your teeth. Patterns of aggravation to RSIs are easily spotted. Breaking that behaviour is the hard part, but could prevent the injury from becoming serious.

Rearrange your work space. Adjust the height of your chair, your desk, buy a better keyboard. Watch yourself in the kitchen, how you cut food and stir.

4) Moonmama, stop leaning on your elbow.

5) Don't automatically take the word of the first doctor you see. Seriously. Some are cut-happy and want you on the table immediately. Consider surgery a last resort. Some won't take it seriously at first, oh, it's just a muscle strain, you slept wrong, it'll go away.

RSI does not "go away" without the cooperation of both you and your doctor.

You know your body. If you're tingling or hurting and you know it's normal for you, then you have a problem and you deserve a doctor that will take it seriously.

6) RSI is not the end of the world. It can be treated. Nerves can regenerate, muscle strength can be built back up. You don't have to give things up -- just change how you do them.

7) Anyone can develop an RSI. Anyone. Even Clark Kent. Being a perfect employee, a perfect mom, none of this matters to RSI. Equal-opportunity offender. Physical structure can play a large part in it as well. Particularly long pointy elbows? Guess what, you're at risk.

8) Moonmama, stop leaning on your elbow.

9) You aren't alone. There are RSI support groups, web sites and BBS, mailing lists, and book after book on the shelves that can help you on the way to recovery. If the condition is brought about in the workplace. there are people that will come out to your office, watch you, and point out changes that need to be made.

10) Non-surgical options don't work for everyone. The cause of the RSI is only one problem, and can be combined with several other difficulties.

Non-surgical alternatives wouldn't have helped me, even had I gotten in when it first started. Yes, I had classic behaviours that can cause an RSI. Yes, they were a large part of the problem. But they weren't all of it.

When my surgeon went in, he removed a large knot of tendon in my upper arm that had twisted and coiled around my ulnar nerve, choking it off. In addition, I have very sharp pointy elbows, and just normal movement with my arm caused the nerve to catch and slide over bone.

He cut the tendon section out, then removed the ulnar nerve from my arm. Muscles were then removed, and the nerve replaced, this time on the bottom closer to the cubital tunnel to allow more freedom for it to move. Muscles were then replaced over it.

I wasn't kidding when I said they rebuilt my arm.

By the time the stubborn Pooka went in, the muscle mass was already wasting away and I had almost no feeling in my hand at all. I couldn't turn a doorknob. I couldn't even open diaper tabs for Thing 2. I could run a pin through my pinky and couldn't feel it.

My hand was all but useless by the time my surgery date arrived.

After the anesthesia wore off completely, and the pain pills had lapsed ... I already had some feeling in my hand. I remember the day I reached for something and stretched over a lit candle. I burnt my arm slightly -- and FELT IT. It was amazing. I started crying in the shower once because I suddenly realized I was using both hands to wash my hair, and my left hand could actually feel the soapy spots.

I now have full range of motion back in my arm, and complete use of my hand. Only a small strip along the scar line that is still a little numb, which is normal.

If I seem a little militant on the issue ... well, I am. I've been there, and I screwed around and ignored it. It almost cost me my hand. Just another month of letting it go, and I might have had damage that couldn't be repaired.

Until they perfect cybernetics, you only get one body.

Use it wisely.

Stray Wheeeee

Note to self: Do not take Lortab with Testosterone before bedtime.
Hydrocodone makes Pooka hyper.
Hyper is not conducive to sleep.
Had to leave bed before DG tried to smother me with a pillow.

I'm talking to the big purple Cheshire Cat on my monitor ... and I think it's answering me.

Can't sleep, clowns will eat me.

Hair has finally gotten longer again. Makes trying to brush or wash it with my shoulder all hose a real bitch. Had the temptation to hack it off again, but after some of the reactions I got last time ... I may just shave it all off, hah!

Harley has assassinated Batgirl again. Out of all the action figures and toys on the shelf above my desk, Harley has singled Batgirl out for termination.

Giger is doing ... things in his cage. I think it's the rodent version of Tai Chi from what I can see of it. Man, he's tall when he stretches up on his hind legs.

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Black hole.

Dammit, out of all the injuries from the fall, my knee is the only one that looks cool. Still haven't seen a bruise come up on my arm (apparently they're hiding deep inside the muscles so they can taunt me), and only mild bruising on my face. I mean, what the hell? Here I go and do this great fall, only to not get anything usuable out of the damage pics.

Mark ... finally got your email about the project. As I am a doofus, I'd been forgetting to check that one. Yes, I'm interested. Sounds fun. I like fun. Let's talk.

My new client for the second album cover is a riot. I swear, if this guy perks and bounces anymore, I'm going to be very very scared. I mean, with "Antipathy" as the band name, he's entirely too excited. :) They're wanting t-shirts out of whatever designs I come up with for them. Must get to work there.

Though can you see my fat wounded ass in their mosh pit? Don't think so.

Why is it 4:30 in the morning?

I'd like to go to sleep now. Can someone please page the Sandman? He missed part of this house.

Still no word from Compaq. Tommorow I call and the blood-feast will begin.

Ow

Superjuiced on what can only be called Lortab with Extra Testosterone, the day is a smoodge brighter.

Finally saw someone about the fall. Woman took one peek at my shoulder. "Ew. Ow. I am NOT touching this until we get xrays."

My kind of doc.

For those of you familiar with injury proceedings and the joy of xrays (which inevitably mean you have to move whatever is hurt into the most uncomfortable positions imaginable, ie, hurt enough to make Mother Teresa say Very Bad Things), you know that their main usage is in determining broken bones.

The muscle tears (by which I mean Many) were easily visible on the film. Joint was back in place by this point, but yowsa. If it's in my shoulder, it's either torn, inflamed, or both.

I have orders for small range of motion exercises -- ONLY, and I mean ONLY with Lortab with Testosterone in my system -- and a follow-up in a week to make sure the RSD isn't dinking with the healing and causing the muscles to start cratering on me.

Whoa. Spaced out there. That's it, I'm puttin the Pooka to bed.

Same Bat-time, same Bat-channel.

Fall down, go boom

My bad leg stopped working in mid-step. Just quit. Threw me sideways into the corner of the Things' doorway. Side of head and my right arm took the full impact.

Last thing I remember is thinking "Fuck, that HURT!"

I don't know how long I was knocked out. But my right arm was caught under my head, and all of the blood on my hand was dry. I figure I was out cold for a good five minutes.

Woke up to Thing 1 crying and tapping me in the head. "Mama, do I need to call 911? Mommy, please wake up." Somehow she found my cellphone and the charger to call DG. I have no idea what woke her up. Instinct, maybe. Happened too fast for me to scream.

Haven't been this nauseous from an injury since I got thrown off a horse. Really dizzy. Shaky. Felt frozen for hours. Took every blanket on the bed and then some to stop the shivering.

Top to bottom.

Line from right temple to jaw. Top cartilege hole now big enough for 3 earrings. The one in it had to be cut off. Back to it is still missing. Stone fell out because the prongs were too busy cutting into my ear. Nurse Voodoo assisted the removal procedure. Ear is really swollen. Lobe enlarged and a small cut there.

He also held my hand while DG cleaned it. Ow.

Thank you, Will.

Right arm. This is the bad one. I'm pretty sure it hit the wall first. Shoulder joint throbs and normal motion is not only painful, but nauseating. Swollen. Line of knife-edge pain down outside of arm along tricep. Possible cracked bone. Trying to wait it out in hopes of being able to move better. It is COLD here, and I can't move my arm to get dressed. Can't type with it either.

Right knee. Actually the best of the lot. I'm not sure what I hit with it. Skin is missing, like a rug burn. Hurts more than the impact bruise under it. Maybe it just kept folding and I landed on it. Puffy, but I can at least hobble with the cane.

Don't worry, Heidi. I'll get you pictures when the bruises finish blooming.

Ow. Ow.

Unplugged

She earned her Nemesis nickname an hour after I took her out of the box.

Two weeks of blue screens, fatal errors, massive crashes, programs spontaneously deleting and uninstalling on boot. 16 hours on the phone with tech support. 4 complete fdisk reformats. No resolution.

I got pissed. I started digging. I solved the problem, not them. They shipped the damn machine out of the warehouse with a bad RAM chip. They replace, things improve.

Christmas Eve. Won't start. Dead. Nothing. Will not boot. Go through the hard boot, removing cords, battery, etc. Power gets TO the unit, but the unit won't use it to boot. Great. More phone time.

Send a box. Send the laptop in. Get it back, with a note that says it worked for them, oh well. They did .... NOTHING to it. Nothing.

Three hours later, it died again. Same problem, power to it, nothing happens. More phone time. Get a new box. Send it back in new box. This time, told that the heat spreader was dusty and they switched it out. Uh huh. They send it back.

Three days later, it's dead as a frickin doornail, RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE of a paid contract piece. Yes, it's ON at the time, and I lose everything because it died in the middle of CTRL-S.

Why, yes, it's phone call time again. I'm on hold 14 minutes while they try to get me a supervisior. By this time .... So I go through the whole sordid story, throwing names and dates and error messages and case numbers at the woman.

"Faces of Death" had nothing on this conversation. PookaMouse ROARED.

The solution?

Hurry up and wait. I SHOULD "get a phonecall" from a Quality Manager in 7-10 DAYS. Apparently only someone with a spiffy title is allowed to make any real decisions.

This is my second Compaq. It will be the last.

The first one I fell in love with. All of the problems I had with her resulted from physical damage (note to self: you still need to make that cat fur bikini for the kids). Despite bad things I'd heard about them, I had a wonderful experience.

So I bought another one to replace it when she finally died.

I'm waiting once again to hear Frisco tell me, "Shoulda bought a Mac."

Santa Thing

Thing 2: (rushes out into the living room with the exaggerated arm-pumping) "Gotta drink more CoRed! Gotta keep up my emergies! Can't let my emergies stop!"

(repeats rushing and exits, stage right)

Thing 2: (from other room) "What?!? Don't make me kick your rear!"

Me: (thankful she at least didn't say 'ass' this time)

Thing 2: "Ho ho ho, now shut up! I gotta put THESE over HERE. Move it, people!"

(loud crashing noise)

Thing 2: "I didn't do it!"

This is going to be a very long day.

... And Cancel Christmas!

Christmas is cancelled.

Come out this morning, my laptop is dead. D-E-D dead. No power. Nada. Flickers pathetically at me. Extended tech discussion (after my phone number popping up sends the techs into a DefCon 4 panic and the one with the shortest straw has to take my call without benefit of cyanide pills) resulting in the same bloody conclusion I came to half an hour before my total hysterics started -- Power Supply, 1 each, D-E-DOA.

Estimated time before box gets here: Saturday. Estimated time for it to be fixed: How does some time in 2005 sound?

All my client information is on that harddrive. All the documents. To work, I'm going to have to email every one of them, providing I can find all the email addresses somewhere in my brain, and ask them to resend.

The images and base files I had been finishing as Christmas presents for others are all on that machine. No presents now. Shit. I'm sorry, guys. Dammit.

The money DG and I were given as pretty much the total of our presents from the monster is Gone. Spent. Poof. All the little things add up. No presents for us.

Big freakin winter storm last few days. Pooka has no limbs, just these deformed objects that used to limbs and are now closer to nuclear meltdown. "Whoosh, into the ground. Like a big ole glowing gopher!" I couldn't sleep last night. Hurt too much.

Had my first severe asthma attack in months last night while failing to achieve sleep.

The weekend at the monster's was mostly awful. She started on me before I even finished getting out of the car. I'm not even going to go into that Hell. It's not worth the additional stress. At least the Things got presents.

Did see Two Towers with Klash and Lisa. Only bright point to the weekend. DG got pulled over for speeding on the way home.

We get home, to find out that Voodoo had another car wreck. At least he's safe and alive.

I feel like I'm in a twisted virtual reality version of "How the Grinch Stole Christmas," surrounded by mutant Whos.

We're here. We're together. We're alive.

It will have to be enough.

Dear Santa

Dear Santa,

Please ignore my age and any past suspicions that you weren't real. No one else is listening, and I think I've moved beyond the hope that prayer is going to do any good.

I want my body to work again.

I hurt so bad, Santa. The last two weeks ... I'm sitting here crying, Santa. Every day the pain seems to get worse. I can't even control my own hands. I'm shaking and aching and nothing is making it better. I have bottles of meds that do little more than dull the increasing agony.

I'm tired, Santa.

I'm tired of hurting, tired of disappointing my children and my family. I'm tired of waking up in tears because the pain is too much for me to stay asleep. I'm tired of having one of my children ask me a question, and suddenly going completely blank. I'm tired of going 3 or 4 days with only a few hours sleep total. I'm tired of waking up feeling more exhausted than I did before passing out. I'm tired of the drugs, I'm tired of the doctors, and I'm tired of being tired.

There's a wheelchair on my Christmas list, not because I want it, but because I'm slowly losing the ability to walk. The cane doesn't do me any good when my arms won't work. I have a handicapped placard for my car, the one that is permanent.

I want my mind back.

I want the brain cells that have been short-circuited to wake up. I don't want the fogs and confusion and frustration. I want to be able to do a damn crossword puzzle without bursting into tears because I can no longer remember anything.

I want to be there for my family. I want to be able to stand up long enough to make dinner. I want to be able to make bread again, or even something as simple as a cake. I want to be able to go to school plays and open house and go roller skating with my kids at parties.

I want to remember what my husband told me five minutes earlier without him having to tell me again. And again. I want the look of frustration and the growl in his voice to vanish. I want to remember being me, and I can't even remember what it was like.

I want to help my kids with their homework. I want to splash in puddles with them and chalk up the sidewalk and go to the zoo. I want to hold them in my arms, I want to be hugged, I want to be touched by them without crying because the pain of contact is too great.

I don't want my children to be afraid anymore. I don't want to hear "Is Mommy going to die?" I don't want to hear "Mommy, I hope you get better." I don't want my children to have to pick up after me because I can't hold onto anything and can't bend over to get whatever I knocked over.

I want to make love to my husband again. I want to be touched. For it to not hurt. I don't want to be scared of it.

It all seems so very selfish, but Santa? For Christmas ....


.... can you give me back to my family?

COW-umbas Day

Thing 2: "Do you know what howiday it is, Mommy?"

Me: "uh."

Thing 2: "It's COWUMBUS Day, Mommy, and I got to make one of his ships!"

Me: "Did you make any of the Indians that got massacred because of his discovery?"

Thing 2: "No, Mommy, I wan out of time."


...She ran out of time.

And it's not even halfway through the school year yet.

--

Thing 2: (dramatic sigh) "Hi Mama. Apparently I'm naked."

(minute later, naked Thing runs into living room)

Thing 2: "Whoa, this is scaring me!"

She's holding up two matching pairs of underwear.

Me: "Your panties are scaring you?"

Thing 2: "YES, cuz they're the same! Oh. My. GOD! I don't believe it!"

Indeed.

Total Recall

How do you remember? What does it take for a moment to sear itself into your memory? Pain, joy, grief?

How clear is your recall?

I remember the day the Challenger exploded. I was in my computer math class, with the scary bug-eyed bleached blonde teacher. We had a TV on in the room while we worked. We couldn't believe what we saw. Surely ... The loudspeaker came on. The principal, a definite hard-ass, was crying.

I remember the day that DG proposed. I remember what I was wearing (and I still have the skirt, though it stopped fitting me years ago). I remember the car he was driving. I remember when he pulled over to the side of the narrow country road, and I gave him the "what the hell?" look as he stopped. Not a lot of passing room. He shushed me, got out of the car, picked a handful of wild flowers (including some black-eyed Susans), opened my door, got down on one knee, and asked me to marry him.

I remember the night that my paternal grandfather died. I was in bed, it was late. The phone rang. I heard my father start to sob. I've never heard him cry like that. My dread of late night phone calls started then. My father sounded broken.

I remember the day DG came home, with that hesitant little smile. I met him at the door, since he didn't come further inside. He took my hand, and slid the ring on my finger. A silver band of roses from James Avery. My engagement ring. So I would always have fresh roses, no matter the season. It all started with a rose, after all.

I remember the day we went to pick up my baby sister from the adoption agency. I was only 3 and a half at the time. I remember, because as we were getting back into the car, I cut my hand on something on the seat. A deep slice, between the webbing of my fingers.

I remember the phone call from Sabrina. I was getting ready for a date, Charlie was already at the house. She was crying, and as she tried to explain, the news show finished the story. We'd heard sirens maybe half an hour before. Two of our graduating seniors, two of the most popular and friendliest guys in the class, had an accident only a few blocks from our house. A drunk driver ran a light. One was killed instantly, thrown through the windshield. He wasn't wearing his seat belt. His passenger was critical for weeks, and suffered permanent brain damage. Graduation was only two weeks away. I always wear my seat belt, have from that moment on. And when we pass the cross erected where the accident occurs, I still tear up.

I still remember falling/jumping out of the persimmon tree that was in the field behind our house, knowing fully that my grandfather was there below. I knew that I would be safe, even if I couldn't fly.

I remember "falling" into the lake with my sister. "Don't get wet," my mother would scowl as we left with my grandfather. "Oh no, we won't," we'd tell her. And every time, we "accidentally" managed to fall in. And since we were already wet ....

Blackberries. I remember trip after trip with my grandfather, many times with me on his back. "No, THAT one, Poppie!" And he'd bend and pick that very one. We'd go out with bags and buckets, and every time we'd come back with only half full, and me stained utterly purple from lips to fingertips, scratches from brambles on us both. They never tasted so sweet. I had to pay for blackberries this year. It hurt. And they just weren't as good.

I remember seeing the look on DG's face the day Thing 1 was born, the day he thought he was going to lose us both. The day he almost did. I remember feeling like I was floating (blood loss isn't such a bad way to go), and my only worries were for DG, and for the baby that wasn't breathing.

I remember playing Danny's Game Boy (Tetris) while I was in labour with her, and the doctor coming in, scowling, and asking me if I knew I was having a contraction. I told him to hush, I was about to get a high score.

I remember Danny showing up right before visiting hours were over and after we'd both been dragged back from death, with food, with a huge chocolate milkshake. I hadn't eaten in two days before that. Milkshakes haven't tasted as good since then.

I remember ... GRRR ... that because Thing 1 was two weeks late, that DG and Roy used MY tickets to Jethro Tull and WENT WITHOUT ME to the concert while I sat in the hospital and sulked. Damn them! :P (Yes, I told them to go. We'd paid for the tickets anyway, no use in wasting them. The bastards.)

I remember getting the phone call saying that my great-grandmother was in the ER and that it didn't look good. We rushed to Tomball, and then SAT and sat, waiting. She had still been alive when we got there. By the time they talked to us, she was gone. They let us into the room to see her. She was still on the table in the triage room. I remember the towels over her throat to cover the emergency trach that failed. And I was Angry. Furious. I fled. Ran out of the room, out of the ER, down the halls ... I remember stopping when I couldn't breathe anymore. A nurse came over, gentle, with a clucking scold that I was bleeding on her floor. Somehow, in my flight, I'd ripped open the back of my hand.

I still have the scar.

I remember the absolute ROAR that Thing 2 gave out when she was born. The doctor and nurses were startled. No butt-spanking for this kid. She was out and ready to take over. I remember the words: "Oh, she has a birthmark" and utterly panicking. Imagination took over fast, but it turned out to be a relatively cute round brown "witchmark" under her right arm on the side. Talk about foreshadowing against the future.

I remember the utter shock at having my name called out after our UIL One-Act play performance for All-Star Cast. I remember my father, chasing me down after we were through to hand me an enormous bouquet of pink roses. I remember power-barfing in the bathroom AFTER we were done. I always let stress go afterwards. Before, I was the rock. I remember, in my shock at being named to All-Star, seeing an old boyfriend in the crowd that I hadn't seen in years. Jeff smiling, and giving me the thumbs up.

It is amazing how we remember, and the clarity that surrounds some moments and yet is absent from others. The human brain is an amazing thing, and it frightens me now that many of those pathways are being closed off or severed as my illness progresses.

Still, I think that, no matter what happens, there are some things that will never be forgotten. There is always paper, there is always my journal to record those moments that might slip away.

I will hold them to my heart forever. No matter how painful, or how full of joy they might be. It is my past, my history, my future, and they are parts of what has made me who I am.

just me, pretending to be

On Remembering

It's not that I don't want to remember.

I never want to forget. But it's not just one thing that's the problem.

September 11.

It's a birth day, an anniversary. It's "special" to many people for many reasons, but life went on before, and it will go on after.

Something tragic, unfair, and horrible happened on that day. The thing is, horrible things happen all the time. To Other People. When bad things happen to Other People, it often doesn't seem as important, or isn't even remembered. It was Them, not Us.

But people do remember.

Mai Lai. Pearl Harbour. Hiroshima. Columbine. Fairchild AFB. Rwanda.

Nanking. The Holocaust. Jonestown. Yakaolang. Srebrenica. Apartheid.

The Challenger. Tiananmen Square. Bosnia. Khmer Rouge.

The list has no end. Perhaps it never will.

A few years ago, I was visiting Jon, and one of our trips was to the Smithsonian. (Several of them, including art, cultural history, and Air and Space, as Jon and I try to remember what all we made it to that afternoon)

Jon lost me for a while when we reached the Enola Gay.

I don't know how long I sat there and cried. It is overwhelming, when you see her. Everything hits you at once. Everything is suddenly, painfully REAL in her presence. And it hurts.

People are stupid, greedy, vicious, and single-minded. For every good, there is a corresponding evil. Someone will always want something that someone else owns. Someone will always want to be more in charge than anyone else. Someone will always have different beliefs, different faiths, different ideas of morality. Someone will always disagree with someone else.

And it isn't fair. It never will be fair.

We cannot forget what we as a race have done in the past, in hopes that in the future, someone will think twice or even three times before engaging in conflict. Violence sparks violence. There is no right way to answer violence, when every response seems and feels wrong. It hurts when it happens to you.

What we must keep is perspective.

No one atrocity is more important, more painful, or more vital to remembrance than another. Each act of violence is a failure on the part of us all. Commemorating a single event that happens to Us instead of Them is an act that will always be repeated. It's human nature, for the most part. What happens to Us is easier to feel and remember and is more Real to us than something that happened to someone else, far away.

Perspective.

Should you chose to remember the One, try to keep in mind the Many that came before, and that will come after.

Should you shed a tear for heroes lost, remember the others that have sacrificed their lives for the sake of freedom and peace.

In the end, we have only one world, and we must live on it together.

Some things, we should never forget.

Random Wisdom

-- First impressions are important, but not as important as to whether or not you maintain it.

-- If your track record is public, don't be surprised if the public knows about it. And discusses it. Often.

-- Physical pain can be forgotten, otherwise women would never have a second child. Emotional wounds take longer to heal. If ever.

-- Never do yourself what you can delegate. Then be prepared to do it yourself anyway.

-- Never light a cigarette with a blowtorch. It may look cool, but it takes your eyebrows forever to grow back in.

-- If you have a gut instinct about something, you probably had bad pizza. If you haven't had pizza, pay attention to it. It's rarely wrong.

-- To err is human: to forgive yourself, impossible.

-- The RED wire. Always cut the RED wire. Unless it's blue.

-- There is a reason why hair dryers come with a warning label about not using them in the bathtub -- people are stupid.

-- If you can't find anyone else to blame, it probably IS your fault.

-- Cold pizza and hot beer are only safe breakfasts if you're in college. After that, they just give you ulcers.

-- A cat will always decide to lay down on you at precisely the moment you need to move.

-- Your fart might be funny, but trust me, we don't want you to describe it in depth. Same goes for what you just did in the bathroom. We've already suffered enough.

Superwoman is D-E-D

Somewhere I lost what I think I was going to say, and it turned into some painful self-contemplation.

There are friends that I have made online that remember Super Woman. Invincible. Offline, as well. Nothing phased me. A catch-phrase: "I'm all right. Always am." has fallen flat. It was something of a thin running joke for a very long time.

I survived it. Didn't matter what you threw at me, I survived it, usually with strained laughter and sheer stubbornness. I'd get over it.

So how do you explain to these people that Super Woman is dead?

There are people that I have never met in person that have been closer to me than any relative. People I utterly adore with heart and soul and that have been there for me, and I for them, time and time again. How do you tell these people that despite that, you no longer would accept a chance to actually meet them? That to show them what I have become and what I have lost would hurt me deeper than the lost chance of becoming closer?

It frightens me.

My husband told me yesterday that he had told one of our old circle about it. We haven't spoken with him much, DG much more than I. He explained, and that I could not walk without a cane, how I could no longer do simple things.

Part of me was torn. I was ... hurt. Angry, that he told, and didn't understand why.

Some part of me still wants to be remembered as invincible.

I know that most of my family does not know, that my monster has not bothered to tell them. She never had before, when I had surgery, or anything else went wrong. And it is strange, where she doesn't seem to care, I know that they do.

I've not told them either. Super Woman syndrome again.

Yet, she invites us down for the traditional holiday dinners. What does she expect to happen if I come, if they see me and realize what she had been hiding? She hasn't done herself any favours. My uncle's wife (as opposed to my mother's sister, who is perhaps the neatest lady I know, and who DOES know) already dislikes my mother intently. I used to wish that I'd been his daughter instead, so that Liz would have been my mother.

It did not take long, the last time we went down for Thanksgiving a few years ago, for them to find out why our trip down there lasted less than 24 hours. And Liz was Angry. I was invited to next time, stay with them.

It is not a bad thought.

My husband has the time off for us to go down this year. But it's at the monster's house this time. (Every year, Christmas and Thanksgiving trade out.) I don't know if I can do it. I don't know if I can face what is to come when we show up.

I suppose in a way that a lot of it is that fibromyalgia is actually the least of my concerns, as it is also with Heidi and Cairyn. We have other problems that just amplify everything we can worry about.

I just don't want to be remembered as I am now.

CAT for sale

I'm not sure whether I should laugh, or gross out.

Zamboni moved slowly out into the living room, and hunched in the position that indicates that either A) the carpet is looking at him funny, or B) he's about to yark.

Another turn, and he saw me looking at him.

He turned a little again, looked up, and yes, I was still looking at him.

He gave me the Evil Cat Eye, the one that says "I hope you're a mouse in your next life so I can eat you, bitch."

AND HE TURNED HIS BACK ON ME so I couldn't watch him throw up.

DG, your cat is SO weird.

Of course, now someone needs to clean the hot cat barf off the carpet.

What Thing 2 has learned at school:

"I pledge allegiance,
To the Texas flag.
Under God,
I am invisible."

Stray Thoughts

Why, yes, yes I am STILL awake.

Spent most of the weekend with the Esoteric one. Lots of running around (okay, they ran, I limped and staggered and trudged a lot), food, movies, computer babbles.

Harley keeps leaping onto the back of the futon and staring at the back of my head. I don't really want to know.

Wow. I could actually hear the vacuum sucking the last remaining brain cells out in a glorious eruption of Brain Fartitis. Whooooosh!

Harley thinks it's fun to leap onto the table, then leap to my computer tray, then leap past me to the futon. She's also staring at the ceiiling again.

Things are up. They ain't awake, but they're up.

So why is everyone but me eating breakfast? I need a better slave, mine seems to be broken.

There goes Harley again. Boingy. Boingy. Boingy. The world is freaking Harley out.

Boingy! Almost right into the syrupy waffle plate of Thing 1. That would have been Bad.

WHOOOSH BOINGY BOINGY. Christ, Harley's turned into a gas molecule.

Thing 2 is sitting, um, mostly upside down in the computer chair. I seriously doubt that's going to help her wake up.

BOINGY! Ceiling looked at Harley funny, now she has to Make It Dead. I keep picturing the cartoon where the dog keeps sneaking up on the cat and barking, and then they have to pry poor Claude out of the ceiling. Instantaneous cat levitation. Harley is practicing it now.

Thing 2 is still upside down.

Black hole.

.
.
.

Dude, what is this "morning" crap and why the hell am I experiencing it from the wrong side of consciousness?

Boingy. That one almost clipped my ear, kinda like the arrows and Elrond at the beginning of LotR. WHOOSH.

Oh look, breakfast. I guess I'll keep him after all.

Zamboni is staring wistfully at the place where Thing 1's waffle plate used to be. We've had that experience, and I have no urge to repeat it. Cat looked like a feckin cactus, his tail and butt all covered with syrup bits and EVERYTHING else he came in contact with. Coulda used him as flypaper. And boy, did he yowl when DG had to bathe him.

MREeeeoooooOOOoowwwwowowowowowwwww!

He burned the toast. What is up with that?

Moooom, Harley's doing it again!!!!!!!

Whaff fis? Wha ... whaff fis? Fere is food in my mouf. Whaf fis?

No. I mean it. No. Okay, well, maybe.

Brraaaaaaaap! Guilty!

Nerd Alert

Pooka: Uh. ::whoosh, black hole, this is the sound of everything on the list being consumed in a fiery brain fart::

Dax: Oh oh oh! Can I have one of those?!?! It would be great to have at least a couple a day at work. That's the great thing about the military sometimes. You can get away with not thinking for hours before people catch on.

Pooka: I still don't get the whole Gandalf breakdancing on his head scene.

Dax: Because we would turn him into a toad and shove a magic missle up his ass ... but this was suppose to be a pseudo-family movie.

Pooka: ::mope:: Yeah, and WE would have used grenade launchers on snipers.

Dax: They did just fine with the snipers, actually. :Grins, then cracks up: Actually, that would make a great cartoon. Aragorn with a grenade launcher, looking at a pissed Legolas, the caption reading "Sorry man, but you just became obsolete."

HP - 0 Pooka - 1

I just got an Error Message Report notifying me that the Error Message Report had an error, which it wanted to report.

Nemesis has given up on subtle and has launched an open campaign to drive me screaming off the deep end.

::CROWS louder than any Lost Boy::

"If you receive this error message randomly, or when you try to start a program, remove extra memory or have the random access memory (RAM) in your computer tested. This behavior may occur if you have bad RAM."

HAH!

Fuck you, Compaq techs.

Yipe. Had a Tarin moment going on there. Next thing you know, I'll be shouting "Ain't I good? Told ya I'm good!" at a room full of illusionary people.

Hunted down that damned blue screen error message, turned off the reboot, wrote the first error I got down.

Bad RAM.

I mentioned this repeatedly, but figured it wasn't applicable since I hadn't added any new RAM.

Too bad it was fucked straight from the factory.

Phone calls begin again tomorrow. With a vengeance.

UPDATE: Got three more errors. Curiously enough ....

"STOP 0x0000001a (0x00041284, 0xca9a2000, 0x000077e0, 0xc0c00000) MEMORY_MANAGEMENT

STOP 0x0000004e (0x00000007, 0x00007abf, 0x0000f17e, 0x00000000)PFN_LIST_CORRUPT

STOP 0x00000050 (0xc2332b94, 0x00000000, 0x00000000, 0x00000000)PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA

Cause
This behavior can occur when the random-access memory (RAM) on your computer has become corrupt."


And, more curiously ... HP/Compaq support is truly and utterly clueless. DG, I hope you're up to getting on the phone and barking at some folks, I still don't have my voice back.

Hey, speaking of RAM, does anyone know if DDR memory has a particularly short lifespan? Not as a known issue, per se, but via experience? Klash keeps getting DDR sticks eaten, and this machine apparently came with a bad one.

Harum. Growf.

Meowowowowowow

Ever hear a Maine Coon complain?

They do it so well. And loudly.

Siamese have a thing about the weird voice as well. The two breeds have relatively distinctive sounds.

Zam walked over towards the door, cocked his head. Looked confused.

Turned around.

"MREOOOW? Mroooooooooow. Mrow. MREEEEOOOOOOOOW."

Walked around a bit more. Stopped and MREOOOW?d at the floor.

Then at the ceiling.

The Mother Ship has been trying to communicate again, only, Zamboni seems to have his wires crossed.

I want a salad. A big Olive Garden salad.

Sigh.

Why is Harley sitting on the table, staring at me?

Or is she staring at the scary thing only cats can see that's lurking behind me, waiting to ...

Uh. Harley? You can stop that now.

But it looks so CUTE ... so long as you don't look into her ... eyes.

Yeeeees maaaaaster ....

HP Technical "Support"

Complete wipe of the drive with a tech on the phone. Drive is completely empty.

Total reformat, all disks present.

Final boot.

There is no sound. Check. Sound card has the big yellow circle with the !.

Hmm.

Uninstall. Install hardware. Get a failure, not found. Hmm.

Reboot. Same thing.

Call tech support.

Remove the (!) again. Add via another method.

Driver not found.

Reboot.

No sound.

Hear tech flee for his life. Endure hold music. For a long time.

Contemplate axe.

Kick self for not buying a @*!*#$# Macintosh.

Be told that I have to use the Application Recovery CD.

Prepare to award a new "Unclear on the Concept" award.

Try to explain that, right out of the box, very first boot, There Was No Sound Card. In place was happy (!).

Be told that's what the application recovery CD is for.

Point out that, out of the box, nothing says that you have to individually install sound card drivers later. Point out that paperwork says no disk needed, just plug in and answer the questions. Point out that, should this extra step be required, it should be mentioned in the "Start Here -- Now you're ready!" paperwork.

Be told that's what the application recovery CD is for.

Point out that RECOVERY is generally a Bad Thing, and means that Something Is Wrong, requiring it to be recovered. Point out that Out of the Box should not automatically have something wrong. Point out that this is not mentioned anywhere -- again -- that you should have to do this.

Be told that's what the application recovery CD is for.

Point out that, yes, you realize this, having mastered the skills of reading both the English language and the instruction sheets. Point out that yes, you looked at every piece of paper and every disk before ever turning machine on. Point out that you are well aware of what RECOVERY means, and that it implies a Bad Thing. Point out that still, despite the instructions, out of the box meant no sound card. Ask, politely, why this is not covered in documention.

Be told that's what the application recovery CD is for.

Question as to whether or not he got his tech certification as a K-Mart Blue Light Special. Point out, ever so politely, that you will offer them the choice of a cyanide pill with a hemlock cocktail to wash it down for a clean death, as opposed to what you will do once you cheerfully volunteer to help them reprogram their entire service center with plastic explosives.

Be told that the computer should not do what it did, and that he has no understanding of why it happened.

Point out for the fifth time that despite what it isn't supposed to do, that it did it anyway. Twice. Twice squared. Point out that, next time, should there prove to be a next time, you will never ever ever buy their brand of computer again. Point out that if they insist on delivering products that are disfunctional right out of the box, that you will recommend their need for therapy to the BBB.

Point out to self, once realizing that he is truly Unclear on the Concept, that next time, you really will buy a Macintosh and save the headache.

.... would it help if I got out and pushed?

Computer has officially been named.

Nemesis.

Resident Evils, or ...

... am I dead yet?

My voice sounds like a foghorn.

If you've seen 'Resident Evil,' (and even if you haven't, this is relevant) you'll know that it follows a somewhat traditional Romero approach to zombies: get infected, you die, you get back up. Injuries inflicted by zombies turn you into one eventually.

/Brain tangent: comparison of Zombification to Ebola and the other filoviruses. Even in death, the virus causing each is deadly and can spread to others. Both stay "hot" for a long time after the death of the host. In Ebola's case, though, once the host dies, the chance of infection is limited to those that come in contact with the body's fluids. By killing the host, it kills the chance to spread. The T-virus for RE also kills the host. Unfortunately, the host gets right back up again to cheerfully spread to anything the host attacks.

"Becomes" the virus. Phrase that easily applies to both the filoviruses and zombification viruses. By the time they kill you, the virus has replicated so many times that no part of the body is untouched, and any and every contact is a chance to spread infection. Groovy.

/end tangent.

So. Character gets chomped, goes through process towards death and zombiedom.

I look like that right now. Then again, I pretty much feel like that as well. I *think* I slept, in between fever delusions and bouts of painful coughing that were so intense that even Felimid avoided my side of the bed instead of snuggling. Pooka the Undead, just before going off to chomp and infect someone else. I got it easy, all I have to do is cough on them.

Thing 1 goes to school, tummy hurts, barfs dramatically and is sent home. This is how I started a few days ago, so it's not a good sign.

Thing 2 went to school and turned into Clark Kent. All she needs now is the dorky glasses. Yes, Thing 2 poofed into the meek and mild-mannered alter ego the minute she got to class, lasting until DG had her home and in the house.

Both Thing 2 and the teacher survived their first day together. Me, I'm thinkin it's all a setup, lulling the teacher into a false sense of security.

At least Thing 2 said that she wanted to go back tomorrow.

Watched Daria after the Dax-man left last night (prior to which was just weirdness squared). If only it didn't have all the funky Noggin filler in commercials. Yuck. Noticed that the show I caught early repeated at midnight. Till then, hadn't even known it was on other than at midnight. Sure enough, 9 and 9:30. Hot damn.

Saw somewhere that they were finally going to release more Daria to video. Bout time.

"If tinwhistles are made out of tin, what do they make foghorns out of?"

AaaaOOOOOOOOOgah! Dive, dive, dive!

Wheee

You know your fever is going up when ....

... your food has tracers.

... you find yourself dancing to the end-theme to Daria -- after the credits are over.

... "it wasn't that kind of goat" sends you into what should be helpless giggles, only it comes out in a strangled pathetic croak and scares off the cat.

... what was I saying?

... you STILL don't understand the whole "men in feather boas" thing.

... there is this ... thing ... in your face, and you can't quite figure it out and it won't go away and you swat at it but it doesn't move and it's in your face and won't go away and you move and it moves and you dodge and it dodges and you swing at it and it's still there and so you try to yank it away AND SONOFABITCH THAT WAS MY HAIR AND THAT HURT!!!!!!

Alien Death Plague

Sick.

Not just any kind of sick, either. Sick sick. As Opal would say, Alien Death Plague sick.

First bronchitis of the season, and, more surprisingly, my first time of being this type of sick in over a year.

It's amazing what having your tonsils removed again can do for you. For the new folks, yes, I did say again. Had em taken out when I was 18 months old (sounds WAY too young, but it was desperate), and again some 30+ years later. Yes, they've been known to grow back, but the theory in my case is that since it was so long ago, the procedure wasn't as efficient and they missed a piece.

So, when I got terrifyingly sick with strep and several other goodies and ended up in the ER to get shots so my throat didn't close entirely, the bug moved in to stay. Nine solid non-stop months of severe tonsilitis, four cases of strep, and a thousand dollars or more of antibiotics later, back to the hospital I went.

Took another two years or so for the chronic death plague to fade, and then I made it through last winter without ever catching the flu. My immune system is not particularly cooperative, and I can catch a virus if it winks at me from across the state line, so this was impressive.

Started sneezing a lot, hard, about a week ago. A few days later, because I have trouble fighting things off, the cough set in.

Today, I croak in a voice that the love child of Demi Moore and Barry White would envy, I'm running glorious amounts of fever, I'm shaking, and I hurt. Coughing up icky things for those of you that thrive on TMI.

Sleep? Who's that?

My baby, little Thing 2, starts kindergarten tomorrow.

My baby. Baby no more. Two kids in school.

Can't decide if I should celebrate or mourn the passing of my baby into child.

But I'm damn grateful that being sick held off until this point.

Nurse, I'd like another gallon of NyQuil, thank you. And while you're fluffing my pillow, feel free to smother me with it and be done with the whole mess.

Thing 2 Rides Again

Thing 2: "Right here, this is where my heart is. I have to keep track of it, you know?"

Me: "Why, does it wander off if you stop?"

Thing 2: "Yes. Yes it does. And sometimes it even goes up into my NECK! For Real!"

Me: "Well, if it goes to your foot, let me know and we'll amputate."

Thing 2: "Mo-THER. (scoff) Now you're just being SILLY."

--

Overheards ...

"If you don't stop that RIGHT THIS MINUTE, I will kill myself!"

"Jesus H Keeee-rist!"

"Kids, don't do this at home!"

"OOoo, dang, I wish I'd never done this before."

"Help me, help me! No, I can't, I'm too scared."

"I hope that spider eats you."

"No, wait! Don't tell me, I'm going to fall!"

"Um. Nothing broke!"

The Aging Thing

The idea of getting older isn't bothering me half as much as it used to.

I mean, on the surface, I'm older than I look, and far far younger than I feel. I ache too much to be this age, I know too much, I've done too much. I hit 34 in two weeks. I'm not dreading it. I'm not cringing, or hiding from it, or avoiding it. It makes sense to me now.

I think I even welcome it.

It seems like I have finally reached some sort of balanced agreement with the way things are and must be. We all age. It's not a Wrong thing. It's going to happen. Even once you die, the years still pass, and your body follows along the proper path to return to the earth.

I'll pause sometimes when we're out, suddenly feeling like myself again for a fleeting moment. Small things can bring it on, sensory delights that pick me up and fly me away from what I've become. Then I have to take another step and I can once more feel the cane in my hand, and the spasm and aching that makes it impossible to walk without out.

Four legs, two legs, three legs. All tripod anatomy jokes aside.

BEING older no longer stings as much as FEELING older.

DG and I were talking about Esoteric's trip to Six Flags, and how old it had made him feel. DG shook his head and agreed that we were getting too old.

Too old. What the hell is TOO old, anyway?

Does "too old" for an amusement park mean I'm too old for the action figures on my desk? Does "too old" mean that I have to stop wearing clothes that I like and dress in some prescribed Old Manner? Does too old mean I have to give up the things I like and enjoy because I'm "too old" for them now?

There's no such thing as being too old for anything. If my body allowed, I'll be damned if I let age keep me from zipping down a slide or playing on a swingset if I felt like it. I may have to make allowances for comfort, but that's not age demanding it. I could be sixteen again having to spend money on shoes that support correctly, and not be too old.

So why the heck would that make me too old now?

I remember sixteen, vaguely. I remember sixteen and amusement parks. I remember riding roller coasters that I adore -- and then spending the next hour curled up next to a trash can, shivering and hurling and unable to stand while my sense of balance tried to recover. Ah, the burdens of destroyed inner ears. Vertigo, fun for the whole system.

Didn't stop me then. Didn't make me feel old then, either, to have to stop and sit and rest.

I do know my limits. The nice thing about the limits of my body, however, is that for now, they aren't constant. There are days when I feel like I could walk forever -- such as the day some time in the last month where I wore DG out and HE was the one to say we had to go home. And I can make alterations for days where I cannot. I don't *always* need the cane to walk, but I make sure I have it with me. I won't let that stop me, either.

I'm getting older. Big deal.

I'm just not getting Old.

Brand new doctor.

Walked in, the dude at the desk involved me in a talk about my nose ring. Had promise right off the bat.

Didn't have to fill out a lot of medical history new patient paperwork. Curious.

Was called back near immediately. Hmm.

Got weighed (UGGGH), and put in a room. Oh my. Room had TV with patient information network stuff -- remote at my hand. Computer across. Nurse sat with me, and input all the information directly into the system. Everything, and I mean EVERYTHING was taken down. Very cool.

Doc walks in, peeks at computer, tells me to hang on. She has another patient that will be a short visit, and since I'm new, she wants the other one out of the way so she can spend extra time on me.

Pick jaw up off floor. Pick jaw up again as the doc peeks in to check on me while she finishes the paperwork on the other patient.

If she'd been 6 inches shorter, I'd have sworn she was my baby sister. Perky. Talkative. INTERESTED. Intelligent. Discussed the fibro -- including the conventions she regularly attends. Didn't give me a blank look at the RSD. Had a FIT over the dual diuretic that I'd blinked over, switched me back to plain Accupril to go with the Maxide.

Blank shock on doc when she finds out that Elavil was the sole control for the fibro. A frown over the Neurontin, she might up the dose.

My right hand cooperated. Sure, alone, it was nothing. But next to the left hand ... whoa, momma. RSD verified happily.

The weird peeling and splitting and thickening of my skin is noted and on the chart. Not a worry yet, with no inflamation or sign of infection, but she's seen it and will keep an eye on it with me. An optional med added to see if it helps with the thickening and weird callouses for no reason.

I have Ambien. There is a God. Her suggestion, not mine. Her, annoyed as shit that the old doc wouldn't even consider it.

Another appointment in one month for a complete physical. Not throw drugs, see you in three months. No, I Will See You in one month. Total bloodwork, PAP smear, the works.

She cares.

Her office staff gave each other shit the whole time. They LIKE each other. They like her. These people SMILED, for God's sake.

I have a new doctor.

I'm still in shock. I'm considering tears.

Honey, I'm home.