I haven't posted in a long while - for which I apologize. It's been a fairly strange month.
First off, Robbie is fine now. He was sick for about a week, drove two different doctors mad trying to figure out what was wrong, and then simply got better. We were on tenter-hooks for several days, not trusting that he really was better, but it (whatever it was) never did return. No complaints, but I do wish we knew what it was, so we'd know if it was likely to happen again or not.
My dad is recovering from triple-bypass surgery right now. About a week ago he had mild chest pains; wandered over to his doctor for a stress EKG; had an angiogram after the EKG came out marginal; and was then admitted for a bypass with his doctor refusing to let him go home without surgery. It beats all heck out of finding out about his clogged arteries via a heart attack, but it was still pretty shocking to the system. Fortunately he's weathered the surgery well so far, and is home driving Mom crazy and wanting to do too much too soon.
S is now up for surgery as well. It was originally scheduled for the 27th, but he moved it back into May. Somehow he didn't think this was the right moment (gee, wonder why?). In his case it's sinus surgery, uncomfortable, but not major. His symptoms are being controlled with steroids right now, so he can hang on for a few more weeks without much problem. The surgery is more because he doesn't want to be on steroids forever.
The socks are done, and I'll be more than happy to stuff them in the mail to Mom, and never see them again.
Saturday, April 29, 2006
Friday, April 07, 2006
The Hospital Sock
I'm very glad that the socks I'm knitting right now are for my mother and not for me. I don't think I'm ever going to be able to look at them again after this week. They're a perfectly nice pair of socks - an unexceptional lace pattern in the "Crazy Lady" colorway from Mountain Colors - a pretty blend of purple, teal, burgandy, and orange.
Unfortunately I've done most of the second sock while sitting in Clark Memorial Hospital with my eldest son. He's got a stomach/intestinal complaint that has so far defied diagnosis. He can't eat at all (2 Ritz crackers in three days), he can barely drink, and he's pretty much constantly either nauseous or in pain. We've spent hours in the emergency room, and a few in the radiology department, plus time with his pediatrician. The only limited success we've had so far, is that we've managed to keep him hydrated enough to not be admitted - but we're slowly losing that battle. All we know is what it's not - it's not rotovirus, it's not apendicitis, it's probably not a blockage - every test we do eliminates a few more possibilities, but nothing has told us what it is.
Knitting on the Crazy Lady sock seems entirely appropriate, but I'll probably never use the yarn again. The associations are too strong.
Unfortunately I've done most of the second sock while sitting in Clark Memorial Hospital with my eldest son. He's got a stomach/intestinal complaint that has so far defied diagnosis. He can't eat at all (2 Ritz crackers in three days), he can barely drink, and he's pretty much constantly either nauseous or in pain. We've spent hours in the emergency room, and a few in the radiology department, plus time with his pediatrician. The only limited success we've had so far, is that we've managed to keep him hydrated enough to not be admitted - but we're slowly losing that battle. All we know is what it's not - it's not rotovirus, it's not apendicitis, it's probably not a blockage - every test we do eliminates a few more possibilities, but nothing has told us what it is.
Knitting on the Crazy Lady sock seems entirely appropriate, but I'll probably never use the yarn again. The associations are too strong.
Friday, March 31, 2006
Happy Un-Birthday to Me
Tomorrow is not my birthday!
You have no idea how excited this idea makes me - I was not born on April 1st. I nearly was, I could easily have been. In fact, when I was little enough to be confused on the subject, my brothers used to try to convince me of it in their annual April Fool's joke.
But thank God and little green fishes, I held out for two more days, and my birthday is safely on the third.
My nephew cut it even closer - his birthday is on the second. I was rather hoping he'd join me in safety two days away, but he missed by about an hour. I fully expect that by the time he's grown he'll be fully as relieved as I am about his birthday. It's a great birthday, spring is arriving, or fully arrived, depending on where you live, flowers are popping up, it's just getting nice enough to go out without your coat, or even without your shoes. It's tax season, and that's a bit of a downer, but if you're prompt with your taxes you have a refund to play with.
S says he's getting me a pair of sais for my birthday, so I'm happy. Now if I can only keep sensei from finding out why I have them. Birthdays mean being put on the barrel (continuous fighting), cycling through the class until you score as many points as you are old. Great for the seven-year-olds, not so exciting for the thirty-seven-year-olds. Though sensei doesn't put nearly as much effort into finding out when the adults birthdays are, possibly because he doesn't want to kill us. If I don't tell, maybe he won't ask? I can hope.
You have no idea how excited this idea makes me - I was not born on April 1st. I nearly was, I could easily have been. In fact, when I was little enough to be confused on the subject, my brothers used to try to convince me of it in their annual April Fool's joke.
But thank God and little green fishes, I held out for two more days, and my birthday is safely on the third.
My nephew cut it even closer - his birthday is on the second. I was rather hoping he'd join me in safety two days away, but he missed by about an hour. I fully expect that by the time he's grown he'll be fully as relieved as I am about his birthday. It's a great birthday, spring is arriving, or fully arrived, depending on where you live, flowers are popping up, it's just getting nice enough to go out without your coat, or even without your shoes. It's tax season, and that's a bit of a downer, but if you're prompt with your taxes you have a refund to play with.
S says he's getting me a pair of sais for my birthday, so I'm happy. Now if I can only keep sensei from finding out why I have them. Birthdays mean being put on the barrel (continuous fighting), cycling through the class until you score as many points as you are old. Great for the seven-year-olds, not so exciting for the thirty-seven-year-olds. Though sensei doesn't put nearly as much effort into finding out when the adults birthdays are, possibly because he doesn't want to kill us. If I don't tell, maybe he won't ask? I can hope.
Monday, March 20, 2006
An Office of Her Own
Well- sort of.
For the last forever - basically since I started writing seriously, my office has been my computer, tucked into the back corner of whatever random room happens to have the most leftover space. Usually the guest room/kids' play room. With the room serving three (or more) purposes, you might imagine my office space would be small.
You have no idea.
Up until yesterday my computer was only accessible by fighting my way the length of a long room piled to hip high (or higher) with stuff. The guests couldn't even stay in it because the beds were piled. I regularly fell into things as I missed my footing slogging across. There was yarn and fiber, books, toys, all of our old or spare computer stuff, they boys' old school stuff, the last six boxes remaining from our move, even an old unused futon (in addition to the beds), all crammed into this one room. I was lucky there was enough room to sit at the computer, there was no way I could keep track of my dictionary, thesaurus, or any hard copy.
In short, it was a pathetic mess. Until yesterday.
S and I took the whole day. We sorted, we tossed, we stored, we unclogged the vacuum cleaner six times. Today we are putting in a bookcase.
The room is still our guest room, but the kids' toys have been banished to their own room, the last moving boxes have been dealt with, and there's acually room in here for me to sit down and type without debilitating claustrophobia setting in.
Life is good.
For the last forever - basically since I started writing seriously, my office has been my computer, tucked into the back corner of whatever random room happens to have the most leftover space. Usually the guest room/kids' play room. With the room serving three (or more) purposes, you might imagine my office space would be small.
You have no idea.
Up until yesterday my computer was only accessible by fighting my way the length of a long room piled to hip high (or higher) with stuff. The guests couldn't even stay in it because the beds were piled. I regularly fell into things as I missed my footing slogging across. There was yarn and fiber, books, toys, all of our old or spare computer stuff, they boys' old school stuff, the last six boxes remaining from our move, even an old unused futon (in addition to the beds), all crammed into this one room. I was lucky there was enough room to sit at the computer, there was no way I could keep track of my dictionary, thesaurus, or any hard copy.
In short, it was a pathetic mess. Until yesterday.
S and I took the whole day. We sorted, we tossed, we stored, we unclogged the vacuum cleaner six times. Today we are putting in a bookcase.
The room is still our guest room, but the kids' toys have been banished to their own room, the last moving boxes have been dealt with, and there's acually room in here for me to sit down and type without debilitating claustrophobia setting in.
Life is good.
Sunday, March 19, 2006
Hedgehog Ho!
Well - by next week we may have a second pet. Or not. S is being maddeningly changeable about the whole thing.
You see, there's this baby hedgehog. She and her sister were the unexpected addition when a friend from my knitting group rescued an overage female hedgie from a pet shop (too old to sell). She's now old enough to go home with someone, and A doesn't want two more hedgies. So, knowing that S adores hedgies (at least in theory), she asked us.
S wants to go see her, he's been reading up on hedgies ever since A offered, he really is wild about hedgies, has been for years - but he won't say yeah or nay about actually having one.
Sigh. I wouldn't mind a hedgie. I also wouldn't mind not having one. But I'd really like to KNOW before we end up coming home with an adorable bundle of prickles and I have no cage, no food, no wheel, no anything because I have no way of knowing ahead of time, and we can't afford to blow the money if there's no hedgie in the offing.
I have discovered that a Sterlite container with holes will do as a cage, so a least we may not be completely bereft of necessary items.
You see, there's this baby hedgehog. She and her sister were the unexpected addition when a friend from my knitting group rescued an overage female hedgie from a pet shop (too old to sell). She's now old enough to go home with someone, and A doesn't want two more hedgies. So, knowing that S adores hedgies (at least in theory), she asked us.
S wants to go see her, he's been reading up on hedgies ever since A offered, he really is wild about hedgies, has been for years - but he won't say yeah or nay about actually having one.
Sigh. I wouldn't mind a hedgie. I also wouldn't mind not having one. But I'd really like to KNOW before we end up coming home with an adorable bundle of prickles and I have no cage, no food, no wheel, no anything because I have no way of knowing ahead of time, and we can't afford to blow the money if there's no hedgie in the offing.
I have discovered that a Sterlite container with holes will do as a cage, so a least we may not be completely bereft of necessary items.
Friday, March 03, 2006
FDA Chickens Out
Well isn't this a surprise. It looks like the FDA is going to bow out of the Plan B decision altogether and allow the states to decide whether or not to allow Plan B to be OTC.
In truth this is minorly preferable to the simply foot-dragging that was going on before where it was not over the counter anywhere - but not by too bloody much. Living in a state that has a remarkably SD-like bill just waiting for the appropriate moment to launch, I don't have much faith that we'll be seeing Plan B OTC in a drugstore near me anytime this decade. What always makes me puzzled though, is that the people fighting Plan B are nearly always the same ones who are virulently anti-abortion. Is it too big a mental leap for them to realize that the availability of Plan B would reduce the number of abortions? Surely no unwanted pregnancies would be preferable to them? (I realize the answer is not just "No", but "NO!!". I simply can't fathom the thinking.)
I do think the legislature here (and hopefully in SD) may be in for a nasty surprise come voting time. There are a lot of us who are pro-choice who as a rule vote based on a slew of different considerations. Those voting habits are gonna change in a hurry when we're staring down the barrel of a gun - which is exactly how I feel about the legislation. No health exception for the mother - what, for the love of kumquats, are they thinking? Outlawing abortion is bad enough, and more than enough to get my blood boiling to start with, but to deliberately endanger grown women in favor of a ball of cells in outrageous.
Check out anti-abortion legislation. I have yet to see any that does not have as a side-effect causing more late term abortions. You give women more hurdles to leap through, it takes longer, they abort later. You reduce the number of clinics, it takes longer to make the travel arrangements, get the money, take the leave from work, abortions happen later. If they have to go to another state - same problem, abortions come later in pregnancy. Unless you think that cute little blastocyte is exactly the same as a fetus with a heartbeat, is exactly the same as a neonate, is exactly the same as a grown woman - why would you support that?
If you do think that a fertilized egg is the moral equivalent of a grown human being, then I despair of the human race.
In truth this is minorly preferable to the simply foot-dragging that was going on before where it was not over the counter anywhere - but not by too bloody much. Living in a state that has a remarkably SD-like bill just waiting for the appropriate moment to launch, I don't have much faith that we'll be seeing Plan B OTC in a drugstore near me anytime this decade. What always makes me puzzled though, is that the people fighting Plan B are nearly always the same ones who are virulently anti-abortion. Is it too big a mental leap for them to realize that the availability of Plan B would reduce the number of abortions? Surely no unwanted pregnancies would be preferable to them? (I realize the answer is not just "No", but "NO!!". I simply can't fathom the thinking.)
I do think the legislature here (and hopefully in SD) may be in for a nasty surprise come voting time. There are a lot of us who are pro-choice who as a rule vote based on a slew of different considerations. Those voting habits are gonna change in a hurry when we're staring down the barrel of a gun - which is exactly how I feel about the legislation. No health exception for the mother - what, for the love of kumquats, are they thinking? Outlawing abortion is bad enough, and more than enough to get my blood boiling to start with, but to deliberately endanger grown women in favor of a ball of cells in outrageous.
Check out anti-abortion legislation. I have yet to see any that does not have as a side-effect causing more late term abortions. You give women more hurdles to leap through, it takes longer, they abort later. You reduce the number of clinics, it takes longer to make the travel arrangements, get the money, take the leave from work, abortions happen later. If they have to go to another state - same problem, abortions come later in pregnancy. Unless you think that cute little blastocyte is exactly the same as a fetus with a heartbeat, is exactly the same as a neonate, is exactly the same as a grown woman - why would you support that?
If you do think that a fertilized egg is the moral equivalent of a grown human being, then I despair of the human race.
Monday, February 27, 2006
On Crushes, Love, and Fantasy Life
I've been thinking about this topic for a while. Ever since an interesting discussion with my mom on the topic of crushes. It seems that she and I have a very different conception of a crush, and a very different use for them.
To my mother, a crush is the first step of a genuine love interest. It doesn't seem to connect much to her imagination (I'd say that my mother doesn't have an imagination, but it's really more that she doesn't consider it imaginary). For someone married to have a crush on anyone would be, in my mother's world, a terrible sign for the marriage.
I view crushes entirely differently. Perhaps it's because I've never in my life had a crush on someone even remotely accessible. A crush couldn't be the first step of a genuine love interest, since there was no possibility of such a thing developing. My first crush was on a guy in my math class in middle school - a popular guy, though not the most popular - at a time when no one in my class would even talk to me unless forced by a teacher. I think the crush was engendered by Ben actually looking in my direction once. My second crush was on my boyfriend's best friend - not exactly available romance fodder. Especially not after his father was killed in a car crash, an event that increased the crush by making him a tragic figure, while driving it all the more home that a romance with me was the last thing the poor guy needed.
So for me, by the time I reached adulthood, a crush was firmly entrenched as someone to fantasize about, but not someone to approach. I viewed crushes as something entirely separate from my actual romantic life, and the pattern of having crushes on people who would be entirely inappropriate romantic fodder in real life has continued. Perhaps because of this my romantic fantasy life is pretty active, and has gone in directions I would never choose for my real life. By now, even were I unattached, developing a crush on someone would cause me to shear away from them, largely because my fantasy life has much in it that would make for truly lousy reality. Instead I use my crushes to explore things that I would hesitate (or completely avoid), bringing to my actual life and marriage. Safe in my head, well away from any real people, I can explore dynamics I can't explore elsewhere. I would never feature my husband in a rape fantasy (for example) - I know all too well that it's not something I would ever want in real life - but my imaginative world sometimes explores such things. When I tried to explain this to my mother, she didn't get what I was talking about at all.
Maybe it's odd of me. My mother doesn't see why anyone would waste time imagining things they don't want to have happen. To me it's strongly attached to my story writing. I want to be able to make sense of horrible things, and it's much better to do so by imagining the horrible things than by experiencing them. Frankly it's pretty hard to make sense out of horrible things when you're in the middle of them. You're too busy simply getting through them. Writing a story lets you do it in the third person. Crushes and a fantasy life allow me to explore in the first person.
To my mother, a crush is the first step of a genuine love interest. It doesn't seem to connect much to her imagination (I'd say that my mother doesn't have an imagination, but it's really more that she doesn't consider it imaginary). For someone married to have a crush on anyone would be, in my mother's world, a terrible sign for the marriage.
I view crushes entirely differently. Perhaps it's because I've never in my life had a crush on someone even remotely accessible. A crush couldn't be the first step of a genuine love interest, since there was no possibility of such a thing developing. My first crush was on a guy in my math class in middle school - a popular guy, though not the most popular - at a time when no one in my class would even talk to me unless forced by a teacher. I think the crush was engendered by Ben actually looking in my direction once. My second crush was on my boyfriend's best friend - not exactly available romance fodder. Especially not after his father was killed in a car crash, an event that increased the crush by making him a tragic figure, while driving it all the more home that a romance with me was the last thing the poor guy needed.
So for me, by the time I reached adulthood, a crush was firmly entrenched as someone to fantasize about, but not someone to approach. I viewed crushes as something entirely separate from my actual romantic life, and the pattern of having crushes on people who would be entirely inappropriate romantic fodder in real life has continued. Perhaps because of this my romantic fantasy life is pretty active, and has gone in directions I would never choose for my real life. By now, even were I unattached, developing a crush on someone would cause me to shear away from them, largely because my fantasy life has much in it that would make for truly lousy reality. Instead I use my crushes to explore things that I would hesitate (or completely avoid), bringing to my actual life and marriage. Safe in my head, well away from any real people, I can explore dynamics I can't explore elsewhere. I would never feature my husband in a rape fantasy (for example) - I know all too well that it's not something I would ever want in real life - but my imaginative world sometimes explores such things. When I tried to explain this to my mother, she didn't get what I was talking about at all.
Maybe it's odd of me. My mother doesn't see why anyone would waste time imagining things they don't want to have happen. To me it's strongly attached to my story writing. I want to be able to make sense of horrible things, and it's much better to do so by imagining the horrible things than by experiencing them. Frankly it's pretty hard to make sense out of horrible things when you're in the middle of them. You're too busy simply getting through them. Writing a story lets you do it in the third person. Crushes and a fantasy life allow me to explore in the first person.
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