To sleep, perchance to dream

Well I don't know if I dreamt last night but I do know that from the time my head hit the pillow until my alarm went off, I did not awaken once (that I remember). I started feeling better about 9:30 pm and slept lying down. I felt rested when the alarm woke me up.

I'm still really tender in the top of my abdomen, but I was actually feeling good enough to cancel the upcoming endoscopy. Then I decided that I didn't want to have to make that appointment again if this should recur a month from now.

Still think it's an ulcer

So the doc and I went over all my notes from the weekend. I kept track of what I ate and when. What meds I took and when I stopped the one that I thought was hurting more than helping. What made me feel better; what made me feel worse.

He still thinks it's an ulcer, but it may be a biggun. The mother of all ulcers. He agreed that two of my complaints may have been a result of too high a dose of the p*r*e*v*a*c*i*d so he cut that in half and threw a new med into the mixture. He's also going to schedule me for an endoscopic exam. If it is a big ulcer, it's going to increase the healing time and we need to know that. If it's not an ulcer, we need to know that too so we can move on to a more appropriate treatment. He mentioned hernia and of course, the C word as other possibilities.

Last night I was able to sleep all night in my bed, only waking up once at 12:30 to swig some Pepto, but then I was awake again at 3:30 for good. I call that an improvement.

A Six

That's what I've gotten up to on the ulcer pain scale between Sunday and today. Not enough for another trip to the emergency room, but enough that I will be calling the doc in the morning because I don't think I should be feeling this much pain. Fortunately my attending is also the doc that saw me at the emergency room so there'll be no catch-up factor.

Guilty?

The missus is feeling guilty about my ulcer, as well she should. No, she's not the only cause but I only had to be missing one of the four contributors for it not to have happened and after all the shit I've put up with for the past ten years, it's about time she took some responsibility. There, I feel better.

So she waited on me hand and foot Thursday. Friday I was well enough for work again and after grocery shopping (on the way home from work) she took me out to dinner. Today she sat through three hours in a movie theater (an unheard of feat) so I could see the new Pirates movie (which is specatacular!) and then grilled my favorite steak exactly the way I like it.

We also met up with the tow truck driver so he could deliver my car and the replacement brake part out to my mechanic's house. Hopefully he will work on it this weekend and next week I will once again have a car that stops when you press on the brake pedal.

Now if you'll exuse me, I'd like to get some rest...

Don't ask for whom the bell tolls

...it tolls for me. I don't remember Tuesday night, but Wednesday night is firmly etched in my brain. Pain. Lots of it. Up all night. Chest pain on the internet. Knowing my history I vacillate between heart attack and ulcer. Two grandfather's dead in their early 40's of heart failure and the knowledge that women's heart attacks are frequently mis-diagnosed as severe indigestion have me worried. On the other hand ibuprofen abuse, caffeine and nicotine addiction and the unusually high level of stress in my life over the past year have me 99.9% sure it's an ulcer.

When my hot-hot morning shower still leaves me pale as a camp-bunk sheet, I opt to go to the emergency room at the Podunk hospital. Based on the average age of the local residents, I figure they are well versed in heart attack protocol and I'm not disappointed. Before I am finished spelling my last name I am whisked to a bed and hooked up to an EKG. When the first dose of nitroglycerin lessens the pain, I really start to panic and my blood pressure crests like a tsunami in Indonesia. After assurances from the nurse that nitro makes everything feel better, I subside to a more normal level of fear.

EKG looks good. Subsequent doses of nitro lessen the pain no further and I start to wrap my head around the fact that I've finally managed to develop one monster of an ulcer. Treatment? Knock off the ibuprofen, cut down on the caffeine, quit smoking (riiiiight) and reduce stress levels. Oh, so I'm supposed to quit my job and girlfriend?

Hot tip from the heartland...if you have stomach acid, for god's sake don't take Tums. Turns out that added calcium actually increases stomach acid. Go figure. The manufacturer adds something that causes stomach acid to their product.

Busy day, busy night

The day just flies when it's busy and so does the night. A mole invaded my freshly weeded flower bed and I had to kill him. Sorry, but it's the only way. I did pick up the plants for my color pots and to fill in the bare spots from last year's annuals, but I don't know when I'll get to getting them in the ground. Tomorrow's supposed to be stormy.

I'm working on a co-worker's personal computer. It's a mess. I don't think her kids ever saw a download they didn't like. It's full of all sorts of nasties so I spent the night making a cd of utilities to try and clean it up. Tomorrow, we'll see how it does.

Hiatus?

Just for a day Everything that happened tonight goes in a different blog.

Quiet in the country

Slept in again! What's up with that? Usually one weekend morning I'm rudely awakened by someone telling me the dogs need to go out...am I dying?

Caught an auction at the Clarion and the department store was having a BOGO $ .99 sale that I couldn't pass up. Meat on the grill and then a little catching up on email. I think it might have been the perfect day.

Everything's Relative

We had a visitor from the west coast last night. Three visitors in fact. We got a call early this morning from my partner's nephew. Seems his mother gifted him with a car and he, his wife, and their baby flew into St. Louis to get it and drive it back to California. We are just off the interstate on the way back so he wanted to stop and visit. He's doing well now that he's gotten the teen-aged wildness behind him and before his hormones kicked in back in the late 90's I'd always enjoyed his company. I wasn't really looking forward to meeting his girlfriend or the baby. I rank a zero on the maternal instinct scale. Never wanted children so babies hold no attraction for me.

They arrived promptly at 5:30 and we had a wonderful dinner of grilled steaks and some nice sides. He's even more handsome now. Works a physical job so he's in excellent condition and smart enough to hold his own in a conversation with me. The girlfriend is not at all what I expected. Based on nephew's mother's description I expected welfare grabbing, spam sucking trailer trash. She's not that at all. She's polite, can speak in complete sentences with proper grammar and pronunciation. She clearly adores both nephew and their child. And the child. Babies don't make me all ga-ga, but this one is clearly special. Tiny, quiet, beautiful. She looks like a doll I saw advertised in one of the Sunday paper circulars. Life-like skin, eyes and hair, the doll is baby perfection if I ever saw it. Well this live baby looks just like that. She was so quiet I barely knew there was a baby in the house. Honestly the dogs made more noise about being banished outside that this child did.

Girlfriend clearly was impressed with the house and grounds. My partner had me fire up my laptop and we took her on a tour of available local properties at one of the large internet real estate sites. She was quite in awe of how far your housing dollar can go once you get away from LA. We reiterated our offer to nephew of assistance in housing, etc. if he would move here to attend the school we've recommended to him on several occasions. Completing the courses at this school would enable him to pretty much write his own ticket just about anywhere in the country and all it would take is a one year investment on his part. I think we now have his girlfriend in our court and may see some success in getting him to do this. He works hard now, has admitted his past errors and has risen above them. It would be nice if he would accept a little assistance now in order to make a brighter future possible for him and his family.

Aggieville, Alky-ville

Every college town has it's bar section and even Podunk, Kansas is no exception. Ours is Aggieville, in tribute to the days when K-State was pretty much just an AG college. Every other store front seems to be a bar, cheap eats, coffee shop, or other retailer targeting the students. Some are nicer than others. Some are pluperfect pits of despair. I went to one of each last night.

Co-worker #1 and I hit Buffalo Wild Wings where my partner in crime proceeded to get me hooked on trivia games. Interactive trivia games. Halfway through the first game, the batteries on my player started to die and I was forced to play on a second unit. Because I was unable to log out of the first unit, I had to play the rest of the night with an alternate identity. And of course I could answer every single question in the game we sat out, but I had a blast. The food was good and so was the company.

Co-worker #1 was supposed to accompany me to the location (The Pit) where co-worker #2 was running the sound board for the bands playing but he pussied out because he had to get up early in the morning for a volunteer stint at a charity function. I don't know why I hate The Pit so much because the babies running interference for under-age drinkers usually card me at the door, which makes me feel young. Could it be the aroma of beer-vomit that hangs like an invisible cloud? The smell of stale smoke and used condoms in the bathroom? I won't call it a rest room, you wouldn't want to spend any time resting there...

Co-worker #2 has several electronic boxes set up on one of the tables on the patio (at least the air is fresh there) with pretty blinking lights everywhere, most of which he says "...mean nothing." So far no other co-workers are present but we don't have long to wait until they start trickling in. The band on stage, Squished Bread, was supposed to be a trio but they've imported a slide guitar player who was the best of the bunch, yet unmiked due to his unexpected presence. They are playing the sort of music I expected to hear when I moved to Kansas, corn-pone, barn-raisin' country. Of note was their version of Paradise, a song I used to cover when I sang with Al & Arlen. They slowed the beat waaaay down and it was an interesting cover. I wish the slide guitar had been miked as he was the stand-out on this song. Co-worker #2 says the headliner rocks, but I can feel Squished Bread killing my weaker brain cells and it is rather late so I bid my friends good night and head for the hills.

In the Garden of Eden

It's Spring and the garden beckons. Even after working a full day, there is daylight long enough for me to spend a couple of hours in the flowerbeds in the evening. I trimmed all the stuff that got killed in the late cold snap and pulled all the little weeds that are poking out, most of which can have their life cycle interrupted by merely stirring up the thick layer of cypress mulch. A couple of spots are bare, but I still have a bag from last spring that never got spread around.

All the roses save one are coming back from the freeze and most of the perennials too. Even the tulip magnolia that I butchered last year because it had gotten completely out of control. I still haven't done any new plantings, but I wanted to make sure that there would be no more cold and I wanted the flowers to last a little longer into the summer so this year I've intentionally delayed planting. I think this weekend will be spent sowing annuals, maybe some of the new perennials I saw, and creating my own color pots (although the ones at w*a*l*m*a*r*t looked awfully nice yesterday. There was some dark bird with bright red blazes under the wings flitting about the garden section and singing at the top of it's lungs. I love Spring. Can't wait for the fireflies...

AA...again

Gosh, I just can't seem to skip those pesky meetings, can I. Especially the ones where I've made commitments. Wednesday I'm the secretary and for May I'm the clean-up detail. I would rather hang after the meeting than have to get there early so if at all possible, I sign up for clean-up rather than set-up or Greeter. Still I do occasionally function in those other roles. I presented the flyer I've made for our annual picnic meeting, a masterpiece if I do say so myself. Then I did something really stupid. I agreed to speak at a meeting. It's someone else's annual picnic meeting and it's out at the lake, which means it's probably going to be big. Not just one group like I'm used to, but all the groups that meet at that particular location throughout the week. I can't believe I'm saying yes to this. I haven't done any public speaking since I got my new teeth. But it's rude to say "no" to an AA request so I suck it up and will do it. Maybe this time I can get through it without notes. I should be able to do that. It is, after all, my life.

When I got home I realized it was time to update WIIW and I hadn't done any prep work beyond getting the new puzzle ready so that took up the remainder of the evening and that's what the hell happened last night.

Where the hell have I been?

Well, what the hell happened for the past few nights is I've been off in the wilds of Oregon visiting the male parental unit. He's a caveman. He has satellite TV but no computer, no internet. Positively primitive. Still, I gotta love the old guy. He bought me a retirement home in La Pine. Just 20 short minutes south of Mt. Bachelor. God I love to ski. I just hope I'm still young enough to enjoy it when I am ready to settle in there.

I'm back now and will keep in touch more often...

A Woman's Work Is Never Done

I cleaned house. My partner has been out of town on business and when she's gone, I lose the extreme neat-freak tendency and just let the place go. I also moved into the master bathroom while she was away so I could re-caulk the shower in my bathroom and give it plenty of time to a) do a good job and b) have plenty of time to dry before being used again.

I have a movie I need to watch, Flags Of Our Fathers, but it will have to wait until another day while I spiffy up the place...

One Day At A Time

I went to an AA meeting. It was definitely a meeting I needed to attend as I heard a lot of things I needed to hear and was reminded of the things I really need to do to maintain a sober, happy, mentally healthy life. I almost blew it off since I really should clean house before my better half returns from a business trip but I've learned that when I'm thinking I can afford to miss a meeting, I can't afford to miss a meeting.

Will This Never End?

Another stormy day in Kansas. The water rises all around. I can't believe how high the rivers are and my pond is almost back to pre-drought levels. The storms are only severe tonight. No tornado warnings but when lightning stikes a tree in the backyard, the dogs and I decide another evening in the basement probably isn't a bad idea.

Tornado Warning

The animals and I hid in the basement most of the night because the weather man told us to. We left one animal upstairs, Darwin,* as a sacrifice to the tornado gods.




*Actually Darwin wouldn't come out from under the bed to go to the basement. I wouldn't intentionally sacrifice an animal, would I?

Home Alone

I found out it's going to cost almost $500 to fix the turn signals on my car. Yeah, I could probably use hand signals, but that's not really an option when it's pouring rain or even hailing (not that I do a lot of driving in hail, I try to avoid that). Besides, I'm not sure if anyone under the age of 40 understands exactly what it is I"m doing when I'm sticking my arm out the window. Still, I imagine one or two tickets for forgetting to do the old hand signal will about match the cost of the repair so I'll bite the bullet and get it done. The part should be in next Tuesday.

I stopped at the local hardware store to rent a sawzall so I can install the new bigger-better doggie door for the girls. I'm sure once they see the improved version installed they'll be running in and out of it pell-mell.

Dinner consisted of yummy leftovers from dinner at Harry's. After dinner I spent far too much time on the Internet catching up on other peeps diaries and fell exhausted into bed. And that's what the hell happened last night...

Dinner at Harry's

Harry's Uptown is the high end restaurant in Manhattan, Kansas. I've always loved going there and by the standards of where I used to live (Los Angeles), Harry's is not that expensive. I'm not sure why we don't go there more often. Probably because the last thing we want to do after getting home from work is drive all the way back into town (a trip of what, 13 minutes?) to have dinner out. Amazing that we used to drive an hour and a half to visit insert-name-of-popular-restaurant-here yet we've become so Kansas that driving more than 5 minutes to get to anything seems like an outrageous amount of time.

But I digress. What the hell happened last night is that my best friend and I went out to dinner at Harry's. We were wild, we were decadent, we were starving. She started with the lobster salad while I chose the smoked chicken pizza. Her prime rib was medium, mine was as rare as possible. She finished with the home-made chocolate-chip cheesecake while I had some trendy looking thing of mascarpone cheese with a vaguely unpleasant tasting cookie sticking up out of it like a remnant of the WTC towers, all of it drenched with under-ripened raspberries.

Going to Oregon

We booked our trip to visit my father in Oregon. After we got the flight booked the internet broke and the only car rental site that would load was A*v*i*s. I think their IT people launched a DoS attack on all the other car rental companies (and I tried them all) so that people could only reserve cars at A*v*i*s. If that's how A*v*i*s tries harder, I recommend you buy stock in the company. They obviously know what they are doing...

Oops! Another blog...

I tried to get to my blogger blog using the wrong login (blogger instead of google). On load, blogger informed me I had no blogs did I want to create one?

That's how whatthehellhappenedlastnight got created.

Then I saw the blurb about "...are you missing a blog from this list? Try logging in with your google account. So now I have two blogger blogs...

Just what I needed...another blog.