(no subject)
Okay, so I owe you all an update, don't I? There's a lot, cause it's been a while. But, here we go.
1) Cally is not doing well. We knew this was coming and she's given us longer than we should have hoped for, but I doubt she has more than a few days to a week left. She's apparently feeling fine, but eating virtually nothing and losing weight rapidly. The veterinary surgeon had said that this was what would happen and that it would be fast, but it's hard to see. However, she's not acting like she's in pain, which is a blessing, so we're playing it by ear for now.
2) My kittens were apparently pissed that we left them. Literally. The front hall smells like cat pee and so did my pillow when we got back. Nice, kittens. Nice.
3) Dan got the BEST BIRTHDAY PRESENT EVER! The state mis-graded his tax preparation license exam and he actually passed. YAY. This is especially good since we just found out that his job is being eliminated at the bank. He's been told he'll still have a job there, but probably a demotion.
4) Also on the job front, I have the best timing ever in deciding to start looking for part-time work. Oregon has one of the highest unemployment rates in the country (nine percent). A local call center was opening with 30 positions so they had an open house... and 800 people showed up to apply. Likewise, a local gardening center was hiring someone to work with trees and shrubs, in 48 hours of posting the job online they had 300 applicants... some with PHDs. Yeeeeeah, I'm not optimistic. I am, however, applying (though not for those jobs).
5) Going to Florida was not a vacation. It was an obligation and it was exhausting. How exhausting, you might ask? The flight out was just me and Ava, with her on my lap for 2800 miles. And she peed on me. The reason she peed on me was that we had only a 35 minute layover in Houston and the plane got in 10 minutes late and parked in a completely different section of the airport, so I didn't have time to change her diaper until we were airborne on the second flight. In fact, I literally had to run to make the plane. I got there sweating and totally out of breath and looking like I'd just run a marathon. It was basically exactly as I'd been envisioning.
We got in to Ft. Lauderdale at 10:30 pm on the 15th. By the time we got our luggage, got to my grandfather's house and got Ava to sleep, it was 2 am. She was up by 7 am. FUN TIMES. The next morning I had to leave by 10:30 am to meet my uncle an hour away, he wanted me to bring Ava to my grandmother's grave (that was chipper...). From there I went directly to meet Amber at three (another hour away) as she got her nails done for her wedding, since it was the only time I was really going to get to spend with her. From there I went directly to meet nicoledeez and her fiance for dinner at five-ish (which ended up being more like six-ish by the time we got going). We had an hour long wait at the restaurant and Ava was fussy and exhausted the whole time we ate, which sucked. I didn't get back to my grandfather's until about 11 (since, as seems to be standard, I was about an hour away from his house).
The next morning was even better. Amber's wedding day, we had to leave by 9 am for a noon wedding that didn't happen until nearly 1:30. It was on a cruise ship (an hour from my grandfather's house), which was a parking and security nightmare. It didn't help that the cruise ship's network went down so they couldn't process half the passengers. The wedding went well, though, and Amber was obviously blissfully happy and having a ton of fun. We bolted directly from the reception at 3:30 to pick Dan up from the airport at 4:15. From there, we were supposed to have dinner with nicoledeez , her fiance and my parents, but I got hit with the mother of all migraines very suddenly and had to cancel. I was dizzy, nauseous, had lights flashing behind my eyes, the works. I couldn't even drive. Eventually, we met up with my parents and my mom drove us down to Miami, as was planned, to stay with some family friends for the night. I let the family friends coo over Ava while I camped out in their shower with some migraine meds and thankfully the migraine left as quickly as it had come on, later that night.
After the migraine went away, late that night and the next morning were great. We got to spend some fairly relaxed time with some lifelong friends (the LaRussos - MaryAnn and Steve and two of their three kids, Stephanie and Emily... Steph is just shy of two years younger than me and Emily is three and a half years younger, I think) who I hadn't seen in a couple of years. I wish we could have stayed longer, but we had other obligations. We dropped by briefly to see one of my old neighbors, who fawned over Ava for a bit while I sat in awe of how her house was kinda like a time capsule. It hasn't changed in my entire life, I swear on high. From there we drove the hour and a half back up to my grandfather's house to have a big family dinner with my grandfather, his girlfriend, my parents, my uncle and his two best friends, Mark and Jeff (who are a couple and whom my uncle kept telling Ava were "Uncle Jeff and Auntie Mark," which Mark found hilarious). Mark and Jeff brought a $1400 bottle of wine. YES THAT IS THE RIGHT NUMBER OF ZEROS! It was an Opus One (1996, I think?) and awesome and I am spoiled. Ava was quite fussy that night, but was pretty damn awesome the whole trip other than that (and during dinner with Nicole).
The next day was kinda a lull. We were supposed to go play in a poker tournament with my uncle, but that didn't happen because if we'd done well, it would have gone late. And, while my parents were willing to watch Ava, I couldn't ask them to watch her until 2 am. So, we made plans to see my uncle for lunch the next day instead. We had maybe been going to meet up with Emily as she drove from Miami back up to Orlando (where she lives), but she woke up late and didn't have time. So, what did we do? We bought Boggle and began the epic Boggle tournament of 2009 with my grandfather's girlfriend, Arlene. It might not have been the most fun ever, but it did pass the time and my grandfather got to spend some time with Ava.
Tuesday we met my uncle for lunch at a sports bar right as the president was being inaugurated. Everyone but my uncle clapped and cheered. God love my uncle, he's the poorest Republican I've ever met. How anyone at his income level can be staunchly conservative, I have no idea. We avoided talking about politics and generally had a nice time. He even committed to coming out for Ava's second birthday, which he was loathe to do since he HATES traveling a lot. From there we went down to Miami again and were going to meet Stephanie LaRusso for dinner, but had some time to kill. We drove around and I pointed out all the highlights of my life in Miami - schools, stores, our old house, etc. Then we drove down to Knaus Berry Farms, which is an AWESOME place in the middle of nowhere run by German Baptists (who everyone think are Amish) and sell freshly made baked goods, ice cream/milkshakes, and fresh fruit and veggies. From there we went and met Stephie for dinner at a great little restaurant called Town. We splurged and spent far too much on very good food and very decent wine (oddly enough, they had Opus One on the wine menu and the waiter joked that we probably wouldn't be having that and I said "no, we had that two nights ago"... he was an awesome waiter after that!). We went to Steph's apartment from there for a drink before making the nearly 2 hour trek back up to my grandfather's house. And, while at Steph's, Ava rolled over for the first time!!! It was very exciting. You know, to me, anyhow. We got back to my grandpa's around 10ish.
The next day was our last full day in Florida. We spent it continuing the great Boggle tournament with Arlene and trying to put up with all the awful true crime shows and terrible sitcoms my grandfather watches. He went to go play poker at one point in the evening, so we hijacked the tv and watched a rerun of House and the premiere of Lost. Now, my grandfather's girlfriend Arlene is... kinda dense. So, trying to explain Lost to her was kind of like trying to explain quantum theory to my cats. I gave up and told her that no one really understands it, but we watch it for the pretty men anyhow. She said she didn't see any attractive men and I decided she's more crazy than I thought.
We left the next day. Both of our flights were very, very full (one was overbooked), but Ava was so good the person in front of us was shocked when the flight ended and she realized there'd been an infant behind her the whole time.
In short, I am super glad to be home, OMG.
My grandfather is almost 87 and he's very suddenly seeming very, very old. His hearing is awful and he's getting confused more easily. He's occasionally mistaken me for my mother for years, but usually it's just been a slip of the tongue and not honest confusion. It's different now. And, he thinks all doctors are just out to make money and they don't really need to see him, so he's canceling his appointments without telling anyone. I really don't know if I'll ever see him again at this point and that's pretty hard to realize.
6) We started Ava on eating food last night. Just rice cereal of course. She wasn't quite sure what to make of it, but she's got the chewing motion down. It was pretty cute, even if she did end up mostly wearing it.
7) My 'to do' list is now longer than my arm. For real, ppls. It's not good.
8)
Abandoned journalism editing degree - Quite expensive
Unused communication degree - More money than I care to admit
Having a vocabulary good enough that I can win at Boggle without explaining that 'hentai' is a word - and defining it - for my grandfather's girlfriend? Priceless.
9) I was reading a book on the plane (which I'm not actually done with) called Greywalker. It's okay, I'm not about to rec it or anything (in spite of the fact that the quotes saying how great it is on the cover are from Charlaine Harris), but it's readable. At any rate, the two main vampires in it? Their names are Edward and Alice. And it's in Washington. I'd been all set to condemn SMeyer yet again as ripping people off since the main character in the book has dial-up internet and therefore I'd assumed this was an older book, but apparently it was written in 2006. Huh.
10) My stupid blood pressure is high, so I have to cut back on salt and fat and exercise more (or at all). I am highly displeased. HIGHLY DISPLEASED.
1) Cally is not doing well. We knew this was coming and she's given us longer than we should have hoped for, but I doubt she has more than a few days to a week left. She's apparently feeling fine, but eating virtually nothing and losing weight rapidly. The veterinary surgeon had said that this was what would happen and that it would be fast, but it's hard to see. However, she's not acting like she's in pain, which is a blessing, so we're playing it by ear for now.
2) My kittens were apparently pissed that we left them. Literally. The front hall smells like cat pee and so did my pillow when we got back. Nice, kittens. Nice.
3) Dan got the BEST BIRTHDAY PRESENT EVER! The state mis-graded his tax preparation license exam and he actually passed. YAY. This is especially good since we just found out that his job is being eliminated at the bank. He's been told he'll still have a job there, but probably a demotion.
4) Also on the job front, I have the best timing ever in deciding to start looking for part-time work. Oregon has one of the highest unemployment rates in the country (nine percent). A local call center was opening with 30 positions so they had an open house... and 800 people showed up to apply. Likewise, a local gardening center was hiring someone to work with trees and shrubs, in 48 hours of posting the job online they had 300 applicants... some with PHDs. Yeeeeeah, I'm not optimistic. I am, however, applying (though not for those jobs).
5) Going to Florida was not a vacation. It was an obligation and it was exhausting. How exhausting, you might ask? The flight out was just me and Ava, with her on my lap for 2800 miles. And she peed on me. The reason she peed on me was that we had only a 35 minute layover in Houston and the plane got in 10 minutes late and parked in a completely different section of the airport, so I didn't have time to change her diaper until we were airborne on the second flight. In fact, I literally had to run to make the plane. I got there sweating and totally out of breath and looking like I'd just run a marathon. It was basically exactly as I'd been envisioning.
We got in to Ft. Lauderdale at 10:30 pm on the 15th. By the time we got our luggage, got to my grandfather's house and got Ava to sleep, it was 2 am. She was up by 7 am. FUN TIMES. The next morning I had to leave by 10:30 am to meet my uncle an hour away, he wanted me to bring Ava to my grandmother's grave (that was chipper...). From there I went directly to meet Amber at three (another hour away) as she got her nails done for her wedding, since it was the only time I was really going to get to spend with her. From there I went directly to meet nicoledeez and her fiance for dinner at five-ish (which ended up being more like six-ish by the time we got going). We had an hour long wait at the restaurant and Ava was fussy and exhausted the whole time we ate, which sucked. I didn't get back to my grandfather's until about 11 (since, as seems to be standard, I was about an hour away from his house).
The next morning was even better. Amber's wedding day, we had to leave by 9 am for a noon wedding that didn't happen until nearly 1:30. It was on a cruise ship (an hour from my grandfather's house), which was a parking and security nightmare. It didn't help that the cruise ship's network went down so they couldn't process half the passengers. The wedding went well, though, and Amber was obviously blissfully happy and having a ton of fun. We bolted directly from the reception at 3:30 to pick Dan up from the airport at 4:15. From there, we were supposed to have dinner with nicoledeez , her fiance and my parents, but I got hit with the mother of all migraines very suddenly and had to cancel. I was dizzy, nauseous, had lights flashing behind my eyes, the works. I couldn't even drive. Eventually, we met up with my parents and my mom drove us down to Miami, as was planned, to stay with some family friends for the night. I let the family friends coo over Ava while I camped out in their shower with some migraine meds and thankfully the migraine left as quickly as it had come on, later that night.
After the migraine went away, late that night and the next morning were great. We got to spend some fairly relaxed time with some lifelong friends (the LaRussos - MaryAnn and Steve and two of their three kids, Stephanie and Emily... Steph is just shy of two years younger than me and Emily is three and a half years younger, I think) who I hadn't seen in a couple of years. I wish we could have stayed longer, but we had other obligations. We dropped by briefly to see one of my old neighbors, who fawned over Ava for a bit while I sat in awe of how her house was kinda like a time capsule. It hasn't changed in my entire life, I swear on high. From there we drove the hour and a half back up to my grandfather's house to have a big family dinner with my grandfather, his girlfriend, my parents, my uncle and his two best friends, Mark and Jeff (who are a couple and whom my uncle kept telling Ava were "Uncle Jeff and Auntie Mark," which Mark found hilarious). Mark and Jeff brought a $1400 bottle of wine. YES THAT IS THE RIGHT NUMBER OF ZEROS! It was an Opus One (1996, I think?) and awesome and I am spoiled. Ava was quite fussy that night, but was pretty damn awesome the whole trip other than that (and during dinner with Nicole).
The next day was kinda a lull. We were supposed to go play in a poker tournament with my uncle, but that didn't happen because if we'd done well, it would have gone late. And, while my parents were willing to watch Ava, I couldn't ask them to watch her until 2 am. So, we made plans to see my uncle for lunch the next day instead. We had maybe been going to meet up with Emily as she drove from Miami back up to Orlando (where she lives), but she woke up late and didn't have time. So, what did we do? We bought Boggle and began the epic Boggle tournament of 2009 with my grandfather's girlfriend, Arlene. It might not have been the most fun ever, but it did pass the time and my grandfather got to spend some time with Ava.
Tuesday we met my uncle for lunch at a sports bar right as the president was being inaugurated. Everyone but my uncle clapped and cheered. God love my uncle, he's the poorest Republican I've ever met. How anyone at his income level can be staunchly conservative, I have no idea. We avoided talking about politics and generally had a nice time. He even committed to coming out for Ava's second birthday, which he was loathe to do since he HATES traveling a lot. From there we went down to Miami again and were going to meet Stephanie LaRusso for dinner, but had some time to kill. We drove around and I pointed out all the highlights of my life in Miami - schools, stores, our old house, etc. Then we drove down to Knaus Berry Farms, which is an AWESOME place in the middle of nowhere run by German Baptists (who everyone think are Amish) and sell freshly made baked goods, ice cream/milkshakes, and fresh fruit and veggies. From there we went and met Stephie for dinner at a great little restaurant called Town. We splurged and spent far too much on very good food and very decent wine (oddly enough, they had Opus One on the wine menu and the waiter joked that we probably wouldn't be having that and I said "no, we had that two nights ago"... he was an awesome waiter after that!). We went to Steph's apartment from there for a drink before making the nearly 2 hour trek back up to my grandfather's house. And, while at Steph's, Ava rolled over for the first time!!! It was very exciting. You know, to me, anyhow. We got back to my grandpa's around 10ish.
The next day was our last full day in Florida. We spent it continuing the great Boggle tournament with Arlene and trying to put up with all the awful true crime shows and terrible sitcoms my grandfather watches. He went to go play poker at one point in the evening, so we hijacked the tv and watched a rerun of House and the premiere of Lost. Now, my grandfather's girlfriend Arlene is... kinda dense. So, trying to explain Lost to her was kind of like trying to explain quantum theory to my cats. I gave up and told her that no one really understands it, but we watch it for the pretty men anyhow. She said she didn't see any attractive men and I decided she's more crazy than I thought.
We left the next day. Both of our flights were very, very full (one was overbooked), but Ava was so good the person in front of us was shocked when the flight ended and she realized there'd been an infant behind her the whole time.
In short, I am super glad to be home, OMG.
My grandfather is almost 87 and he's very suddenly seeming very, very old. His hearing is awful and he's getting confused more easily. He's occasionally mistaken me for my mother for years, but usually it's just been a slip of the tongue and not honest confusion. It's different now. And, he thinks all doctors are just out to make money and they don't really need to see him, so he's canceling his appointments without telling anyone. I really don't know if I'll ever see him again at this point and that's pretty hard to realize.
6) We started Ava on eating food last night. Just rice cereal of course. She wasn't quite sure what to make of it, but she's got the chewing motion down. It was pretty cute, even if she did end up mostly wearing it.
7) My 'to do' list is now longer than my arm. For real, ppls. It's not good.
8)
Abandoned journalism editing degree - Quite expensive
Unused communication degree - More money than I care to admit
Having a vocabulary good enough that I can win at Boggle without explaining that 'hentai' is a word - and defining it - for my grandfather's girlfriend? Priceless.
9) I was reading a book on the plane (which I'm not actually done with) called Greywalker. It's okay, I'm not about to rec it or anything (in spite of the fact that the quotes saying how great it is on the cover are from Charlaine Harris), but it's readable. At any rate, the two main vampires in it? Their names are Edward and Alice. And it's in Washington. I'd been all set to condemn SMeyer yet again as ripping people off since the main character in the book has dial-up internet and therefore I'd assumed this was an older book, but apparently it was written in 2006. Huh.
10) My stupid blood pressure is high, so I have to cut back on salt and fat and exercise more (or at all). I am highly displeased. HIGHLY DISPLEASED.