Saturday, December 31, 2005

p.s.

i was going to treat you to a typically verbose recap of the last week or 2 but in the last few minutes pearl has fallen asleep in my arms, and one-handed typing is getting laborious and typo-prone. for now:

* please send my dad, mom and min some healing health vibes.

* found out last night that min's mom has congestive heart failure, has 1-6 months left. still in hospital ICU. anyway, the whole clan can use prayers and good vibery.

* please send me positive vibes (and if so inclined, a*vice) for handling some relationship/communication issues @ home

thanks all
love
bubblicious

i talk too much

since i can't sleep and i still hate my ovulatin' ways, i just spent the last few hours rereading the saga that was Heather Muses, 2005.

when that idea first came to me (as i tried to sleep), i thought, maybe all that reading'll put me to sleep! i yammered a lot this year. as i began mentally reviewing the year, my first ideas for a followup year-summary post went something along the lines of 2005. STHU!

no seriously. this has been a Long Ass Year.

but i will not regale you with how much i think 2005 sucked or was suckless. most of you were here for that journey - certainly i was for most of it - and i really don't feel a need to relive it more than i just did via re-reading my own words.

and damn can i blather on with the best of them. but wittily so. sometimes i think that is the only real benefit to knowing me.

i guess i will just say: to those of you still paying attention, thanks for sticking around. i'm not sure that my erratic but enchanting (hellow!) posts are worth it, but i'm glad you think so. i love all of you and am grateful to know you. and here's sincerely hoping that 2006 is a helluva lot better than its predecessor.

oh and so as to not end on quite so melancholy a note, i remind you of the following goodies i have shared with you:

* nietzschaurus
* words of wisdom
* that trophy is mine
* fire!
* oceanopanorama
* some sweetness

i tell you what

ain't nuthin better than waking up at 4am and spending an hour realizing you're not going back to sleep.

no siree.

Wednesday, December 28, 2005

so much to say

and i don't want to overwhelm you all with its wondrousness. so for now i will say:

what a helluva week it's been.

kisses,
the recuperating-from-a-cold bubbles

Wednesday, December 21, 2005

sometimes

there's so much beauty in the world, i feel like i can't take it.

but then i get a dog ornament that in a more flattering universe, kinda looks like this (actual pic posted soon). and then, really, i kinda move past the whole beauty thing.

ps. my parents arrived just fine. they are going for the gold in the olympian event of sleeping. woo!

update: here's the real deal. thanks liz!

Sunday, December 18, 2005

heather needs a break from tree-trimming

as expected, i didn't get to actual trimming of said tree until this weekend. lights, garland and tree topper? so last weekend.

anyway, i forgot what an all-day affair tree-trimming is when you have a ginormous tree and you're doing it by yourself. after 4 hours (relatively straight thru except for laundry), i think i'm at the 75% mark and my back and feet need a break!

so the habitat for humanity thing made for an interesting, tiring but rewarding friday. there was a lot of hammering, holding down things, taking nails out, trying to hear people give instructions over hammering and sawing, and lots of pointing and shrugging.

i missed the initial group formation and 830am training (which held me back in no way), however, because en route to ze habitat - in the words of liz and andrea - pearl decided we needed to discuss a fecal matter right now. and discuss it quite fervently and extensively. since we were literally 2 blocks from our regular vet, in we went.

she had a mild fever, which was very different from the Other Times, so we suspected she was ill rather than having eaten something inappropriate. later in the day we found out some of her liver levels were off, and she wasn't well enough by closing time. so we made our first trip up to adobe. and i must say we really liked them a lot. very kind and thorough. and overall, about the same or mildly cheaper than our usual vet. about 20 miles away instead of 2, but i can see that at times, it'll be worth it to go there instead.

anyway pearl stayed overnight and we picked her up midday saturday, along with some takehome meds, which naturally she is loooving having to ingest. also ran some errands, sorted through presents (who's this for? what's this?) and wrapped a good mess of 'em.

oh and started cleaning up/preparing the spare room, which my parents will be staying in starting tomorrow evening. i suppose i should have called to confirm they actually left AZ, but they should be on the road now and here sometime tomorrow. i hope having them here will make me as happy as it FEELS to think about having them here for christmas. but we'll see. the idea of family is usually better than the reality, but we're all certainly good at pretending things are fine, so i'm sure it will be.

ok time to go back to work. happy festivus!

Thursday, December 15, 2005

if the shoe fits

i forgot to add, i love my new slippers from zappos. all the great reviews (mostly for similar slippers from LB Evans) meant that i intentionally ordered one size too big and sure enough, they fit PERFECT.

i was so set to have to return these shoes. i was so not convinced that you could order shoes off the internet and have them fit automagically. but the free shipping, good return policy and well, the fact that i finally found slippers approximately my old standbys, all pursuaded me to give zappos a try.

all hail the internet,
from which all blessings flow!
i loves my internet,
it's better than doing blow!

kisses,
bubbles

and now, the toupee report

tomorrow i expect to be outside. at least i have a new cute (and sexy) hoodie to wear! our group at work is doing an offsite for habitat for humanity. i think it's a great idea. i just hope my ovaries will cooperate. all week they've been staging an overthrow of the government. frankly i think they should be sentenced to death, but whatever.

in more cheery news, it's really looking good for my parents coming up here for christmas, en route to oregon. talked to my mom tonight finally and she's feeling better. has a meeting with the cardiologist tomorrow but expects him to say, 'sure, you can head up to oregon!' so hopefully we will in fact have a full house for christmas.

i've gotten no further on decorating the tree, thanks to aforementioned coup d'abdomen. but i have this weekend to wrap that up, wrap presents, and clean up the house. wooo! again, i should be exhausted on monday but happy. good way to start a short week. :-D

oh and ALMOST done buying christmas presents - 1 more to go. waiting for some to arrive, and others are trickling in. phew! thank YOU, almighty internet! i bow to your magnificence.

Sunday, December 11, 2005

you don't light up my life

i think one of the universal constants must be that every year when you pull out christmas lights for the tree, one or more sets of lights will refuse to work, forcing you to buy replacements.

on the other hand, maybe this is part of some master consumerist conspiracy. maybe, in inner circles, it is known that christmas lights are engineered to have no more than a 2 year shelf life. by keeping the time so short, it forces us to by replacements every few years, thus keeping the industry alive. hmmm....

at least replacements are en route. :-)

ps. i am definitely feeling more festive today. working on the tree and listening to christmas music all day may have something to do with that. hard to say!

Saturday, December 10, 2005

happy holidaze

last night i called my mom at the hospital. no answer. so i call her at home. hey! she just got home an hour before. so it turned out that she really was getting overmedicated, for the most part. they severely reduced her blood pressure medicine and adjusted/removed others. after a few days, she was already feeling halfway better, so yay!

there still were some other issues, which unfortunately i've already forgotten, that require another test involving tilting her on a table. wheee! anyway, if they can get that test scheduled in the next 2 weeks, then after the test they'll come here for christmas before finishing the trek to oregon.

and actually there's a good chance that if it's going to take more than 2 weeks, they'll wait til they get up to oregon to get the test. which again, means christmas with us. and the thought of that is making both min and i really happy. we miss my mom a lot, and besides, christmas is always one of those moore(hah)-the-merrier kind of holidays.

holy shit it's just 2 weeks to christmas.

today we went up to berkeley for a moving sale min read about on our famous basappho. free or almost free stuff! how can you resist? well, you can't. got an extremely sturdy butcher block for $20 and other things i didn't pick out.

after that we went to the berkeley version of fat apple's, and i have to say, that one is not as good as the one in el cerrito. no parking, much smaller, and stuffy (air). the food was alright but not quite as excellent as our usual.

oh and no yule log. hello! i was all ready to take a picture and everything, after the amazing one they'd had in el cerrito. bastards.

went home for a bit, then back out to get our christmas tree at home depot (cheap, excellent trees). as some of you may know, i did a stint (with my illustrious, nomadic family, who at the time was living in a bus) in a christmas tree lot, so i'm pretty good at picking out a good tree.

so found the Best Tree For Us. but what a doozy of a snit we got into, tying the tree to the car. whatever. fyi: being together for 9.57 years means a) you've mostly learned when to give each other space and b) there's still things to learn about talking to each other (successfully).

we then popped into home depot for some electrical cords and agreed that doing ANYthing with the tree should wait for tomorrow. give ourselves a break. :-)

came home, dinner, a mini-attack for min (which was mostly soothed by time, medicines and trolling on ebay), then she went to bed about 930. and here i am at 11, bored but still alert enough to blog and listen to 'it's a wonderful life' behind me.

suddenly i'm remembering that i STILL have not put together christmas lists for all the people i need to buy for. i think, very soon, i am either going to be doing a crapload of internet shopping or a bunch of people are getting gift cards. i really do love buying (and wrapping) gifts for people, but for some reason christmas is really sneaking up on me this year. and not like, oh yay, it's finally christmas! no, this is like, fuck! already? normally by thanksgiving we've bought EVERYONE'S gifts. this year, maybe 2 people are done. ieeeee.

this is my favorite holiday of the year, and i have the HORDES of boxes to prove it. but for some reason it seems to be here too early! hopefully getting all the boxes from the basement tomorrow, strewing their contents about the house, and getting a backache from spending all day decorating the tree will put me in a christmas frame of mind. i'll be tired as all shit heading into the work week, but the house should be more festive. oh and hopefully me too. ;-)

math is fun!

recently overheard:

person 1: you know what would be cool, to have a cool math job.
person 2: math job?
person 1: yeah and then you could figure out and understand all these equations about earth and nature.
person 2: ahhhh.

really, i think that says it all.
love,
heather the ex-math major

Friday, December 09, 2005

oh right

sorry, forgot to update y'all on my mumzi. i talked to her tuesday night and turns out the overmedication premise is not that bizarre. i didn't realize my mom had lost about 100 pounds over the last year or so. the month or two she was just with us, she lost maybe 10 pounds? but before that i saw her maybe once a year, for the last few years, so it was kind of hard to keep up with that.

anyway, apparently her meds have not really been adjusted during that time, particularly her pain meds and blood presure medicine. mostly they are concerned about the blood pressure, since that would explain the fainting and lack of energy quite well. obviously the pain meds could affect that too, but the blood pressure especially.

i meant to call my mom last night but fell asleep too early (nice for a change tho, i have to admit). i WILL call her tonight. i will!

meantime today min and i had a really nice lunch downtown at sonoma chicken and then trolled the farmer's market right there. was pretty spartan, especially compared to what i used to see when i worked a few blocks away, but it was still fun to go and get a couple veggies, flowers, and a christmas ornament.

because we don't have enough of those. no, we need to have about 20% more than the tree can hold. that way the ones left behind are not so ronery.

i suspect a lot of this weekend will be about christmas (getting stuff from the basement, buying a tree, maybe getting some presents finally!) -- and really that ain't so bad. :-D

happy weekend!

Tuesday, December 06, 2005

i should have guessed

that since i hadn't heard from my mom for a few days, that they did not really leave arizona as planned. no, i should have guessed that instead, she was having blackouts, unable to get up out of her chair and doesn't have enough energy to do almost anything.

the next thing i should have guessed is that it would take them 3 days to get her to the emergency room, where she would then be admitted for more testing and observation.

sigh. so far the doctors are thinking that either a) they don't know what the fuck is going on or b) she is overmedicated. while option b is possible, somehow i doubt it. but i'm no doctor. mom is on quite the battery of medications due to several medical conditions (does anyone in my family NOT have medical issues? no.) but somehow that explanation seems fishy to me.

in the meantime my parents may have to move out of their shared housing situation by saturday. i suppose i will find out more about that within the next few days, but i'm a little freaked out for them.

not that i can do anything about all that, of course. nor should i (probably) try. i have rescued them so much, i really should take a break. but on the other hand, they are my parents. i guess we'll just see how things play out this week.

anyway, enough whining. please send good vibes to my mom, and divination powers to the doctors overseeing her. thanks!

Monday, December 05, 2005

am i running out of love?

yes, 5 whole days since i last posted. i know you've enjoyed the respite, so yes, you're very welcome!

so what's going on in my corner of the world? that i'm willing to tell share in mixed company? hmm.

1. my mom is not only out of the hospital, she is at this moment either en route to or has landed in the smoldering hotbed of salem, oregon. as to what ended up being wrong with her, the working theory is hypoglycemia. yes, apparently if you time it well and don't eat right, you, too, can have a grand mal seizure as a result of low blood sugar.

re: moving to oregon, she and my dad could not locate a place down in phoenix in time (they had to move by the 15th) so up they're trekkin to ore-e-gone, to her brother richard's questionably fabulous apartment. i do wish them well.

2. we had a nice but mostly quiet weekend. tried to go see syriana but since it's difficult to see a movie that hasn't actually been released yet (p.s., yahoo movies lies), we saw harry potter instead. well, the special effects were nice, and that's about the only thing good i can say about it. not as good as the other potters, and no i did not read the books so that's not tainting me. plenty of other things taint me, but we'll save that for another cranial-sacral therapy session.

went to buca di beppo before the movie and had some scrrrrrrumptious lunch. although before we could finish, min accidentally knocked over a glass, that then broke, whose shard cut her finger. the manager brought some bandaids and gave us free cake as an apology. and may i say, honey, i'm sorry you cut your finger. but DAMN. i'm so glad we scored that free cake and accompanying sambuca sauce. my god. good shit.

after harry blahblah we tooled around the mall looking for christmas presents and slippers for me. i have had my $4 leather winnetonka slippers for almost 10 years. cool in the summer, warm in the winter. perfection. but they are really about 2 years overdue for the trashbin. heels are a bit shredded and smooshed, sole is cracking and fading away, and they're stained pretty thoroughly. but dammit i love them! and want exact replicas!

this morning i couldn't stand it and started trolling the internet for them -- alas they are no longer in production. but i think i have found some suitable replacements via zappos. finally taking the zappos plunge, we shall see how that goes..

3. work is still boring the shit out of me. but thankfully, i have liz to keep me amused and high-profile projects to get cancelled because people can't get their shit together. oh and a fire drill is coming sometime this week. i'm so excited!! wait, what was i thinking? work ROCKS!!!


ok that's enough love for now. don't want to smother you.
good night, and good luck.