Catalog of Randomness

So much for back to blogging.

Did you hear that noise? Yeah, the sucking sound.
That is my soul being removed like a Dementor's kiss.

Grandma is doing about as well as to be expected. She is home but is still very weak and tires easily.

The day after she got home my oldest cousin on my mom's side was in a terrible car accident and 2 weeks later he is still in ICU. They took him off the ventilator for the second time Monday because he has developed pneumonia but was breathing on his own. Unfortunately, he isn't getting better and will probably end up back on the ventilator tonight or tomorrow. 
He also broke is neck and what was suppose to be a 4 hour surgery ended up being 12. The damage was worse than expected. He also has 5 broken ribs and a concussion.
But the concussion was also worse than expected and has some swelling in the brain and is mostly incoherent. When asked where they were he responded 'St Louis'. As far as we know, he has never even been to St. Louis. The nurse asked 'where is home?' his answer "home is where the heart is".
Good answer, but the wrong one. I just hope if I am ever in a situation like that, I can come up with a witty answer - even if it wasn't on purpose.

I was able to fly home last weekend which was nice, but of course never long enough. It was good to see my gramma but we couldn't see my cousin.
Now I am just trying to make it through the week - fortunately it ends tomorrow at 4:30est.

Goals for the weekend:
Sleep, read, laundry, sleep, watch movies, Pacific and sleep.

and maybe blog. 

Hello? 2010, this is 2009 calling.

I won't say I had high hopes for 2010, but I will say I was glad 2009 finally ended.

Mostly because of all the crap the latter half of the year brought.
Of course it would be asking too much to just have a little quiet for a bit.

That is why I am sure my sister sent me a text message saying the EMT had been called for my grandmother.

Long story short: She had a heart attack on Wednesday didn't tell anyone, stopped taking her meds, compounded by a cold = a UTI, memory loss, fluid around her heart or lungs, and blood sugar over 400.

Well that didn't really explain it very well but this is what we (my mother, sister and I) have managed to piece together.

Grandma started with a cold last weekend, she also started a new sleeping medication that made her sleep until noon on Monday and my sister, who had dinner with her that night, said she was spacey.
Tuesday was the last day she wrote in her insulin/sugar diary, which she is religious about.
Wednesday she told my grandpa she was having pains in her chest, which they attributed to a shot she had in the spine earlier that day.
Thursday she stopped taking her pills - heart meds, diuretics etc. The woman who does her hair on Thursdays recalled her being spacey, slurring words, quiet and very unlike herself. Even the other old lady who gets her hair done at the same time noticed she was off.
Friday grandpa doesn't recall her eating at all.
Saturday my mom showed up to take care of some things grandma was very spacey, didn't know what day/time it was and was responding very slowly.

Which is when the ambulance was called. Once in the ER they discovered the UTI and fluid in her chest, but not sure where. They are blaming the memory loss on the infection. Sometime after she started getting fluids and antibiotics she tells the dr about the chest pains on Wednesday.
Following that the rest of the pieces (see above) start coming together.
This morning the heart attack was confirmed, they have not ruled out the possibility of a stroke, are treating the infection, and trying to straighten out the sugar level.
If she is doing okay Monday they are going to do a heart cath and see how bad the heart attack was.

Meanwhile I am still stuck in the hellhole wishing I was there. It's a really shitty place to be and very reminiscent of last Fall.
So I guess, here we go again.  

All My Clocks is Wrong.

This is the space where I complained about being awake at 8am this morning.
This is also the space where I told you about rearranging my cube.
I also talked about the DADT conversation with Bad Romance and decided if he's going to keep showing up, he needs a different pen name.

This is the space where I told you how infuriated I was about the news that the VA General Attorney wants to remove the GLBT from the anti-discrimination policies.
I talked about why it made me so angry. I got soapboxy and angry.

Finally this is the space where Vox deleted my post before I could save it, and it is gone forever. Except for the subject, which I will leave in memorial of my fallen post.

Bitches.

Rainbow

QotD: National Procrastination Week

It's National Procrastination Week. What have you been putting off that you'd like to get around to? What do you wish you could put off longer?

Blogging. I know! And I just got back.

I keep putting off cleaning, but I can't put it off much longer

I have a stack of books that I keep avoiding, even though I want to read them.

And I keep putting off calling the GI specialist, because he is going to tell me I am crazy.

I wish I could put off Mondays, mornings, cleaning, Sallie Mae, and being a grown up.

QotD: Reconnecting with People from the Past

Whom from your past would you like to reconnect with? What's stopping you?

I really can't think of anyone. It's likely they are in my past for a reason.

However I was on the opposite end of that question this Fall.

I randomly got a facebook message from a friend from HS. I literally haven't seen her since the day we graduation. We were close in elementary and junior high because we were always on the same softball team and hated to play. In high school we both had a lot of problems we were dealing with. Me being painfully shy, depressed and a less than stellar home environment, her trying to sort out her sexuality and eventually coming out. Combined we were a little on the self destructive side and my protective exBFF pretty much pushed her out of my life.

Whether it was for the better or worse for either of us, I don't know, but I understand why the exBFF did it.

So to hear from her after 10 years was pretty crazy, in a good way. After a couple emails she called and it was good to talk to her. We talked about some of the crazy things in high school, what we had done and where were were trying to go. Her life really didn't end up the way I had imagined it but she has been with her partner for 6 years now and seems really happy, which of course makes me happy.

We met up for dinner when I was home for Christmas and she looked the same. We did some more catching up and a lot of laughing. She also apologized for some things she said and did when we were in high school. Some of it I had completely forgotten.

I think maybe there was a reason we went our separate ways then, but I am glad she is back now. We're both a little older, a little wiser, and are finally able to laugh at the bullshit we've worked hard to put behind us.

It was one of those days.

I received an invoice for a subscription that hasn't been paid for since 2008!
YAY.

(fucking incompetent moronic douchy cuntwaffle coworker former coworkers)

In most of the real world, you cut a check, say your apologies and carry on. If Fedland you have to write an assload of reports, scrape together funds, say your apologies and hope they either don't A: fire you B: arrest you C: fire you and then arrest you.

My chest has been killing me all day. It feels like someone is squeezing my ribs while sticking their fingers in between them. My doctor assures me I am not having a heart attack.

However, I took 5 minutes and wrote up my will on a post it and stuck it on the wall in my cube, just in case.
Good news is, my Super Boss took it like a man and didn't swear too much. Then asked how I was feeling.
He just doesn't want to be the one to scrape my brains in a box and send them to my parents when my head explodes.

And I still want bacon. 

QotD: TV on the PC

How often do you watch TV shows or movies on your computer? What determines whether you watch on your TV versus your computer?
Sponsored by My LifeScoop: Bringing You Tips for a Connected LifeStyle.

I watch tons of stuff on my computer. Mostly because I subscribed to Netflix last fall (I love it!) and I like their videos on demand. Plus the tv shows I watch are on at shitty times, like Legend of the Seeker ... 11.30pm Sunday.

I also spent the snow storm watching White Collar, which I promptly fell in love with.

Before the Olympics started, I couldn't tell you the last thing I watched on tv.

Monday Monday, Can't Trust that Day

It's no lie, I am no fan of Monday.
Today was compounded by the fact it was pretty much my first Monday in a few weeks. In case you have been living under a rock, a foreign country, or a desert island, the entire Washington DC area was shut down for over a week due to the amounts of snow. They really don't handle a couple inches very well, so a couple feet pretty much cause utter chaos. The best way I heard it was "Snowpocalypse 2010. Good news? I am all for free days off. Bad news, it started before the Olympics so there was pretty much nothing on.
The next Monday was President's day. I can't remember the last full work week I put in, it's nice but oy is it hard to come back.
Today I finally heard back from my surgeon. While I was "gone" I had an endoscopy to find out why after 15 years and all sorts of otc drugs my acid reflux hasn't gone away. They found a hiatal hernia, which is basically an extra pocket of space between your esophagus and stomach. Sometimes it causes the inside of your stomach to actually slide into your esophagus. They referred me to a surgeon, who, after looking at the paperwork didn't think it was a hernia. He sent me for more tests the first week of February. I called two days later to be told he was on vacation for the next two weeks... which was last week. So  called. Three times and go no call back. So this morning - week 4- I called and told the receptionist that if I didn't get a call back today with my test results I would be picking up my records in the morning so I could find a new physician. She tried to explain that the dr was very busy scheduling surgeries and was seeing about 30 patients a day. I told her I had been waiting for 4 weeks and that was unacceptable. About 7 hours later I finally got a call back. My tests all came back normal. Which, generally is what you want to hear, but that now means I am crazy. I have acid in my throat no matter what I eat, it's burning little sores in my throat if I stop taking my Prevacid, and it feels like I am being choked to death. It keeps me awake at night and is generally pretty uncomfortable. The surgeon was at a loss, not that I would expect different. He's a surgeon, not a specialist. So he is sending my rest results back to my GI specialist and recommended I follow up with him. 
I went from angry to just being annoyed and frustrated. Two steps forward, one step back.  

I really don't know where to go from there. I was counting on this being taken care of by now and hoping to have at least a couple of job offers before I have to decide on whether I want to move or not. My lease is up in June and I am sure I will have to let them know in March if I am staying or going. You missed my last move.
Yeah, again. That was #4 in 3 years. You might recall my apartment from hell that I was living in. The busted water heater and ant problem were getting to be too much. The people having sex in the living room upstairs in the middle of the evening sort of pushed me over the edge and then when they dumped paint thinner into the flower bed outside of my apartment nearly made me homicidal. The raising of my rent by $200 certainly didn't help their cause. I don't miss it at all, but I miss my maintenance dude.  
I am currently living about a mile and a half from my first apartment, in a rather apartment like condo. It even has a fireplace. The only bad thing about it is that the bathtub keeps trying to kill me.

104_1276

Beautiful right? I hope you weren't eating dinner. I think that was a few days after I slipped. Not long after that my water heater went out (srsly, I have bad water heater karma). It took them a week to fix it and during that time I threw out my back. But other than that, the apartment as been A-OK ::knock on wood:: and its a lot cheaper.

Anyway... coming, going, staying, leaving... just don't know. Love the apartment, hate the city, hate the job, hate moving.

Other than that, my Bad Romance left work tonight to go home and try and Google stalk me. I don't think I have ever been Google stalked before, but he is trying to find this blog. I guess he thinks he's missing out. 
I also want a bacon sammich and a Square Donut and a Pumpkin Spice Latte.
So that was kinda random.
Can you tell I am stalling? I'm not! There was something else I was going to write... unimportant, but I forgot it.
I mailed my first cookie care package overseas last week. It arrived today and I think it went over pretty well.

OKay. I give up.  

 

Umm...Hi?

Hi there... I used to have a blog here, but then I abandoned it.

I didn't do it on purpose. Really. It just sort of happens, only I wish it were the case that I abandoned it because I was so busy and popular I just didn't have time ala Tortuga. But alas, that is not the case.

Basically I started a downward spiral into a dark hole and was unable to pull myself out. I think blogging should be something you do for fun, but then every time I sat down to post it felt more like work, much like everything else in my life did.

Last May we were given a new boss at work and to put it mildly, he played favorites and micromanaged into oblivion. I was turned down for what could have been an interesting opportunity overseas, then my Grandpa was diagnosed with cancer. July and August 2009 were spent getting daily updates from my mom who became his primary caregiver since my Gramma can't drive. By mid-August he wasn't doing very well and had lost about 40 pounds.
Then the weekend before Labor Day, my dad's best friend, who's kids I grew up with, we spent a lot of New Year's eves with, 4th of Julys and graduation parties with, committed suicide. I wouldn't say I was really close to Jack, but he was like family. It was a blow to us all and it was enough it sent me off the edge.
The battle I had been fighting with depression finally beat me after 15 years. I was flying into fits of rage over little things and at the people I loved. Or I would burst into tears. I sat at my desk many times just sobbing. I'd stopped coping and the stabbing pains in my chest said I wasn't going to pull out of this one alone.
They medicated me, which I am not opposed to, because frankly nothing else has worked yet. And it's helping which I feel is the most important part.
It's not 100% fool proof, nor is it perfect. It takes the edge off, but some days I still struggle to put on foot in front of the other.
In September I went home for Jack's funeral and to see my Grandpa, who looked worse than I imagined.
I helped my parents install windows on the farm house I grew up in. It was nice to feel useful. I got to hang out with my BFF and sister and bil. Patterson the Wondercat and I stayed with the sib and sib in law. The weather was perfect.
Unfortunately it was ruined 4 times by the annoying boss. Once when I was suppose to be at the funeral (I just couldn't mentally go).

I started not sleeping while I was on vacation because of the constant phone calls. I was angry. I needed to be home with my family not dealing with petty problems in my office that I had left with someone who was not my boss.
When I got back I called for a meeting with the boss's boss and completely lost it on him. I told him I was looking for another job. I don't care doing what or where. He was supportive about me needed time off for my grandpa and more importantly he understood. His wife is a 1 year breast cancer survivor.
He got the boss off my back and literally had to pry things out of my hands that weren't my responsibility. The week after I got back and unloaded on the boss I adopted a new kitten. He really isn't a kitten, he's about 18 months now the same age as Patterson and from Day 1 they have gotten on beautifully. It didn't hurt that the day after I brought him home I got the call from home I had been dreading. My grandfather had been hospitalized and I needed to start thinking about coming home. Home, after all is 500 miles away through the mountains of West Virgina and Maryland, but every time I tried to pull my thoughts together to go, I would break down sobbing. The kittens were wonderful about it letting me curl up on the floor with them sobbing until they were soaking wet. Patterson already knew I was insane, but Snafu (who's former name was Luke) probably thought he'd just landed in crazyland, but even he would sit and purr for me.
Saturday night my sister called and said "Grandpa is having an endoscopy Monday and Mom signed a DNR". Needless to say, it was a long night. Sunday he hadn't improved, but he hadn't gotten worse. Monday my Super Boss told me if I needed to leave to "just go" and "do what you need to do". During that conversation my mom called to say grandpa came through and the doctors didn't see any cancer. I think I might have raced through the office leaping. My6 Super Boss also earned an assload of respect for that.

The boss retired at the end of 2009, and while the job is still miserable, at least it isn't the people (most of them) making me miserable   

Grandpa spent a week in the hospital, was put on a feeding tube and sent home. His biopsies came back cancer-free and after battling Esophageal cancer for 4 months, he was well on the road to recovery. At 84, I know he doesn't have a lot of time left. People didn't mind reminding me. I know. And I think he would say they were probably a good 84 years, but we aren't ready to let go. So maybe it bought us 6 weeks, 6 months or maybe it bought us 6 years. After all his oldest brother is 94.

I had a job interview last fall which I thought went really well, but then never heard anything else about. Thanksgiving rolled around and in December I had an endoscopy to find out why my acid reflux wasn't going away - apparently I have a hiatal hernia. Lucky me!
Christmas was uneventful and I was glad to spend the holidays at my parents even though the house is still in various stages of construction.

For 2010 I made a bunch of resolutions. Find a new job, maybe go back to school, go on a date, start picking up the pieces of my life that I dropped last spring.

It's sort of like learning to live again. And in learning to live again I have also learned to let go.. not learned ... learning. I am learning to let things fall through the cracks and learning to let people do their own shit instead of taking on their responsibilities. I also keep telling myself I should go work out or at least exercise... I have a Wii Fit, I should use it, but I'm not there yet. I know it will make me feel better and I could certainly afford to lose the weight, but mentally I am still exhausted. But I am slowly getting back to the other things I use to like to do. I am getting out and going to the movies or to the mall. I am reading books again and working in the Special Little Snowflake Bakery (that's to say, my kitchen) which a: I make pretty wicked cupcakes b: its a sense of accomplishment. 
So where is all of this leading, if anyone is still readying. It's leading back to my blogging.
I have been telling myself since November that I should blog. I came close a few times. I would sit down, look at it and close the window. I get the Thursday Vox newsletter and have been able to keep up with my neighbors. But just signing in to even say "Hey Jenni, Viktor is beautiful. Congratulations" was too much.  Now it's almost March. I like March. I have a good feeling about March. Or it could just be that I am going to ShamrockFest with my bad romance. So it seemed like a good time to think about posting.
And I did. I sat down, logged in and stared at it for a few minutes, updated my profile a little, then spent 10 minutes reading the "help" section to try and figure out how to change the design. Yeah, I had completely forgotten. Even better, I couldn't remember how to create a new post. Durrrr. Yay for the help section! Oh, and I have also learned to ask for help.
And that brings us to right here.
I'm not saying I am going to post every day. In fact, I promise I won't. But to set goals, every other week, QotD don't count.
 
If any one is still out there, Hi, how are you? I've missed you.

Love TL  

April

April sucked.

The end.

How lazy of me.

It started off well enough. My mom and grandparents came out to visit. We got to see the Cherry Blossom Festival and my grandfather got to see the Blessing of the Fleets at the Navy Memorial.
It's probably been close to 40 years since they got to see any of DC (excluding my grandpa's day trip in to the WWII Memorial) so a lot of things had changed.

The my sister and brother in law came to visit. We went up to Gettysburg.

I applied and was turned down for a job I was qualified for.The powers that be dropped the bomb at a meeting with the entire department. A heads up might have been nice.

April has just left me exhausted and hopefully May will be better.

I saw Wolverine yesterday - I was pretty much going with no expectations so I wasn't disappointed. It wasn't bad, it wasn't great.  Just a superhero popcorn flick to get the summer started.
Friday I am going to see Star Trek on the IMAX. I am so excited I could pee!
Then Angels & Demons. Hopefully it will be better than Da Vinci Code. The book was better, it has Ewan McGregor and Audrey Tautou - who grated on my nerves the entire movie - so just by default it should be better.

Ok. The End.