Monthly Archives: November 2010

November 24, 2010 · 9:49 pm

Love & Loathe — 11/24/10 (early)

I find myself in an odd place this Thanksgiving. I had to take a couple days off from work to have a minor surgery, and my doctor has ordered me out of commission for the next few days to recover… which means I’m unable to attend dinner with the family tomorrow. I’ve given my slave husband orders to bring me home some turkey and stuffing. Really, out of all the bounty prepared, those are my favorite things of it all — turkey and stuffing. Not even the desserts compare. I know, you’re gasping in shock right now!

The meds they have me on make me quite sleepy, so my wish for naps and resting has been granted in a very big way. Which is why I’m writing now, because I may very well be sleeping tomorrow away. Huzzah!
How much of my yesterday was spent, note Tug’s possessive paw on my chin?

Since it’s Thanksgiving, instead of writing loves and loathes, I’ll just share some of the things that I’m thankful for this year.

* I’m incredibly thankful for having a wonderful husband in my life. He is sensitive, thoughtful, intuitive, responsive, responsible, loving and attentive. He makes me feel cared about, loved and safe, He is also prone to fits of goofyness, and his lack of self-consciousness is not only an inspiration to me, it’s also something that garners spontaneous laughter that just bubbles right out of my soul. I love this man that I’m married to so very much.

* My close friends. I’ve said it before, but it’s so very true: Having a support system in place is critical to get through the highs and lows of life. Isolating myself, even though that’s usually my natural instinct, is the exact wrong thing to do. For those of you who have offered words of wisdom, or support, or “just the right thing at the right time” — you are more appreciated by me than I could ever express.

* Having a job. Every day I wonder why I am where I am. I wonder why they seem to like me so much. I never, ever take for granted that I have somewhere to go every day and that I get a pay check. I do like my pay check. I always try to start the day like it’s a new job, that there will be new things to learn and expect the unexpected. When I have that attitude, I find it’s much easier to take the changes that seem to come at such a rapid fire pace.

* The basics of life. Having a home to live in with appliances that work, in a safe neighborhood, with (for the most part) great neighbors. Pets that are healthy and some that are working their way back to health. A car that is fun to drive and reliable. Beautiful plants in my back yard that I nurture and they, in return, give me so much joy.

* My health. This is something that I’ve not always had and I’m so pleased that, for the most part, I’m healthier than I’ve ever been in my life. I attribute it to two things — first, I found an exercise that I love to do. When I take my weekly day off from swimming, I miss it sooooo badly and can’t wait to get back in the pool the next day. Second, raw milk. Seriously. Unpasteurized milk has so many health benefits. (Link to read if interested.)

* Doctors that I respect and trust almost implicitly. I will never, ever stop asking questions, not after all I’ve been through with incompetent doctors, but the doctors I have now are either one step ahead of me and answer my questions before I ask them, or patiently answer my questions, and sometimes have changed the course of treatment to meet my requests… which means the respect is mutual. To finally have excellent doctors is a huge blessing.

* Fun socks. I know, this is so silly after all the Big, Serious, Deep things I’ve listed. But wearing fun or crazy socks under a conservative business suit is a fun little spot of happy in my day. Today? Cornucopias. Tomorrow? Turkeys.

With that, I wish each of you a very Happy Thanksgiving, filled with all the people and food that you love. If you’re in a part of the world where Thanksgiving isn’t celebrated tomorrow, I still wish you lots of food and time with loved ones.

Lots of love,
Jammie J.

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Filed under Health/Endo, I feel Glad, I have Family, I have Friends, Love/Loathe, Sometimes I Sleep

November 18, 2010 · 6:40 pm

Love & Loathe — 11/18/10

Loathe:

* Being tired. (Long explanation: With Slasher having been so ill, we’ve isolated him in the upstairs bathroom. His day starts early, since Tony gives him a thousand meds before he leaves for work. Maybe I exaggerate, but I had no idea one could actually give a cat that many medications at one time. Anyway, my hormones have been whacked out, so I’m not tired when I should go to bed and I’m sleeping so lightly that I hear the neighbor’s dog’s flea’s farts three houses away. Giving a cat meds at 4:30am is much louder than a flea farting. And then I’m not able to go back to sleep.)

Love:

* When companies send a survey form asking how they did. I don’t know if they will actually read my response and take measures to improve their service, but I spent time filling one out for the 1st overnight facility where we took Slasher. That place gave us such a horrible experience… maybe they’re good with the critters, but they were horrible with the humans.

* It’s one week until Thanksgiving. I’m really looking forward to getting some rest.

* I finally figured out where to park my car to get shade at work during the afternoon. I had it wired during the summer, but this winter shift messed it all up for me. It’s the little things, people.

* Buy one, get one free deals… especially when related to pomegranates.

* Baking cookies. I made some pumpkin chocolate chip cookies, and some banana chocolate chip cookies. Both types turned out soft, moist and incredibly delicious. I predict I shall be making these cookies all winter long!

One Last Thing:

Every year when the baking bug strikes me, and I start making things with pumpkin in them, I’m always surprised by our little girl kitty. She magically appears in the kitchen, quietly watching. Then when I approach the trash can with the empty pumpkin can, she bursts into pleading meows. The first year she hovered around while we were carving our Halloween pumpkins, and swooped in every time we turned our back for the pumpkin guts. Thankfully, she doesn’t do that anymore, but I love that she now waits for the leftover pumpkin in the can.

It’s been 5 years since we discovered her love for the stuff, and she still loves it… every year.

14 Comments

Filed under Kid Substitutes, Love/Loathe

November 11, 2010 · 11:23 pm

Love & Loathe – 11/11/10

Loathe:

* We had a layoff at my company this week. I survived the cut… this time. But I feel a great deal of compassion for those who were let go, as I will never forget how scary it is to be on the other side of that door.

* Night driving on the freeway. Here I thought rush hour was bad when the sun was out. The time change added a whole new dimension to the 10 million people crammed on a freeway together at the same time.

Love:

* I pulled one of the large rocks out of my cichlid tank and replaced it with ornamental plants. The goal being to remove sharp objects from their playground so they stop hurting themselves, but still keep their established territories. Look at me, trying to outsmart the fishies.

* Slasher is going to be OK. He still has some swelling in his urinary tract, so we’re watching him closely. But he is going to be OK. Even though we had a bad experience with the first overnight vet we took him to, we found an excellent overnight care facility for the second night. And now he’s home at nights, just under observation (and med administration) during the day. Thank God for our timing in finding him. Thank God that our primary vet really knows and loves animals. We almost lost him, thank God we didn’t.
Sunday, this is the view we had of Slasher at the vet’s… just his IV’s

Being transported to night care with his bag o’ urine…

* The community pool is still being heated. At this point, I’m fairly certain this is not actually an intended blessing from my HOA. But a blessing it is to me, and I will take it.

* Thanks to Tony and one of his birthday presents to me, the addiction to reign of Pink in my car’s CD player has been taken over by Jewel’s CD, Perfectly Clear. Hooray for musical variety in my life!

One Last Thing:

The other day a co-worker walked by my desk at work and, in a tone of disbelief asked me, “Is that a pomegranate you’re snacking on?”

I responded, “Yes, they’re one of my favorite snacks. I’m so glad they’re in season right now!”

She looked at me weird and said, “Do you eat the seeds?”

I responded, “The arils? Yes. They’re good. Kind of adds a crunch.”

“Oh. I always thought they were too much work because my mom told me to never eat the seeds. She says they build up in your system and make your appendix go bad.” She took a step backward and laughed nervously as if my appendix were going to pop out and bonk her over the head.

This lady has lived 48 years, married, divorced, raised two children as a single parent, holds down a demanding job, and yet has never eaten pomegranate arils because her mom told her not to. Now THAT is an obedient daughter.

Meekly, trying not to laugh, I managed to squeak out in defense, “But… they’re just fiber…”

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Filed under Kid Substitutes, Love/Loathe, Money Hump Building

November 7, 2010 · 11:49 pm

Updated: Fretting Over Slasher.

We got home this afternoon from the mountains to discover that in the 36 hours we’d been gone, one of our cats had become critically ill. I won’t go into details, as much as I want to, but suffice it to say, it wasn’t pretty.

After six hours visiting two different vets, we’re not sure if he’ll make it through the night. And if he does make it, whether his kidneys will be OK. Which, well, kidney failure is terminal… so we might have just spent all this time and money when we shouldn’t have.

But we had to give him a fighting chance. We just had to… and he’s on painkillers now, so he’s not hurting anymore, which is something we couldn’t have done for him. We know he’s “just a cat” but dammit, we love him.

But after tonight’s experience, I can’t help but feel as if veterinarian care is overpriced… especially when we learned his second doctor, the one whose staff is monitoring him tonight, her last name is Crook. It’s a terrible thing to be in a position of trying to determine if someone we love can be cured, and if he can be cured, did we take him to the right place and choose to scale back the right tests because we can’t afford it? We just don’t know. Maybe another facility would have been less expensive, but timing was critical… and we felt kind of trapped by that… and humbled.

Of course, now I’m giving all of our cats a crooked eye for any odd behaviors… (sigh) Snug just ran away from me, does that mean he’s sick? Maybe I should just take them all in for a physical?

Forgive me for rambling… any prayers or good thoughts you might want to send Slasher’s way tonight and over the next few days would be most appreciated.

*Update*
I would have updated sooner, but it’s been touch and go for Slasher… but he’s home tonight. He’s on Valium and antibiotics, and he’ll go back in tomorrow for observation. But it looks like he’s going to be OK.

I’ll write details soon, when I have a chance to breathe a sigh of relief.

14 Comments

Filed under Kid Substitutes

November 4, 2010 · 9:11 pm

Love & Loathe – 11/04/10

Loathe:

* An inbox. To clarify, I love the concept of an inbox on my desk. In fact, it’s something I embraced early on in my career. But gradually it became the elephant that sat on my desk that no one wanted to acknowledge. Despite the label reading “INBOX” in 68 point font size, prominently sitting on the corner of my desk, most people refuse to use it. My desk is neat and tidy, so it’s not like their stuff will get lost in piles of paper. Instead, people put stuff on my chair, my keyboard, the corner of my desk, anywhere BUT the inbox that is labeled “inbox” in 68 size font. I’m pretty sure if it were an empty room with nothing in it but an inbox, people would STILL put the paper right beside the labeled inbox. Anyway, so now, when I come in some mornings, and the accountant person has put something on my chair instead of my inbox? I sit on it. So when she gets it back, she has something that my rear end has sat upon. That seems fair to me.

* Toilets that don’t flush properly (speaking of rear-ends). There is one of those type of toilets at work… I mean it’s a total power flusher, but it only does a half flush… so half of the previous user’s business goes away, but the other half is still there all disintegrated. If I get stuck using that toilet, for the record, I always flush it three times when I’m done. Just to be sure.

* Living a cliché. A watched pot of water never boils and a watched phone never rings. What are the chances I’d be doing two clichés at the same time tonight? So, I swept the floor instead. Suffice it to say, I have a very cleanly swept floor.

Love:

* Our Nemo. I can’t believe I haven’t told you about our Nemo before. He’s one of the first baby guppies that was born in our guppy tank. He’s outlived many of the other guppies, including his momma. He’s “special” … as you can see in the picture, his spine is bent and he swims around in a permanent seahorse-like posture, but he seems happy. We keep him isolated because the other guppies kind of pick on him and nibble off his fins — as if swimming isn’t difficult enough for him? Anyway, in isolation he is able to take as many swim breaks as he needs to stay healthy. We love our little Nemo.
Here’s Nemo…

The guppy slightly behind Nemo is a “normal” guppy, albeit a pregnant one…

* I’m really looking forward to Thanksgiving this year. *happy sigh*

* My darling husband, despite all the challenges he’s faced over the last several months, managed to make my birthday special for me. I’m not the type of person who needs grand things on special occasions, but rather just thoughtfulness and love. He fills those two needs for me rather grandly and I’m grateful to him for that.

* Pumpkin power carver. I bought this thing at Big Lots on clearance and spent about 5 minutes carving my pumpkin. Honestly, when it was all done, I felt as if I had cheated… and poor Tony slaved away carving his pumpkin for, like, twelve hours! Sorry the picture’s so dark of his pumpkin, but it’s of Darth Vader.

Tony’s forever pumpkin…

My five minute pumpkin…

One Last Thing:

This was our table’s centerpiece over the Halloween weekend. Nothing says fall to me like the Three P’s… pumpkins, persimmons and pomegranates. It’s a beautiful (delicious) thing, isn’t it?

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Filed under Love/Loathe, Money Hump Building, We Love to Decorate