• a variety of fine pickles •

09-09-09 - happy 4th birthday, mckayla

september 9th is mckayla grace's 4th birthday. she and her family are moving away to ft. knox, kentucky the day after her birthday.

ain't no mountain high enough from melissa mcgee on Vimeo.

6 more days until her 4th birthday

and only 7 more days until she moves away to kentucky.

everybody panic

so, let's just say that you're a user of social networking sites like, oh, i don't know, say twitter. 

and/or facebook.

and let's say you log in to check what's a-happenin' with your twitter (or facebook?) peeps... same thing you do every morning... but when you click the cute little blue "t" that signifies your twitter account, you don't see your twitter page with all those familiar little avatars and witty tweets under 140 characters, but rather a page that says "oops! this link appears to be broken!"

there's no need to panic, right? it's just temporary. and besides, there's always facebook.

you slide on over to your facebook page and update your status with something like "melissa mcgee wonders if everybody's twitter is broken, or if it's just her..."

you get a couple of responses from your facebook friends who also twitter saying things like "yep, mine's broken too." whew! it's not just me. so you decide to reply to these kindhearted souls that have given you the validation you so need this early in the morning, but when you hit "comment" your reply just hangs there...

replaced within a few seconds by a network error. 

that's when the panic starts to creep in. just a little at first... sure... all this means is that i'll have to have actual human interaction today, right? not so bad... not so bad... or, it wouldn't be so bad, if i weren't working from HOME today. my cats, as sweet as they are, are rotten conversationalists. 

mashable.com reported that twitter was indeed down (thanks, mashable... for reporting what i already knew about 30 minutes after the fact.) and twitter didn't know why. i would like to think they're working on it... but i don't know what to think right now, and everything seems to be something of a blur at the moment... i'm sure the room isn't actually spinning...

still waiting for mashable.com to report something about the facebook outage... hitting refresh over and over in the hopes that there will magically appear a headline that says something akin to "it's all going to be alright" . is anybody else cold? 

i'm sure they're working on getting both sites back up and working, but i hope it's sooner rather than later because i'm starting to OHMYGOD! WHAT THE! SPIDERS! THERE ARE SPIDERS CRAWLING ON ME! I CAN'T SEE THEM! GET THESE THINGS OFF OF ME! THEY'RE EVERYWHERE! 

OH MY GOD, DID THE SUN JUST GO OUT?!?!

i'm just going to curl up here in the corner for a while and, between vomiting, rock myself back and forth until things are fixed. if i last that long. 

*** UPDATE 10:05am

mashable.com updated their site. the social networking apocalypse has begun...

not enough time

my brother-in-law erick returned from afghanistan on june 9th after a year away. thank god he returned safely, in one piece, with just an ankle injury from playing volleyball. it could have been so much worse... my sister kristen's family is finally all back together, one little family unit living on post at ft. hood in killeen. 

we knew the entire time erick was gone that he'd be getting orders to relocate to ft. knox in kentucky after his return, most likely sometime around the middle of october. the prospect of erick and kristen moving away with my neices mckayla grace and emma kate is something that neither my mother, my sister or i can talk about without getting really emotional. in fact, we just don't talk about it at all, really. we can't. at breakfast in waco with my grandparents and two of my aunts yesterday, my grandmother just mentioned mckayla grace and i almost burst into tears. i had to fight not to cry... she didn't even mention anything about anyone moving away. i think it's just starting to feel "real" because october is getting so close. i seem to spend a lot of time thinking about it, alternately trying to imagine what life will be like without them so near, then trying to switch off and not think about it at all. the former usually sneaks back in and wins. 

my mother called me yesterday. i missed her call while i was taking an afternoon nap. she left a voicemail telling me that erick got his official orders to move the family to ft. knox. they're leaving not in october as we previously understood. they're leaving on september 10th, just 6 weeks from now. it's the day after mckayla's 4th birthday. 

hearing that was like a punch right to the gut. it made me feel physically sick to my stomach when i listened to it at about 6:15 yesterday evening. i still feel sick. i don't know what i'm going to do. 

i'll visit. i'll visit as often as i can. they'll visit here at home. there's email and phone, cameraphone pictures and skype and facebook. there are cards and letters and updates and maybe even sometimes holidays here in texas. there are all those things, i know. but they won't live here. my neices will be growing up somewhere in kentucky, and i feel like i won't be a part of their lives anymore. i feel like i'll be some stranger that they talk to on the phone sometimes and shows up for a long weekend a couple of times a year. i'm afraid they're going to forget who i am. these angels, both of whom came into the world while i stood less than two feet away; both of whom took their first breath and made their first sounds as i watched and cried and thanked god. both of whom have been such a source of joy and happiness for me. i can't explain what it feels like, loving someone as if they were your own child, and loving them so much that it actually makes your heart hurt. but now it's making my heart break.

i'm not prepared for this. 
 

mckayla grace, my 9. she will turn 4 years old on september 9th. i'm her godmother. 

emma kate. she just turned a year old. she's named after me.
 

i didn't return my mother's call last night. i honestly didn't know what to say. 

summer in texas (or "living on the sun")

thursday morning, it rained here where i live. while this may not be newsworthy to 98% of the united states, continental or otherwise, it's GIANT news here in central texas. thursday was the first significant rainfall in texas in three months, and only the second time it's rained in just as long. three months without rain? yeah. you could say it's dry in texas. 

now, if i lived somewhere like, say, san diego, i feel certain that three months without rain would still sort of suck, but it wouldn't suck anywhere near as hard is three months without rain in texas sucks. "why is this?" you ask? i am happy to tell you, as it seems it's all i've been able to talk about for the last three months: as of today, august 1, 2009, just in my little hamlet of texas, we have seen the temperatures reach more than 100° for more than 50 days. on july 9th, the high temperature was 107°. let me repeat that:
it was one hundred and seven degrees. even by crazy-hot texan standards, that's just way too freakin' hot. 

i was so gobsmacked by the heat that i actually took a screenshot of my igoogle homepage at work so i could prove to all of my non-texan and texan-expat friends that i wasn't making it up. not that the expats would have had a hard time believing me... just sayin'. and in case you're not from texas (or santa fe, or new mexico) let me just drive this point home: 100° is indeed very hot, even in the shade. but seriously, each time the temperature climbs even one tiny little tick past 100° it feels distinctly as if it's packed on about 10° more heat. not kidding. the difference between 100° and 102° is staggeringly, mind-bogglingly sweltering. once it reaches about 103° you've convinced yourself that you're standing on an acre of black asphalt on the equator. 105° feels like standing under a giant broiler - in fact, if you listen closely you can actually hear people starting to brown nicely. but 107°? well my friends, 107° is exactly like being on the sun.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

when i left work on the day it reached 107°, my steering wheel was made of fire. even with my nifty spring-action reflective auto shade propped in my windshield all day long, i can guarantee you the interior of my car reached somewhere around 1500°... i could have smelted iron right there on my dashboard. 

after rolling down all the windows in a fruitless attempt to "let the hot air out", i blasted the a/c full tilt boogie. seeing as how my car had been sitting in the parking lot for 8 hours in heat that would even have made old scratch himself consider relocating to a cooler climate, the a/c in my car blew out air that can only be described as remarkably similar to standing in the middle of a bonfire. i was certain that i would spontaneously combust at any moment, and i was thankful that there was no alcohol in my system to expedite the process.

i sucked it up the best that i could, and reached down to put my car in reverse to back out of my parking spot. it's important now to point out that i drive a standard 5-speed, and the gear shift knob in my car is topped off with a METAL PLATE displaying the shift pattern. i was reasonably certain that i had branded the standard shift pattern into the palm of my hand after having grabbed it for only as long as it took to sear my flesh before i let go of it. injured, burning to a crisp and just plain pissed off, i remembered there was a crumpled paper bag from whataburger in my backseat (cheers to not cleaning out my car on a regular basis) which i decided to repurpose as an oven mitt on top of my gearshift. i successfully backed out of my parking space, and i drove us all home - me, shadrach, meshach and abednego. 

driving a standard with a paper bag over the gear shift isn't as easy as i thought it would be and proved to make me something of a hazard on the road, being almost completely unable to touch my steering wheel as well, what with it being made of fire and all... my a/c finally cooled off to somewhere around 85° right around the time i turned onto my street, true story. by the time i pulled into my driveway i resembled someone in the front row of a killer whale show at seaworld. i was absolutely, unequivocably drenched. not perspiring... not glowing like genteel ladies do; i was sweating like a damn pig. i was sweaty like a fat man. it doesn't make me proud. that was not one of my prettier moments. 

i came into my house, began stripping off my clothes one piece at a time as soon as i got the front door shut and climbed directly into the shower without passing go, without collecting $200... that was the first of two showers that night in my attempt to not only feel not-so-grody, but to try and cool down my core temperature. the bathroom door was wide open and i showered with water as cold as i could tolerate,  and no kidding, the mirrors in my bathroom still steamed over. 

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

i'm thankful for the rain we were blessed with last thursday, but i'd be lying if i said i was satisfied. the weather has a direct effect on my emotional state and rain has always been like a salve on a wound for me. we're being teased by cloudy skies and the occasional sprinkle here and there for the last two days since it rained. if the skies opened up right now and it rained for the next two weeks straight, i can promise you right now that you'd hear nary a discouraging word about it from me. "if you're going to pray for rain, don't complain about the mud."... but i suppose i should just be grateful that it's not sudan-hot today; it's a muggy 88 degrees right now, and i'm about to have to go out into it... but it could be 107°, right? this is life in texas, like it or not. maybe i'm a meteorological masochist. or maybe i'm just not smart enough to leave.

at any rate, it's a reasonable assumption that i will write a very similar blog post next summer. 

on becoming a productive member of society. again.

i start back to work today**. it's been seven weeks since i've been at work and have become somewhat spoiled being at home all this time, recovering from surgery. i've worked out quite a rigorous schedule since i've been out; a schedule that i've stuck to and very rarely deviated from:

wake up at 7:30 am
feed pearl
make and consume coffee
shower and dress (t-shirt and pajama bottoms) by 8:00 am
watch golden girls from 8:00 am- 9:00 am
watch frazier from 9:00 am - 10:00 am
watch will & grace from 10:00 am - 11:00 am
try to find something on tv other than cold case files at 11:00 am
channel surf from 11:00 am until around 11:30 am
settle on cold case files until 12:00 pm
*watch roseanne on oxygen network from 12:00 pm - ?
check email, surf internet, edit photos for clients
lumber to kitchen, make something for lunch
get sleepy and take delicious nap around 2:30 pm
wake up with pearl attacking my feet or face around 3:30 pm - 4:00 pm
wish i hadn't slept so long
watch charmed (out of boredom, of course) until 5:00 pm
watch seinfeld from 5:00 pm - 6:00 pm
try to find something on tv other than everybody loves raymond at 6:00 pm
lumber to kitchen, make something for dinner
eat dinner while watching a movie, usually a documentary -
or you know, everybody loves raymond.

the list goes on. i've been busy, people. i've been a bit limited in what i've been able to do just because of my surgery. and then there's all the falling down, re-injuring myself. there's that. so i've been takin' it easy, or trying to. i've hardly even left the house in 7 weeks with just an occasional trip to the grocery store here and there to break the monotony. the beautiful monotony.

going back to work this morning is sort of freaking me out.
who's going to be here to greet the mailman every day? we've gotten chummy of late.

"HAVE YOU GOT MY NETFLIX? NO? CRAP!"
and
"WHAT'S THIS? BILLS? YER MOM! DON'T COME BACK TIL YOU'VE GOT MY DAMN NETFLIX!"

i've also gotten used to wearing a t-shirt and pajama bottoms every day. that attire isn't going to fly at work, i can already tell. the t-shirt, maybe, but i'm pretty sure they'll draw the line at the jammies. and the slippers. and i'm sure they'll want me to do something with my hair.

this bizarre world of scheduled hours and actually working... it seems like so long ago.

on the upside, i re-inlist as a starbucks junkie again today. i have a fresh $25 gift card that's got quad lattes in it's very near future. and today, since i'll need it, i might just get two.

**update 8:30 am: i called my doctor's office at 8:00 am to make sure that my release paperwork was ready for me to pick up this morning - as promised that it would be. seeing as it was supposed to have been finished by thursday last week, and my original return-to-work date was supposed to have been last friday the 6th, i thought for certain that when they said "monday morning", they meant it.

lying liars. it is NOT ready, and the best estimate i was able to get over the phone was "today, maybe." when i said "but it will be today, right?" i was told "we'll do the best we can." when i explained to her that i was supposed to go back to work on friday, she said "this coming friday?" and i answered probably a little more condescendingly than necessary,"noooo, LAST friday." i was told that "that sometimes happens" when you drop off the paperwork at the 2C desk instead of your doctor's reception desk. I replied to her that i had indeed dropped the paperwork at my doctor's reception desk and not the 2C desk, so that shouldn't be the issue. i was then told by this brain trust that "well, sometimes the girls at the desk are new, or they're just covering for someone taking a break." so apparently, once again and as per usual, scott & white takes no responsibility for anything. i should have known not to leave my paperwork at the correct desk because there could be some rogue receptionist who would take it and shred it or doodle on it... anything but get it to the correct doctor to sign. that's right - all he has to do is sign it and date it, and it's done. i fail to understand how this is such a daunting, difficult task that should take more than a week to complete. but i guess when you staff your office with "girls" who clearly have no idea what they're doing that's what happens. and in which case, thank god my medical provider affords it's new employees such a comprehensive training program
step one: take the paperwork from the patient's hand.
step two: find the tallest stack of paper on the desk and insert the patient's important paperwork on the bottom; write your shopping list on the back and tuck it away safely in your hand bag; use it as a drip sheet while painting your nails; ignore it completely or just misplace it. make great strides to ensure the paperwork will not end up in the wrong hands (e.g. the doctor) in anything resembling a timely manner.
step three: collect paycheck.

so i'm not quite back to work yet...and will & grace is on in an hour so, what're ya gonna do?

well, i WAS getting better...

my surgery was three weeks ago tomorrow, and my healing has been progressing nicely. the outside is far better than the inside, but the inside will catch up with time and through the physical therapy i've been doing every day.

my incision was looking great; pink, but all closed up. since my dressings came off, it has never looked angry or irritated, which is always a very good thing.

today however, my arm is a horse of a different color.


brand new bruises on an arm that was doing pretty well...

all that bruising wasn't there this morning...

i needed to run to the grocery store, so i attempted to sit down at my desk and jot down a few items on a short shopping list. by "attempted", i mean "almost didn't make it." the chair had rolled just enough so that when i actually sat, there was nothing beneath me. i didn't hit the deck though; i stumbled backwards and my ass did indeed land in the chair, but not before my arms reflexively flailed wildly to keep my balance. i ended up smashing my bad arm into the very hard, very pointy protruding corner of the bathroom door frame. i think i just took five steps backwards where healing is concerned.


the inside of my arm showing the swelling at the inner elbow. gross! 

my arm is stiffer now than it has been in about 2 weeks, and i have very little range of motion. and it's all because i'm a huge klutz.

i'm staying in bed tomorrow. 

what i've been doing.

it's officially been 2 weeks since my surgery, and i'm finally going home tomorrow. i only planned to stay with my parents for about 3-4 days, but that turned into a few more days, and a couple more days... but my mom kept telling me she didn't want me to leave unless the doctor cleared me to drive. so, tomorrow morning i have my 2nd follow up visit with the doctor and he is going to clear me to drive if i have to threaten to jump off of the building. kidding. seriously, i'm sure he will, and i'm sure i won't be doing much driving at all.

i've been doing a whole lotta nothing at my parent's house, but that's what i've needed. i've surfed flickr for hours on end, napped like a toddler, loved on little pearl, loved on gracie, and spent a few bucks online... yeah, i got bored and went shopping.

nothing drastic, really.

i got me some more bare minerals

i renewed my membership and my first shipment has already come to my house.

oh, and some really cool bare minerals eyeliner.

i also got some polaroid 664 peel apart film



for my polaroid 250 land camera. apparently the UPS driver has tried to deliver it twice, and will be delivering again tomorrow after 2pm. i'll be home for that one. wheee!

and some ilford HP-5 plus 400 fast b&w 120 film for my holgas...

or perhaps...

for my MAMIYA C220 TWIN LENS REFLEX MEDIUM FORMAT CAMERA!



it'll be arriving probably on friday afternoon. i bought it used, so it's new to me but it's not new. and i got it for a total steal. like really - i might feel a little guilty about how little i actually paid for it if i hadn't purchased it from a retailer. woohoo!

so i have a few weeks to learn how to use this puppy... and it's gonna take a while. it's completely manual. and by "completely manual" i mean "it doesn't even use a battery." there is no part of this camera that is electric... it's all knobs and cranks and stuff... definitely nothing i'm used to. i am SO EXCITED i could just pee.

that's what i've been doing.

my good friend shannon is coming to visit me on friday afternoon from houston as well - so we might have to have an impromptu photo shoot with one hand! :)

ew! and ouch! with photo goodness

i went to the doctor this morning for my post-op appointment and to GET MY SOFT CAST REMOVED!

YAY!

i am currently only wrapped with a smaller ace bandage, but no more of the huge cotton batting and gauze bandages that made me look like popeye. it took them about 10 minutes to get it all off, but as soon as it was off, the scratching was ON. i got to scratch my arm for the first time in 8 days! it was delicious.

not so delicious, however, was the incision. in fact, it was pretty gruesome. here are several redundant photos of said gruesome incision just for their grody value. and a black & white one thrown in just to be all artsy and crap.

enjoy!

 



by the way, the stretchmark looking disgustingness on my arm isn't actually stretchmarks at all; its the impressions from the bandages being smashed into my flesh for 8 days. it's all gone now. but the bruises? oh yeah, i get to keep those babies for weeks. the incision is about 7 inches long, and from the looks of the steri-strips, it's gonna be hideous. i hope not...

reward

i spent more than 5 hours having mammograms and ultrasounds today. i am worn smooth out.

maybe i'll write more about it later, or maybe tomorrow.
right now i can barely keep my arms in an upright position...

ouch.