Back to School....

Well, it's only been 10 years since I was in school...how different can it be? Don't answer that! I know things have changed a great deal in the last ten years, but I feel compelled to get this done.

I was attending the University of Washington's Evening Degree program in 1997 and 1998. I would have just continued to go and been finished with the program and the degree in 2000, but wound up getting my IT job as a software trainer in 1999. There was way too much to learnb on this new job for me to be able to sustain that and upper level coursework at the U.W. too. So I left the program and decided I would go back after a couple of years when I found my legs on my new job. Well, two years turned into ten seemingly overnight and here I am, finally going back to school. The cost of college has doubled since I've been out. It's really staggering what it costs to get a decent education these days. But the good news is, I should be done in early 2011. So just one more year, and maybe another quarter after that and I'll have my bachelors in political science. Will I make more money? No. Will it help me in my career in any way? No. What it will do is give me a sense of completion for something I started a very long time ago. It's always bothered me that I didn't complete my bachelors degree. Very much. When Kristopher decided he wanted to go back to school, I did everything I could to encourage that - now he'll be done with his bachelors and looking toward his masters in just a few months. For the past three years I've been of a mind that it was too late for me to do the same. Well, there was early 2008 when I made another run at the U and had all my documentation ready to sign up, but was vascillating because Kristopher wanted me to try the distance degree program like he did - the end result was that I didn't go back at all and thereby wasted another two years. It really does go by very, very quickly.

So that's it. Classes start January 4. Wish me luck.

Oh My God!

It's been over two months since I wrote a blog entry. Now this isn't the longest amount of time I've gone without putting up a post, but it seems like a very long time. I've been in a cast, I've been rolling around on a scooter and trying to survive my job.

Long Time No Bloggie

Hello!

Lots has happened since I last blogged. I've had a fusion surgery on my left foot and am currently convelescing in my lovely home.
The photo of my here was taken in the hospital last week, and there's my foot inthe foreground and my primary method of transportation for the next three months in the background. Like everything else I own, this little knee scooter has been customized and given a name. This is daisy. She's got a PowerPuff girl (Buttercup) strapped to her basket, got some lively pink and silver tassles on her handlebars and even a specially purchased teapot bell for dinging as I go 'round the house. She's really be a handy companion.

So let's see what all there is to catch up on....the weekend before I went into the hosptial, Kristopher and I made a daytrip over to Roslyn where we met up with Nick and Maggie and had lunch at the brick.

First picture was taken from the car on the road to Rosyln. It's really a pretty little drive.

The next one is of my little man. He wanted this to be a really nice trip for me, so he did all the driving. it was actually pretty great.
There aren't a ton of things to do in Roslyn, but one of them is the local museum. Here's a picture of my budding historian in front of the museum's outdoor exhibit.
The picture of the organ is just that...a picture of a really cool organ at the Roslyn museum. Hey! They can't all be significant!

And this one is of me and the little man out in front of the museum. Self-sufficient explorers that we are, this is obviously self-taken. There really weren't a lot of people under the age of 80 wandering around to ask.
My favorite exhibit at the museum was this old switchboard. It reminded me of my mother. This one was actually in service there in Roslyn until some time in the 1980s! There is much about this little town that appears to be frozen in time. And they are very proud that their little community was used for the filming of Northern Exposure. The crazy clock that was ordered by the hot-shot astronaut in one of the episodes is now in the Roslyn museum. It's really cool to see close up. It was made out of a bunch of random objects like paper plates - and then spray-painted gold. Check it out.
After the museum we met Nick and Maggie at The Brick. I should have taken pics of Nick and Maggie, but I suck at that kind of stuff. We had a nice meal there, and it was just fun to be in there. Check out the sign:

There's actually a working spit-river that runs the length of the bar. It's really kind of gross. You can just imagine what it was like when everyone was chewing tobacco and spitting into it. Ug! But it's a piece of living history, so in that respect, it's pretty cool. No.. I didn't take a picture of the spit river. Just use your imagination. It's a friggin' tin-lined trough in the floor that runs the length of the bar with a little river of fresh water flowing in it. When we were there a napkin had found its way there and was floating around. It kinda grossed me out. So no...no friggin' picture!

We did manage to get the classic picture in front of the Roslyn Cafe sign. Thank you Nick!
Another feature of Rolsyn is the cemetary. Or should I say "cemetaries"? There are 26 of them abutted one to the other there in the tiny burg of Roslyn. We took a pretty good look around.

There were cemetaries for Masons, cemetaries for various other religious groups, mini cemetaries founded by individuals, and yes...there is a Druid cemetary here. I'll have to be sure to remember to tell Leon about this one. I liked the sign. It was extremely cool with all the moss growing off of it. Also, something to note about ye olde druid cemetary...it was the only one around that had ferns growing in it. We took a pretty good look around, and none of the adjacent cemetaries had ferns. Hm... Hooo Doo.

There were lots of really cool headstones in this cemetary. They were made out of all sorts of different things. This one was made of wood. I was extremely impressed by its longevity. 100 years and you can still read the name and dates carved into this one.
I've been in quite a few old cemetaries, but this is the only one I've ever seen with little plots completely fenced off. Check this out:

Oh, and no trip or site-seeing venture is complete without a photo of my little husband giving me the high sign.
So that's pretty much it for Roslyn. And before we went to Roslyn, we had ourselves our 7th anniversary. Yep. Me and the little man have been married seven years. What a ride. And no, he hadn't been taking drugs when I took this photo. We were at the Claim Jumper restaurant, and my little man just gets embarrassed when I do things like take these long-arm photos of us. But hell! Someone's got to do it!

I think this has now officially become my longest post ever, so I guess I'll stop here. I think it's time for me to go and take a shower. Ye olde leg is starting to cramp, so I think I need to get up. Even though Ghost Busters is on the television and it's pretty compelling. Ha ha! Nothing like seeing Dan Akroyd in action. Oh! Right now Bill Murray is rolling around on the floor after having been slimed by the green spud.

Have a great day everyone!

A Rainy August Day....

So we were supposed to have an air-conditioner delivered yesterday. We're certainly not in a hurry for it now that it has cooled off to a very Seattle-like 60 degrees. Oh well. It's a rainy, gray Saturday and I think that both myself and the husband are enjoying it very much. I'm in my music room playing with my computer and my flutes, and he is in the living room playing video games. We're going to an art opening later tonight. Can't say that I'm all stoked up about that either. Just had a second cup of coffee for the day and thought I would use the added energy to blog while I waited for the sugar to get rinsed out of my mouth so I can pick up one or more of my flutes. I've already put in two hours practice today but plan to do at least another hour. The weekend is time for me to get caught up on the practice I missed during the work week because I was too fried from the office-day to come home and put the lips on the plate.

So, let's see... on my last entry, I was putting up pics from the Seattle Flute Festival back in April - so I guess I will continue with that. In fact, the one at the top of the post is a bunch of flute players stretching under the direction of Lea Pearson who gave a very cool seminar on Body Mapping for Flutists.

So I think I already have a picture of Greg Patillo, the beat-boxing flutist with his ensemble Project, but here's another one anyway - he's cute. You'll get over it. And I'm sure that Eric Stephson and Peter Seymour will appreciate me calling them "Greg's Ensemble". Sorry guys. You are both bad-ass on your instruments and rocked that concert here in Seattle, but I'm a flute-nut, so I'm all about Patillo.



And second we have Project on stage for the main event:



And third, we have the stage after Project has gone into the wings. I thought it was a nice touch to leave the cello there.


So that's about it for the flute festival. I was too busy having fun to take too many pictures. One of the scenes I really wound up wishing I'd gotten was a shot of the vendors room. Good God....there was no way to capture the feeling of that room without having audio. What a crazy cacophony! Hundreds and hundreds of flutes being tested and pawed by hundreds of people. It was really something else.

And then there was a fun bike ride last weekend with me, Kristopher and a friend of ours, Lisa Lake. She works with Kristopher, but I claim her too. We had a deal where we said that whenever we went out riding together and took photos, we would crop from the waist up. So here are a few photos of our little 23-mile bike ride on on the Sammamish River and Burke-Gilman trails from last Sunday:

And here's one with my favorite sculpture on the trail. From one side it is a crescent moon, and from the other it is a salmon. Very cool indeed. We all had our picture done by it. (probably a stalling tactic as this is about 8 miles from the entrance where we started). Of coures, I'm a complete dumbass and didn't get a picture of the salmon side. Next ride.



And then here's the three of us taken from Kristopher's long arm.



So I'm tired of this post now. This is about all the blogging I want to do for the moment. Ug. Happy Saturday everyone!

Woo Hoo! Claire de Lune Sounds Decent!

Yay! I've been working on friggin' Claire de Lune for about six weeks, and it's finally starting to not sound like complete ass.

I've got an .mp3 of it, but I don't see a way to upload .mp3s to blogger. Bummer. I wouldn't have minded sharing this one. Even though I don't know how to use my recorder very well yet, and there's no piano accomp...accomp...accompaniest. **grin** You'd know what the hell I was talking about if you saw "Oh Brother, Where Art Thou" about 20 times. I can't make a video for shit. I did about ten of them and none of them would upload to youtube. I can't believe it. I guess I'll have to buy my own digital movie camera to make that happen. Or get my buddy who's in feeeelm school to come over and record me.

I'm starting to get my sound back though - yay! I'm so glad. I was worried there for a while. I've been practicing pretty heavily for the past 4 months, and wasn't noticing what I thought was a reasonable amount of improvement until very lately. Past couple of weeks. I've been getting good, encouraging comments from my teacher, and that's good. I LOVE playin' the flute. I enjoy looking at them on their stands too. I put in about 90 minutes this evening and that was on top of my 45 minute lesson, so I don't feel bad that I'm just looking at them and not playing them. I was telling Kristopher that I need to buy a third flute stand because I can't get all three of them out at once. I'm really hoping I can figure out how I'm going to play while I'm out after my foot surgery. The biggest hurdle has been cleared in that my instructor has agreed to come to the house for my August and September lessons. So at least I get to continue.

It occurred to me that I never put up any pictures of my adventures at the Seattle Flute Festival back in April. Just wasn't doing much blogging in that month - anyway, no time like the present.

The Seattle Flute Festival was held a the Town Hall in Seattle, and they couldn't have picked a better place. I love the Town Hall. I saw a historical actor protray Thomas Jefferson there once and the atmosphere really made the thing. But I digress. Might as well start off with a little Greg Patillo. He was the featured artist for the Festival. OMG! Look at the time....I'm gonna have to continue this tomorrow. But here's Greg anyway.


Greg's an amazing flutist and he does quite a bit more than just play stright, melodious flute. He's a beat-boxing flutist, and his stuff's all over youtube.

Anyway, we will continue this later. It's almost midnight and it's a worknight!

Man! What the Hell is Goin' On?

What's up with all the bad ju-ju bullshit lately? Let's see....I've had nothing but bullshit and hassles with my health, a bit of which I've chronicled here...my fuckin' car got keyed in the parking lot of the park-n-ride last week, my brother-in-law who had a very complicated shoulder surgery where they grafted cadaver bones in to help support what had deteriorated, pulled all of the grafts lose when he was trying to work on a piece of machinery at his work, well after he was cleared to go back, and now has to have another surgery to re-do what he has un-done. That would be completely horrible. My nephew burned his eyes by welding with a mask that had gone faulty in the middle of his job, and now my brother-in-law is going to have to undergo a series of rabies shots because he tried to help a feral kitten and the bumble fucks at the city, they live in Wenatchee, killed the kitten immediately, but mishandled the remains so they couldn't do the rabies test after all. So, shots for the brother in law. And I guess they are still the same as they were at the turn of the fuckin' century (not the most recent one) and so will be given to him in his stomach over the course of three injections. Oh! and a church-mate's husband had a heart attack last night. ENOUGH ALREADY! FOR FUCK'S SAKE! This niggling and eating and biting with bad shit happening needs to STOP.

Okay...there. I've said my piece. Beyond that, it is Friday...oh sacred, oh blessed, oh thou glorious and singularly holy FRIDAY. Needless to say, I am looking forward to the weekend. Not because I have anything planned, but because I will not be at work. Work hasn't been that bad this week, actually. I've gotten a lot done, and am planning to get a lot done today also. I've already downloaded one new software update, and am getting ready to do another. then I'm going to do some billable work. Then I'm going to see the surgeon for my make-up appointment, and hopefully get a surgery date set to get this foot taken care of. Enough is enough already.

Well, I wish everyone reading this a Happy Friday. And may only GOOD come your way.

Happy Wednesday

Well, I'm in a pretty good mood today. Gettin' lots of work done and feeling pretty good in general. Let's see...did I mention that I got to select my 15 year service gift last week? No? Well, Hell! I did! It's a very cool program our company has - they contract with the O.C. Tanner company that does nothing but keep up with companies employees, offer and ship out awards. It's very, very cool. I chose this ring here. I'm quite happy about it and it is due to be at my house, not coincidentally I'm sure, on my 15 year anniversary date which is August 1.


I'm also listening to a little White Ladder action - I love the songs on that disk. Babylon is one of my faves...you gotta be careful though, there are quite a few wrist-slitting tracks on there as well.

Well, I gotta get back to it...I just wanted to post up a picture of my 15-year prize. I think it's great that they do that. Not all employers do - but then there's a reason people tend to stick around here, and this is just one of many.

Have a great day everyone, and remember....if things get too hairy, you may have just picked the wrong day to stop stiffin' glue!

4-Day Weekend Winding Down....

My second Gemeinhardt flute ad came in today. It's black and white and I don't care for it as much as the color one I got a couple of weeks ago, but it's a nice addition to the wall. I have it hanging up with my Haynes ad tacked above it. Pretty cool with the statues of the composers and the candleabra...Well, candle "thing" anyway.

I took today off to go along with the 3-day weekend for the 4th of July. We had a really quiet one this year. We didn't spend any money on fireworks or go anywhere this weekend. We pretty much stayed in and wtached DVDs and Kristopher did his homework and I did my flute practicing. Life is good. I started to go in today, but wound up just bagging in and staying home. Who knows how many more opportunities I'll get to just say home and play my flutes. Which, that and cooking is pretty much all I've done today and I'm happy about that. I got up around 10, and after my shower and protein shake, came into the music/exercise room and played for over five hours. I honestly lost count. I'm going to call it five hours in my practice book, though I'm certain it's more like 7. Seems to be the only thing I'm interested in doing lately, so I guess I'm just gonna do it and not question it too much.

Friday morning I was surprised by a visit from Tim Allen and my little doll-baby Meara. They are so cute together. I really enjoyed their visit. We took Meara out to the backyard where she swung in the hammock. It was a blast. The picture here is one I took about a week ago over at their house. I didn't bring out the camera while they were here on Friday - but it's a fresh picture and you get the idea. I love her hair!
She is certainly the apple of Gammy's eye.
After Meara and Tim Allen headed out for Sally's where Meara was spending the rest of the day, Kristopher and I went to Macy's and bought the sofa and loveseat we had been looking at a couple of weeks ago when we bought the bed. Our very first new furniture together. It was really a no-brainer when you sat down on it. When I do wind up having the surgery on my foot, this stuff is going to be a great thing to have around for recovery time. It won't be delivered until the end of the month. When it is, you can bet your ass I'll get a picture of it up here.

Yesterday, we had salmon made out on the grill. Here's a picture of my little man watching over the fish planks.

Andrea did a little barbeque yesterday and had a couple of her friends over and invited me as well. She didn't decide to actually do it until pretty late in the day, so we had already done the salmon, but I went over for a visit later on anyway. It was great to see her and she seems pretty happy in her new living situation. The guy who is renting the room to her seems pretty nice, and, so far, no pervert-dom has risen to the surface.

Well, tomorrow is another day and one where I am going my happy ass to work. 4 days off has been good for me. Today was especially good to just be here and enjoy being quiet and on my own. Now I'm going into the living room to watch Transformers with the man. We went to see Transformers II over the weekend and were both disappointed. But Transformers I is da bomb!

Wow....It's Monday Alright

You know, I try to give just about everyone I meet the benefit of the doubt. When I make an appointment, I expect that if I show up, the person I made the appointment with will also be there. Not so, apparently.

This morning, I got up and drove in because I had a 9:00 a.m. appointment with an orthopedic surgeon at OPA Seattle. He's supposed to be some hot-shit rock-star surgeon whom I was foisted off on because his associate, Dr. Khan-Farooqui, whom I liked very much, was moving to Grand Junction, Colorado and didn't feel as though he could ethically perform a surgery that would need several months of follow-up care when he would only be here for one more. So, I made an appointment with his parter - the one whom he said would do the best job for what was going on here, and I was in luck...there was an appoinment available a mere 3.5 weeks away. Woo hoo! So, this morning I was pretty excited to get there and get things underway. I arrived at the OPA office building 30 minutes prior to my appointment as I was told by the receptionist who set the appointment that Dr. Mankey did not like it when patients were not prompt - that he was always prompt, hardly ever ran behind in his day and he appreciated his patients respecting that. So, not wanting to get on the doc's bad side, I showed up quite early. I went up to the offices at 8:45, and got check in by his receptionist. At 9:05, she calls me over to the desk and tells me in a very matter-of-fact voice that there was a "mix up" and Dr. Mankey wasn't in the office this morning. He had a doctor appointment, and they would call me this afternoon to reschedule. I was so friggin' stunned I just stood there for a second without saying anything - those of you who know me know that this is quite an amazing thing. Anyway, I said,
"great, I get one doctor who's moving away, so I get shuffled off to this one, and you guys set me an appointment which I wait nearly a month for, on a day when he has a doctor appoinment? I take off work this morning, I drive in, I park...."
"I know, and I'm sorry. But we'll call you this afternoon to reschedule." Now, mind you, this girl said this with all the remorse of someone telling you that they are sorry a movie is sold out and that you had to be bothered to come up to the ticket window. In other words, as though it was no fault of their own. This girl looked like she was raised on Nordstom salon foil wraps and bon-bons and didn't have a care in the world. Highly likely she is the over-privileged brat child of one of these friggin' surgeons.

Anyway, this made for a very shitty morning. I was so upset and there was no one to take it out on. I just had to swallow it down. I would go somewhere else, but this is the recommendation I had. I mean, I know these guys don't actually care about their patients, and these guys don't even really care about the money because they are the orthopedic surgeons to the big sports teams. Now I'm not sure what kind of a recommendation THAT is considering the quality of our local sports teams, but still. Oh! and when I asked the stupid bitch later on the phone (I was so pissed off I felt that I needed to call back for clarification on how this happened and to explain that I was out money on parking and so forth) if they were at least going to cover my parking for my next visit, she said, "We don't own the garage, so we can't cover your parking." O-kay....maybe she had one too many foil jobs....since when do you have to own a parking garage to comp someone's parking? It's called petty cash, you dumb bitch!

Anyway, that's been the old morning 'round here. It took me a couple of hours just to settle down enough to work! I hope anyone who reads this is having a better Monday than I am.

Ciao!

Happy Wednesday...

Apparently I CAN add images today...yay for meh! And thank goodness too because there is really no help for Blogger...and not that I'm complaining because it is FREE...free I tell you.

Okay, what you're seeing here is a pic of my big box of crayons that I keep in my office. Back about a decade ago when I took my first job as a software trainer, the senior trainer sent me a box of crayons in the interoffice mail. She said that they reminded her of the first day of school, and whenever she needed to knuckle-down and learn something, she would huff on these little waxy sticks and it would put her in the appropriate head-space for learning and teaching. So I'm huffin' crayons today. I'm not teaching anyone, but I want to get in that knowledge acquisition mode.

Also, I had a nice experience this morning when a guy at the O-to-Go place where I get my morning noms gave me a free packet of honey peanut butter. I had my dollar all out and he just gave me my receipt for my oatmeal, and told me that it was okay. Behold, free peanut butter. Why am I showing you my free peanut butter? Well, because I'm not a 20 year old hot chick who gets free shit all the time. They may get free drinks, and free dinners and never have to pay a cover charge, but that's not the reality of my life. So, the free peanut butter was a big deal. lol!

Also, a friend of mine went to Florida and went to Disney World and the Kennedy Space Center and had a great time. She came back all tan and shit....and she brought back a couple of really cutie things for me. Behold the space shuttle that is a thumb drive...

So, way cool...Happy Wednesday to all.

Another F*&kin' Monday.....

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikCLVVcy3wNDXGHJyXi3Pghzlcfwmm7ff0nqA5EgY8Ym5EdKCigcLjXYXQjWv_nGEoNfQ91H4N3wE37aghn2yOWDZA-F14PYrlDQ9lUmG5y9HP5wL2sxI1VgmKA33aYJwcRWQDfg/s320/case-of-the-mondays.jpggood morning.

Yeah....whatever.

So it appears that Monday is negatively affecting me. You think? Not as much as some Mondays - but it's early still. To add to the spectacularity of the morning, I'm unable to upload images to this beeyotch.

Oh well. Have a good one anyway. I'm posting this to show I care. **grin**

Hello from Work - Gray Skies...but it IS Seattle

I'm waiting for a database to "pack" and just thought I'd drop in and write a quick post. It has come to my mind lately that I haven't written very much lately at all. And lately includes the past fifteen years that I've lived in the writer's capital of the United States. Okay...not sure whether that's actually true. I just pulled that fact out of my ass.

So a couple of weeks ago I went to a writer's workshop called "Write-o-Rama" at Hugo House in Seattle. My husband went too, and he probably blogged about it the day we got back. Of course, he's kinda new to blogging and he's got about five of these fuggers out there to update, so he's fresh for the fight. **sigh**

So do you remember the flute picture I put up a couple weeks ago of this glorious Haynes?
Well, I bought it. Bought it from the gal at Fluteragious - which, as it turns out is a 32 year old woman living in Arkansas who has flute on the brain like I do. Except she has kept flute-on-the-brain since she began playing as a little girl, so is miles ahead of me in the obcession. She has gone to bench school in New York and learned how to actually repair flutes and runs a hobbyist business out of her home where she buys and sells flutes online. She's very cool. Her name is Kate. Anyway, what the hell was I talking about? Oh yeah...how I bought this flute from her. Hang on...the database just finished its indexing and packing.

So anyway, here are some more pics of the Haynes. And all of these pics were taken by Kate and are being used with permission.

Kate put that jewel in the crown of this flute with her mad skills. She also tipped the thing in 24K gold. It's really gorgeous. Did the lip plate in gold and put little gold accents all over. I've been carrying it to work since I got it. It plays quite well. I think my teacher was impressed with it too. "Haynes is a really good flute..." is what he said, and that is a LOT for Klaus.

And here's another.

I've been trying (kinda lamely) to get Kristopher to take some pictures of me with my flute so I can put one up on youtube with my profile because I have some flutie friends out there.

Well, that's enough. All the automated stuff is finished so I can't write anymore here. But I'm going to try to post more often. It's not like nothing is happening in our lives, but there just aren't enough hours in the day to blog about it!

Sunday Evening Again

Fridays don't come fast enough, and Sundays always come too soon. Kristopher is sitting here on the sofa doing his homework, and I am waiting for some quinoa to cook so we can have dinner. Had to do the whole meatless thing for the past couple of days due to the husband's swollen ankle as he thinks it is an attack of gout. Who am I to argue? It's an ailment that, thankfully, I don't have. He does suffer from it from time to time, so I defer.

The little grand-nugget was supposed to come over again this evening, but her Mom and Dad didn't get around to get her here. They said it was just too much trouble, and thought that I might want to come over there. Uh...no. I'm not going to my son's house for 5 hours on a Sunday and trying to be quiet while he and his wife sleep. No thanks. Get in the car, and get the kid over here, or just tough it out.

My friend Patricia came over this morning for my 4th yoga session. It was very good.

So this last week I joined up with the Lynnwood Community Band. It was a bunch of fun. It was almost exactly like high school. The drum section didn't show up, and the brass section, despite the fact that the median age had to be 60, were a bunch of clowns! I do love playing my flute. I sent my Gemeinhardt off to Elkhart Indiana for a serious tune-up by the one and only guy that Gemeinhardt recommends to do it.



And isn't this lovely, breathtaking beauty? That's my next wish. A Haynes. Loverly.

Did I mention that I'm taking flute lessons? I don't know whether I did or not. Well, I am. This coming week will be week 10 in that adventure. My flute teacher is a pretty serious dude. His name is Klaus Liebetanz. I was gonna put up a picture of him, but am a little scared to do that because they all have copyrights on them. I got permission to put the picture of the Haynes up from the woman that runs the Flutragious website.

Well, I gotta go. I gotta go over to my son's house for a bit. More like 45 minutes instead of 4-5 hours.

Have a great week!

Long time No See....

Can't believe it's been over two months since I posted to this blog! Ouch! Haven't been feeling too great and have been focusing on changing that - trying to eat right and take care of myself. Takes a lot of energy.

But I wanted to stick my head in and say things are going pretty good. This was the view from my couch last night, and it just doesn't get any sweeter than that. She is just over one month old, her name is Meara and she's my little granddaughter. Yep. I'm a Gammy.

Isn't she sweet? Well, she is. Anyway, that's pretty much all I wanted to say about that this morning. I have to get my biking clothes on and head out for a bike ride with a friend. Don't know how far I'll be able to ride as it will be the first time I've been on that bike in almost 2 years. I don't think I rode it a single time last season. I think I like the idea of having a bike more than riding the bike. Well, all these aches and pains don't help my attitude in that arena. Anyway. I gotta jet....

Oh, one more thing I thought I'd put up. A picture of my current passion. I have decided to get myself back into respectible playing shape on the flute, and pick up where I left off 20+ years ago. Pictured here are my Artley and Gemeinhardt B foot flutes, and my alto flute (way in the back). Pretty, huh? You might ask me why I have three, but I don't have that kinda time this morning.


Wonder if I'll know when I have surpssed my former abilities and moved into new territory. I look at some of the music that is marked for playing in my old books, and it is inconceivable to me that I played well enough to play them - but I must have. At least enough to mark them up. Oh well...didn't I say I was going? Yea...I've goto to make a field test of the air in my bike tires before I head out. I can and will take the pump with me, but really don't want to just hop out of the car and start pumpin' up the tires.....

Wow!

This is a picture of Darryl Hall. Remember Darryl Hall of Darryl Hall & John Oates? If you're a woman and you're over 40, and you listened to pop radio stations when you were a teenager, chances are you do remember who Hall & Oates are. But what I want to say is that this mother fucker in this picture right here is 62 years old! WTF? Maybe there really are people out there making deals with de great satan hisownself! Who the fuck knows? But I'm really happy to have found Darryl Hall again. Kristopher was just looking around the channels last night and happened onto Palladia - which is the re-branding of MTV's HD channel. Man, it is COOL. Our 50" plasma tv with HD concerts and surround sound - sheeeeet. Last night I watched lots of videos - the Kings of Leon were on, it was FRIGGIN great. Watched some of Robert Plant's new shit - that was good. Then there was a tribute to The Who - with Pearl Jam and This morning, I got up and watched an Elvis Costello concert (well, parts of it....Elvis has far too many contry singer guests). Then I was in the kitchen making coffee and I heard this voice that I wasn't at first quite sure about, then I looked around the corner and saw Darryl Hall standing there. So I came in and watched and listened and it was great. John Oates was with him and he's looking pretty good too. Unbelievable these guys are still going this strong. And check it out....here's Daryl as Jesus!

At the very least, I feel like he's definitely worth my fanship.

So what else is going on? Well, I've taken a couple of days off work. I definitely needed it. I didn't leave the house all day today until after Kristopher got home from work. I made dinner for him, then took off for errands. Went to Lowe's to exchange a toilet seat for the main bathroom. And while I was there bought some new tile for the same bathroom. Then went and bought some new protein powder at Super Supplements, went and bought kitty-kat food at the pet store, then came home.

Now we're watching an episode of The Twilight Zone. I believe it's called One More Pallbearer. We bought the entire set with our tax money. One of the best entertainment purchases we've ever made. We both love the show so much.

Well, I just thought I'd throw upb another non sequitur post. Yay!

Hello from Hell

Well, the hits just keep on comin'. I'm sitting in a hospital room at Harrison Medical Cetner in Bremerton wtching Andrea, that's my daughter for anyone who might be picking up this unfortunate cancor of a blog to read for the first time, struggle to breathe. And THIS is an improvement over when she was unconscious for 4 days in ICU in this same hospital. It's strange. I am so exhausted I don't even know my name, but I don't really have much to say on this subject other than I would not wish this kind of pain and worry on my worst enemy.

Her lungs have some serious gunk in them and her blood oxygen saturation levels just won't stabilize. I have been here at the hospital for what feels like most of my adult life. I came her on Friday at noon, and left Saturday at midnight (or, if you want to be technical, Sunday at 12:00 a.m.) and then returned on Sunday at 8:30 (left the house at 6:00 because Bremerton is 1.5 hours from where we live), and have stayed through now, let's seeeeeeee it's 5:25 a.m. on Tuesday. Needless to say, I am quite tired. And I have no idea when I will be able to get some actual sleep. The original plan was to go over to some friends of ours here in Bremerton and get some sleep on their couch while the very capable nurses in ICU took care of Andra. After all, I stayed through the night on Sunday - there should be no need to do it both Sunday and Monday. Wrong. They decided that Andrea had improved enough to put her into progressive care. Well, let me just say THAT may have been a bit premature. I left here at 9:00 p.m. when they moved her to this new room. The ex-husband and his girlfriend were here visiting her, so I stalled a bit at Lories, and then we went to pick up my car which had a flashing warning light come on when I was driving out of here on Saturday, and again when I was driving in here on Sunday. Since it was flashing, and nto a stable light, I took it to the Hyanduai dealership here in Bremerton. Those dudes were pretty good. They had it fixed and ready to go in two hours. The problem was that Andrea had begun the long and arduous process of waking up out of a 4-day drug-induced coma, and I barely was able to scrape out enough time to go and drop the friggin' thing off, much less go and pick it up when it was ready, so I didn't. I talked to one of the service technicians and he said that he would leave the key in the wheel well, and I could just pick it up at my first convenience. Well, due to Andrea's being moved out of the ICU, my "convenience" didn't arrive until 9:00 p.m. At 9:00, Lori picked me up from the hospital and we went back to her house so I could inject my Enbrel, and she coul think of something to fix me for dinner. I got the all-important and extremely good, chicken salad sammich. Anyway, I dinked around between chatting with Lori and picking up my car for 90 minutes. By the time I got back to the hospital, Andrea has gone downhill. She had a fever of 100.7, and she was talking like someone who had experienced brain damage. It was a very, very scary night. Thankfully, the RN who is looking after her here, is quite good. She listened to all my concerns and bascially we worked out a strategy to get Andrea better. This strategy included her reviewing the chart, ordering new bloodwork and having a conversation with Dr. Eagan - the dude who is on call for this sort of thing.

At any rate, I find myself dozing off in the middle of this post. I don't want to be a dumbass and lose my lappy over falling asleep at the wheel. So I'll just go ahead and post.

Down With Zune Up with IRiver Clix and "Taken" was a Bad-Ass Moobie!

Okay, so I have some nice friends...what can I say? My buddy who works at Microsoft felt sorry for me because my Zune tanked after only three weeks of service (not to mention that the stupid ass-flavored service bounced to the ground the next day and was off-line for 2 days - I haven't looked at the stupid shit since - despite the fact I'm all paid up for the next three months). Anyway, my friend brought me an iRiver Clix Gen 2 player. It's pretty cool. I know that it's not proprietary like the Zune player (stupid little bastard fuck-tard thing). Of course, I may find out that the iRiver won't work with Rhapsody, which will only serve to further disillusion me - but right now, while it's still on the charger, I'm riding high. So here's what it looks like

It got great ratings from all the gizmo-checkers, so we'll see. Of course, to be fair, so did the friggin' Zune, and where is it? Somewhere between here and the Zune service center in a Fed Ex return box that took a friggin' week to get here. So already, the Clix is ahead of it there.

I'm bummed tonight. I think it is because tomorrow is my mother-in-law's birthday and we're all going out to linner for the occassion. I always thought it was a nice occassion before. But now that my own mother is gone, it's just hard. I wish I had done more for my mother while she was around. It doesn't do any good thinking these kinds of thoughts. There really is nothing I CAN do now. Death is a pretty permanent remover of opportunity for such things. Ah...the joys of growing up Catholic and feeling that it's normal to carry around crippling stones of guilt.

So, it's probably not helping my mood that I'm listening to Elton John. Actually, he should be an inspiration to just about anyone. Check out the pics here. This one: - with the glasses that look like they are sproinging apart on his face was from about 30 years ago. That's right...30 friggin' years ago. This next one, where he's rather dapper and GQ looking is quite recent. I believe from last year.

Not only are the glasses a world better, but the man himself actually looks better than he did thirty years ago. Of course a reduced coke habit may have something to do with it if the blogs about him are to be believed. He also has the money to pay whatever it takes to keep the HGH flowin' like a fountain. Still and all - I think that a great deal of his improved countenance has to do with living long enough to navigate his way through his own psyche and emerge true to himself. Sure I was crushed when I found out that my teen-hood idol was a butt-pirate, but I've long-since made peace with that and am quite happy for Elton. Oh. Wait. Sir Elton. As a matter of fact, I think I was more pissed off at him when he married that girl in the mid-80s and not me!

We went to the movies last night and saw "Taken." It was really good even though Liam Neeson looked like someone had dipped his whole head in formaldahyde. There were lots of really cool parts to that movie, and Liam, although he always looks like a hard-luck case that just had his last dollar beaten out of him, worked quite well as a down-to-business, retired govt. spy guy. Before he got into acting, he was a forklift driver for Guiness. My little hubby person said that he would happily drive a forklift for Guiness. **grin** He probably wouldn't drive it very far. lol!

Okay, The Office is on and I think that will cheer me up pretty good.