Forever A Fangirl

Birthday

Roger (spouse) turned 47 today.
Went to Friday's for an early dinner then mini golfing--oldest son with a score of 39 was one under par, the rest of us were not really great but in the early evening sun we had great fun. We came home afterward for cake, balloons, etc.
Hilarity ensued.

Happy Humpday!

I'm exhausted, wiped out, stick a fork in me, I'm done.

Firstly, it's inhumanly hot & humid and I was a city girl today doing lots of walking. Blech.

Eldest son and I went to see "L" at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago.
I tried to steel myself before seeing her but it was the first encounter I've had with someone who is paralyzed and well, I have nothing ever again for the rest of my life to bitch about.
She was so lovely though--she was herself--witty and genial and still very obviously in love with my son. He was very attentive to her--as I would expect. She can eat now--though not unassisted so he was feeding her some snacks and giving her sips of her drink. She can move her legs and kept kicking off her footie socks but her upper body is the problem so he kept putting her socks back on for her which was a sweet gesture.
This center is world class and you can tell they really try to make patients feel human with all kinds of activities from karaoke to movie & popcorn night to bingo--that's all in addition to the rehab work that they are pretty intense about.

"L" does have a gorgeous view of Lake Michigan--she's in an area where people pay big bucks for the view and she's got big, picture windows directly across from her bed--so some thought went into giving whomever lands in that room the very best of the best. Her spirits are really good though she may be there for up to three months. I'm really not sure if her left arm is going to come back to use--she says it feels like an 800 pound weight--and she's a southpaw. We can only hope...

That's about it for my day. It rained so I missed my swim--going to try for tomorrow as well as my volunteer gig and then taking my younger son to see Nacho Libre.
I loved Jack Black in High Fidelity and he wasn't bad in School of Rock but after having watched him in a lead role in King Kong the other night (family night) I'm not sure how I feel about another dose of him so soon. Just gonna have to go to find out.

Hope you all had a happy humpday!

Tell Me Something Good

We finally have "L" back in this neck of the woods, although way downtown. She immediately began to get better follow-up care than she was getting and now can "close off' her tracheostomy area and actually speak using a close approximation of her own voice. Son is headed over there today via train (that ought to be big fun in this weather) as he's been sick and didn't want to chance making her sick, too. He is so excited and shed tears of joy and relief when talking to me last night. He also thanked me for teaching him some of his (more positive) personality traits--oh, that's very nice to hear believe me--though really if I can't be blamed for all he's done I cannot take credit, either. People are what they are. Parents just try to steer them in the right direction.

Anyhoo, "L's" dad was fired for taking time off to be with "L" in NYC and Jim has been a real shoulder for him to lean on. To put it simply, between the three of them they worked very well as a family. I most certainly feel towards "L" as I would my own child and cannot wait to see her--though I will wait so my son can have a couple uninterrupted visits with her after this long 10-week separation. Also, she is quite a ways away from being out of the woods. She is slated to be in rehab--in the Northwestern facility-- all summer.  At least she does have a partial view of Lake Michigan from her window--a vast improvement over what she had.

I'd best get moving. I am the ride to the train and nightgown attire--even in this heat--won't cut it.

Naps Are Good

With any luck the air ambulance will be bringing "L" home tomorrow--leaving NYC at 7 a.m. Eastern.
Her absence has been extended at least a dozen times--often at the last minute for health, weather, and insurance reasons. I just really hope all goes as planned this time.
She's going to be in northern Chicago in rehab and public transportation is spotty at best so it'll probably be me at least some of the time doing the driving. I don't mind--I'm just glad that our girl will be home and I'm anxious for the rehab to start in earnest. At this point she is still unable to walk nor to breath completely on her own but looking at this as positively as possible progress is slow, but steady.

Younger son is home on summer break and is already bored. Library trips, walking the dog, and riding his bike are not cutting it though he does seem to be getting the hang of taking a daily nap. I think the world would be happier place if we all did so.

This weekend past we saw the X-Men III film. Younger son was deeply disappointed that certain characters got short screen time or like Night Crawler, none at all. We all agreed that the film would have benefited greatly from a plot, too. But I love super heroes so I wasn't unsatisfied.

We had about a week of cool and/or rainy weather with today being the first decent day for the pool. Of course youngest son and I headed there to swim and play throw the frog. I got whacked a few more times than I would have liked. Why are some men so freakin' aggressive sometimes? Never mind, I know why but jeez what's wrong with not beaning your catch partner in the jaw every other throw?!

Anyway, though I wore block I got too much sun and am officially burned out. I even cut short my shift at Wings. They were short-staffed and loading me up with heavy stuff to cart to and fro and I was ready to drop. I really hope I can build some endurance before the fall as I can't imagine getting through a full school day feeling like I do. :/

So it'll be early to bed for me tonight. I'll probably try to tackle some more of the reading that I've taken on by joining the summer reading group at our library. I'm a bit anxious as they want me to read 5 books in 6 weeks and I'm not a fast reader!  So it's questionable whether I'm going to be eligible for that awesome t-shirt when all is said and done. ;)
I'll try though. Right now I'm reading "Are Men Necessary?" by Maureen Dowd but I'm looking forward to H G Wells' "Ann Veronica," which has a strong women's suffrage theme running through it. Sounds like a slight break from his earlier, "The Invisible Man," and "The Time Machine," which I liked. Wells was the only fiction I found appealing (as a bookseller for the past 7 years I've grown extremely jaded about popular fiction) so I have two murder mysteries on hold-- one the latest by my favourite author of that genre, Patricia Cornwell, and the other by a now-dead television character--"Evil Twin" which I picked 'cos it's short.
I'm hoping that they get here before the race to finish reading is over.

That's about it from this side of Lake Michigan.

Cheers!

--Cyn

Gutless: The Entity Calling Itself "Ann Coulter"

(click cartoon to enlarge)

I love this political cartoon featuring the star of my all-time favourite movie franchise "Alien," which suggests that Ann Coulter and the Alien are one and the same. Close maybe but all the Alien did was hunt and devour. Pure "id," if you will.

The Alien does trump Coulter in at least one one respect though--it was not a publicity whore.

http://tinyurl.com/htamg

Coulter writes in a new book, "Godless: The Church of Liberalism," that a group of New Jersey widows whose husbands died in the World Trade Center act "as if the terrorist attacks happened only to them."

She also wrote, "I've never seen people enjoying their husbands' deaths so much."

Former White House adviser David Gergen, quoted by NBC News, said, "It's the ugliness of the charge that she's making and the ugliness of the words she's using that are drawing attention to her, but it's almost like she's a figure in a circus and you say, `Oh my God, can you believe that?'"

Her criticism targets four New Jersey women--she dubbed them "The Witches of East Brunswick," after the town where two of them live-- Kristen Breitweiser, Lorie Van Auken, Mindy Kleinberg and Patty Casazza.

The four have spent the years since the 2001 terror attacks supporting an independent commission to examine government failures before the attack, and in the 2004 presidential campaign they endorsed Democratic candidate John Kerry.

The women, who are still pushing for changes in how the government guards against future attacks, issued a statement after Coulter's TV appearance.

"We have been slandered. Contrary to Ms. Coulter's statements, there was no joy in watching men that we loved burn alive. There was no happiness in telling our children that their fathers were never coming home again. We adored these men and miss them every day," their statement said.

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Figure in a circus? Okay, I can buy that but it's pretty mild.

How about "incoherent resident of an asylum for the criminally insane" (assuming she's found guilty of slander)?

 

Grade 8 Graduation

My youngest son just graduated from 8th grade.
He and I both think the pomp & circumstance is a little out of place here in the 21st century where the majority of us don't have to work on the farm or in a factory, forgoing high school.
That said, there was one shining moment amid the bloated self-congratulatory atmosphere that is so typical of a wealthy school district ("Oh yeah and the kids are great, too." :eyeroll:).
A boy named Matt at the last minute apparently, offered up a self-penned song about the Jr. High experience and sang and accompanied himself on guitar. He was fantastic. So genuine and talented, he blew away much of the phoniness that characterized this evening.
Yay for Matt. Yay for my son, too.
Best to them and the rest of the class as they prepare for The High School Experience.

And one from May--his last band concert (prior to the start).

I am so beat

Oh my, oh my I am so beat--pretty exciting post so far, huh?
This is just a really busy time and family commitments--tonight was my younger son's 8th grade graduation--family stuff has been time consuming. I'm still painting. Looking forward to spackling next as I've said to heck with it, let's get the whole house freshened up. I also am collaborating with youngest son & spouse about "what to do" about what is now the view out son's BR window. I'm not sure of the correct name but it's the sub ground-level "well." Ours has a opaque cover and then several feet below pebbles outside the window and some random dead weeds. I just can't leave it like that so I'm thinking maybe a couple pots of flowers/plants that are okay with moderate sun. And the "well" part is a rusting metal gray so we need to wash and I guess spray paint it with outdoor paint. I was thinking painting it silver in an attempt to "beef up" the limited sun that finds it way down there.
This I will definitely take photos of because I could really use some suggestions. Hopefully we'll at least get it cleaned up this weekend.

Not much else to say atm. We've had hot n' humid weather so top down motoring and pool time is worked in whenever I can.   I should use more sunblock or else I'm going to look like leather lady in 10 years... not to mention skin cancer risk. 

Cheers!

Gore Bashing (A letter from Howard Dean)

Hurricane season has arrived -- and two fresh studies point to a link between global warming and an increase in the number and power of storms like Hurricane Katrina.

What are Republicans doing about it? They're smearing former Vice President Al Gore.

One right-wing pundit compared Gore to Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi propagandist. Another right-winger, who's been on the payroll of corporate special interests, likened Gore's pursuit of solutions to global warming to Adolf Hitler's pursuit of genocide.

I'm sending Al a note this week telling him to keep fighting, to keep standing up for the truth no matter how vicious the attacks. I thought he might like to hear from you, too. Sign on to this note of thanks, and add your own note of encouragement here:

http://www.democrats.org/keepfighting

Facts are facts. Global warming is happening, and it threatens our very existence. But it also presents a historical opportunity to rise above politics and act boldly. Despite right-wing efforts to silence him, Al Gore has articulated one of the great moral challenges of our time and tried to move people to act.

This should not be a political issue. We need a conversation about climate change and its consequences. But special interests in Washington have a tight grip on the Republican leadership, and an entire network of corporate-funded front groups has emerged to deny reality and attack the messenger.

They hope that scorched-earth political tactics will cover up the reality that the scientific debate is one they've already lost.

Vice President Al Gore deserves our thanks for his courage and leadership. Let him know you appreciate his stand by signing on to this letter of thanks before this week is over:

http://www.democrats.org/keepfighting

Did you know the National Academy of Sciences joined academies in the other G8 countries last year by concluding that global warming requires "prompt action"? Or that insurance companies are fleeing coastlines and charging huge premiums to avoid taking more losses from massive hurricanes? How about the fact that climate researchers have a new worry: that we could cross a tipping point that sends sea levels rising by 20 feet by the end of the century?

If you didn't know, that's by design. Corporate special interests are deeply invested in keeping us hooked to the status quo -- high gas prices, inefficiency, and dependence on foreign oil.

That's why last year, in the middle of a record-breaking hurricane season, Republicans in Congress and the White House gave oil companies $6 billion -- even as those companies ran away with the largest corporate profits in American history. And that's why we still have yet to see the Bush administration stand up and do anything to stop global warming.

Enough is enough, and people know it. Al Gore is demonstrating exactly the kind of courage and moral clarity that Democrats will bring when we take back Congress and win elections up and down the ballot this year.

The inconvenient truth is that global warming exists -- and thanks to Al Gore, it's now more likely that America will come together and do something about it.

To get more information about the crisis of global warming and what you can do to help solve the problem, visit: http://www.climatecrisis.net

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Citations

"You don't go see Joseph Goebbels' films to see the truth about Nazi Germany. You don't go see Al Gore's films to see the truth about global warming."
--Sterling Burnett, DaySide, Fox News, May 23, 2006.

"Gore believed in global warming almost as much as Hitler believed there was something wrong with the Jews."
--Bill Gray, as quoted in The Washington Post Magazine, May 28, 2006.

Allergies suck

Allergies suck--I guess more accurately, they blow. Years ago, I started allergy shots, then the heart failure put the kibosh on that. But my son at about age ten, decided that going through a half box of Kleenex each morning was just not worth it and he opted for a couple of years worth of shots. It actually worked for him! I was so surprised and happy after seeing him suffer so. But it took him a few years to decide to "go through" with it. So he's all good--I'm still doing the half box of Kleenex thing.  The side benefit of the switching of the entire contents of two rooms and all the painting is that some much-needed cleaning is getting done, though it probably won't be until our next move before some of these hard to reach/easy to forget places are given a scrub-down again. See above for my physical reaction to all this. I'm still painting doors.  I have one more coat on one door before I start with some trim. I gotta say, the more one does this the better it looks. I did not have one mistake on the door I painted last night. I used about a ton of painter's tape though (making sure of course to get it removed right after the last brush stroke). The upstairs BR doors are now "chocolate." I believe a small section of my hair is that colour as well. I meant to do that. So now that I've done my Monday morning email/business stuff, I'm headed for the pool. Y'all have a fine day!

Black Cherry Rose

Black Cherry Rose from my friend GW's new and improved garden. He's growing it in his front garden in Northern (about one hour north of San Francisco) CA.

Wish I could see it (or one like it) in person, but unfortunately not this year.  :(

(used w/out permisson (:me bad:) )

Today's DIY Report

I'm still in energizer bunny mode--just slashing through _ stuff_ and chucking it or if it's still nice, putting it in the donation bag. This afternoon I had the boys haul just a ton o'stuff from the huge walk-in closet under the basement stairs out to the Dumpster. I told them I was trying to "model" behaviour as they both need to whittle down their respective junque collections with the current BR switch. Since their bedrooms are getting face-lifts I gave mine a mini-one today by changing to the summer bedspread with matching (well, to my eye matching, lol) pillows and pillow shams. I switched my PC around too giving me a better view of the outdoors as well as hanging some wind chimes with crystals to catch the colours of the sun. After all is said and done with the boy's rooms which includes me refinshing a bedside table and student desk (my youngest refuses to part with it    ) to match the rest of cherrywood shade of all things wood/pseudo wood--I will paint the MR bedroom.
So two shelves are now up in youngest's son's new room and they are very smart-looking--the Celtic hangers look appropriately masculine and give the basic shelving some oomph-- though now I wished we'd opted for bigger ones. No going back though as those suckers are bolted to the wall to stay and it took Captain Perfection hours to do just them as they had to be just so.   

Why wasn't I invited? Not fair.

I had a normal almost-summer day. Well above average. I swam (totally alone at the outdoor pool).    Did some book business stuff and personal business, too.
Later got a recap of a day in the life of my 8th grade son. All classes but English/Lit have "run out of work" and they are doing the run-up for graduation (playing a lot of games with candy rewards) and next week having a special breakfast (Why wasn't I invited? Not fair.) and celebrating at Gameworks.

Then I went to Wings (top down both ways ) and it was fun except for being a witness to perhaps the rudest woman on the planet as she harangued a very nice guy who works for the store. Turns out she was a scam-artist, as he recounted afterwards, with whom he's dealt before. She was awful and I just wanted to sock her in her very nasty mouth.
Anyway, the rest of it went okay. It's hard work, as they are short-staffed but I pretty well have the media sections sorted out as well as other stuff specific to this store that I continue to learn. I've got a high degree of autonomy and that's pretty crucial.

Had dinner with my spouse and younger son--chili & a veggies platter on the side.
Later painted two BR doors and I am actually getting better (and it's getting easier).

So I am pretty whipped (tired) but feel okay. I'm hoping the L-taurine that I'm taking now is having an effect--the best would be to help get me into some better numbers I re-take the echo in a few months.
Latest word on "L" is that she is finally able to process food (couldn't leave the hospital without doing so) but the insurances companies (she has several) are being butts and she won't be home for at least another two weeks. . I feel badly for all involved but I'm damn happy to hear that her digestive system is starting to function again after not for almost two months.

Happy trails, all!