Oh. Gawd. So much for not getting sick. What started out feeling like a sinus infection last Thursday ended up as what I can only assume was the flu by Sunday evening. I was knocked flat for 5 full days. That never happens.
Even though Scoob wasn't feeling so hot himself, he really pitched in when the fever hit. I think the hardest thing for him was keeping me in bed (not a phrase I thought I'd ever say). I kept getting up to get juice or feed the cats or put a movie in the DVD player and he read me the riot act each time. I've started calling him my Nurse Ratchet. He's not mean, though, just strict. And yes, mom, he did make some hot 'n sour soup—my favorite when I'm sickly.
I would have gone back to work on Tuesday, but Nurse Ratchet barricaded me in the bedroom, so I took one more day of bed rest and spent it watching all 5 of the Harry Potter movies. Again. I know they're supposed to be kid movies, but I don't think I'll ever get tired of them.
So Wednesday was my first day back on my feet and at work. It took me a while to wrap my brain around things and I think today was really my first day back up to speed.
What with being buried under a mountain of tissues and blankets, the closet organizer did not get installed last weekend like I'd hoped. I'm beginning to think it sounds like a good couple's bonding project—you know, for Valentine's Day.
Oh, but in other exciting news, we trained the cats to a new litter box this weekend. Yeah, thrilling news, huh. It was quite easy really. I was too sick to get up and scoop the old box, so they had no choice but to use the new automatic one. Now the old one is washed and stowed away until we need it as a spare when we go out of town.
Last week seemed so long ago, but a few items stuck in my mind from before The Crud of 2009 visited.
One of the biggest news items for me was Justice Ginsberg undergoing surgery for pancreatic cancer. I hope the surgery is successful, but of course speculation has already begun regarding who President Obama would nominate to replace Ginsburg if needed. Most of the chatter seems to agree on one thing, Obama will be under immense pressure to appoint a female Justice to the court.
A clear front-runner for the potential nomination is Judge Sonia Sotomayor. First of all, she's female, she's also Latina, she's generally viewed as being a moderate, and she was appointed to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York by George H.W. Bush, which would hopefully help with a quick confirmation process should Sotomayor get the nomination.
Another name that has been mentioned is Elena Kagan, which I find surprising since she has never argued a case at trial and she's President Obama's current nomination for Solicitor General. Actually, seeing as it is the Solicitor General's job to argue the government's position before the Supreme Court, having had very little courtroom experience may make her better suited to the more philosophical nature of Supreme Court Justice. But of the two, I think Sotomayor is the better option.
In other political news, Keith Olbermann has diarrhea of the mouth. Again. Don't get me wrong, I'm not a Cheney supporter. In fact I agree with much of what Olbermann says, but the bile Olbermann spews is nauseating. And saying Cheney needs to leave the country because of things he has said is beyond the pale. Ummm, Keith, yeah, it's the United States, dude.
No matter how off base, infuriating, or crazy Cheney's comments may be, he is entitled to the same protections under the Constitution that Olbermann has been bitching about being systematically taken away the past 8 years. From his tirade, it would seem Olbermann feels that because Cheney has said, and continues to say, things that in his opinion strengthen the position of terrorists, Cheney should be denied his rights under the Constitution and banished from the country. No, that doesn't sound at all un-American or Bush-esque. What's next Keith? Shall we waterboard him too?
Olbermann had his moment (several years of moments, actually) when he openly said on air what millions of Americans were thinking, and I enjoyed watching him then as much as anyone else. But it became shtick long ago as the Bush Administration progressed through it's lame duck term, and unlike Stephen Colbert or John Stewart, Olbermann is not funny. Now that the Boogie Man is no longer in power, Olbermann's continued bile-filled rants at him seem more and more disconnected from reality.
In fact, what went through my mind as I watched the video was, "My God, he's become the liberal version of Ann Coulter or Bill O'Reilly." Olbermann has become just as disturbing as the people he rails at.
I have the vague recollection that Olbermann used to report the news. I wish MSNBC would put him back on that job and stop airing his "Special Comments." Though, he's probably lost all credibility as a newsman now since he has dropped all pretense of being unbiased. He's a caricature of his former self and it has become pitiful to watch. It's not inspiring, enlightening, or even entertaining any longer. But I keep watching; hoping to find a gem.
On a lighter note, it was kind of nice to read that even at the White House, they have to deal with some of the same things the rest of do—masked intruders. We have raccoons at our house too, though other than the one that climbed up to our second story patio, they seem to keep to themselves.
Actually, I remember seeing my first hedgehog while I was interning in D.C. It was huge. I had always thought of hedgehogs as being about the size of a guinea pig, but that one was the size of a medium bulldog! And in the middle of D.C. Judging by the picture on that article, they also have problems with beavers. Who knew?
Showing posts with label sickly. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sickly. Show all posts
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
Sickly
I don't know if it's the crud or allergies, or both, but Scoob is outta commission. And between taking care of the sickly man, trying not to get sick myself, and keeping up at work, I'm finding fewer and fewer minutes to blog.
Interestingly, I ran across an article on Monday that said allergy season was starting earlier here in the Bay Area due to the warm-ish and dry winter we've had so far. It's supposed to rain a bit this weekend, so hopefully that'll get some of the pollen out of the air. Scoob has year-round allergies, and spring is usually just brutal. I revisited that herbal cough remedy from November and whisked up a batch for him tonight.
We ordered a closet organizer thing a week or so ago--it was one of Amazon's deals of the day, so we got it on sale. It arrived today. Depending on how Scoob is feeling this weekend we may tackle the project. My goal is to take two nearly useless closets and make them useful again. I'll let you know how that goes.
One thing I did notice was that Blackwater security forces have been banned from operating in Iraq. Hopefully, now that Cheney is out of office, this ban will be more effective that the banned issued in September 2007. Clearly, this is not a new issue.
This video is very cool. I think it's a music video, but it's a unique take on sleepwalking. I wonder if the cat dreams like this when his legs twitch.
Also, I like the video-jokes here. The "Broccoli" joke made me laugh out loud. And the purpose for making the site and videos is interesting. Note: There are a couple f-bombs, so turn down your volume or put on your headphones if you don't want little ears to hear.
Interestingly, I ran across an article on Monday that said allergy season was starting earlier here in the Bay Area due to the warm-ish and dry winter we've had so far. It's supposed to rain a bit this weekend, so hopefully that'll get some of the pollen out of the air. Scoob has year-round allergies, and spring is usually just brutal. I revisited that herbal cough remedy from November and whisked up a batch for him tonight.
We ordered a closet organizer thing a week or so ago--it was one of Amazon's deals of the day, so we got it on sale. It arrived today. Depending on how Scoob is feeling this weekend we may tackle the project. My goal is to take two nearly useless closets and make them useful again. I'll let you know how that goes.
One thing I did notice was that Blackwater security forces have been banned from operating in Iraq. Hopefully, now that Cheney is out of office, this ban will be more effective that the banned issued in September 2007. Clearly, this is not a new issue.
This video is very cool. I think it's a music video, but it's a unique take on sleepwalking. I wonder if the cat dreams like this when his legs twitch.
Also, I like the video-jokes here. The "Broccoli" joke made me laugh out loud. And the purpose for making the site and videos is interesting. Note: There are a couple f-bombs, so turn down your volume or put on your headphones if you don't want little ears to hear.
Sunday, November 23, 2008
Preparing to Leave
Well, we're headed out tomorrow for mom's. While we're there, I'll only have access to a dial-up connection; so don't be surprised if next week is just as quiet as last week.
Poor Sweetie, he's actually feeling much better but he just can't seem to shake the cough and it's been keeping him awake at nights (me too, but I'm not as miserable). He's tried the Quils, both Day and Ny, and cough syrup, and lozenges, but he's still coughing. So today I tried looking up remedies online and found a doozy here, and they got it from Herbally Yours by Penny C. Royal, 3rd Edition. I had all the ingredients in my spice cupboard, so he decided it was worth a shot. It seems like it took 30 minutes to an hour to kick in, he's still coughing but the fitful bouts seem to have stopped:
¼ tsp. cayenne pepper
¼ tsp. ground ginger
1 Tbsp. honey
1 Tbsp. apple cider vinegar
2 Tbsp. water
Whisk together and take by the teaspoon-full. (He took 3 teaspoons of the stuff and said it tasted a bit like Tabasco sauce, but sweet.)
This weekend has been mostly about getting ready to go. Mom had a list of things for me to bring up to her, the biggest of which were some shelves from IKEA. We have two IKEA stores here in the Bay Area and these are the nearest stores to her. The shelves mom wants are only $25 each but apparently IKEA wanted over $200 to ship them to Oregon because they're over-sized packages. The challenge for me was figuring out how to fit them in the Subaru for the trip up. At 75" they fit, but just barely, and Sweetie will have to ride in the backseat on the way north. Love you mom.
Also on mom's list was some sesame oil, seasoned rice vinegar, and daikon radish sprouts. Because of all the Asian grocery stores here, we can get the oil and vinegar for way less than she can. And the diakon sprouts are something new. I'd tried them and told her about them, so she's curious to try some. I'm not sure if they're still in season. We'll stop at the vegetable stand on the way out of town and see if they still carry them. It's the only place I've ever seen them.
The last item on mom's list was my Christmas lights. They were hers to begin with and became mine with one of her moves. She has had some clear lights strung in a Japanese maple tree on her patio but they recently flickered their last. And since I don't decorate for Christmas (I can't see the point since we don't have children and we're always traveling to somewhere else for the holiday) she wanted them back.
I was positive I knew where I had those lights stored. Dead positive. So of course I waited until the night before we leave to go dig them out of the garage. Oh yeah, you guessed it. I can't find them. I've found every other ornament and Christmas related item I've ever owned, but the lights? Forgeddaboudit. I have this little voice whispering in the back of my mind that tells me I already gave them back to her when she lived in San Jose and needed to replace the lights on that patio.
Oh well, give it a month or so and all the holiday decorations will be on clearance anyhow. BTW, Target is a great place to go for marked down and clearance items and not just Christmas decorations either. I have it on good authority (my cousin's hubby works for them) that they do not return items to the warehouse from the stores, so they keep marking it down until it sells. If it doesn't sell, they give it to Goodwill.
With the economy being so tight and holiday shopping upon us, I thought you might find that tidbit useful. Oh, and not from my cousin's hubby, but most Target stores follow the same mark down schedule (your local store may be different so checking with an employee wouldn't hurt):
Monday - Kids Clothing and Electronics
Tuesday - Women's Clothing and Domestics
Wednesday - Men's Clothing, Toys, Health & Beauty
Thursday - Lingerie, Shoes, Housewares
Friday - Cosmetics, Housewares, Automotive
Also, all clearance items have orange tags. In the top right corner of each tag you'll see a number, 15A, 20A, this is the percentage the item has been marked down. So if you're on my list this year, don't be surprised if you find something from Target under the tree.
I'll probably have lots of shopping posts and tips as we head into the holidays because, you guessed it, I haven't started my shopping yet. Last year I was finished by Halloween, this year, oh well. We'll start with this one, if you have a kid on your list that loves to know how things work or is otherwise a bit geeky, any one of these 17 items (prices range from $15 to $150) might be just the ticket. Well, maybe not the cutesy guitar for Guitar Hero or the Darth Vader t-shirt, but the other 15 ideas sound good.
Speaking of Star Wars, during my web surfing today I ran across an excerpt of Carrie Fisher's new autobiography Wishful Drinking here. I thought I would just skim through it, but I found myself really reading it. I like Star Wars and all, but I wouldn't call myself a "fan". I do like Carrie Fisher though. Wishful Drinking is due out on bookshelves December 2, but Amazon already has it in stock.
Last thing and then I better start dinner (we're having Kahlua pig fried rice and lots of fruit to clean out the fridge before we leave), I mentioned in yesterday's post that we're planning to do some casual house hunting while we're up north. Sweetie would really prefer a newer construction (10 years or newer), but we're willing to look at remodeled older homes.
One of the things we're noticing as we look is that, unless the developer left trees standing on the lot, very few of the newer homes have any mature trees. It's not as if this is a deal breaker, but trees absolutely add to your home's appeal and value. Not to mention the potential for saving you money while you still own the house and the environmental benefits of more trees. J.D. over at Get Rich Slowly talks more about the benefits of adding trees to your property.
Fall is the perfect time to plant a tree, but there is a lot to consider before you run out and purchase a tree. Check out the Arbor Day Foundation's database and try the advanced search.
You'll want to consider the soil on your property, vegetation zone and sun exposure; you'll want to determine how tall and wide you want the tree to be at maturity so you don't plant too close to your home or to power lines; you'll want to think about any leaves and seeds the tree may shed annually that will require clean up; you'll also want to consider the tree's root system among other things.
Some trees have tap roots that sink deep into the ground and other trees have shallow roots that spread out underground making it next to impossible to grow anything around them. The house mom purchased has trees of this last variety and since she's an avid gardener, it causes her no small amount of trouble.
Poor Sweetie, he's actually feeling much better but he just can't seem to shake the cough and it's been keeping him awake at nights (me too, but I'm not as miserable). He's tried the Quils, both Day and Ny, and cough syrup, and lozenges, but he's still coughing. So today I tried looking up remedies online and found a doozy here, and they got it from Herbally Yours by Penny C. Royal, 3rd Edition. I had all the ingredients in my spice cupboard, so he decided it was worth a shot. It seems like it took 30 minutes to an hour to kick in, he's still coughing but the fitful bouts seem to have stopped:
¼ tsp. cayenne pepper
¼ tsp. ground ginger
1 Tbsp. honey
1 Tbsp. apple cider vinegar
2 Tbsp. water
Whisk together and take by the teaspoon-full. (He took 3 teaspoons of the stuff and said it tasted a bit like Tabasco sauce, but sweet.)
This weekend has been mostly about getting ready to go. Mom had a list of things for me to bring up to her, the biggest of which were some shelves from IKEA. We have two IKEA stores here in the Bay Area and these are the nearest stores to her. The shelves mom wants are only $25 each but apparently IKEA wanted over $200 to ship them to Oregon because they're over-sized packages. The challenge for me was figuring out how to fit them in the Subaru for the trip up. At 75" they fit, but just barely, and Sweetie will have to ride in the backseat on the way north. Love you mom.
Also on mom's list was some sesame oil, seasoned rice vinegar, and daikon radish sprouts. Because of all the Asian grocery stores here, we can get the oil and vinegar for way less than she can. And the diakon sprouts are something new. I'd tried them and told her about them, so she's curious to try some. I'm not sure if they're still in season. We'll stop at the vegetable stand on the way out of town and see if they still carry them. It's the only place I've ever seen them.
The last item on mom's list was my Christmas lights. They were hers to begin with and became mine with one of her moves. She has had some clear lights strung in a Japanese maple tree on her patio but they recently flickered their last. And since I don't decorate for Christmas (I can't see the point since we don't have children and we're always traveling to somewhere else for the holiday) she wanted them back.
I was positive I knew where I had those lights stored. Dead positive. So of course I waited until the night before we leave to go dig them out of the garage. Oh yeah, you guessed it. I can't find them. I've found every other ornament and Christmas related item I've ever owned, but the lights? Forgeddaboudit. I have this little voice whispering in the back of my mind that tells me I already gave them back to her when she lived in San Jose and needed to replace the lights on that patio.
Oh well, give it a month or so and all the holiday decorations will be on clearance anyhow. BTW, Target is a great place to go for marked down and clearance items and not just Christmas decorations either. I have it on good authority (my cousin's hubby works for them) that they do not return items to the warehouse from the stores, so they keep marking it down until it sells. If it doesn't sell, they give it to Goodwill.
With the economy being so tight and holiday shopping upon us, I thought you might find that tidbit useful. Oh, and not from my cousin's hubby, but most Target stores follow the same mark down schedule (your local store may be different so checking with an employee wouldn't hurt):
Monday - Kids Clothing and Electronics
Tuesday - Women's Clothing and Domestics
Wednesday - Men's Clothing, Toys, Health & Beauty
Thursday - Lingerie, Shoes, Housewares
Friday - Cosmetics, Housewares, Automotive
Also, all clearance items have orange tags. In the top right corner of each tag you'll see a number, 15A, 20A, this is the percentage the item has been marked down. So if you're on my list this year, don't be surprised if you find something from Target under the tree.
I'll probably have lots of shopping posts and tips as we head into the holidays because, you guessed it, I haven't started my shopping yet. Last year I was finished by Halloween, this year, oh well. We'll start with this one, if you have a kid on your list that loves to know how things work or is otherwise a bit geeky, any one of these 17 items (prices range from $15 to $150) might be just the ticket. Well, maybe not the cutesy guitar for Guitar Hero or the Darth Vader t-shirt, but the other 15 ideas sound good.
Speaking of Star Wars, during my web surfing today I ran across an excerpt of Carrie Fisher's new autobiography Wishful Drinking here. I thought I would just skim through it, but I found myself really reading it. I like Star Wars and all, but I wouldn't call myself a "fan". I do like Carrie Fisher though. Wishful Drinking is due out on bookshelves December 2, but Amazon already has it in stock.
Last thing and then I better start dinner (we're having Kahlua pig fried rice and lots of fruit to clean out the fridge before we leave), I mentioned in yesterday's post that we're planning to do some casual house hunting while we're up north. Sweetie would really prefer a newer construction (10 years or newer), but we're willing to look at remodeled older homes.
One of the things we're noticing as we look is that, unless the developer left trees standing on the lot, very few of the newer homes have any mature trees. It's not as if this is a deal breaker, but trees absolutely add to your home's appeal and value. Not to mention the potential for saving you money while you still own the house and the environmental benefits of more trees. J.D. over at Get Rich Slowly talks more about the benefits of adding trees to your property.
Fall is the perfect time to plant a tree, but there is a lot to consider before you run out and purchase a tree. Check out the Arbor Day Foundation's database and try the advanced search.
You'll want to consider the soil on your property, vegetation zone and sun exposure; you'll want to determine how tall and wide you want the tree to be at maturity so you don't plant too close to your home or to power lines; you'll want to think about any leaves and seeds the tree may shed annually that will require clean up; you'll also want to consider the tree's root system among other things.
Some trees have tap roots that sink deep into the ground and other trees have shallow roots that spread out underground making it next to impossible to grow anything around them. The house mom purchased has trees of this last variety and since she's an avid gardener, it causes her no small amount of trouble.
Saturday, November 22, 2008
Oh, What a Week
But it's over and I'm done. It's officially vacation time. Woot! I brought work home with me, definitely not woot, but it's for Monday, 12/1, because I'll be working from home. Jury duty. Another not woot. It's my second call up this year because I had to defer the earlier one due to a funeral (obviously not mine).
So I'm mostly back to normal, normal for me anyhow. The digestive system kicked back into gear on Thursday and by Thursday night I was feeling pretty good. I still have some tenderness in the ribcage area where I supposedly bruised my pancreas and if that hasn't cleared up by the time we get back from vacation I'll be back at the doctor's. But dudes, that was seriously the worst case of food poisoning I think I've ever had. It even tops Thanksgiving 2000, and that was a doozy.
Unfortunately, Sweetie got sick with cold/flu just as I was getting better so we've still been taking things pretty easy around here. He said he was feeling a bit better today so I'm hoping he'll be even better on Saturday. It would suck to be out of commission two weekends in a row, and last weekend was b-e-a-utiful here. 80 degrees and sunny, sunny, sunny. Hard to believe it's late November.
So the vacation plan is to hit the open road on Monday and head straight for mom's house in Oregon. Do not pass go. Do not collect $200. We'll head to Eugene and do some casual house hunting on Tuesday and do a little shopping (no sales tax in Oregon yo). Oh what's that you say, but all the good sales start on Friday? You won't catch me anywhere near a retail brick-and-mortar store on Black Friday. I won't do it and you can't make me. No way no how. I don't care how good the sale is. In fact, the better the sale, the more likely I am to give your store a wide berth. There is no material thing on this planet worth braving retail on Black Friday.
Anyhow, back to the Tuesday shopping. I think Sweetie is planning to get me my Christmas present early this year, actually, I know he is, because he told me. My digital camera took a dirt nap a few months ago and anytime I want to take photos I have to borrow his, download the photos to his laptop, then email them to mine. Oh, the horror, life is so rough, right? Anyhow, we'll be shopping for a camera.
I've also been thinking about replacing the laptop. I scrubbed a lot of programs off the hard drive and it helped a bit, but it's still incredibly slow compared to what it used to be. I've found it runs better if I power it off whenever I'm not actually using it. Waking it up after a "nap" is when it seems most sluggish. And the fan runs constantly from the moment I turn it on. I don't think I'll replace it this trip, but when I do I think it'll be with a desktop.
When I work from home I need to 10-key webpage node reference numbers a lot. No, really, a lot. I also need to use the number pad for diacritical marks (alt+0225 gets you an á, and alt+0241 gets you an ñ). On the laptop I need to copy paste these each time I need to use them because the numbers on the keyboard don't work for this for whatever reason. And when you're working on guidebooks to Latin America, that's a lot of copying and pasting. Thank goodness putting the guidebooks to Asia and places like Budapest online are way off in the future. At least I know the Spanish diacritic keystrokes by memory.
Dudes, I'm on vacation! How did you get me monologuing about work? That's enough of that.
So between Sweetie and all the people that've been sick at work, I thought I'd check the Google flu tracker and see what the flu trends are. If our little corner of Berkeley is any indicator, the Bay Area should be royal blue on this map. But then again, they're making their map based on search terms, not actual medical data.
Ze Frank launched another photo project following the election for blue and red voters to share messages with each other. It's interesting and just made me feel good about all of it now that the campaigning is over. Then again, almost all Ze's stuff makes me feels good. Especially the duckies.
So Blackwater has been back in the news. In case you've been hiding under a bush since the war in Iraq began, Blackwater is a U.S.-based private security contractor and they're the largest security contractor operating in Iraq. So far they've been the biggest winner of State Department security contracts. Yes, Cheney has ties to them. Anyhow, there have been stories in the past about how Blackwater handles operations, how their security efforts conflict and interfere with our Armed Forces efforts, and even cases where Blackwater operatives have killed our troops in friendly-fire. So now we're learning that weapons shipped to Iraq by Blackwater have found their way to the black market. And again, no charges have been filed.
Two funnies and then I hit the hay.
For all the cat lovers out there, How to Tell if Your Cat Is Plotting to Kill You.
And, if you live in the Americas and have ever felt somewhat disoriented, this may have something to do with it. (Save it for future reference when you're trying to explain to someone why you're not one of those people with a good "sense of direction".)
So I'm mostly back to normal, normal for me anyhow. The digestive system kicked back into gear on Thursday and by Thursday night I was feeling pretty good. I still have some tenderness in the ribcage area where I supposedly bruised my pancreas and if that hasn't cleared up by the time we get back from vacation I'll be back at the doctor's. But dudes, that was seriously the worst case of food poisoning I think I've ever had. It even tops Thanksgiving 2000, and that was a doozy.
Unfortunately, Sweetie got sick with cold/flu just as I was getting better so we've still been taking things pretty easy around here. He said he was feeling a bit better today so I'm hoping he'll be even better on Saturday. It would suck to be out of commission two weekends in a row, and last weekend was b-e-a-utiful here. 80 degrees and sunny, sunny, sunny. Hard to believe it's late November.
So the vacation plan is to hit the open road on Monday and head straight for mom's house in Oregon. Do not pass go. Do not collect $200. We'll head to Eugene and do some casual house hunting on Tuesday and do a little shopping (no sales tax in Oregon yo). Oh what's that you say, but all the good sales start on Friday? You won't catch me anywhere near a retail brick-and-mortar store on Black Friday. I won't do it and you can't make me. No way no how. I don't care how good the sale is. In fact, the better the sale, the more likely I am to give your store a wide berth. There is no material thing on this planet worth braving retail on Black Friday.
Anyhow, back to the Tuesday shopping. I think Sweetie is planning to get me my Christmas present early this year, actually, I know he is, because he told me. My digital camera took a dirt nap a few months ago and anytime I want to take photos I have to borrow his, download the photos to his laptop, then email them to mine. Oh, the horror, life is so rough, right? Anyhow, we'll be shopping for a camera.
I've also been thinking about replacing the laptop. I scrubbed a lot of programs off the hard drive and it helped a bit, but it's still incredibly slow compared to what it used to be. I've found it runs better if I power it off whenever I'm not actually using it. Waking it up after a "nap" is when it seems most sluggish. And the fan runs constantly from the moment I turn it on. I don't think I'll replace it this trip, but when I do I think it'll be with a desktop.
When I work from home I need to 10-key webpage node reference numbers a lot. No, really, a lot. I also need to use the number pad for diacritical marks (alt+0225 gets you an á, and alt+0241 gets you an ñ). On the laptop I need to copy paste these each time I need to use them because the numbers on the keyboard don't work for this for whatever reason. And when you're working on guidebooks to Latin America, that's a lot of copying and pasting. Thank goodness putting the guidebooks to Asia and places like Budapest online are way off in the future. At least I know the Spanish diacritic keystrokes by memory.
Dudes, I'm on vacation! How did you get me monologuing about work? That's enough of that.
So between Sweetie and all the people that've been sick at work, I thought I'd check the Google flu tracker and see what the flu trends are. If our little corner of Berkeley is any indicator, the Bay Area should be royal blue on this map. But then again, they're making their map based on search terms, not actual medical data.
Ze Frank launched another photo project following the election for blue and red voters to share messages with each other. It's interesting and just made me feel good about all of it now that the campaigning is over. Then again, almost all Ze's stuff makes me feels good. Especially the duckies.
So Blackwater has been back in the news. In case you've been hiding under a bush since the war in Iraq began, Blackwater is a U.S.-based private security contractor and they're the largest security contractor operating in Iraq. So far they've been the biggest winner of State Department security contracts. Yes, Cheney has ties to them. Anyhow, there have been stories in the past about how Blackwater handles operations, how their security efforts conflict and interfere with our Armed Forces efforts, and even cases where Blackwater operatives have killed our troops in friendly-fire. So now we're learning that weapons shipped to Iraq by Blackwater have found their way to the black market. And again, no charges have been filed.
Two funnies and then I hit the hay.
For all the cat lovers out there, How to Tell if Your Cat Is Plotting to Kill You.
And, if you live in the Americas and have ever felt somewhat disoriented, this may have something to do with it. (Save it for future reference when you're trying to explain to someone why you're not one of those people with a good "sense of direction".)
Saturday, November 15, 2008
The One Where We Learn About the Morphine
Dudes, I so totally had plans to blog my butt off this weekend but after this morning's trip to the ER I'm not quite feeling up to snuff.
So we've been having sales conference at work all week, which usually means lots of people in and out of the office, and lots of catered meals. On Wednesday, there was this fritatta thing, that was actually quite tasty.
On Friday I found out that lots of people had been hit with a bout of food poisoning from it on Thursday. So, I'm thinking it's Friday right, I should be good. Oh hell no.
We went out to dinner at an Indian restaurant Friday night with one of the folks out from the New York office. Left the restaurant around 9:30pm, got back to the house around 10:15 and proceeded to start puking my brains out.
So for me food poisoning normally involves expelling everything from both, ahem, avenues and then I'll be fine. But by the time 3:30am rolled around and I was still waking up every 20 minutes or so so I could continue "expelling" I told Sweetie I wasn't going to be able to stop and I was too dehydrated and we needed to get to the hospital.
I gotta say, I love Kaiser. The only two trips I've ever needed to make to their ER have been handled swiftly. I've been to other provider ERs where we've had to wait upwards of 5 hours to be seen. I know it all depends on how busy they are when you show up, but still, they've been awesome. Still peeves me that work doesn't offer us a Kaiser option. So until they tell me I can't (oh, which apparently might be Jan. 1, 2009), I'll stay on Sweetie's policy as a Domestic Partner.
So the Dr came in to see me and asked about stomach pain, which was when I told it him it wasn't so much my stomach as my diaphragm. He started poking around, dude I hate the poking part, which set off another bout of vomiting followed by a dash to the toilet. Dr says, yeah it's your diaphragm (that's what I said), but you've also got something going on with your pancreas there (oh). So we'll be giving you something to stop the vomiting, morphine for the pain, Imodium for the diarrhea, and hook you up to a bag of fluids.
Dudes, when the nurse says, "Now you may feel a little dizzy and leaden," she's not kidding. I have a couple issues with her IV placement skills, but I appreciated the morphine warning.
So by the time we left, I was chugging down water and was begging for more. I'm still just on fluids, but I might try a piece of toast or crackers for dinner. I just jumped online to let y'all know what's up and to email my dinner mates from last night to see if they had any issues. Since we all shared family style I can try to narrow it down to either dinner or that fritatta from Wednesday. I still find it hard to believe that my metabolism is so slow I wouldn't get sick for two full days, but you never know.
I don't quite remember my exit instructions from the Dr, I know I'm supposed to continue to pay attention to the pancreas area if the tenderness doesn't go away, but beyond that I don't know. Really, really shouldn't be giving instructions to me, or asking me to read the informational hand outs, or signing credit card bills after a shot of morphine. Just sayin'.
So we've been having sales conference at work all week, which usually means lots of people in and out of the office, and lots of catered meals. On Wednesday, there was this fritatta thing, that was actually quite tasty.
On Friday I found out that lots of people had been hit with a bout of food poisoning from it on Thursday. So, I'm thinking it's Friday right, I should be good. Oh hell no.
We went out to dinner at an Indian restaurant Friday night with one of the folks out from the New York office. Left the restaurant around 9:30pm, got back to the house around 10:15 and proceeded to start puking my brains out.
So for me food poisoning normally involves expelling everything from both, ahem, avenues and then I'll be fine. But by the time 3:30am rolled around and I was still waking up every 20 minutes or so so I could continue "expelling" I told Sweetie I wasn't going to be able to stop and I was too dehydrated and we needed to get to the hospital.
I gotta say, I love Kaiser. The only two trips I've ever needed to make to their ER have been handled swiftly. I've been to other provider ERs where we've had to wait upwards of 5 hours to be seen. I know it all depends on how busy they are when you show up, but still, they've been awesome. Still peeves me that work doesn't offer us a Kaiser option. So until they tell me I can't (oh, which apparently might be Jan. 1, 2009), I'll stay on Sweetie's policy as a Domestic Partner.
So the Dr came in to see me and asked about stomach pain, which was when I told it him it wasn't so much my stomach as my diaphragm. He started poking around, dude I hate the poking part, which set off another bout of vomiting followed by a dash to the toilet. Dr says, yeah it's your diaphragm (that's what I said), but you've also got something going on with your pancreas there (oh). So we'll be giving you something to stop the vomiting, morphine for the pain, Imodium for the diarrhea, and hook you up to a bag of fluids.
Dudes, when the nurse says, "Now you may feel a little dizzy and leaden," she's not kidding. I have a couple issues with her IV placement skills, but I appreciated the morphine warning.
So by the time we left, I was chugging down water and was begging for more. I'm still just on fluids, but I might try a piece of toast or crackers for dinner. I just jumped online to let y'all know what's up and to email my dinner mates from last night to see if they had any issues. Since we all shared family style I can try to narrow it down to either dinner or that fritatta from Wednesday. I still find it hard to believe that my metabolism is so slow I wouldn't get sick for two full days, but you never know.
I don't quite remember my exit instructions from the Dr, I know I'm supposed to continue to pay attention to the pancreas area if the tenderness doesn't go away, but beyond that I don't know. Really, really shouldn't be giving instructions to me, or asking me to read the informational hand outs, or signing credit card bills after a shot of morphine. Just sayin'.
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