Dying Hard Drive

My Dell Inspiron is preparing to cross the veil.  Her hard drive is alternating between screeching like a banshee and squawking like a harpy with intermittent breaks to mimic a garbage disposal trying to chop up a fully grown alligator in one go.

Knowing this was coming for the past six months, I decided not to have her hard drive replaced; instead, I’ve offered her to my step-mother who’s still babying along the desk top computer that was my deceased father’s.  She’s wanted a laptop for a long time, so it could be a good deal for her.

I, however, need, in addition to a much larger hard drive, a lot more processing power, so my fixing up my Inspiron really wasn’t a good option.  Instead, in about two weeks I’ll be setting up my new Dell Studio 1555, complete with pre-installed wireless capability, and a new wireless printer.

In the meantime, I’m pampering my darling Inspiron and backing up the hard drive to an on-line storage service.  It’s a race to see if I can get all the data uploaded before her brain burns out.  This means you won’t be hearing from me until I make nice-nice/friends with the new Studio.

Since I’m still needing lots of rest, I guess this really couldn’t have happened at a better time.  However, I am very frustrated not to be able to keep up with everyone else’s blogs – and the backlog when I get back is going to be massive!

So no one is forgotten — life (and death) has simply interfered for now — luv and hugz to everyone for the nonce!

The Times, They Are A-Changing

Sent to me from Gary via email, who never fails to forward the best of life’s lessons!

The top twelve indicators that the economy is bad:

12. CEOs are now playing miniature golf.

11. I got a pre-declined credit card in the mail.

10. I went to buy a toaster oven and they gave me a bank.

9. Hotwheels and Matchbox car companies are now trading higher than GM in the stock market.

8. Obama met with small businesses — GE, Pfizer, Chrysler, Citigroup and GM — to discuss the Stimulus Package.

7. McDonalds is selling the 1/4 ouncer.

6. People in Beverly Hills fired their nannies and are learning their children’s names.

5. The most highly-paid job is now jury duty.

4. People in Africa are donating money to Americans. Mothers in Ethiopia are telling their kids, “Finish your plate; do you know how many kids are starving in America?”

3. Motel Six won’t leave the lights on.

2. The Mafia is laying off judges.

And my most favorite indicator of all.

1. If the bank returns your check marked as “insufficient funds,” you have to call them and ask if they meant you or them.

Thanks, Gary!

Women in the Civil War

Larry Eggleston was a Contract Specialist in the same Contracting Office where I worked for the last twelve years of my career.

I didn’t know Larry personally, but I knew of him, and it was my understanding he wasn’t happy about or impressed by women entering the Navy’s Contracting profession, which had been a male-dominated profession up until about the time I entered the field.  I heard about or over-heard some pretty insensitive and “political incorrect” comments about or directed to the women he had to work for or with.  This is not to say that he wasn’t tolerated as a curmudgeonly, grouchy old relic from the past, one who had a lot of experience and wisdom.

My old work crowd and I were absolutely flummoxed (but certainly pleased) when Larry’s book, “Women in the Civil War:  Extraordinary Stories of Soldiers, Spies, Nurses, Doctors, Crusaders, and Others,” was recently published and he was Interviewed on Chicago Channel 9 WGN.

Knowing just how hard it is to write and how difficult to impossible it is to publish, I say, “Kudos and congratulations, Larry!”  And as soon as I can find an affordable copy, I’ll even read and review it.

Thanks to Monica for getting the word out.

Down But Never Out

A short post to let you know my recovery from the extreme HAE agony and distress my body underwent this past month is going much slower than I hoped.  Reading is extremely difficult as my eyesight has really deteriorated considerably and my exhaustion is more than what I ordinarily experience.

To those new friends who have recently written to me, I ask for your patience; I promise I will respond as soon as I am able.  To those cherished ancients who have long tortured themselves by subscribing to this blog or dropping by to harass me periodically, I say:

and thanks for all the lovely comments you’ve been leaving.  Reading them made my eyes fight to join the Foreign Legion and a brutal migraine to initiate a hemorrhage in what is left of my brain, but it was well worth the happiness that happened in my heart.

Perfect Proof — Just Not the Booze Kind!

For those of you who have had the tenacity to follow the trials and tribulations of my most recent health crisis here on my blog, you know that two blood tests showed that I had recently developed kidney damage.  This finding not only semi-ruined my enjoyment of my step-mother’s remarriage and my visit with my beloved Grandmother, but threw me back into the abyss of pain and misery (times 10) I was experiencing before the FDA approved the treatment that is currently keeping me on this side of the veil.

My dear friend, Saje, offered to create a healing charm for me and I enthusiastically welcomed hers (and everyone else’s) efforts on my behalf, and I was looking forward to receiving it in the mail.  As if Tuesday morning, however, it had not yet arrived and, despite having another HAE attack following directly on the heels of an extremely severe attack that began last Tuesday and persisted until Thursday night (when I finally called my immunologist – and who wanted me to go to the hospital because I was too sick to access my port myself, but as proof positive of how much I hate the ERs around here and although it took me about an hour and a Sybil-like litany of “I know I can do this.  I know I can do this.  I have to do this.  I have to do this.  Dear Goddess, I need you to help me do this.”  Over and over until I go the sucker in and gave myself one infusion and the a second one an hour later – I was 10 out of 10 wanting to just die sick!)  So I recuperate slowly over the weekend and dontcha know, another attack starts Monday night and I have to see the nephrologist Tuesday morning!!!  But I’m a true Taurus and determined to drag myself there if it kills me and everybody else.  I can hardly see, I’ stopping every mile or so to contribute organic matter to the road side environment, and I crawl into his office.  He gets one look at me and refuses to discuss any thing about my kidneys – I’m going directly to the ER whether I like it or not!!  So off I go (my step-mother picks me up or I would have just landed up at the closest hospital – and I really would have gone to meet my Goddess) to the only hospital in which I have at least a small amount of trust.

They get one look at me and, despite the fact that I have no gun or knife wounds, and I’m not conveniently spouting blood like a fountain in the local lake, they get me into an ER room and work me up (blood pressure, drawing blood and other fluids, putting the cool non-slip socks on my feet, getting me warm blankets, doing an EKG, etc.) within 10 MINUTES!!  In another 5 minutes, in comes the ER doc and he’s obviously been talking to someone already (probably my nephrologist) because I don’t have to recite the HAE handbook for him.  He wants to hook me up with some breakfast of saline water, give me some intravenous Zofran to really give the nausea the old heave-ho, and get some x-rays of my abdomen to be sure there aren’t any obstructions, and all of that happens within fifteen minutes of him skeddaling.

At this point, it is 2:30 p.m. and I have sucked (okay, my veins have sucked) down almost 3/4 of the bad of salt water and my pain level has decreased from 10 to about 4.  The doctor waltzes in and asks how I’m feeling and I let him know I’m feeling great – for me!  And that’s when he tells me the news:

ALL OF THE LEVELS THEY’VE BEEN GOING BAT-SHIT CRAZY OVER ABOUT MY KIDNEYS—WELL, THEY ARE PERFECTLY NORMAL!  IN FACT, SAYS THE ER DOC, MY NUMBERS ARE BETTER THAN HIS!!

Dr. Tudor, my nephrologist, had contacted his partner, who name was complete unpronounceable and and so I had Tudor write it on a piece of paper, which I would show to every medical looking official, well, he said he thought that there was absolutely nothing to worry about with respect to my kidneys!!

There is something that happens at 2:30 p.m. every Monday through Saturday – and that is when my postal carrier delivers my mail.

There is no doubt in my mind that Saje’s charm being delivered in my “possession” at the same time that I received the news that my kidneys were fine is not a coincidence or a happenstance!  I know it is another example of the proof and power of magic.

You have all given me the strength to persevere until the right elements could be brought into alignment at the perfect moment, and my  heart is filled with so much love and gratitude!

I almost forgot the most important news – I’ve been given permission to go back to my regular schedule of using Cinryze every other day!  I expect it will take some time to undo the damage sustained over the past few weeks (like whatever is going on with my eyes – everything is blurry whether I have glasses on or not) and rebuild my energy, but my spirit survived and is large enough to reach out and embrace each and every one of you!

Kat

Ode to My Favorite Martian

It’s all about you, baby!

Now, this is all about me:

Humor in Uniform – 21st Century Style

Thanks to Gary for forwarding these – one of the great features in Reader’s Digest is “Humor in Uniform.”  I thought RD’s HIU selections were so much funnier back when I was a kid, but as these snaps show, our troops are having no trouble at all competing!

A Visit with Grandma!

Here are the photos of my visit with my Grandmother, Vivian.  Pictures taken both by my brother and myself are included, but in no particular order.  I’m extremely ill today, so I’ll have to post the actual details about the visit at a later date, as well as scans of some photographs my Grandmother gave me.  Enjoy!

Visit with Grandma 2009

Wedding of My Year!

Here are the photographs of my step-mother getting remarried – it was such a wonderful experience and I was so happy to be there to document it for her.  I hope you enjoy them!

Annette & Joey’s Wedding

Caddictive

Here’s a diabolical (in Gary’s words, who tricked me into this addiction by email) new brain teaser I invite you to twist your brain around – click on the cat below to go to the creator’s website, read the instructions and begin your adventure!  I captured the mischievous kitty 3 times out of 10 – how did you do?