Siber-Den
26 November 2002
Viral Curses
So, I'm sick.
Some time on Sunday I came down with a blasted cold. There seems to be some kind of weird conspiracy in place. Every year that I've been with Kev, something bad has happened to keep us from sharing Thanksgiving with his parents. The first year, we hadn't really gotten together yet. We were still trying to figure things out. The second year, I got sick. BAD cold. The third year, my father passed away the day before Thanksgiving (should give me cause to hate the whole proceeding, but I don't). And now we're here.
One wouldn't think a cold would throw a wrench in the works, but the thought of being in the middle of nowhere and having the damn thing attack my lungs is just a little too scary. As much as I hate doing it, being able to call 9-11 and having halfway competent people respond is comforting when one has a chronic condition.
I'm feeling a little better today. I've finally gotten some good sleep and the dang thing's left my head. That's when it gets scary for me. It's making its way southward through my throat to my lungs now. The good thing is, it usually takes 24 hours for the damn things to slam into my lungs. It's been more than two days and this one seems to be petering out in my throat. Maybe. Maybe the handfuls of vitamins and cold meds and cups of hot tea and doses of warm salt water sinus flushings have done their work.
Just to show the damn thing that I'm not giving it any respect, I'm off to the tire place to get two new tires put on the Cobra and get it aligned and the oil changed. We've made so many trips to New Braunfels lately that I'm a month early for my oil change.
I REALLY want to go see Kev's parents this weekend. Does anyone have any idea what Louise's turkey stuffing tastes like? It's damn good. I don't want to wait till Christmas to have it this year.
And it would be nice to make use of the damn Counting Crows tix Saturday.
Cursed, lousy, blasted, useless, good-for-nothing, *expletive deleted*, damn viral infection.
I wonder how anger figures into the whole symptomatic relief spectrum.
[Posted at 14:00 on 11/26/02]
24 November 2002
Red Letter Day
I just wanted to note the date. Kev was wrong today. He seems to think he knows what caused his back to be sore for a day or two. I'd like to take the opportunity to point out to everyone that, in this instance, he was wrong, and I was right.
Kev was wrong today. I just thought I'd start noting the dates. It doesn't happen very often, and every time it does, he seems to think it's the only time it's ever happened.
Hmmm. I hope he doesn't start noting the days I'M wrong. It'll fill up his dang blog. :)
[Posted at 13:13 on 11/24/02]
23 November 2002
Nothing Exciting Going On At This End
It's been a pretty quiet week. Hence the lack of updates.
Odds and Ends:
Beatrice has been pretty cross with Eugene this week. She left a message a few days ago asking him to meet her at a certain time and place, and of course, I guess Eugene never showed up. Up to that point, her messages actually had been sorta nice. She was actually referring to herself as Bea. Now he's in the doghouse though. One of these days, she'll call when I'm here and I'll try to set her straight.
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The online chestnut farm must be out of chestnuts. I've tried several times in the past week or so to order more, and I can't seem to get it done. Emails have gone unanswered. Maybe I should try another site. *shrug*
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I've been over to my mom's house several times in the past few weeks to walk the huskies. The weather's been GORGEOUS these past few weeks. No excuse not to get them out and about. I love walking those two. One of these days, I'll really give people reason to doubt my sanity by walking BOTH of them on flexis. AT THE SAME TIME. Walking one husky is an adventure. Walking one on a flexi doubles the excitement. Walking two of them at the same time on two flexis is quite a heart-pounding affair. One has to be on the constant lookout for hapless kitties and squirrels and the like and make sure thumbs are always ready to go on the lock trigger. It's good to walk them by themselves though. Gives me a chance to disconnect them from the hip.
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Thursday, we had a small one-year memorial service for my dad. It's actually been a year. Not really any reason for it other than ritualistic (Greek Orthodox do services at the drop of a hat and have one for every occasion). He's always on our minds and the ache for him is almost always there. Still, it was nice to see family gathered together in his name. Went by the gravesite after and left flowers. I took my sister out to lunch after that and then we joined my brother and his family and my mom for greek food that evening. We seem to revel in chasing off other restaurant patrons with our noise :). My dad would've loved it.
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It's strange. I'm always a little concerned when we get together at restaurants with Kev. We're so noisy with the kids and our laughter and our conversation that I'm always a little concerned at first that Kev will be horrified by the whole production. What ALWAYS ends up happening though is Kev is usually the one making the kids act up and defy their mom and make scenes. Kev fits in. That's just too scary in too many ways.
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We caught Billy Joe Shaver's short set at Cactus last night. He's quite the personality. And his music is quite catchy. We walked over to Mission Burritos after with Terry and had some quick cheap Texmex.
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*groan* We just got back from a HUGE breakfast at IHOP. The amount of food that I'm able to shovel into this small mouth of mine scares me sometimes. Having said that though, I'm off to the gym shortly. No need to wear today's breakfast on my hips.
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I'm trying to decide between seeing CC in St. Louis on Nov. 30, as we've been planning for the past month or so, or heading over to Saengerhalle and seeing a doubleheader, so to speak, with Randy Rogers and Cross Canadian Ragweed that same evening. We'll probably end up doing the CC show. We already have tix for it. And there have been rumors of the band breaking up. The drummer has already decided to step down from the band (the official site has posted an entry from him). Scary. I'd like to get a few more shows under my belt if a breakup really is imminent. Still. If we'd known about that CCR show before we'd purchased tix, we probably would've made plans to be in New Braunfels next Saturday.
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Ok...gym...a little work...and then Sooner football. Not a bad day planned.
[Posted at 12:27 on 11/23/02]
17 November 2002
Irreplaceable
My nine-year old niece, Tasia, is pretty amazing. She's had way too many responsibilities in her young life. I can see how she's just leaps and bounds ahead of where she should be because of them. But it's sad that she hasn't spent much time being a kid lately since her parents' divorce.
She and her two younger sisters were watching tv at my mom's house yesterday. Honey, I Shrunk the Kids was playing and the three of them were watching with great interest. The middle one, who's five, after seeing what a fuss the parents in the movie were making after the kids had been shrunk and couldn't be found anywhere, wondered out loud why they couldn't just go and replace the kids. Why was it such a big deal that they were lost, she wondered? Tasia quietly asked her, have we been able to replace Papou (my dad)? Have we been able to replace Oliver (their poodle who passed away last year)? Her younger sister simply said, oh. And they went back to watching the movie.
Explanations of life and love from a nine-year old...pretty amazing stuff.
[Posted at 15:34 on 11/17/02]
16 November 2002
Elvis Is NOT In The House
I bought a dark blue, velvet-ish looking cover for the bed in the guest bedroom the other day. It's a warm, acrylic blend. Very cozy looking. The quilt was looking a bit worn, so I thought I'd get something new for Camille when she stays with us.
The resident comedian has started calling the room the Elvis room.
It doesn't look that bad.
[Posted at 12:25 on 11/16/02]
14 November 2002
Eugene and Beatrice
What to do? What to do?
We've been experiencing a repeat, wrong number. What I mean is, someone we don't know, looking for someone who doesn't live here, keeps calling us during the day and leaving messages. This has been going on for quite some time. The voice on the messages sounds like a gruff, hoarse, southern woman (perhaps African American), who probably spends most of her time nagging every soul around her. The object of her phone messages goes by the name of Eugene.
"Eugene, I need you to call me."
"Eugene, will you call me back now?"
"Eugene, are you going to call me back?"
"Eugene, what's it going to take to get you to call me back?"
And so on, and so on. Very short, very naggy messages. Some days, we'll find a half dozen messages from, who we now know from the new caller-id, Beatrice, berating Eugene for not calling her back. Eugene probably gave her a random phone number to escape having to answer her.
Only once have I had the pleasure of speaking to Beatrice. I had the handheld on my desk, it rang, I automatically answered it, Beatrice stammered a bit and then asked for Eugene. When I told her she had the wrong number, she hung up and immediately called back again. I didn't bother to answer it this time. I guess she figured she really DID get the wrong number. She went ahead and left a message for Eugene to call her back.
So what to do? Should I do the helpful thing and answer the phone the next time, have her repeat the number she's dialing, and tell her never, not ever, has anyone by the name of Eugene lived, visited, popped in, worked, and probably even driven by here? Or should I pretend I'm Eugene's girlfriend and demand to know just who the hell she is? Oh the fun scenarios one could come up with.
*sigh* If only I were more in control of myself. I probably could have some fun with this.
But alas...I'll probably just spell it out for our poor Ms. Beatrice if I'm ever home the next time she calls.
In the meantime, I'm going to have to record one of her messages and put it up. I'm not joking. She's about the naggiest sounding person I've ever heard.
[Posted at 00:09 on 11/14/02]
08 November 2002
Thank God It Wasn't Worse
Today was really a gorgeous day. Finally. The weather has been miserable for most of the past three/four weeks. The sun finally decided to warm and dry things up for us this week.
Kev suggested we all meet up at the ice house to enjoy it, and we met up with John, Cathy, and Terry.
We spent a couple of hours talking and enjoying the company and then all went our separate ways home.
A couple of hours later, we received an email from Cathy. On her way home, she'd been in an accident, and her Wendy's front was destroyed. Cathy sustained a bloody nose from the air bag deployment and a banged knee. The accident was bad enough to flip the other car and send its driver to the hospital. That driver was at fault and ticketed.
I just talked to Cathy on the phone. Needless to say, I'm sick. Cathy has become like a second best friend to me (Kev being the first). Thinking about her being hurt was making me hurt. Hearing the tremble and the disappointment about the car in her voice has made me physically hurt. I'm actually shaking as I type this. We just were sitting around and enjoying each other's company and laughing and admiring Wendy's new personalized plates that had just come in. And now this.
Bad things are not allowed to happen to people I care about.
I hope you're ok, Cathy. And hopefully, Wendy2 will be back to zoom you around in no time.
Please be ok.
[Posted at 22:38 on 11/08/02]
07 November 2002
I Hate That Place
I have said over and over again how much I HATE the City of Houston B.A.R.C. facility. It's nothing more than a slaughter house and dungeon. This article in this week's Houston Press is horrific in its detailing of the inhumane treatment meted out to the poor creatures unfortunate enough to end up there.
We adopted Camie, our husky/shepherd mix, from this place back in February 1999. He was a wild one back then. Would he have ended up the same as some of these others if we hadn't stepped in? We were his last chance.
It was hard enough getting through this article. It ends with the killing of a beautiful husky. After reading that, I started sobbing.
God, I hate that place.
[Posted at 13:19 on 11/07/02]
04 November 2002
They're MY Toys
I'm getting soft. Last night, the dog put on her saddest, hound dog face (no, she's not a hound dog) and went back and forth from Kev's side of the bed to mine. I finally gave in and patted the mattress at the foot of the bed and she jumped on and settled between us and fell immediately to sleep (faker).
I banished her to her own bed a long time ago because of my allergies. I just couldn't handle her sad, puppy dog eyes last night. I was too tired to notice if my allergies were bad as a result.
Now she's working her wiles on me for the new husky plush that I brought home. I collect stuffed huskies. Kiwi hates the fact that I have !TOYS! on my desk, and she can't have them.
I've already given her my stuffed meerkat.
Geez, I'm so weak.
[Posted at 21:22 on 11/04/02]
01 November 2002
Dog Geek
I just took Kiwi to the dog park. Well, it really isn't a dog park (Houston's too lame for that). It's a fence-enclosed softball field. But we use it as a dog park. And so do quite a few other people. We've come across quite a few, but I'm always a bit weary about letting her have her way with other dogs. She's not completely socialized just yet, so we usually just turn the park over when anyone arrives. We've been working on her socialization, and she's much better.
Today, we'd been running around for ten minutes, about ready to head home, when I heard a shout at one of the gates. I looked over and it's a guy with what looks like a husky. Imagine that. Kiwi playing with a husky. That never happens huh. He asked if he could let her in, and I put Kiwi on her leash and said go ahead. He came in and we both let the pups off and immediately they ran to each other and put on a play fight. The dude immediately became concerned and ran to intervene but I told him not to. I told him they needed to figure out who's who and they'd be fine. Sure enough, a few seconds later, they were standing and sniffing and then playing. The guy came over and said, I need to shake your hand. That was great. I laughed and we proceeded to tell dog stories and watch the two of them play. The thing is, on closer examination, I realized it wasn't a husky but a Malamute, much heavier and stronger than a husky. Kiwi ran circles around Natasha. Her owner was amazed at Ms. Ki's speed. (How sad is that? I remember the mal's name, don't remember his name)
I get such a kick out of things like this. I love taking her to the park. Seeing her run so gracefully makes me smile, even when she runs full speed at me. We thought the highlight of today's visit would be the squirrels on the other side of the fence. Instead, we got to PLAY!!!
Is there such a thing as a dog geek? Cuz I seem to be one.
[Posted at 11:50 on 11/01/02]
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