Recovering slowly

The meds are starting to take effect, although I was flipped out last night that bleeding had returned and heavily (I seem to be on a 12 hr cycle). The iron supplements are DEFINITELY taking effect. Which was good because I got another Past 9 PM Saturday Night Gotta Do It on call call. (I am not usually on call 2 weekends in a row but I swapped this one for getting my birthday off.) Got back home, because my dialin connection is screwed up, at about 1 am. But the fact that I was able to stay up that late (even as tired and cranky as I was) was definitely progress. (It turned out to not be my issue. I hope this will atone for last weekend.)

The cat headbutted me at 3 am again. I put her in the back room and conked out till 9 am. Glad I didn't have the other work, and church was out of the question. Still fairly low energy but starting to feel more human. Will try to sort through my papers tonight, and make something for my lunches. Actually braved the Berkeley Bowl this morning , and not right at opening, too. It wasn't that bad, although I don't want to make a habit of it. Wanted raspberries for muffins (which I made).

Have been doodling around some on Usenet (sitting at my keyboard doesn't require a lot of my energy). Will call Elaine and give her the news, and call/email Alli or Mike. Already talked to Ayse, which was helpful. The relaxation techniques I have learned will come in handy because I have noticed this thing really does go haywire when I am under Big Stress.

Good News, Bad News Department

Pretty much zero energy this week. Finally made a GYN appointment (new doc to me, referred to by G.) after the hoo hah last weekend, also abetted by my zero energy.

Good news: The cause of the Month Long Period has been determined and the doc has given me some progesterone (sp) pills that seem to be taking effect. Took one at 7 pm last night and the bleeding, while not ceased, is considerably subsiding.

Bad news: It's fibroids. I go in for an ultrasound on Monday (surprised that Alta Bates could accomodate me so early) to see the extent. Must remember to make appointment with doc to discuss results.

In the surprise, I forgot to ask for a blood test to see if I'm anemic (which given my symptoms I almost certainly am). I *DID* remember to swing by the vitamin aisle at the grocery and get some iron pills, though (plus B vitamins - I thought that my regular vitamins had full RDA of B. Not so). The good news is that a few minutes of web research showed that my chances of not having to do the surgery route (and if so, the chances I can avoid having my uterus pulled - it's not that I want to have children, but I don't want to deal with the HRT question) are definitely fair. Plus there's the Cool Berkeley Doctor thing. So I'm very concerned, but not flipped out.

More good news: my emergency system work on Sunday got cancelled since someone lost the paperwork, so I can attempt to sleep in, or decide if I want to risk church during an oncall weekend. Might stay home and rest and see if good food, relaxation, and them thar iron pills have an effect. Bad news is that I might have to do it some other sunday :-(.

A beautiful Sunday

Since I'm on call this weekend, I didn't expect to be able to go to church, but I had to go in this morning (long story). Fortunately, thanks to Sara at Going Jesus, I was reminded of the Ship of Fools.

Am tired now since it was a long day yesterday doing nothing much except being on call, and didn't get a lot of sleep. Will have to get in the office extra early tomorrow to wrap it up as well. One of the worst things about it (besides having my sleep disturbed) was that the operators completely distorted what I said on the phone, which of course went out to management. Bleah.

Did get a short turn in the garden just now, and while the weeds are getting out of control again (have I been home? not much. have I been well enough when I have been? no), the fig is figging, the pear tree has baby pears on it, the lemon tree is weighted down with fruit (which is ripe enough to twist off in my hands), and the Gertrude Jekyll rose is putting on a nice rebloom. The cat wanted to go out and she was ready to come back in before I was. She really does only want to be out there for about fifteen minutes. I didn't even have a chance to come back in and set the timer; she was waiting on the back stoop.

I've seen some butterflies other than the usual Gulf Fritillary (well, they're usual in MY yard; they love the passiflora) and common whites. I think one light yellow-colored one was an Anise Swallowtail. It was moving pretty fast but it looks like one that I got a better look at a while back.

Plan for rest of day:

Nap
Install network card and DSL
See if PC still works
Cook
Maybe go outside again to pick some roses
Tidy up house (cleaners coming tomorrow, but it's in reasonable shape)

My Best Friend's Wedding

(this post will probably both at Berkeley Farm Girl and Love and Cooking)

Part of my blog hiatus was getting one of my best friends hitched. It was a very nice, but rather exhausting weekend. I spent much of Friday helping them around the house as sous-chef and gopher (rehearsal, and rehearsal dinner for 25, was at their house). I got to use my Kewl New Knife Roll, which the bride's caterer-but-traveled-by-plane mother appreciated, and was seriously impressed by Noel's kewl espresso machine. From Bread Coffee Chocolate Yoga I learned that it might be a Rancilio Silvia. Now I want one. It makes my Krups look like a toy.

The wedding itself was at Fern Cottage in Kennedy Grove, in the east bay hills. It was a perfect (indeed warm - I was toasty in my suit) day. The ceremony was quite Episcopalian (as I said to Elaine, "I know my lines"), the venue was in full garden bloom, and the only cloud was that my shoes HURT. One thing I liked about it is that there wasn't a SINGLE DAMN FOOFY BOW around. It's like they bothered about the things that I think are important, and let the rest slide. The cake topper was a Hello Kitty one - yes, the joke got taken that far. But it was adorable.

The favors were espresso cups ("From Ikea!" the bride and groom said) and they were arranged on a table with flowers strewn over them. It looked like a gift table but it was for us.

I went home and took a nap. Later I went over to the house and hung out. I think I finally got the present wrapped and sorted out on Sunday after I came back from work, and delivered it at the Sunday brunch at the house. Then I came home and cleaned. The place was a screaming mess with all the bubble wrap, etc., around.

The photographer's pictures are ready ... won't link to it since I don't have permission ... and Ayse says that they have 1400 prints to sort through, since the tables had the ObDisposableCameras on them.

Bloglandia

Re the last post, I tried recomposing it, but it got way too long. I think I'll do a series of catch-ups and split them between the blogs - more foodie ones on Love and Cooking and less foodie ones here.

Speaking of foodie-but-appropriate-here, an elderly gentleman who shouldn't have been driving hit the gas instead of the brakes and plowed into the Farmer's Market in Santa Monica on Wednesday night. Nine people are dead and many injured. I called my friend Kay down in LA and learned that she was not at the market. Since she is a regular, she knows a lot of the vendors and is concerned, of course.

Still have remnants of the cold I woke up with on July 5. Serious bummer to still have hairballs. Although I was able to sing "The Star-Spangled Banner", high notes and everything, on the morning of the All-Star game.

SPEAKING OF HAIRBALLS ... finally got around to sponsoring BeerMary in the Blogathon. I don't take things like "blogrolling" or "blogshares" very seriously but this is a good cause. Mary, a pet lover (two bunnies and an ABSOLUTELY ADORABLE St. Bernard), is blogging for The Denver Dumb Friends League. If there's anyone out there but me reading this thing, DDFL has been trying to get to the bottom of a horrific series of cat mutilations in the Denver area. CLB-Bob says check it out. And I'm glad my sweet Maya is mostly interested in being an indoor kitty post-crisis, even though I'm a thousand miles from Denver.

I hope Mary decides to get back to blogging after the blogathon. I enjoy her perspective on things (well, anything titled "Rant-O-Rama" is probably going to amuse me). At the moment she has been a bit rattled by some no-life asshole trolls (now I know where a lot of the yobbos who used to hang out on usenet are spending their time ... trying to cause trouble in blog/website comment land) and more or less shut her site down except for the blogathon. REAL bummer since she is mega-cool and very funny. (Mary, if you're reading, you should pop over to Heartless Bitches and see how they deal with toRRls.)

ANYWAY. This and that. I did start getting back on the decluttering wagon this weekend after a month's hiatus due to all the social activity. Went through my above-the-fridge cabinet and pitched out expired things (and placed some items in the Give-Away bin). I'm hoping to box some of the Give-Away items this weekend and see about (gasp) giving them away. Bless me Flylady for I have sinned. Yes, my sink is clean at the moment.

Also trying to install DSL and VPN on my computer. Should probably try to get a phone jack for the house phone in the office. Will be able to give up the modem line. Since I have had people who have played phunny phone games with me, the unlisted line has been a peace-of-mind thing, but I think I can deal. Especially since I won't have to pay for it any more.

The DSL account comes with another internet account, with 80 MB of storage space. I'm thinking about moving my archives over there. I'm also shopping for vanity domain names, since I figure if I might move my now seriously outdated website around, it's useful to do so as a personal domain. I can get MS Office quite legally for about $70 a copy through work, so I might just redo the site on the fly with FrontPage. Pictures and everything :-).

Well, foo

I had composed a long post about What I've Been Doing Lately, published it, and it vanished into the ether. Unfortunately for me I zapped the original as well.

Won't do that again. That is highly annoying.

Will reassemble it and post it to both blogs.

In the meantime, a minor item: At the family reunion/anniversary party two weeks ago, my uncle gave my late grandmother's jewelry boxes to my mother. She showed them to me and I picked two watches out, one a plain black one and a fancy (but delicate) gold one. I was so pleased with these watches that I wore them both with MINE as jewelry - they're all about the same scale so it works. I finally made it to the watch repair counter at The Longs of Mystery and Wonder on Tuesday evening and was somewhat embarrassed to learn that they were both WIND-UP, not BATTERY-POWERED watches. The black watch started working when wound, and I left the dress watch for repair (it's worth $75 to me).

On Wednesday morning MY watch's battery died. Rather than having to haul myself back there to get it replaced, because I am one of these people who goes bugs if I don't have a working watch, I decided to start wearing my grandmother's watch (and get the battery replaced in the other one, just not IMMEDIATELY).

As I was going about my business, it struck me - this watch was my grandmother's every day watch, and I remembered that I had seen it on her wrist any number of times. It's like I could feel her there with me in a way. I just didn't get that sense when I was wearing the watch with the others in a party situation. But doing my everyday things, it struck me more and more. It looks nice. I'm happy with it. I think she'd be happy too.

It will be nice when I have all three working, then I can wear them as a fancy timekeeping bracelet set. One of my cousins suggested that I set them to different time zones which isn't a half bad idea.

I have things of my other grandmother's, I just don't wear them every day. Speaking of tangible objects, I'm still praying that I find the coin necklace my grandfather gave me in the housecleaning. Unless one of the cleaners stole it (and they are highly reliable people), it's in here somewhere.