Ship's Blog: April, 2007

Angie is the dove who moved in after Fiona and her family left. For a while I feared she was a single mother (maybe even a widow!) because I never saw her mate, Gary. But it turned out that Gary and Angie look startlingly alike...uh, not that I'm great at telling the difference between doves!

For some reason, fledglings always leave their nest on weekends at this house. It's rather convenient as we get to watch the drama. Bobby, Annie's brother, left early on Friday night. We saw him sitting on the roof of Kathy's car, with his feet tucked under him in that funny way fledglings sit, like they don't know how to stand because they've spent so much time in the nest.  Read more »

I don't!

My surgeon walked into the exam room today, speaking as she entered. "It was just as I thought - negative!" I smiled at her, so relieved. SO relieved.

She said that she hadn't thought it was anything to worry about in the first place. I asked, "If this kind of thing comes up again, do we wait longer before doing surgery?" I thought maybe next time we could track things for a few months before doing a biopsy.  Read more »

Last night, Kathy and I were teasing Skeeter while we sat in the living room. We wanted to prove that he doesn't listen to what we say, so we were talking about how we were going to leave for a week and he would be all alone and blah blah blah. He ignored us.

You might think, of course he did, he's a cat. But if we had said that around Tilly, she would have run under the bed or curled into a ball, big scared eyes peeking out at us. Skee, however, is listening to the music in his head.  Read more »

The other day, upon walking into the living room, I spotted Dash under the console table in the hallway. There was only a few inches clearance for him to get under the table, so he was lying as flat as he could while peeking out with big eyes. He had the most definite pout on his face.  Read more »

Okay, what's the most suburban event you can imagine going to? For me, it would be a supermarket grand opening celebration. Yeah, that's pretty much it -- and, that's pretty much what I did today!

I have been dead tired since my surgery and I haven't felt like going anywhere. But, we needed groceries and my sense of humor was spiked when Kathy told me that our newly remodeled Safeway was having a grand opening. (This is suburbia, so we have a Safeway within 3 miles of every direction -- this one is perhaps the friendliest one, though not the fanciest.) She said they were randomly giving away 200 iPod Shuffles during the day. We made our shopping list for the week.  Read more »

While I've talked about how this potential recurrence scare has made me lose all semblance of graciousness, truth is, when I am around real people, I revert back to Nice Girl mode. Good thing, too, because when you choose to get treatment at a teaching hospital, patience and grace are necessary to your survival. It is never in your best interests to make the people with sharp instruments cranky or nervous.

I arrived in radiology before 10 am, as perky as someone can be who hasn't had any water to drink for 10 hours. My royal blue hair was contrasting wonderfully with my red and black cotton track suit. You know, when I'm heading into surgery, I don't really care how I look. I just want to be cozy as long as possible.

We waited for an hour past my appointment time. I could see the woman at the front desk getting edgy as the minutes ticked by, because she knew I had to go to surgery. She kept calling in back to remind them, and finally she just made them take me. I bet she didn't want to be the one to call over to the hospital wing and say they just hadn't gotten around to inserting the guide wire into my breast.  Read more »

Today, I went to UCSF for my pre-op appointment for my surgical biopsy on Thursday. Now they call them "prepare" appointments. Whatever.

Last year's pre-op was a bigger deal, because they had me meet with the surgeon's nurse to understand surgery and recovery, as well as get tests done at the hospital. This time, they just sent a packet of information on the surgery in the mail and made an appointment for me to get the tests done.  Read more »

I turned my computer into a Pirate computer!

My current computer -- the desktop model that resides in my red pirate office -- has a glossy black case. It's rather lovely compared to the ugly "putty" colored cases I've had in the past, but it doesn't have much character. Plus, it's huge so that it can accommodate all the disc drives I put inside. I swear, you'd think I was running a server if you saw it.   Read more »

Want something primed with gesso or painted black? Well, if so, you're in luck, because I'm your gal. Set me up with a little assembly line where I prime as many board books, book covers, and papier mache objects as possible and I am happy. When I went crazy with the gesso a couple of weeks ago, Kathy exploited it shamelessly, adding items to the pile while worked. I didn't mind, because I always feel so good when I'm done - a worksurface littered with fresh canvases, in essence. It's kind of like having a full tank of gas. With a primed surface, you can create anything!  Read more »

Today was a good day for bird-watching, if bird watching means opening the drapes and looking outside. A new dove is brooding on a nest at No. 1, while Kelly and Ryan Flibberdegibbet (the Finches) are excitedly feeding their new babies at No. 5.

Ryan has turned out to be a very interactive dad, which is a good thing, because these babies are HUNGRY! I honestly think the Finches spent most the day finding food and feeding the babies. I saw Ryan fly over at one point to put the food right into Kelly's mouth so she could prep it for the kids. She chirped something like, "More! We need more!" Another time he fed them while she hunted for more.  Read more »

Last December, Kathy and I were passing by the TV section at Best Buy when we saw a movie that caught our attention. It was Ultraviolet, the stylized scifi/comic/vampire movie staring Milla Jovovich. Let's face it, Milla is hot, so we were understandably distracted by a scene of her fighting her foe with a flaming sword, all while looking fantastic in a color-changing outfit. We didn't know what movie it was until we got home and I looked it up.  Read more »

The deal with my now-blue hair is that I thought dying it blue would cheer me up. I've been unhappy with short hair, and while there is nothing I can do to make it grow faster, I figured that a pretty color would make me smile. I wanted turquoise but because that color is unstable, my stylist added more blue, and this is what I've got.  Read more »

I am funky-colored today, from my tippy-top to my bim-bam bottom. Well, actually, just in those areas, not in between. I woke up to my new cobalt blue hair (oh my!) and a huge purple bruise on my bum (ouch!) that I obtained by falling down the stairs yesterday. I feel slick. Yeah, baby.  Read more »