Saturday, September 30, 2006

ministry of reshelving

aka: our covert and only slightly edgy adventure...

A couple of weekends ago I emancipated The Hater. We were at the bookstore looking for a philosophy book that they didn't have. Before we left he asked if there was anything else I wanted to see while we were there...

TH: Want to look for anything else?
g: Not particularly, but there's something we need to do before we leave.
TH: What?
g: We need to find Orwell's 1984.
TH: You've already read that.
g: No, not to read. We're going to reshelve it in the "Current Events" section.
TH: What are you talking about?
g: You remember, that movement where people all over the country reshelved 1984? I've only done it one other time, but I'm feeling the need to do it again today.
TH: What movement? Are you making this up?
g: They called themselves the Ministry of Reshelving. They put bookmarks in the books and stuff. I don't have the bookmark, but I think the point would come across anyway.
TH: That's great. Let's do it.

And we did. We were classic 007.

We reshelved about ten copies of George Orwell's 1984 from "Fiction" to "Modern Politics" (specifically to cover up Ann Coulter's books because they didn't have a "Current Events" section). We completed our civic duty in an exciting, covert way, vowing that we would do it again the next time we went to Books-a-Million again (or Borders or Barnes and Noble or Bookland or wherever... because it's really that important, especially this close to mid-terms).

Our dare for you? This week we dare you to do something bold: think for yourself.

As you can see, Bart Simpson is in trouble again, as he learns how to be a "good" brainwashed citizen: "I will not incite grassroots play and commentary anarchy in the fiction section of bookstores..."

Friday, September 29, 2006

friday night excitement

I thought I'd mix it up tonight and do laundry early. I know, I'm such a rebel...

Tomorrow I'll spend the day helping The Hater with a work project. Or finding a place to take a nap, whichever might come first.

It's so exciting around here that I think I'll heed the cat's wails and go to bed. That'll officially make one more week behind me. Thank Goodness for weekends.

Thursday, September 28, 2006

exhausted

I didn't get in from work last night until after 7pm due to a late treatment. It was a long day. A looooong day, and long days really aren't what I need right now. Today and tomorrow look like they, too, will be long days, which means I'll have to actively recoup this weekend.

I've started the Zizek book, and am thoroughly amused at how much studying I'm having to do to just have an inkling of an idea what he's talking about. I don't necessarily think I've bitten off more than I can chew, but it'll definitely be slow-going for a while. The Hater is right-- I'll be glad I have another fiction book waiting for me if I ever get through this one.

Meanwhile, I'm glad to be past the hump of the week. I need the weekend.

Tuesday, September 26, 2006

the campaign of disinformation

The Hater and I are most amused with this article and video.

Take me home, country roads.

Monday, September 25, 2006

litmus test

Angela over at Bold Contemplations has sparked a debate about Immortality. She has a neat blog that leads to discussion about different topics, both light-hearted and deeply significant.

The particular comments about immortality have made The Hater and myself remember some of the things we've talked about before: zombies. You know, what would the game plan be if the horrors of zombie movies came true. What would we take for weaponry, where would we try to go set up camp, how long could we go before we had to eat the cat... you know, serious discussions about the future.

One of the things we talked about in the past was what we referred to as the "Darwin litmus test". People who failed the litmus test were the people who wouldn't live longer than a month if the zombies walked the earth, the people who rely on outside medical resources (surgeries, medications, treatments) to be alive. A couple of days before my total thyroidectomy in April we talked about how I would soon fail the Darwin litmus test. This would be very serious if the zombies came, and thusly changed our zombie plan.

Here's our really rough game plan:

1. Go to the store and steal some better weapons. Specifically look for baseball bats, machettes, swords (if applicable), guns with ammo if they've not been stolen yet. Take knives from the apartment.

2. Find a team of good 'ole boys to help take over the Bass Pro Shop or Super Wal*Mart. It's important to note here that I'm a better shot than The Hater, and he thinks Bass Pro will have more ammo. But if I'm in charge of the shooting, the "one shot, one kill" strategy will, indeed, be intact. The Hater says he's better at strategy.

3. Darwin check: Stop by several pharmacies along the way and wipe-out their supplies of thyroid hormones. While there, attempt to steal narcotics, barbituates, antibiotics, antifungals, antivirals for future bartaring. The Hater thinks we'll be able to take thyroid hormones because they won't be in as big of demand as the other drugs. We'll report back as to how easy they were to take after all of this throws down.

4. No, Mom, this is not in any particular order: Call home quickly before phone lines are down. Give them the run-down on how to avoid zombie contamination. Promise to find a HAM radio or another form of contact. Promise to venture home after it's safe to travel again.

5. Reread the zombie survival guidebook. Convince good 'ole boys that we are important to have around.

The Hater says those are the most important immediate plans. I guess we'll just wing our secondary plan of attack when the time comes. All I'm saying is that I'm money with an M-16. So much so that Darwin himself might even say there are exceptions to the litmus test.

Sunday, September 24, 2006

results

Our mighty Blue Raiders lost a well-fought 59-0 against the Sooners this weekend, and we had a great time at the game. We went down early and ate lupper before wandering around campus. We found the drumline practicing, and they sounded really good.

We were mostly met with blank, quiet stares. A few older Sooners officially "welcome to Normon!"'d us. We were only met by one stupid (yet drunken) "Boomer Sooner; you suck!"

We had a great time.

And the best part? We came home to see that our Vols beat Marshall, too. It was a good weekend for football... only saddened by tomorrow coming so quickly.

Friday, September 22, 2006

pumping iron

The Hater and I moved a couch today after work. It was a moderate ordeal and only a slight comedy of errors, where again The Hater realized what a brilliant wife he married.

My quads feel like I've been training for the Iron Man tournament. The Hater says to just wait until I see how they ache tomorrow. Thank goodness for Icy Hot.

Thursday, September 21, 2006

no steak

I was given the opportunity to go to a free steak supper tonight, but didn't feel like going. My taster remains confused. My brain remains tired. My eyelids have been swapped-out with 80-grit sandpaper. It's been a long, long day.

And a sad day, too, we think, when it ends with not wanting a free steak dinner.

Otherwise, we're doing great.

Wednesday, September 20, 2006

the game

We're really excited to report that we've been given tickets to the OU- MTSU football game this Saturday. I've not seen the mighty Blue Raiders play since Homecoming 2002, and The Hater reports not seeing a game since fall 1998. But I can claim a year with the mighty Band of Blue under my belt, too... and we always kept up with the team, even if we were watching the Vols on the weekends.

We're proud to be from Middle Tennessee!

I hear that OU is favored by 27 points. This does not surprise us; nor does it deter our excitement to go to the game. We expect OU to cover, at the least. We do hope, however, to get some points on the board. The Hater would like to score first, so that we can say that at least we had a lead for a while...

This will be the true litmus test to see how friendly a Sooner fan can be. Because, really, our mighty Blue Raiders will be little threat to their season.

We may be in the middle of a crowd of angry crimson and white, and we may be small in number, but we will also be the most pumped Blue Raiders in Norman. We can't wait to see the game!
We are the one, true, pride of the blue - MTSU Raiders Ride!

Tuesday, September 19, 2006

you know you're hypo when

it takes longer to rest than it does to get tired

Monday, September 18, 2006

Is your toilet running?

Actually, yes, and they had been for about three years. We had complained about this numerous times, and about a dozen different maintenance people have come to "fix" them, but the truth of the matter is that they were always running. They'd wake us up in the night running. They ran and ran and ran and ran, making laps around the block with the refrigerator.

We told on them to the apartment owners several times, usually with notes attached to our monthly rent checks. Sometimes with phone calls. These requests would be answered, but the toilet problem was never actually solved. Out of fairness, the apartment complex where we live has been under different management several times, too, so lots of people have had many opportunities to fix the problem.

The apartment people pay the water bill, so we figured it must not have been astronomical enough for them to actually fix them. So we went about our lives and all has been okay, if not somewhat swoshy noisy for three years. Three years.

I remind you that The Hater and I are not particularly handy. We're handier than a lot of the people we know, but we don't do plumbing. My Dad, although handy, took the lid off of the toilet the last time he was here, only to declare that someone else needed to come look at said toilet. None of us could diagnose the problem. They were the Energizer Bunny of running toilets.

Sister's boyfriend, who is certified in plumbing and electrical things, tried to tell me over the phone what to look for, what screw to tighten and loosen, but that ended up being a comedy of errors in which we both gave up laughing and the toilet continued to run. And I'm sure that the ideas of horrors of marrying into a family of plumbing and electrical idiots would only consume more unpaid hours of his time.*

Run, toilet, run.

This morning I have been officially breaking out of prison, returning things that normally belong in the rest of the apartment. Washing the futon sheets and preparing things to go back to our claim of a normal life. When, lo, an unexpected knock on the apartment door!

I answered the door in swishy pants and a sports bra. I have been, after all, breaking out of prison, and was about to jump into the shower. The lady said she was with maintenance and was here to fix the running toilets, which amused me because we've not complained about them in several months. Apparently our neighbors below us were complaining now.

I showed her the culprits and told her horror stories about how several people before her have "fixed" them, only that they never actually quit running. She took a glance and declared she would fix them. She returned with the parts she needed, and swapped one rotted rubber stopper thing for a new, not rotted rubber stopper thing, and they stopped running.

They stopped running. She's our hero for the day.

I wrote a thank you note to our neighbors below, telling them how much we appreciate them getting our toilets fixed. (And obviously apologizing for not knowing they were bothering them, too.) And I'm so excited that the cat and I have just been walking around the apartment listening to them not run. What a marvelous Monday.

And my most wonderful, sweetest husband in the world has brought lunch to me in exile. I don't feel the way snot looks, I can't hear the constant shhhhhhhhhhhhwah in the bathroom, and I'm getting out of prison. It's a beautiful day.


* Trust me, Sister is way worth it. But I can forsee a future of bardering his time for baked goods in true Nana style. Note to Self: Learn her chocolate cake recipe.

Sunday, September 17, 2006

feeling better

Slowly but surely...

But I did learn tonight that I shouldn't have watched "Zizek!" so late in the evening. My brain's clocking time in 4th gear whereas the rest of my body is grinding out of second.

Unfortunately, nobody else is awake enough to banter in emancipating reality with me.

Meanwhile, I think I drank too much water too quickly in attempts to continue to flush the radiation out of my body. Perhaps these things should be considered before ideological construction versus the postmodern cultural artifact.

I continue to be only slightly radioactive. I will soon finish my Padawan training and am looking forward to beginning The Trials soon. I know the journey ahead will be arduous, but that, too, is the Jedi way.

Friday, September 15, 2006

"so how are you feeling?"

exhausted, sick, nauseated, achy, pitiful, crampy, ick, confined, down, funny, green, lousy, peaked, queasy, rotten, blase, noxoius, under par, a quart low, ho-hum, tard...

To sum up: blah.

Thursday, September 14, 2006

neck check

Two little words with a big, big impact.
They may even save your life.


September is
thyroid cancer
awareness month


Find it early and know the signs. Of all the different types of cancers, thyroid cancer is becoming more and more prevelant. Fortunately, finding it is easy. The next time you see your doctor, ask them for a NECK CHECK.

It's simple and will take about a minute for them to do.
It even rhymes to help you remember: NECK CHECK

Looking for information about thyroid cancer?

Several people have found my blog by searching for information on thyroid cancer. This won't be one-stop shopping, but below you might find some links that are helpful to you.

If you or someone you know has thyroid cancer, free information and support services are as close as your phone or computer. The Thyroid Cancer Survivers Association has an excellent webpage with support and more links for you to use.

Here are some facts on thyroid cancer from the National Cancer Institute. They also offer free support services and printed information that they will mail to you on a wide variety of cancer topics and resources.

Another excellent cancer resource is the Livestrong Foundation. They offer information on many topics in four catergories: physical, emotional, practical, and survivorship. If you are a cancer survivor they will mail you a Livestrong binder you can use to help organize your treatment information.

Those should get you started. Ask your physician for additional resources and local support groups for more information. Above all else, try not to panic. Write down your questions for your doctor, and have a friend go with you to your appointments to help you listen, or take a small tape recorder so that you can go back and listen if you forget an answer. (That's what worked best for me.)

NECK CHECK
ask your doctor at your next appointment

Do it for you.

Wednesday, September 13, 2006

back in prison

The recap: My neck dissection surgery to remove lymph nodes was in July. I recovered and was off a week from work. I did undergo a few weeks of physical therapy, but am happy to report that my shoulder and neck are now working on their own and without much pain again. Over the last six weeks I have been off of all of my synthetic thyroid hormone replacement in anticipation of another radioactive Iodine test. The last three weeks I have been on a low Iodine diet (The Hater, too, when he's home.), attempting to starve those hungry thyroid-loving-Iodine cells in order to entice them with some tasty radioactive Iodine for the scan.

If you remember, the last time we did this I was given a "test" dose, and then returned to see my endocrinologist two days later for a full body scan to see if there were any Iodine-loving "hot spots". My test dose was Monday along with labwork, and I returned to the clinic today for the scan. I have good news and bad news (but the bad news really isn't bad-bad news):

GOOD NEWS: It was a negative scan. There were no visible "hot spots". It looks like there are no more clumps of cancer in my body. Thanks be to God.

THE NOT SO BAD, BAD NEWS: This is in regards to the labwork that was drawn on Monday. Cancer cells put off a certain "marker" that can be drawn in your blood. Different kinds of cancer (lung, prostate, breast, thyroid, etc) create different kinds of "tumor markers". My thyroid cancer tumor marker, called thyroglobulin, was obvoiusly super-duper high before they removed all of my thyroid gland in April. In July before the second surgery it was still elevated, but not as high as the tumor marker in April. Monday when my labwork was drawn, my cancer marker was 40. We would like it to be zero.

(So what does that mean?)

It means that, although I had a negative scan, there are still a few microscopic thyroid cancer cells in my body.

(What's the plan?)

We want to kill those cancer cells. Today I received a higher dose of the radioactive Iodine than I was given last time, the gold standard. Those hungry cells will suck up the radioactive Iodine and be killed, leaving all of this to be a story that can be told in past-tense.

At least, that's what we're hoping; at the very least, it's a step in the right direction.

I have returned to my posh prison, the second bedroom in our apartment, and will remain here in isolation for the next several days. I have the best amenities, but am already looking forward to getting out of here (and eating real food again). Zoloft bemoans her discontent for the current living conditions and closed doors by crying in the hall.

I'm not entirely sure what the official plan will be after my isolation. I will go back next week for a post scan, which should be negative, also. We will continue to monitor my thyroid levels and my tumor marker as I restart my thyroid medication. In the Spring we may do another one of these scans "just to make sure". If things continue to improve, we may get the clear to conceive as early as next fall. We know it's all speculative at this point, but it's wonderful to be given permission to hope for something -- and a time-table further into the future than a month.

We want to thank each of you for your continued good vibrations and prayers. Please continue to pray that this radiation will kill all of my rogue cancer cells, that my tumor marker will disappear, for healing and strength to endure. Please know how grateful we are to each of you for remembering us in your prayer life. And although we'd never wish anything dramatic to fall in your lap, please know you can always contact us when you, too, are standing in the need of prayer.

And hope I don't go crazy in this little room.

Tuesday, September 12, 2006

creating the cell

Tonight The Hater and I have been putting together my prison. The plan continues to receive the dose after the scan tomorrow afternoon, then I'll come home to my bedroom.

Tomorrow evening I'll post an update. Until then, please continue to keep us in your thoughts and prayers.

Monday, September 11, 2006

Marvelous Monday

Today is a big day. We remember. In the midst of our own drama, we do remeber the families of everyone touched by the 9/11 tragedy.

My Monday morning post has a hint of whine this time because I'm just tired. On top of that, I have to be at work in time to get some things done before a meeting set to start at 7:30 am. Crazy early for a Monday. Bleh. We must be in trouble; why else would they want us there that early?

I am somewhat looking forward to leaving work for a while today, even if it's just to go get a test dose and lab drawn. It'll be like a mini-vacation in the middle of the day. I'm going to take a book with me, but I'd rather just take a nap in the middle of the office. We'll see how that works out.

The Hater and I are just trying to stay the course. One foot in front of the other, one day at a time.

Sunday, September 10, 2006

our Vols

One of the many things we don't like about living in Uglyhoma is football season in Tennessee. If our teams play big games, we might get coverage. We weren't surprised that the UT-Air Force game would not be televised in OKC.

We were very surprised watching the ticker on ESPN - we were behind? How could that be? We were wearing our orange; we were doing everything we knew to do; but, alas, we could not watch the game. The Hater turned on the ESPN website for a constant live feed, but there was no audio, which made watching it very difficult and painful. He resigned to watching the ticker on tv and going to the laptop occasionally to see the statistics.

I fell asleep on the couch. The Hater relived the hilights for me at midnight when he woke me up and moved me to the bedroom. I was drowsy and walking like a zombie, but when he asked this morning, I told him I remembered that we had won by one point. I assured him that if I hadn't been asleep I would have been nervous, too.

Saturday, September 09, 2006

preparations for admixture

It's the weekend, my mornings where I can throw all to-do lists in the wind and sleep late. I've been exhausted and was so looking forward to just sleeping this morning. Except that I've been awake since about 4:30, and I can't even blame the cat for my restless sleep.

I blame my endocrinologist, the sadist, and his treatment plan for my upcoming RAI scan and dose which will take place this week. Here's a brief run-down of events to come:
  • Monday: Leave work around 1pm to go to the sadist's office, get labwork drawn to confirm wacked out hormone levels, receive Iodide test dose. Return to work, but avoid the pregnant lady in reception.
  • Tuesday: Continue to work, avoiding pregnant lady.
  • Wednesday: Leave work around 1pm to go to the sadist's office, get scanned to determine the (real McCoy) Iodide ablation dose. Hope they have the dose on site. Receive dose, if appropriate, and return to prison, the pimped-out second bedroom home.
  • Lay-low and entertain myself for the next several days. Take lots of showers. Drink lots of water. Suck on lots of sour candies. Talk to The Hater either on cell phones or through closed doors. Listen to Zoloft cry and watch her paw under said door. Feel generally cruddy and nauseated. Think about the long lists of to-dos that I've created in my head for being in seclusion; maybe do two of the things on the list. Dream crazy dreams.
  • Dose-dependant: Getting out of prison. Returning to a normal diet (Joy!). Restarting thyroid hormone supplementation (Yay!).
The plan is old-hat by now, but The Hater and I still have lots of things to do this weekend in preparation for the week ahead:
  • clean, clean, clean, super clean
  • grocery shopping: then make some things to freeze for the week
  • pimp the prison
  • make sure all supplies needed for my to-do projects are inside
  • love on the cat
  • watch football
As I've mentioned before, my sleeping is all a'whack because of being hypothyroid. I found some research to support this is because of hormone levels screwing with delta sleep waves, usually found in the third and fourth levels of sleep. This inadvertantly will also screw with your REM sleep. The study didn't actually use such clever description tactics; I took some liberty in that department.

What's a girl to do when she can't sleep on Saturday morning? Wake up the cat, of course, and insist that we play. We did. Then I opened the laptop, and she's been sleeping next to me for the last 3 hours as I renewed my Chemotherapy/Biotherapy Administration certification online. They say I will receive my new card in the mail within 6-8 weeks. Ta-da, I have taken one of my to-dos off of my list. It wasn't the timing for which I'd hoped, but it's done, and that's really what matters.

The cat and I are now trying to decide exactly how long we should let The Hater sleep before we insist that he joins in our fun. I'm inclined to wake him now so that he can be my awake friend and help me print off the temporary certificate, but I'll probably give him the one thing I can't give myself until the sadist fixes my hormones: the gift of reclaiming Saturday morning in the name of sweet delta waves.

Friday, September 08, 2006

color of hypo

If my tired was a color, after this week I'd be gray. I'd say a thunderstorm gray, but I'll default to a barely gray because it'll take less energy to mix.

The Hater says his tired is dark green, but offers no other elaboration as to why it's green.

Thursday, September 07, 2006

building blocks

As children we are given blocks that are big so that we don't get choked on them as we play. The older we get, the smaller and more intricate the block game becomes. Certainly someone who never created their own leggo kingdom could learn to put together a difficult model airplane, but it would come more naturally to the person who could draw on previous putting-together experiences.

In elementary school much time is devoted to students learning their parts of speech. Eventually they start diagramming sentences, creating a picture to show exactly how each of the parts of speech work together to complete a sentence. At the same time they learn about using oxymorons in their writing to make it more descriptive. They learn how to appreciate such things as "little giants" and "boneless ribs", and how to manipulate those into telling a story.

But wait! Once they master that, and they think they know everything, the teacher writes the word "simile" on the board, and a new world of comparisions is opened. They learn to use the words like and as to bring more depth to their sentences:

Living with cancer is a struggle like the calm inside the eye of an F-5 tornado.

They practice their sentences, like the child with his Lincoln Logs, until they learn that comparisons can be made without using linking verbs, and those comparisons are called metaphors. They learn that sometimes it takes multiple sentences, or paragraphs, or sometimes stories to complete a good metaphor. They read Silverstein's The Giving Tree, if they enjoy reading banned books, and in later years of their formal writing educaiton they will be involved with heated literary debates about exactly what the metaphor was meant to disclose.

The little writers will grow up and use all of the tools they were taught to create their own literary works. Sure, anyone could write a story without having formal writing education; sure, those people can write best-sellers. However, some people would argue that the process of the craft would come more naturally to the person who had learned the building blocks of storytelling along the way.

The same is true of any profession.

We would not expect a pharmacist to tell us more than we wanted to know about the table of elements and how many free electrons they could each share to create compounds because those special compounds are how medicines are created. We do not ask them about the chemical makeup of our proton pump inhibitors because we are more concerned about how to take them and when to take them to make our stomach acid go away. We do not question the depth of their knowledge, but we do expect them to tell us about what medicines our physicians have prescribed. It is, after all, what they have studied and been trained to do.

However, there are aisles of over-the-counter medicatons and herbal remedies that anyone can perscribe for themselves without knowing their relationship to medications or treatments they are currently taking. There are cold remedies and pain medications that will alleviate our symptoms. Sometimes we need the knowledge of a pharmacist to assist us, even though it's a decision that we could easily make for ourselves.

We have certain expectations from people who work in different professional arenas. If your mechanic could not diagnose a cha-chugga-cha-chugga-ka when you attempt to turn on your engine, you would be disappointed. If a certified electrician gets shocked by working on a live outlet, you would question his ability to rewire the ceiling fan. A political figure who declares a literal "We must fight if we want peace." needs a diplomatic refresher course. You would wonder where along the way they were not paying attention to learning the building blocks of their profession, and you would not be surprised when their model airplane fell apart in their laps.

Sometimes it's hard to see the big picture of the model airplane when your children are gnawing on duplos, but take comfort in knowing that with perseverance and study they can write the next great novel, discover the cure for cancer, or become the next idiot President.

* Two points are rewarded to any reader who recognized the allegory.
* Two additional points will be rewarded if you did have to look up the word allegory to see if you could find it.

Wednesday, September 06, 2006

Charlie Foxtrot

"Anybody want my peaches?"

When I was in school my parents and I emailed each other nearly every day. Occasionally they would send especially good gems of wisdom. One time after sending an email complaining about being tired of eating a can of Veg-all as a seven-course meal, they replied with what could have been the funniest email they'd ever sent me. Alas, that email is gone, but I'm going to try to retell it because it makes a good analogy for what I'd like to say today.

Dad served in the Army during the Vietnam conflict. More than once he'd told Sister and I about the joys of eating MREs. Later I would have ample experiences to eat them myself while I was at Ft Knox, and I was eager to tell him that they hadn't gotten any better than the stories he told about them.

He said a lot of times his squad would sit together to eat their MREs. None of it was good, most of it was left-overs from the Korean War, and other than fulfilling their purpose to give soldiers ample caloric intake to do their civic duties, there was not much to be said about them.

One of the tricks that the squad played on new people was to wait until everybody had opened their MREs and someone would shout out, "Hey, does anybody want my peaches?" The new kid, who was referred to as the FNG, would always yell that he wanted it.

There were never any peaches in the MREs. The FNG just didn't know any better. Everybody got a good laugh about something that none of them could control.

He also said that sometimes there would be a chocolate bar in your MRE. He said the chocolate bar was FUBAR because it would always make you sick if you ate it. Nobody could eat it, and therefore getting one in your MRE gave you one less thing you could barter for peaches. He said they started calling it the John Wayne bar because they figured that only a manly man like John Wayne could eat it and not suffer its ill effects.

Their reply made no effort to comfort my diet of dorm-friendly microwavable food. But it was funny to me, and I bought a can of peaches on my next trip to the grocery store. I cleaned the can and used it to hold pens on my desk for the rest of the year.

That's the back story to what I really wanted to tell you today.

After my first surgery I received several flower arrangements, and they perked up my kitchen until they withered. One particular plant was in a decorative pot without any drain holes. It wasn't particularly pretty, but it was green, and I've made little effort to encourage its existance, and have been guilty of threatening its herbicide. I water it infrequently. It gets little sunlight. I don't talk to it like I do my ivy plant.

It's been five months and it just won't die.

Today I'm officially naming it John Wayne. Welcome, John, to a life of peaches.

Monday, September 04, 2006

Nightmare on Elm Street

Tomorrow I'm calling my endocrinologist because I have an important question: Does being hypothyroid effect my REM-sleep? I have had four or five nights of increaseingly strange, vivid, and scary dreams. This concerns me because the last time I went through being hypothyroid and on the LID, my dreams didn't escalate to this level until right before I went into isolation. And the idea of questioning if I'll have a nightmare when I go to sleep doesn't help me fall asleep any quicker, even though my hypothyroid state makes me exhausted.

One, Two, Freddy's coming for you!

I spoke with one of the doctors I work with, but her specialty isn't endocrine issues. She gave me a typical "anything is possible" when you start fooling around with your thyroid stock answers.

Tonight? Sleepy-time benadryl. We'll see what happens next.

PS: Happy Labor Day! If you feel the urgency to push, please let me know.

Sunday, September 03, 2006

pilgram popcorn

We have completed our first of three weeks on the low iodine diet. I'm tired.

I'm ready for a plate of french fries covered in chocolate syrup, to take a bath in melting butter, and to have a cold-cut sandwich with bacon and just a smidge of mayo on real bread. At this point I'd settle for the sandwich.

Saturday, September 02, 2006

35-18

Bears can't fly on Rocky Top.

What a game! I've not had so much fun watching Tennessee football in a long time! What a great way to start a new season.

Our boys stepped foot on the field ready for a game, and it showed. Ange was on target, and it looks like a summer of getting hit really payed off for the team. Our offense was tight and our defense was awesome. Those things paired with a stadium of orange created quite an evening for these football fans.

We were most excited watching the plays that were being called -- losing Sanders and picking up Cutcliffe as the O-Coordinator was a great move for the team. My favorite plays were the ones that ended with us saying "They would have never tried that last year!".

The Hater would just like to note that Cal didn't score ANY points until TN subbed our second stringers.

I mostly enjoied all the telephone calls from friends and family from home asking "DID YOU SEE THAT?" "Do you want us to go ahead and overnight mail you the new UT scrubs?" Or the all-time favorite, "It's football time in Tennessee!" Not to mention a phone call we received with a chorus of Rocky Top on the other end of the line.

Thanks for a great game, guys!

And now we continue to share team-cheering to Notre Dame, as Little Brother was here with us, cheering for the Rocky Top win.

Friday, September 01, 2006

whatcha gonna do

I had a scary moment yesterday morning.

I rolled out of bed and realized since we had a shower over the weekend and another one during the beginning of the week, I probably needed to water the flowers on the porch. With the consistent deathly heat we've had, it's no surprise that even with loving care and persistance, my only plants still living are the asparagus ferns and the mint plant.

Anyway, I'm in my pajamas on the porch watering the flowers and I looked up to see a car creeping along the drive that curves past our view. It's just inching along, and I started to wonder why they were just poking around. Then, lo, they started making the curve, and the window went down.

Please don't ask for directions, I thought. It's 6 in the morning and I'm not in the mood to be social. And then I caught something briefly out of the corner of my eye; it was a cop car.

Then it happened. The spotlight hit me. And stayed on me.

I kept watering my flowers in my suspicious Superman pajamas. The light stayed spotting. Without knowing anything else to do, and in true nerd form, I waved. I don't know what cool people do in these circumstances. I thought about raising my galvanized watering can, but decided the glare back would probably not be appreciated. So I just waved, grinning like an idiot.

The light went away, and then he glared at me for a minute from inside the car before inching further down the road. I sighed relief.

The whole scenario played in my head before I finished breakfast: I remembered, and decided that if he had U-turned and knocked on our door, and wanted to come in to talk about why I was watering flowers before the sun came up, it would be hairy scary to say, "No, you sure can't come in without a warrant." I'd do it, but it wouldn't be easy, and I'd probably follow with my Miss Dork America wave because it seemed to work the first time.

Zoloft was definitely impressed. She helped me tell The Hater all about our adventures as he begged for five more minutes in bed. We acted them out, but he lost the story about halfway through because she always insists on a more neoclassical thesbian interpretation to my realistic contemporary vision. She's a hack like that.