Falling over cuz my toes are numb

Today it was cool.  Cool like 60 degrees cool.  And it rained for a few minutes!  Day before yesterday it was 106 degrees!  

I waited for the son to get out of class before I drove home.  The niece wanted to have dinner with us so I dropped the son home so he could do his 90 pages of reading and I met them at Panera.  I had a sweater but that was not enough.

In Calif it can be sweltering one day and the next freezing-butt cold.  That's what it's like now and guess what?  All the air conditioners are still set for hot weather and when you go into a restaurant it's ice cold inside. 

So I shivered while I ate my sandwich and talked to the family.  Oh and the hub and BIL went to get money and ran into Donita and Tracey so they joined us.  You'd think with a big group we'd huddle together for warmth.

I know some people love the cooler weather (both Donita and Tracey do) but it hurts me.  My toes are frozen since I'm wearing sandals.  My legs were cold since I was wearing capri's.  My sweater is great for summer coolness but not fall coolness.

I stayed as long as I could but I still had to get milk and get home so I could get ready for work tomorrow.  So I left and froze my butt off at the grocery store.  Brrrrr.

Sadly I'll probably wake up tonight in the middle of the night sweltering.  That's just how it's been lately.

Bummer, fall is coming.  I think it will still warm up once or twice before the cool/cold is here to stay but I've had my warning.  

A momentary message

Argh, it's so hot I woke up in a sweat.  

Some things come to an end

Tonight I did something drastic.  I quit book club.  I realized, with crystal clarity that I was not having fun anymore.  This has been coming for months.  

It hit home tonight when I was talking about my friend who is dying of cancer.  It's a part of his story that he did not attend to his melanoma when he was not working.  No insurance, no doctor visits.  Unfortunately because of his decision his melanoma (which was removed once he got insurance) had spread.  My story tonight had nothing to do with the political hot topic of insurance reform. Nothing.  It was the story of how he has been mishandled by the medical establishment.  Not once did I mention insurance reform, not once did I mention my political beliefs on reform.

But 2 of the bc members kept quiet about his dying and kept shooting looks at one another.  I don't understand that.  I don't understand how they choose to make this about my political beliefs rather than my friend dying and how all of his friends are rallying around him to make the rest of his life as comfortable as possible.

And then the book.  OMG, I hated the book.  Whatever.  We all have our personal preferences about whatever material we're reading.  2 other members besides me didn't understand the book because as far as I'm concerned the device the author used was ambiguous and half-horror that never went anywhere.  It was 3 likes the book and 3 disliked the book. In any case the 2 members who kept shooting looks at one another during my friends story were in the kitchen and one said to the other, "I guess some people don't get metaphor".  That was really the kicker.  

So as I drove home I decided I wasn't having fun and some things come to an end.  This is one of them, at least for me.

One of the members has already called me.  She said, "How dare you quit before I quit?"  She's going to send email as well, saying she's going to take a break.  She's not quite as in your face as I am.  I invited the others to call me or email or not to reply at all, it's their choice.  But if they want specifics I'll tell them exactly why I'm done.

I'm fairly certain my best friend (who is the co-originator with me of this book club) will end up quitting as well.  This is not a dividing the troops type of thing if she doesn't that's ok too.  The friend who called me asks if we can do our own book club and we're already deciding to go on without the others.  We'll do a once a month dinner with book discussion.  It will be much nicer not having to be afraid to discuss things because one of us don't agree on a particular subject.  We can have those kinds of discussions without taking things personally.

So I feel freer tonight.  

Spoonflower spoons

Another Spoonflower entry.  The theme is "spoons and flowers".  So mine is pretty literal.  Once again, I can see I won't win but it's ok, I like my design and it does have some votes so that's nice.  Here is a link to see all of the entries, click here. 

I can so see this as a cute apron, can't you?  I'm thinking I could make some coordinating fabric with some of the flowers colored pink or citrus colors.  Too cute.   Wouldn't the black and white look great with maybe some rick-rack in pink or red or a bright cheery accent color?  

The poor Spoonflower folks, they thought to do a difficult theme to keep the number of entries low.  Nope, they still got a lot and I know they worked hard to put it all up on the site.  I'm thinking they need to do a short submission time.  This one was 4 days long and they got 70 entries.  They need to do a one day or 8 hour submission time to make it manageable I think.

T's status

So my friend in the hospital (yes, he is still there) is going to need chemo.  He's got tumors along his spine.  He still cannot move is legs.  He has some movement, but I think it's a mere few millimeters rather than being able to lift.  

At work we were discussing things to get him, we talked about a dvd player.  I suggested we get him a laptop.  I figured he'd be in the hospital a long time and when he went into skilled nursing he'd be bored most of the day.  

Having communication outside is imperative.   I was once in the hospital for a month (way before laptops were available) and watching tv and waiting for the phone to ring was horribly boring.

He got it today.  2 guys from work delivered it to him.  I'm so happy he's got a way to communicate with us and document whatever he wants to document.  

I hope he writes his story. 

Me fabric designs

I can already see by the votes I'm not going to come close to winning this weeks contest but it sure is fun to see my design up on Spoonflower.  It does have some votes, I asked my friends to vote but really there are strangers who voted for this design too!

This is it.   A cute little owl dressed up as a hedgehog or a hedgehog dressed up as an owl...you choose.  

Originally I did this guy as a Christmas fabric but didn't realize I missed the deadline to enter, I was a day late.  So I have my Christmas hedgie for sale and I decided to use his image in the Halloween contest.  Don't ask me why Spoonflower had a Christmas contest before a Halloween one...they just did.  :-)

I might make a whole series of holiday hedgies using this little guy.  I think he's adorable, if I do say so myself. LOL.

I do want to make a general design with this guy because I think I might want to order some fabric from them.  What I've seen on the internet, in terms of quality looks great.  I do sort of have 2 issues tho.  One is the design is too cutesy for me for clothing or a purse, I think I need a 4 year old to wear this as clothing.  And second the yardage is expensive.  $18.00 a yard.  A yard isn't very much so whatever I make has to be smallish and the design something I'd actually wear.  That said, I want to support Spoonflower.  I think it's a great site and I love cruising it.  

Decisions, decisions.  

I do wish they had a place to move things that are obviously not going to be used by most people.  People design their own fabric labels (great idea) but I'm not going to buy those designs and probably nobody else will either other than the originator.  Sometimes people are using SF's bandwidth to upload family photos - now really who wants to see that when you have to explore fabric one by one?  Or random clip art, not my thing; maybe someone WILL buy a yard of random clip art?  Maybe, but doubtful.

To SF's credit they are making it easier to navigate by adding keywords like: Holiday, Floral, etc.  And by color too.  But sometimes I don't know what I'm looking for so I have to use the Explore option...which gives you pages and pages of everything in the order it was loaded.

It's a fun site, go there by clicking here. 

What race?

I work in an office that is located in an outside mall - basically a strip mall with a movie theater and about 20 (mostly) independent restaurants.  Mostly asian food.  During the summer it is dead.  There are no houses nearby and the students are gone so it's not very busy.  That will change very soon, students are about to start classes.  btw, we are across from a university.  But right now there are no shoppers, just one or two people out and about. 

Sooooo, today about 4:00 me and my friend are sitting out on the second floor balcony taking a break.  We see a guy in an electric wheelchair racing around the parking lot begging for change.  He hits up the 2 people in the parking lot.  One gives him money, the other (an office worker I recognize) does not.

He whizzes over to the area right underneath us and I can hear him asking the FEDX lady for money.  My friend says "I wish there were a security guy around."  Right that second a security guard walks up.  I said to him, "Hey, there is a guy in a wheelchair right downstairs (I point downward) who is begging for money."

He says, "What does he look like?"  

I know my face is showing an expression like...wtf, did you not hear what I said?  

I say, "Ummmm, he's in an electric  WHEELCHAIR"

He says, "What is his race?"

Ok, so even tho I did note (in my brain) his race, it was not the first thing I noticed.  I noticed he was in a WHEELCHAIR.  Since there is no wheelchair convention around and there are no people out and about it never occurred to me to say, "Hey there is a teal, black, yellow, hispanic, white, green,  purple man in a wheelchair begging for money downstairs."

My friend was looking at me, I could see her looking at me with that, "OMG, did he just ask the stupidest question just now?"

He left after I told him his race but really, it was not necessary. 

Weird. 

Happy drunks

Last night was hilarious.  The family went to dinner.  Em was invited but didn't respond to her uncles texts, but did respond to the daughter's text saying she couldn't make it.  

So we all went without her.  The son is hiking or out somewhere til Tuesday so he wasn't there.

We sat down and then saw one of our pals coming out of the movies.  She joined us.  Then the BIL texted another friend who was in our area and she joined us.

So 6 for dinner.  We sat and did a lot of talking about the current hot topic of the day: insurance reform.  

2 drunk people came out on the patio.  A sort of cute couple (in their 20's) with a lot of tattoos.  They weren't sloppy drunk but they were definitely drunk.  The guy started talking to us.  Asking the boys how they were so successful at getting women.  LOL.  4 women at our table to our 2 guys.  A couple of smart-asses comments from our side to the girl, which they totally enjoyed and the guy was off and running with his life story.

And a lot of questions thrown at our general vicinity...who's your favorite football team?  Does he look like a private school/christian school kid?  (he went to both kinds of schools his entire life), etc.  They were very social and very funny in a drunk way.  The guy tried to give us a giant yellow cocktail.  We declined.  I was glad to see he didn't drink it, he was already drunk enough.  LOL. 

Lucky for us they came at a time when we were winding down to go.  I would not have been as amused if they came out before we finished our dinner.  

We left and that was our evening out...spent chatting with family, friends and then people trying to make friends with us.  

cells and texting

Yikes, I wasted an entire day with a migraine-like headache.  

We had to get the daughter a new phone.  She was supposed to get one for HS graduation but Aug was a money drain so she had to wait til Sept.  I didn't expect the phone to be as expensive as it was...it has a rebate of 100.00 but I thought it was an instant rebate not a mail in one.  So the husband paid the bill.  

Both kids got new phones, they were due for an upgrade.  They both got the Versa, a good touchscreen but it doesn't require that you get an internet plan.

The husband got a blackberry.  I'm a little puzzled why he got such a technologically advanced phone but whatever.

I'm still waiting for my upgrade time.  I have a longgggg time.  I can't get one for another year and 2 months.  Ding dang dog that ate my phone is still on my shit list.

My phones battery is kaput, I can text as much as I want but if I talk on it the battery drains in about 5 mins.  Then it goes dead.  So I think I'll take the son's Razor and use that when I can't stand carrying around a charger and talking only when it's plugged in.

I don't talk on my cell very much.  I use the least amount of mins.  The husband is the most talkative, the son comes in second, the daughter third.  I mostly use mine to take calls from the family when they call me to ask me if I need anything from the store.  Oh, I do ring my carpooler once I leave my house when I am picking her up.  But I don't talk I just ring her to let her know I am on my way.  I might actually have a conversation on my phone twice a week.  

So text me if you need to contact me.  

The worst

Last night we drove in to see our friend who is pretty ill.  Thursday he could walk and Thursday night he couldn't.  All because of a tumor.

Today we got the report that the cancer is everywhere.  I don't know what that means in medical terms.

The three of us who know did not tell the rest of the office.  All they know is he can't walk, he's got cancer and multiple tumors were found.

Last night we laughed with our friend.  He's telling us he is going to fight this.  I hear huge strides have been made in treatment these days.

I am preparing myself for the worst.

Crazy nut

Have you ever wanted to go thru the monitor and strangle someone?  This morning I did.  Some woman who is posting to my husbands Facebook accused me of writing stuff I would never write.  Never, because I don't need to resort to talking about tv personalities or Fox news to make my point.

She does seem to get my point tho, that she is following what others say rather than do the research on her own.  She keeps using the words, "smart person" or "smart people" say this or that.  

Basically I asked her if she'd read the text of the healthcare proposals or the summaries.  Because I have, searching for whatever claims that seem so outlandishly odd.  She doubts I have.  She doesn't know me very well does she?  

So I'm calling her out to show me the text.  Everyone gets notificiations showing each persons post in the threads (unless they turned off notifications) and I'm willing to bet others in the thread have notifications turned on and will say there was never any such post written by me.  

Migraineur

My poor daughter.  3rd migraine in about a week.  Her abortive meds just don't really work for her.  She's a chronic Migraineur.   Without daily medications she has migraines almost every day.  With the right combo of meds maybe once or twice a month.  She's had some good combos (by good, I don't mean, hooray - drugs) but combos that allow her to have some kind of life that allows her to plan.

When she gets into these cycles of multiple migraines over days she gets (understandably) upset.  Not just upset but emotionally fragile.   She's 17, she's had migraines her entire life.  She's the strongest person I know to have to deal with this.

I wrote an email to her neurologist tonight.  She needs more resources than "here, lets try this dosage" type thing.  I need her to be educated that as it stands right now she's going to always have these and figure out the best way for her to cope.  I know she is not alone but most times she thinks she is.  

I get migraines (like last summer when I got them almost every day...but they did not put me down like some I've had...I could, and did work right thru them).  Last summer most of mine didn't turn into raging OMG, I must get in the dark and don't talk, no sound at all kind of migraine.  But I have had them and I do know what it's like.  The husband had a bout of cluster migraines 30 years ago, but she has never seen him with a headache so she doesn't know he does understand the pain.

And frankly it doesn't matter because she's the one with the pain.  We can't help her.  

I'm making an appt for her tomorrow and I'm going to go in with her.  She's not honest enough with him and I know I can convey exactly how she is doing emotionally.   Better yet, get her to really tell him by me breaking the ice about it.  

I just wish I could help her. 

weekend recap

I finished reading Julie/Julia.  Okay book, not anything earth-shattering.  The author is witty but I had to keep putting it down for some reason.  Maybe it was Julies intensity as compared to her husband Eric.  Not exactly sure why I had to keep walking away.  But at least I had something to read that didn't make me sit on the couch ALL day. LOL.  I can see how it would make a fun movie tho.

I also beaded a bezel for a piece of teal-green transparent glass with dichoric glass pieces inside.  I used Delica beads in 904 (I think) with peyote and right-angle weave.  Then I did a peyote bail and strung it on black rattail.  I don't have any teal-green clothing and am not planning on buying any so the black rattail will disappear when I wear it with a black tee shirt.  The glass looks better with a black background so it should stand out.

I went to dinner once.  K & J called and we decided to go out with them.  Fun.  Saw the BIL who joined us and then we saw 2 friends who'd decided to have dinner together.  They joined our table and it was a fun night...even tho it was hard to talk to the other end of the table.  Not to mention that both ends of the table are from different eras in our lives so while they've met each other, it's not like they've spent a lot of time with one another.  All in all, fun tho.

I also went shopping with 2 different friends at 2 different times.  But both times me and the daughter went.  It was fun hanging out with my daughter and my friends.  Course the daughter has grown up with both of these women so when I had to leave to take a call about my friend in the hospital I didn't feel badly about making them talk to one another.  LOL.  The daughter is grown up enough to have a conversation rather than having to be babysat.

So it was a nice balance of doing some stuff and staying home and doing stuff at home.  3 days off was nice, I wish I had the rest of the week off tho.  hahahaha.  Back to the grind in about an hour. 

Oh yeah AND I did my fingernails and my toenails.  Red, red, red.  

Be grateful

It's been a tough couple of days.  Not me personally but I've watched from afar a friend who's had some bad months due to horrible pain that docs could not figure out or didn't take seriously.

I heard from him on Fri.  He had what looked like a neurological problem and could not walk.  His legs stopped working.  The emergency docs said there was nothing wrong with him.  They thought he was a drug addict looking for pain meds.  They fucking released him even tho he could not walk.  

He isn't a drug addict, he wasn't faking it.  He went into surgery yesterday because a friend of his took him back to the emergency room and because he's  a doctor they listened.

He went into emergency surgery because they found a giant tumor on his spine.

I talked to him today.  He does not know his prognosis.  He does not know if he will ever walk again. It's likely it's cancer.  He's already had one bout of cancer.  He's more optimistic than not but he's also on major pain meds and he's not been told of everything yet. 

I talked to his mom first.  She is having a tough time.  She's in her 70's and is focusing on the fact that he made it through surgery.  

I have to figure out how to get out to see him.  I cannot sit around and not get out there soon.  

I've had this whole weekend to worry about him and to look at my family and our health and be so grateful for what we have.  

Shaking my head...what?

Ya know truly if there had been a health bill when Bush was in office, I would have supported it.  I don't understand why this MUST be about parties.  

I don't always vote party...and the health care insurance bill isn't (to me) about parties or how conservative or liberal you are politically.

To me, it's about people.  Helping people.  I read this article today in part: "The Senate Republican whip, speaking to reporters on a conference call from his home state of Arizona, said that even if the Democrats do away with a government-run insurance option, the GOP most likely won't support the bill that's being written in the Senate.

"I think it's safe to say that there are a huge number of big issues that people have," Kyl said, referring to Republican senators. "There is no way that Republicans are going to support a trillion-dollar-plus bill." 

And I guess I don't get it, I don't get why someone would make a blanket statement that no matter what a particular party will not support a bill to help humanity.  No matter what concessions are made.

I do believe most people WOULD sit around a table and discuss it rationally, hammering out how it could be done if it weren't so much about the balance of power rather than treating people right.

It makes me sad.  

Three days off.  Hooray.

Yesterday I got off work 2 hours early.  I used those extra 2 hours napping.  It was good. 

I got the rules I won in the mail.  One was broken.  The tip broke off one side, about an inch of the tip is broken into 2 pieces.  It's a triangular ruler.  The box was also bent so it easy to see how it was damaged.  I also got a bias ruler.  Just put it on fabric edge to edge and mark...instant perfect bias!

Retreat

Today I have to go to a "retreat" at work.  That's where we close the office and retreat offsite and do planning for the next year.  Me and my boss are supposed to be there but literally there is no reason for us to go.  

Last night at 5:10 one of the bosses told me they had to do a presentation on personality styles (like Myers-Briggs) and she asked me to bring mine in so she and I could do a comparison in front of everyone.  We have two opposite personalities.  She prefers to sit in her office never coming out and not talking to a lot of people.  I prefer to move around talking to a lot of different people.  (which is why I hate being chained to my desk doing nothing every day).  She must deliberate for days her decisions and I make them right now.   It will make for a good example for people.  It irritates me that she asked me to do this the night before when my profile is at home, not somewhere where I can make copies for everyone.  A friend of mine suggested I not bring mine in to make the boss do the whole thing on her own.  I won't take that suggestion for various reasons.  I guess one thing is true, your personality type doesn't vary much when it comes to natural reactions...it's a challenge to be given something at the last minute and get it done.  So I'll do it.  

Yesterday a girl who is above me in an administrative position told me I had to change a form to say:  "Hours will very monthly".   I am very amused by that.  

Yay, something fun!

Hey, guess what?  Today I found out I won 2 Simplicity quilting rulers from C & T Publishing. Cool eh?  I was jazzed all day.  I constantly lose rulers and yardsticks...so I'm hoping these won't be "lost" as I'll tell the family "Hands OFF!"  

They're going to send me 2 of one of these on this page here. I don't know which 2, there were multiple winners and they said they'd select 2 for each person.  

What a nice thing eh?

The other thing is I was busy almost all day.  THAT is a nice turn.  What I wouldn't give to be busy all day at work.  Except not the kind of Rube Goldberg busy of yesterday please.  LOL. 

That's my report for today. 

Rube

Dear Diary...LOL, some days I wonder if I'm just crazy because I seem to be the only one who scratches their head over Rube Goldberg practices.



We have to document every financial expenditure at work. It's a good practice because we do get audited every few years. It's understood at my job everything is documented. We have to go to training to know all the documentation rules for audits.

I had a form returned to me yesterday because a change in the total dollar amt we were spending changed. No problem. The new contract came in and I scanned it into a 3 page PDF document. First page was the approval form with a small space for the description details of what we were spending. The total dollar amount was written into the box that said Total. There was a brief description of the total. The contract was scanned in as pages 2 and 3. I wrote in the small description box to see attached for details.

NO! It was returned to me because the entire description had to be in the 2 inch space, it could not be attached, even tho it was in a single PDF document.

The person who returned it said it could not be in separate pages. The full description had to be on one page. She said it was for auditing purposes.

Since I had a PDF and a Excel doc I had to redo the Excel doc so there was more room than the 2 inches available. Then I had to shrink the PDF description down a number of times to fit in the available space. I cut it and then taped it onto the form and then scanned that so the description was on a single page. Took me 45 mins to do the whole thing. (Mostly because I had to redo the Excel form and unprotect and protect fields, PITA really). Scanning the pages also takes time.

Eventually she admitted it was so her boss who has to sign it didn't have to flip the page to read the detail. Sooooo, I spent an extra 45 mins on this stupid document not because of auditing purposes but so HER BOSS DIDN'T HAVE TO FLIP TO PAGE 2 TO SEE THE DETAIL.
Flipping the page might have taken him 1/10 of a second. But she makes me spend 45 mins. redoing the form when a single page format is not required for auditing purposes.

No wonder we can never get anything done timely at the university.