Medical

Friday, August 17, 2007

Jay: ‘I can kill you with my brain.”

Deb just called.  She’s leaving the hospital, having done the pre-op, arranged the time we are to be there Monday (6:00 AM), and given a check to the billing people for the $500 copay.  Actually, it looks like she called while I was in the shower.  With Valerie, who heard the water and had to be in it.  Sadie then noticed Valerie in the water after I was out, shaving, and had to join her, so they are there for safekeeping but that won’t last long.  Even Underdog didn’t keep Sadie occupied fully for the duration of all the primary episodes on a DVD (she’s cute, periodically declaring “that’s funny!” at something that is, indeed, meant to be funny), though it worked better than it did on Valerie, who initially wouldn’t allow herself to be changed unless I did it in the living room so she could keep watching.

Anyway, she’s driving my brother’s van, the one I mentioned filling in the previous post.  As I was pumping it full of gas, I couldn’t help thinking of times when people have told me “but don’t fill it all the way” because their car had a top of the tank leak or such.

She smelled gas the whole way to the hospital, especially when stopped, to the point of it being nauseating.  When she parked, the extra maneuvering involved resulted in a clear trail of gasoline, which seems to be leaking right under the driver seat.

She’s going to drive it the couple miles from the hospital to my brother’s house, at which point we’ll find out if this is new, because she can break cars with her mind, or if it’s something already there that I triggered by filling the tank.  Or both.

If it’s new, then apparently Deb has a new super power.  Sort of like Murphy, only focused on cars.  Sometimes I wonder if I have that same power.


10:31 AM | Cars • Kids • Medical • TV • (3) Comments • Permalink

Thursday, August 16, 2007

Jay: It’s Always Weird

When I don’t have any birthdays to give me a guaranteed post in the morning, and I can’t think of anything else to write.

Well, except maybe I can.  For instance, we did that cah update yesterday, but since then we’ve come to a near definite conclusion that we will ditch the van, register the Sentra, try to get by for a while with the Sentra and the truck and take both if all five of us must be somewhere together, and try to find someone who can and will do the engine work and so forth and will love having the solid van, ideally selling it for the infrastructure for near what we paid, as opposed to the $200 it would get for scrap.  We’re close enough to wanting to fix and keep it ourselves that it seems a shame to see it melted down.  Assuming it would be, considering what it is and its condition apart from the motor.

I made possibly the best beef stew ever, at least as far as Deb is concerned.  How good is it?  We had it for supper.  We had it for lunch.  We took pity and gave the kids tuna sandwiches, carrot sticks and almonds, but we had it for supper a second time.  There are about three bowls left, which probably ought to be frozen.

Since I have a DVD burner, I realized I can also put videos of the kids on a DVD, and I believe Vista has built-in video editing, which is even better.  For all I know it sucks, but hey, then I’ll know.

Rearranging the office is harder than it sounded.  First, clearing all books off the antique bookcase, which will move to our bedroom and be used probably more for storage than books.  In the process of boxing books, some came from other bookcases, with the idea being to clear tops of bookcases and even top shelves, giving us explicit storage space up out of reach.  They don’t tell you that you will need every bit of space you can possibly get at five feet or higher in the air where there’s a chance the kids might not reach.

Then there’s all the stuff already stored on top of the antique bookcase.  Or, on top of the milk crates that add a shelf to the bookcase, that is.  The router for the internet and home network lives there.  It’s taped down so it can’s move, because if it moves, the ethernet cable from outside budges slightly in the port, and that knocks the internet out until I move it slightly again, because the D-Link router they provided sucks.  I mean, this one does; the brand is, in my experience, prefectly reputable.  The WAN port seems to have issues.

That means the router has to move.  That is the hard part!

The best option seems to be to move it to the top of the bookcase against the wall, next to where the cable comes in from outside.  Then it will be necessary to hang ethernet cables from the ceiling to the computers, rather than the single on to the router.  So maybe I should move it to the upper shelf on the desk, until that moves.  Hmmm…

Clearing the top of the bookcase by the wall is especially challenging.  On it live all the Wheel of Time paperbacks, bookended by a tall stack of most of the Greg Bear we have on one end, and most of the Ayn Rand we have on the other end.  There are also two unused copper horse bookends and several collectables or knick knacks, and a screwdriver.  All that has to move, except not so much the knick knacks if I don’t move the router there.

All of this aside from bringing furniture home from the office and rearranging desks and such.

Okay, I need to let Deb use the computer.  It has Paint Shop Pro, which is the easiest thing to use for working with pictures of her merchandise.  She did an awesome custom order and needs to list it via the shop.  One of the ways in which my brother’s loan of a car saved us was ensuring we could get the material for that and get it out before next week.


08:13 AM | Business • Cars • Geekery • Medical • Totally Random • (2) Comments • Permalink

Wednesday, August 15, 2007

Deb: Thank you.

To everyone who’s been sweet to me while I’ve worked through what might just qualify as my Worst. Mood. Ever.

I love you all.


03:37 PM | Cars • Medical • Totally Random • (0) Comments • Permalink

Monday, August 13, 2007

Jay: On a More Positive Note or Two…

The gout has been in near-remission for days now.  It’s easy to make it flare up, and the vicinity of the toe is stiff and constantly on the edge, but I can walk, wear shoes, and so forth in a way I couldn’t for several days.  The biggest thing that seems to trigger it back up to speed is hydrochlorothiazide, so I have been mainly skipping that.  Considering that my blood pressure had gotten so contolled that it bordered on overly low, that should be fine.

Shoot, there was something else and I can’t remember.

I’m close to being able to move the bookcase that has to relocate to make reorganizing the office in the apartment possible.

For some reason this post reminded me of my plans for supper, which require starting the process any moment now.  I’m going to try to make something resembling my sister’s famous boneless ribs, but using the crockpot instead of the oven.  That and I got a steal on southern style boneless ribs, and I believe it’s country style that would be more normal.  My thought is to sear all around the outside of each one, not cooking through but giving an exterior browning.  Then in a sauce pan, make a sauce, which will make it easy to flavor just right.  I think she uses molasses, which I don’t have, but oh well.  Then the ribs go in the crock and cook in the sauce for a few hours.  It ought to be edible, at least.  While I’m at it, I need to freeze the rest of the meat.  I got a bunch of steak, in family packs so it was $1.59 instead of $1.69, which was already great.  We had the best steak I’ve ever made for steak burritos the past couple nights.  Plus a bunch of the ribs, figuring worst case they’d turn into barbecue shredded pork.


11:47 AM | Food & Cooking • Medical • (1) Comments • Permalink
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