Derailed by autumn bleeding

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I’ve felt off this week, not 100%. The weather flipped from hot to cold in one day and with it my equilibrium. Today the autumn bleeding arrived.

The good news is the bleeding isn’t bad – yet. But it’s there and I’m now I’m on cipro. And I get to skip a Lovenox shot tonight.

Creative Commons: Lucretious

The bad news is that I took 5 mg of vitamin K when I meant to take 1 mg and the clot in my neck bubbled. I need to get another scan this week. After two months of shots, a little vitamin K shouldn’t rock my clot. My gut tells me the port-line is out of position and won’t let the clot go away. It needs a doctor’s attention, me thinks.

I did force myself to go out in public tonight, but it is an odd feeling to be in a crowd when you have hemoptysis. It’s surreal, like I’m watching life through a movie lens instead of my own eyes. I feel jealously when I see other fathers and their families and think how nice it would be not to be thinking about my lungs and the hospital. I’m sure they have their worries too.

An extra punch to the gut came when my supervisor told me he was changing positions Monday. I had a good relationship with him and he knew my situation. Now I get to explain it to someone else. It would be nice not to have conversations like the one I’m going to have. It’s embarrassing.

That’s it for tonight. Post a day 2011 checked off but not with the post I had planned.

What’s the right thing to do when old friends resurface?

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This photo has nothing to do with this post. I'm tired and accidentally hit Publish. I like this photo because it looks like Cali is an android dog and ready to shoot her laser eyes. That's the best I have tonight. Why did I sign up for post a day 2011?

Everything happens in threes doesn’t it? Even when friends pop up after disappearing for a decade. For me, three did just this recently, in the span of a couple of months.

Before I married my wife, while I was in college, I rented a room from a very nice, highly intelligent woman who didn’t like living alone. We were friends and then I moved in. When I got hitched, I moved out, of course. And I haven’t spoked to her in . . . 11 years?

I picked up a message on our machine six weeks ago. So, I called her and we had a great conversation. She was glad I was still alive and surprised to find out we had a daughter and that I had something to do with it. Life is full of surprises, isn’t it?

So, we ended the conversation with her promising to call me back in a few weeks after she returned from a business trip to New York, and we’d all get together and she’d meet my daughter.

I haven’t heard back. I guess I satisfied her curiosity that I was still alive. Yes, even I’m surprised I’m alive but I’m not going to call her. It was clear she would contact me.

Experience grade: C-

A woman I worked with years ago – 10, 11 years ago – emailed me and said she’d be in town and asked if she could buy me dinner. Sure, though I hesitated because it meant leaving the house and wearing normal business clothes. But as it got closer, I looked forward to it.

We met for dinner. And it was nice. She’s doing work for the company I work for and I provided her with three pages of notes of ideas. And we relived war stories when we were on the road doing events and the long days standing on our feet.

Experience grade: A

My wife handed me a lime green envelope Monday. A male friend I haven’t seen for about, yes, wait for it, 10 or 11 years, sent me a snail-mail card with his contact information. And inside it he included a photo of an attractive asian woman standing next to him in a casino. I had to open it away from my wife’s curious eyes to make sure it wasn’t something R rated. It wasn’t.

So, what do I do? Do I contact my old friend? I like him. But he kind of disappeared. Why did he pop up now? Curiosity about what?

There are times when I search old friends online, which I did over the years for the friend who mailed me. However, I didn’t reach out to him. And I don’t know if I will now. It’s hard enough to see the friends we have.

I haven’t replied and I’m not sure I will.

Experience grade: TBD

My daughter at nine

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She eats with her mouth open at times and wipes her hands on her pants or skirt. A week ago, we found asparagus in the toilet after dinner, which she put there but forgot to flush. Career criminal seems unlikely as a future career choice.

She likes boots and confiscated an old pair of her mom’s, which just about fit because she will be taller than her mom and have bigger feet. This worries her.

She likes fashion and sometimes I have to hold my tongue as she experiments with certain clothes and make-up. When some of it got in her eyes a month ago, her fascination with it took a pause and we haven’t seen red cheeks and blue eye lids since.

There's always a reason to dance when you're nine

She is a moody little bear at times and is knocking at puberty’s door. I have no male allies in this house during female mood swings. I miss having a male dog, as the female dogs seem to side with their own sex even if you are the one who feeds them. They’d rather starve than take my side and I’m convinced both women and canines can speak to each other without moving their lips. It’s how they look at me at times that makes me think this.

She takes guitar lessons, but doesn’t like to practice. She takes singing lessons and loves to practice. My wife and I have to tell her not to strain her voice, which means she’s straining our ears with the volume level. But she belts it out anyway. Oh, and she loves to dance and is pretty good, but doesn’t want to take dance lessons. Some logic is not for me to question.

She is all about fairness right now. Like in: How come daddy doesn’t have to do the dishes? Good question. How come I don’t have to do the dishes? First, your mother doesn’t look good in a tool belt like I do and she doesn’t know how to use a hammer or a drill. How’s that for fairness? Now scrub those plates, Cinderella. 

She still consumes books as if addicted. It’s a sight to see and has cost us a lot of money over the years, but it’s her talent. She even reads the parenting magazines my wife reads. So, during dinner when we’re arguing about something, or she conveniently lets the broccoli drop from her fork to one of her furry partners-in-crime, I ask her: What do your parent magazines say I should do in a situation like this? That confuses her. I guess she didn’t read the article, “Kids who share their veggies with dogs.” I did.

She is wonderful, perfectly imperfect, and we’re so lucky to have her. The Universe took favor on us with its choice.

Remote worker returns to the hive for the day

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As a remote employee, I don’t think I’ve become a recluse yet, at least not to the point I’m watching Ice Station Zebra five times a day and growing my nails long like Howard Hughes did when he ditched public life. But I may be getting close.

It’s getting harder to leave my little nest of four monitors and a kitchen full of Smarties, wasabi crackers, M&Ms, and endless Fudgsicles delivered to the refrigerator once a week by mi esposa extraordinaire.

With winter and cold weather on the way, I need to order a new pair of work shoes. These are my favorite. Not kidding.

I get my work done while sporting lounge shorts (code for boxers), a “remote workers do it by themselves” t-shirt and flip-flops. And when I need to go to our regional offices for the day, it’s quite an inconvenience.

I have to shave and take a shower – not an everyday event in my effort to be green – and wear long confining Dockers, dress socks, dress shoes, a belt, and long-sleeve button-down shirt.

Do people really work in these clothes every day? It’s difficult to think and to feel comfortable in this outfit.

To make it worse, I have to get in the car and drive to a place that doesn’t have a large pair of golden arches in front and doesn’t serve McGriddles, and where my portion of the conversation consists of “bacon, egg, and cheese McGriddle, please,” then “hi,” finishing with “see ya.”

When I leave home I have to interact with other people, my co-workers, who I do like and am happy to see. And it’s pretty good doing that, I admit, and a nice break from the isolation of home, telephone communications and email.

Then I leave the office and suffer in traffic, which is torture. I’m spoiled and am lucky I haven’t wasted hours of my life looking at bumpers and bumper stickers. Knock on wood.

And after 11 hours, I walk in the house shredding the layers of clothing and stripping down to my usual work uniform. The puppy steals my socks, my daughter pretends she’s Cato in The Pink Panther and sneak attacks with a pillow to my head, and order in nature is restored. Life is good again.

Monday’s Confession: Hopeless and powerless in the USA

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I have a confession: I feel hopeless and powerless when it comes to what’s going on in this country.

I probably read too much, or read too many stories of Americans who have fallen on hard times while the rich enjoy their lowest tax rates in 50 years. There’s a whole lot of wealth resting in the richest Americans’ hands. Well, not in their hands, actually, more like their brokerage accounts where it does little to grow this country.

Fox panicked when he read this post and rounded up all his cash, lest it be taken away by the government. Then he started screaming "FU, you socialist bastard." Now he's locked up in his cage and I'm cleaning the wounds on my arms. Never keep a fox as a pet. It will come back to bite you one day.

And then there’s our Congress who protects the rich like they’re endangered baby seals and heaven forbid someone club their bank account to shake loose a few dollars. The rich and large businesses own the congress and fund their careers so it shouldn’t be a surprise who they answer to. And to top it off, they serve up a load of crap about “Job Creators” being taxed creating fewer jobs. Here’s a nice op-ed on that:

\”Tax Rich More, Patriotic Millionaires Urge\”

I wish I had a new spin on all of this other than to say I once believed in Gordon Gekko‘s mantra: Greed Is Good. But I don’t anymore.

Greed is good for the few, but not the many. We need Captain Kirk to beam down and put a little hurt on the people in our government who protect Paris Hilton’s savings account over the welfare and well-being of middle class families hit hard by the recession (the one that never went away for a large portion of the population).

Years ago, I gave up watching the local news because I couldn’t take the bad news it served up each night. I may have to give up reading on the Internet. The “machine” built to convince people to vote against their own interests and protect the interests on the “machine” is just too great to fight. I don’t have the energy to argue anymore.

I know some people will disagree with me. That’s fine. I do have one question: If the rich, aka job creators, are enjoying historically low tax rates, why aren’t we overwhelmed with jobs in this country and why isn’t the economy booming?

I know it also has to do with companies outsourcing jobs and it’s a complicated issue, but that’s what I wonder everyday when I read a story of a middle-class couple with two kids, who lost their jobs, then their house, then their car and who now live in a homeless shelter. Why aren’t the job creators creating jobs with the money they’re saving in taxes?

Could the rich be lying to us about taxing the rich?

Ignoring WordPress’s suggested topic for post a day

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WordPress is kind enough to send suggestions for my October post-a-day marathon. Today’s is: Describe a dream you’ve had more than once.

As I would rather eat glass or have my head transform into a giant flaming tomato that explodes, leaving the walls of the kitchen covered in burning red pulp, than hear someone describe last night’s romp into their demented brain-space, I will spare you the same pain and suffering today.

Guess what I've dreamed about more than once

You’re welcome.

I do have a confession about dreams, my wife’s dreams. I can’t stand hearing those either.

You would think it would make a difference because I love her and am married to her. No, not a bit.

When she starts to tell me about one, which is often because she dreams a lot and remembers every excruciating detail of them, I can’t bolt the room fast enough, unless she’s trapped me while we’re driving in the car.  I sometimes contemplate jumping out of the moving car, a no-no for low insurance rates, or running away screaming while stopped at a light, a no-no for the long-term success of one’s marriage.

Listening to a spouse’s dreams has to be one of the most difficult parts of being married, right up there next to listening to them sing while they’re using an iPod and headphones, which is the vocal equivalent of fingernails on a blackboard or a knife slicing across a dinner plate. Enough to make you lose your mind, which explains a lot in my case.

My nugget of useless advice today: keep dreaming – but keep them to yourself.

I kissed a widget – and I hated it (post #2)

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F’ing widgets.

Argh!

I had great plans this morning to get a jump on post #2 in Post a Day 2011, which is already a beast of burden on day two. But I came at it with great positivity anyway. Then I took a trip to Widget Hell.

I clicked on my Post a Day widget and went nowhere. Dead link. Html error? Back to the widget instructions for 30 minutes of trial and error.

Oh, Hell!

This is exactly what happened when I tried to add Josh’s Joshland widget, which is still dead by the way because I’m still too lazy to fix it and all five of my readers (number cut almost in half by yesterday’s post) already know how to get to Joshland. And any stragglers who accidentally land on my site because they searched “wonders of Viagra and mohitos,” or something similar, can always google Josh’s most excellent site.

So, thanks to widget and html frustrations today, this is the post you get.

Work, widget, work. (Would Widget be a cute name for a dog?)

Be happy with it like the time you stopped at the roadside diner and stood out like a sore thumb because everyone knew you weren’t a local.

And you were just happy to be served the lukewarm coffee and the pancakes they made a little too thick and soggy.

And some odd-looking kid working there (yes, it could have been the child version of me), perhaps the son of the owner, (hmm, my dad owned a diner) kept mouthing “good tasting cakes, huh?” 

And you couldn’t help but take a nice big bite of the gooey mess with the extra syrup you devoted to it and smile back with batter stuck to your gums, then leave with your life still intact, only to have to stop 20 miles down the road at a rest-stop that had seen better days when the state government had a budget because that kid had put something in your breakfast. (Maybe, he did. Who’s asking?)

Why did I sign up for this?

Here’s your WordPress version of that experience. Have a nice day and y’all come back now.

Post a day 2011 – Post 1

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So, I’ve lost my mind. I signed on to WordPress‘s post a day.

One of my favorite games and one I can crush anyone at in the most ruthless manner possible. Wikipedia Commons.

I’m not sure what to call it. It’s not a contest. It’s not a vitamin. It’s not loaded with nutrients. It’s a way to blog more – every day.

They say it’s about quantity, not quality. Hell, I’ve been delivering quantity over quality for about two years to a total of 9 or 10 readers per post. I can “abso-tively” work up the hot air to drop a deuce of a post here once a day.

Consider this gem to be post #1, or as we say in my house these days as my daughter learns and mutilates one of the most beautiful languages in the world, Spanish, post numero uno.

All 9 of you have been warned, though you may want to visit each day to watch the word-train derail, killing all of its innocent letters.

X and Z, we hardly knew ya. 

Autumn stumps me

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I’m not sure why autumn doesn’t like me. It’s been a trend for many years for it to kick my ass up and down and back again.

This is not Los Angeles in Autumn, which is palm trees and cement. (SXC license)

All three of my embolizations have been in the fall, including one in Germany thanks to hemoptysis over the Atlantic Ocean. I’ve mentioned this before, but I never get tired of telling it just because I survived to live another day.

Even without bleeding in the fall, it’s the season when I’ve experienced the most hospitalizations. I don’t really understand it and my feeble brain has never been able to decode it. I go into the hospital during autumn and usually stay out until I catch the Flu in March.

This year, I’m doing my best to load up on broccoli, wasabi, vitamin C, which I got out of the habit of using in high doses, and vitamin D. I would start taking curcumin root, but with the Lovenox shots, I read it might increase the chance of bleeding, though I may risk it.

I feel like an ex-con who doesn’t want to go back to prison. The thought of it makes me ill.

I should start a pool with donations going to the CF Foundation and have my friends bet on the day I go in. Just by writing this, I have tempted the CF gods to punish me.

My insider advice to any pool players: take tomorrow, Friday. The CF gods are a vindictive and angry bunch.

Anchors disguised as people

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Have you ever worked with a person who has nothing to contribute to a situation or project? The type who lives to criticize work and never offers any constructive feedback? Who sits in meetings quietly and only speaks up to point out why action is a bad thing, why change brings risk, and why sitting on your ass doing nothing is always the best course of action?

People who “don’t” not “do”?

I hate these people.

I work with a lot of good people. And yet, I work with a few who the universe dropped on the planet with the sole purpose to point out flaws and imperfections, or  why something won’t work or isn’t right or who knows what. I like to call them “anchors” because they keep projects from moving forward by creating obstacles to dodge and hurdles to jump.

There's one of them now, hanging out, making life difficult. Creative Commons: Michael Wilson

I see this quality in many of our current politicians and the people who follow them.

They have no plans of their own and they hate everyone else’s plan.

Don’t give Americans the right to purchase healthcare, they say.

Then what should we do instead to solve the challenge of affordable healthcare for all?

Well anything but that plan?

Okay, what about this plan?

Well, not that plan either.

What’s your plan?

[silence]

So, you’re just going to say “no” to anything we come up with?

[silence]

Nothing is ever right with these people. It’s all wrong.

My daughter was like this when she was two-years old. I would build a tower with her blocks and she would come along and take a swipe at it like Godzilla walking the streets of Tokyo and down it would go. She’d laugh and it was quite a game we played. But then she grew up and understood it wasn’t so cool to destroy something someone took the time to build, especially if she was the builder.

Here’s my remodeling math: It took me a day to demolish my bathroom to the studs, and six months to rebuild it. So, anything politicians or others want to blow up, like Social Security, takes a long time to rebuild. It’s easy to remodel when you have some structure in place. From scratch is hard and takes a long time.

If we really want to “fix” this country, we have to stop listening to the people who tell us why we can’t do something before it has ever been tried, and who have no original ideas of their own. It doesn’t matter what party they’re from – they live in both.

If we don’t cover our ears to these Eeyores with half-empty glasses, we’re going to find ourselves peeing in a bucket asking when the bathroom is going to be finished while these knuckleheads debate the color of the tile.

Or, to borrow from Facebook: Done is better than perfect.