I lost an old friend

Cute Pooky
Originally uploaded by Sandra Maynard.

What do you say when you lose a cat you have had half your life?
She was old and not able to eat and I decided to let her go before things got worse.

I will miss you.

Vasquez : Sometime in 1986-September 26, 2006

Big B little b what begins with B?

Big B
Originally uploaded by Sandra Maynard.

Hooray I finally uploaded some photos! This one and some of the others kind of surprised me - all of a sudden I can tell what he's going to look like when he graduates from 'toddler' to 'boy'.

I have had the worst time with insomnia lately. It might just be my sore throat, but I got maybe 3 hours of sleep last night. I feel tired, but not sleepy if that makes sense. If I tried to go to sleep right now it wouldn't happen.

Brenden can say 'gee-gee' now, which means 'cookie'. Actually it sounds more like 'Gigi', if you were pretentious or French.

TLAPD

TLAPD
Originally uploaded by poppycedes.

Brenden is just fine now. I have a sore throat, however.

I am starting to notice that B has a larger vocabulary than I'm giving him credit for. I noticed this weekend when he was pointing at Big Fat Kitty and saying "tze-tze!". He has done that several times. I need to pay more attention to what he says, but somewhere along the line he became aware that things have names. I still don't know what he calls me, however. He can say "mama" but for him that means "will someone please get me out of this crib?".

I'm going to go buy the Wallace and Gromit movie. It is Brenden's first official favorite movie - he doesn't sit still to watch anything but he will when Curse of the Were-Rabbit is on. He'll also laugh like a loon. I found out that there's a version on DVD out there that includes the 3 original Wallace and Gromit shorts.

And by the way, today is International Talk Like a Pirate Day. I truly think they need to move this day to like the 3rd Saturday of September then re-label it as "Drink Like a Pirate Day". I believe it would become a truly celebrated holiday. I mean, come on. Cinco de Mayo wasn't celebrated by us Gringos until we discovered Corona, right?

ARRR!

Dad and Brenden

Dad and Brenden
Originally uploaded by Sandra Maynard.

I have a camera full of pictures of Brenden that I should have posted this weekend. I had a lot of things planned for this weekend, but I got a little sidetracked because poor monkeyboy is sick.

He was a little fussy and just didn't look ok when I picked him up from daycare. Sonya said he wasn't himself but he wasn't running a fever. My mom and her husband came by later that afternoon (they were in town for a car show - Price makes a little money on the side by selling car guages at these shows) and I begged out of going to dinner for them because poor B was being clingy and was obviously worn out. Still no fever at that point.

He fell asleep in my arms while I was chatting with mom, so I put him down for a nap and when he woke up, he had a 101 fever. And thus started the ultra long weekend as I didn't sleep much because I kept dosing B on tylenol and feeding him cold Pedialyte and sneaking into his room to make sure his temperature didn't get too high.

On Friday night his temp spiked its highest at 103.2. I was ready to take him to the hospital but a new dose of tylenol plus ice-cold pedialyte and a tepid bath eventually broke his fever around 9 pm. I still could not sleep and he woke up at 1 with a fever of 101. I got him to bed around 2:30 and I caught maybe 3 hours of sleep. Saturday: lather, rinse, repeat.

Sunday I was so exhausted Jon came home for 4 - 5 hours and I caught a nap. Brenden was still playing rollercoaster fever but it never got above 102. When he came home after work I immediately went to bed and didn't wake up until around 4:30 am. Jon and Brenden were in the comfy chair and B was working on some more pedialyte.

I know what you are thinking: 3 days of this; shouldn't you take him to the doctor? Jon is taking B to an appointment at 9:30 am. But anyways, Jon looked as exhausted as I had been, and just before I left for work this morning. I thanked him profusely, but he didn't smile until I told him: "You know what? You're one hell of a dad." He is.

I did get one thing accomplished, huhuhuhuhuhuhuhuh.

The things I miss

Where I used to live
Originally uploaded by Sandra Maynard.

My friend Nancy has posted a blog entry about things she misses, both in Eugene, Oregon, and her current hometown of Athens, Georgia. It made me want to write one about the things I miss.

First off, see this photo? If you haven't messed around with Google Earth, you are missing out on a lot of fun. This screen cap from Google Earth is of my old stompin' grounds when I lived in Puerto Rico. To the left is a cemetary. Then there's an L- shaped building to the right of it. That's Beach Tower, where we lived for 7 years until 1977 when we moved to Stone Mountain in Georgia. As you can see, it's RIGHT ON THE BEACH! Yes, I miss having the ocean as my back yard. But as I recall when I lived there, I wanted to move back to the U.S. But when we moved I had a bad time adjusting and missed Puerto Rico horribly. I think it was because high school was hell for me.

So: I miss the beach. I miss not ever being cold. I miss the food, especially bacalaitos, empanadas, medianoches, and cubanos. I've had cubanos (they're sandwiches, people!) here. They're just not the same. When Jon and I went on vacation to St. John, the thing that made me happiest was being able to hear the surf AND the coquís. Eventually I want to take Brenden to Puerto Rico, but when he's a little older so he can appreciate it.

As I mentioned, high school was hell. Why? I was a NERD. I hated every moment of every day I was in that place. Well, I made one good friend - Lisa. She lives out in Los Angeles and to my delight she's moving back to Atlanta pretty soon. Here's something funny: the only reason I applied to Georgia Southern College was because that's where she was going. Through her I met Alan and his roommate Mark. My friend Nancy met and married Mark, and Nancy's high school friend Helly met her husband Alan because of Nancy. So guys, we all owe it to Lisa.

So I hated high school and therefore can't think of a bloody thing I miss about Stone Mountain. Well, there was one thing. I discovered that I could walk into Stone Mountain (about 15 minute walk) to catch the bus, then go wherever I damn well pleased in Atlanta. Like Nancy I like Public Transportation. I always took a paperback with me and read until I got to where I wanted to go.

I also miss my weekend Dungeons and Dragons games. They were with some of Lisa's older friends, who were more hippies than nerds. I won't go into details but let's just say this was the 70's. I sure do miss those sessions. Much fun!

As much as I hated high school I loved college. So much I went for 6 years (actually I stayed out a year because I joined the Army Reserves). In high school nerds are treated harshly. In college you just find other nerds and have fun because the people that picked on you the worst were back home working at McDonald's (NERDS RULE!).

What I miss most: walking everywhere, drinking that godawful $0.20 coffee at the student center, hanging out with Mark and Alan (and their roommate Glenn {hi, Glenn! Hope you are doing well!}, who became my boyfriend), being a DJ at the college radio station, pitchers of beer (18 was the drinking age back then) and playing table-top Super Mario Brothers II, and I actually, truly for once, enjoyed learning. I took the one required Algebra class, and I was stunned at how much I ended up loving it, even though I scrambled like hell to play catch up because I never paid attention in High School. I loved it so much it became kind of a mini-minor. I took Trig and Calc 1 & 2 before I ran out of electives. I LOVED math.

I could have stayed in college forever. So that's what I miss. but above all else, I miss goofing off. I get to for maybe an hour or so here or there, but for the most part, taking 2-3 weeks and JUST NOT DOING A DAMN THING is a thing of the past. I had to grow up sometime.

El Fin de Semana

El Morro
Originally uploaded by Daquella manera.

Brenden and I had a good weekend, surprisingly. He had no tantrums. I can't, however, take him shopping with me any more, at least not for a while until he gets a little older because I can't keep him in the little shopping cart seat. No matter how tight I snap the belt, he fights his way out. I can't keep him in the cart either, because he likes to investigate everything then throw it out of the cart.

but everything else was good. We're starting to interact more - I build things and he wrecks them; he'll climb into the clothes basket and I'll push him around. He'll try to climb onto our bed so I'll pick him up and fling him into the covers. He will absolutely squeal when I do that. Helpful handy tip though: do not feed a toddler chocolate Teddy Grahams then toss him onto your white down comforter.

What I'm Watching:

The weekend before I accidentally continued my Bruce Willis film festival when I caught Die Hard. Willis has improved as an actor considerably since that movie. I think it's overrated even though I admittedly enjoy it. I also caught Sin City, which is wonderfully depraved. Then I saw 5 minutes of The Hostage, got bored and decided I'd had enough of Mr. Willis for one weekend so I watched Ravenous about cannibals in the late 1800's. Great, bloody movie! Makes you see meat-eaters throught the eyes of vegetarians.

Jon and I put Veronica Mars on semi-hold because Lost Season 2 is now out on disk so we're trying to plow through them so we can start watching when season 3 begins. Speaking of, the 2nd disk is MIA so we put in disk2 of Veronica Mars and it was cracked. I don't blame Netflix; they immediately put a replacement disk in the mail but that one is MIA too. I blame the Hartselle Post Office: you guys suck!

This weekend I watched an interesting documentary:Yo soy Boricua, pa'que tu lo sepas! (I'm Boricua [Puerto Rican], just so you know), about Puerto Rico and it's relationship to the rest of the United States, and how frustrating it can be for Puerto Ricans who have to constantly deal with mainlander's ignorance. At one point Rosie Perez (who co-directed) was downright indignant about people she met who didn't even know where the island is. I understand the frustration, but most people in the U.S. can't even find Idaho on a map so don't take it so personally. Anyway, the doc was pretty good with the history and politics, but I wished it had spent more time with the people and the culture (not to mention on-island!).

I watched Summer Rental, a fairly throw-away 80's summer comedy starring John Candy (miss you). He plays a family man who takes his family on vacation to Florida by renting a summer house for a month. His family has a great time but he's miserable until he bonds with a local sailor who likes to ramp up his 'salty sea dog' image (Rip Torn, perfectly cast). 'Scully' (heh) teaches Candy how to sail. It's a stupid movie but it has a place in my heart. While I watched it I wondered if this movie is what put the bug in my ear about preferring rental homes to hotels when I go on vacation.

Brenden watched Wallace and Grommit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit with me. Ralph Fiennes supplied the voice of the villain! Much fun claymation movie. Highly recommended. If you can find them, the other Wallace and Grommit shorts are fun too.

Last and most definitely least I watched The Fantastic 4. It's a lame superhero movie. Ioan Gruffudd was in it but I like him with his accent intact and he hid it for this one.

Are You Ready to Rumble?

blue eyes
Originally uploaded by Sandra Maynard.

Letter to Brenden month 15: I promise not to cheat this month, honey, as you enter into a year and a quarter of existence. You celebrated by having your full first tantrum yesterday. It was a sight to behold! You rolled around on the kitchen floor, screaming and crying, turning purple, rejecting any and all comfort. I watched, amazed, for about 2 minutes, and when you didn't let up, I started laughing.

I'm sorry, but it was funny! It really looked like you were discovering what a tantrum was and so you were trying it on for size. I sobered up when I realized I have years of this ahead of me. Oh, joy.

For the record, you were pissed at me because I brought you indoors because you were getting fussy. So after I quit laughing I thought about it for a second, and considered laying next to you to show you how to beat your heels on the linoleum. I thought better of it, so I went and did the dishes because hon, if you don't want a hug or a cookie, there's not much else I can do until you cool down. Once I ignored you, you calmed down enough to where I could take you outside again for a nice refreshing dip in the pool with your dad.

It's hard to explain your development in the last couple of months. You are basically refining your skills (like going from fussy to full-blown conniption fit) and trying to climb everything. You are able to navigate over obstacles without me holding your hand and I'm deeply afraid that you will figure out how to get out of your crib pretty soon.

Words are still a mystery, although you have figured out how to yell "MAMA!" when you want out of your crib at 4 in the morning. Little dude, it's "DADA!" I have to work so your dad takes care of your 4 am fits whick are fortunately rare.

One thing I have noticed is that if you don't really understand the words, you get the meaning of what I am indicating. You understand more than we think you do. Dad says when he gets you ready in the morning you ask him to get his shoes and you do. I can ask you for things and you will bring them to me, too. Pretty neat. You go stupid again when I tell you to quit pressing buttons on the TV.

In closing, sweetie, your dad and I love you more and more, even as you turn more and more into a fire-breathing toddler. I know we have some rough days ahead but as long as dad and I tag-team you, I'm hoping we can wear you down before you wear us down. Are you ready to rumble?

Wierd Week

Crocodile pool, "The Gambia West-Africa"
Originally uploaded by Dennis Bouman.

Last week was a wierd one because of my job. On Tuesday while driving to work, I found out while listening to the news on the radio that one of the people killed in the Comair plane crash worked for the same company I do. She was a Project Manager - a pm pretty much orchestrates everything while getting a client from signing the contracts to actually using our products in the field. She was on her way to a site which was getting ready to go live when she died.

I didn't know her but we had emailed each other, especially in the last few weeks because I was helping with some customizations/problems with the products I specialize in for the site. I was pretty bummed about her death. She was a good PM, able to get things done with a sense of humor.

Then at the end of the week, I come in on Friday and find out that the company has been sold and is going private. The upper management may very well be blowing sunshine up our butts but they insist that they didn't spend all that time restructuring just to have someone else come in and restructure. I'll believe them because what else can I do? The fact that they are buying up all the shares at over %20 of what they were valued at on Thursday doesn't hurt either. I've been with them for a while. If my calculations are correct, and everything goes according to plan (when does it ever, of course), I will make enough money out of the deal to pay off the Cessna and placate the IRS. That means the only debt that Jon and I will have will be the house. That's it. And we don't exactly live in a mansion. So it has been kind of a wierd week at work.

It sucks about Steve Irwin, too.

R-A-M-B-L-I-N... apostrohpe....

Once I get dosed up on Afrin, I can breathe! I can smell!!! I made something with garlic and onions last night just because. I unfortunately also fried something and I can't get that fried chicken smell out of my nose.

More viewing notes:

Posiedon is a remake of the old Gene Hackman disaster movie. Instead of Hackman's Priest with and Attitude, we have Josh Lucas' Reluctant Hero and Kurt Russell's Overprotective Dad (code name:Dead Meat) leading a diverse group to the bow of an overturned ship to try to escape before it sinks. Actually in the original I don't think it ever sank - it was just a matter of getting the hell out of there. This new version added some urgency to the wanting-to-survive-ors' plight. Hey I liked it but I'm a sucker for disaster movies. This one didn't try to pretend to be anything but what it is. Hell, the only surprise was not that Kevin Dillon's Obnoxious Gambler died, but how fast it happens. And it was satisfyingly brutal, too. I'll watch anything with Kurt Russell, anyways. Just because.

I'm salivating at the thought of a remake of the Towering Inferno. This time, instead of Paul Newman as the Architect and Steve McQueen as the Fire Chief, it can be Clive Owen and Bruce Willis, respectively. I don't really care about Mr.Owen, he just has some standard good looks and I think he'll play well against Willis' no-nonsense tough-guy fireman. I'll give Harrison Ford some work - he can over William Holden's role as Wealthy Building Owner, and his beatiful Daughter A.K.A Trophy wife to the Evil Contractor who Cut Corners (Susan Blakely and Richard Chamberlain in the original) can be played by Sarah Michelle Gellar (just trying to get her work other than Japanese Horror Movies) and Josh Lucas. He played a decent guy in Posiedon but he can be an excellent scumbag. See Hulk for details.

Let's see: the O.J. Simpson role as Security Guard can be played by whatever rapper is trying to become a movie star. Forgive me, I'm just not up on that stuff. But we need more ethnicity than that, so the Mayor (originally Robert Vaughn) can be played by Laurence Fishburne and Benjamin Bratt can play the Boss (Robert Wagner) having an affair with his secretary (I forget here). And because this is the 21st century, instead of pandering to older people with the Inept Conman (Fred Astaire) and his Willing Mark (Jennifer Jones), we'll have to throw in a couple of Teen-Aged Lovers (just like what Posiedon did when they got rid of Shelley Winters' and Red Buttons' characters!) and I don't care who play them. Maybe Kurt Russell can show up as the Overprotective Dad who ultimately sacrifices himself to save both of them. Whoops, hope I didn't spoil anything.

Last but not least (or maybe least) Jennifer Lopez gets Faye Dunaway's role - she was the Career Woman Having an Affair with the Architect. They were having problems, because his Job is in X and hers is in Y. Being the 70's, Faye Dunaway left her job at the end of the movie to be with Paul Newman. I'm sure in this updated version Clive will leave his job to be with her. After all, he's the one who designed the crappy building so maybe he should try something other than being an architect.

*Whew!* I sincerely hope that someone a-googling reads the above paragraphs out of context and starts an internet rumor about a Towering Inferno remake. Anyway, where am I? Oh, yeah:

Jon and I watched Disk 1 Season 1 of Veronica Mars and it didn't suck. I'm still not stuck to it, but I liked it enough to rent the next disc. I can see why people describe Buffy the Vampire Slayer as the template for the show - girl w/a shady rep in high school, friends are nerds, missing parent, etc. There are differences - Neptune has more ethnic types. I guess that's not fair; Sunnydale had white people, vampires and demonic monsters of all shapes and colors. That's pretty ethnic. If Richard Pryor is correct, the African-Americans stayed away from Sunnydale because they had more sense than to live among bloodsuckers. But I digress.

I like the actor who plays Veronica. She seems to be doing a capable job so far. Since Buffy is the template, I'm not holding any expectations about who ends up dating whom. It looks like it's going to get messy. Also it better be in the Buffy/Babylon 5/Battlestar Galactica category of shows whose story arcs make sense and not in the same arena as 24 and The X-Files where they just make it up as they go along. Damn, I am such a dork!!!

Back from Tennessee

cessnamark
Originally uploaded by Sandra Maynard.

Jon, B, and I flew to the Sieverville airport last Friday in our 182. General Aviation has its advantages - we took a 5-hour drive in about 1 hour 45 minutes. Monkey Boy loved it - for about 10 minutes then he fell asleep for the whole trip. It only took him 2 minutes to fall asleep on the way back.

I didn't do much - we invited a couple we knew through skydiving and we all went to Gatlinburg on Saturday to the aquarium. It's a nifty one - you can walk through the main tanks through these plexiglass tunnels and they have sharks and other kewl fishes to stare at. Brenden had no idea what he was looking at, but because we use a baby backpack, he gets to look at everything instead of people's butts like he would if he was in a stroller.

The highlight of the visit was when Brenden winged his Spongebob sippy cup into one of the tanks. It was funny, but I was appropriately contrite when we asked some people who worked there to fish it out for us.

Saturday and Sunday I just felt awful still, but the good news was I could smell! Of course downtown Gatlinburg isn't that pleasant but hell I shouldn't complain after 2-3 years of little to no use of one of my 5 senses. I stayed in the house we rented keeping tabs on El Jefe while Glenn, Jon, and Marnie rented inner tubes and floated down a river. I didn't mind; I just laid on the couch, watched TV, and shared a box of vanilla wafers with Brenden.

I watched The 5th Element and The Whole 9 yards, which made me realize how much I love Bruce Willis in Unbreakable but not much else. I also watched The Mummy which is fun but could have used deeper characters. I really think if they had brought a little depth to the protagonists and some symapthy to the antagonists, the movie would have been *great*. At least more memorable.

Monday I felt better and today I feel fantastic. I'm also busy as hell so sayonara.

Oh, yeah. I forgot my camera and Jon forgot his memory card for his camera, so no pictures of the trip. It's a shame, because I would have loved a photo of Brenden in his car seat strapped into the plane.

Oh! one other thing. Remember me mentioning trying to teach Brenden animal sounds? ("This is a cow! Cow! Cow goes moo! This is a duck! Duck goes quack quack!") Well he astonished all of us when I handed him his little sheep and asked: "Brenden, what does a sheep say?" He replied, "BAA!"

He didn't do that just once; he now does it repeatedly. He still hasn't learned how to quack yet.

Cowgirl bugging Mom

Cowgirl bugging Mom
Originally uploaded by Sandra Maynard.

I still haven't done a Month 14 letter to Brenden and it's almost month 15:

Dear Brenden: you now have 4 molars in addition to your 8 front teeth. Stay off the coffee table!

Okay now onto something else. Since 24 and Battlestar Galactica are in hiatus for the moment, I have turned to other things. Since American Idol is in the same state (thank goodness!) I have been catching up with The Office reruns. I have seen a few episodes here and there of the British series so I caught the first season of the American version. While I'm one of those people who find Steve Carrell funny (sue me) I was on the fence about this series. But I am loving this second season. The Office is of course the Hell's eye view of working in the small-time corporate world, and it owes it's DNA not only to the wickedly funny BBC series but to of Course Mike Judge's Office Space.

Yes the series is made by Steve Carrell's Clueless Boss from the Bowels of Purgatory but I think all the characters are what makes it so funny and appealing. They are recognizable. There's the harried secretary who also spends too much time working on her wedding on office time, the slacker/practical joker who slacks too much and is obnoxious, there's the co-worker from outer space who brown noses so much it makes even the boss uncomfortable, and the temp worker who treats his job like a jail sentence.

I'm also watching The 4400 even though I'm only sort of blah about it. It's something to watch while I'm waiting for better shows to come back on.

As far as movies go I finally got to see V for Vendetta. I'm all about movies where people fight the system and I liked this one, but am a little iffy about it because of what V did to Evie. You know what I mean if you saw it. If I had found out someone did that to me I think it would have earned him at least one punch to the 'nads.

We re-watched Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom the other night and while I'm not fond of the constantly screaming Kate Capshaw I always defended this movie. I liked it better than the third movie and I still do, but this time around I noticed how sloppy Spielberg's direction was. There are really too many sloppily choreographed fight scenes. I've seen better in TV shows.

We tried to watch The Island last night but the DVD we had received was too scratched. So we watched Zathura instead, a cute little kid's movie about two brothers who play an old board game about outer space and end up there. It was fun, but cuts close to the bone in the beginning as a divorced dad tries to keep the peace between an older 10 year old son who is a bully, and a 6 year old son who is a spaz. The movie did great in portraying the brutality of siblings but of course when they go through an adventure together their relationship becomes more loving.

I haven't had a chance to watch the whole thing, but BBC America has been running a small series of movies which are remakes of Shakespearean plays and I taped "Much Ado About Nothing" which features my favorite redhead who plays the part of Benedick. This re-telling takes place in a television news room, with Benedick and Beatrice being bickering co-anchors, and Hero being the somewhat ditzy weathergirl. I have it TiVo'ed but I have only seen part of the ending. It looks fun, though.

I go see the hottie surgeon today. I finally have run out of happy pills, which I'm unhappy about but then again they have kind of lost their effectiveness after taking them for two weeks. I have been able to smell a little bit.

And back to Brenden: he's had a constant runny nose for a while. I suspect allergies. You know what I think? Rise in use of carpeting in homes - rise of allergy sufferers = mere coincidence? I think not! Jon, Brenden and I are flying to Gatlinburg today after work for a 3 day weekend. We're celebrating our 7 year wedding anniversary. When we get back, we're going to rip up all the carpeting and replace it with faux wood flooring.

Pontificating

Pontificating
Originally uploaded by Sandra Maynard.

Argh. I suppose I'm healing just fine - I'm not hawking up as much blood today as I have been. I still get headaches if not properly dosed with lortabs, which I quit taking. Poor, poor, pitiful me.

Brenden and I didn't do much this weekend. I bought him some of those big leggos so I had a lot of fun building things. He would destroy them for me, plus he seemed far more interested in pushing the large plastic container they came in. He would stop occasionally and throw things in the container, then push it all around the house some more.

He finally aggravated me to the point I decided I really needed to punish him on Sunday. He just *would not* leave the TV buttons alone! I decided I needed to be creative, because I just can't bring myself to hit him in any fashion. Theoretically I'm not against a slap on the wrist or butt, but I just don't have it in me to whack him hard enough for him to even notice. I like the idea of "Time Outs" but I can't make him sit and I don't want to throw him in his crib. It is hard enough getting him to sleep without associating his bed with punishment.

It occured to me that Mr. Ant-in-his-pants totally hates sitting still for even a few seconds, so I gave him 'time outs' by sitting on the couch with him in my lap. He would squirm and cry about it, and I annoyed him even further by lecturing him about why he couldn't get up for 60 seconds. It worked pretty well about the 4th or 5th time I did it. He'd touch a knob and I'd say "No, Brenden!" then he'd reach again and I'd say 'Do you want a time out?" and you could see him thinking about it. He understands a lot more than I tend to give him credit for.

Sleepy Time

sleepy
Originally uploaded by Sandra Maynard.

Quick update:

I'm still out of it - if I take my happy pills, I'm pretty happy and useless. On the other hand, if I don't, I'm pretty grouchy and useless. I saw the hottie doc yesterday and he said everything is healing fine and do I want a refill on my pain meds?

Ha. I should have a pretty nice weekend.

Congrats to Lachele on the sale of her house, hugs and words of encouragement to Nancy on trying to find new employment, and Snakes on a motherjumpin' Plane to the deli worker who poisoned Helly.

I am still working on my spanish a bit - I can't concentrate very well but I will get back to it when I can. In the meantime I'm playing a lot of this silly Yahoo! game called Tropix: you play these silly games - everything from Sudoku to solitaire for Sand Dollars and when you get enough Dollars you can buy tropical beachfront property and decorate it. A little monkey will come an play with the things you put on your property. I find it very soothing because the background noise is ocean surf, birds, etc.

Hey, look. I could spend this post explaining to you in Dooce-like detail of what has happened to my excretory system since the operation, but I'm not. Be grateful.

Good Morning

Good Morning
Originally uploaded by Sandra Maynard.

oOooOh mY heAd....

Oh, I'm fine. A hell of a lot better than I thought I'd be. It *could* be the Hydrocodone, but it also might be the psychological effect of having the operation over and done with. Plus my head feels 5 pounds lighter.

I can't smell anything yet, but I know that I need to do some healing first. The way the doctor and nurses were talking, I expected to be an invalid for the next week. I really think I could work today except I probably shouldn't be operating any heavy machinery.

This photo is from this morning - as you can see the doc didn't leave any bruising. I get to take a happy pill every 4 hours. They gave me a weeks supply and I sincerely doubt that I will need them that much.

I am also irrigating my nose every 2-4 hours with sterile saline solution. I can't blow my nose but this helps keep it clean. I'm also taking another antibiotic. I hope this one will be able to do its job now that my sinuses can actually drain.

I was also prescribed a suppository, of all things, if I experienced nausea. So far, I'm fine. The only thing that makes me even remotely nauseated is the thought of shoving something up my butt.

I can feel the lastest dose of meds taking effect so I'll stop blogging now. Thank you for the well-wishes! As a reward, there's a picture on flickr that the doc gave me as a souvenier. Don't look at it too closely. If you get nauseated, I have some suppositories I'll send you if you would like.

Sandy and Brenden at Loco's

Sandy and Brenden at Loco's
Originally uploaded by nheiges.

Check me out - too lazy to post my own photos so I'm stealing from Nancy again!

24 hours to go before Dr. Light goes spelunking. Hope he doesn't find anything too extraordinary, like a diamond or a hidden tomb. I suppose I could make some tired Jimmy Hoffa joke or something.

Actually I'm thinking about the last season of the Sopranos, when Tony was in the hospital after being shot by his uncle and he makes friends with a physicist who went in for sinus surgery but the docs found cancer and removed his thorax. Wait. I mean larynx. Yeah. I'm a little worried.

I remember having outpatient work done because I had a whoppin' case of GERD. I'm thinking this was back in 2000 or 01. The doc shoved an endoscope down my throat to look for a hiatal hernia. I'm very glad I was asleep for that. I remember that whatever the anesthesiologist gave me was awesome. I woke up and I was insanely happy. I was so tranquil. I loooooved everyone! Later when I came down, I recall being amused by some of the questions someone asked me while I was grooving (that's the only word that fits). She was asking for feedback on patient care! I thought that was quite clever, asking my opinion of how I was treated while I was high as a weather balloon. I bet that facility boasts %1000 percent customer satisfaction.

I am fervently hoping for the same drugs tomorrow.

My doctor's appointment in a nutshell - the surgery is a go and set for Thursday afternoon.

The doc took one look at my CT scans and showed me how socked in my sinuses are. Basically I have inflammation and infection in all my sinus cavities; especially my right maxillary cavity which has been infected for some time. Years, maybe. Which begs the question I never asked: if it's been so bad, how was I able to skydive and even moreso, how was I able to scuba dive? My guess is it wasn't that bad yet at those points in time. I last did both of those activities in September/early October of '04 although I distinctly remember losing my sense of smell some time before that.

The doc - incidentally, he's a hottie - explained that the surgery would last about 3 hours and he would be opening the sinuses some and cleaning them out. Do the holes he's knocking into my skull count as trepanning? But I digress - afterwards I won't be able to lift anything heavier than 10 pounds for a few weeks so Jon gets to chase Brenden around without me for a while.

The doc also explained to me that this operation should alleviate the symptoms but they were not a cure. He said that if I do not work to aggresively keep my allergies in check, I would probably be right back in the surgery center in 5 - 10 years time. I am currently doing 2 of the 3 things I need to be doing to keep them in check: 1) medications - the coticosteroids I'm taking (Nasonex) to keep the swelling down. 2) Allergy shots. The third thing is to go through the house and allergen-proof it. Which means ripping up the carpets and putting a different flooring down. Hooray! I've been tempted to put wood flooring anyway. We'll also replace the couch and bed and use HEPA filters and all that jazz. One thing we will not do is get rid of the cats. Vasquez doesn't have much mileage left in her anyways, and I couldn't part with BFK. I think I'm not allergic to him anyway.

Yeah I'm a little scared but I'm also looking forward to not only maybe being able to smell and taste my food again, but also a mini-vacation from my responsibilities.

I'm back from a great weekend at Nancy, Mark and Anthony's house: Brenden and I woke up early Saturday morning and drove to Athens with little incident. Despite my protests concerning the costs of the vehicle, the Town and Country mini-van my husband bought us is perfect for travelling long distance with a small one. We have the back seat out so when I stop for food, I swing through a drive-thru then park and let Brenden out to crawl around the van for a while while we eat.

I always enjoy seeing Anthony because in many ways it's like a sneak-preview. Like Nancy I was interested in how Anthony and Brenden would interact. I thought Anthony did quite well - he didn't much like Brenden or I playing with his toys, but with some gentle prompting he would be generous. At one point he was playing with something, Brenden started playing with something, so Anthony took it away from him. I pointed out to him (very gently - I would not reprimand someone else's kid unless he was doing something extreme like trying to drown the cat in the toilet) that he couldn't play with both toys at once. He gave the toy back to Brenden. I was very impressed - it's no simple trick to appeal to a 3-year-old's logic with success. And there was one point where Brenden was crying and I was consoling him - Anthony asked me "why he crying?" and patted Brenden gently on the leg.

Both Nancy and Nancy's mom (who is as nifty and loving as I remember her) don't recall Anthony being as supercharged at 1 as Brenden is. This pretty much confirmed my suspicion that B is more active than normal. Everyone got a good demonstration of how B likes to run me ragged. There was so much to !!!INVESTIGATE!!! in this new place!

Between running around and keeping Brenden from trouble, I did actually get to visit with Nancy and Mark, and I was very happy to spend some time talking with Helly, who is as wickedly funny and smart as her blog indicates. I still feel like I didn't get a chance to get to know her but after this weekend I must say I am very happy for Alan. They complement each other wonderfully. Lachelle dropped by Saturday night as well and added to the adult conversation which I didn't realize I missed so badly.

Brenden and I had a fantastic time, even though both of us were out of sorts - B has some congestion and didn't sleep as well as he normally did, which means neither did I, plus I now have a raging sore throat that started Saturday - yep, my sinuses. I swear, and now that I've written it down maybe I won't ignore it, to visit more. And my offer is still open - anyone who wants to swing by the thriving metropolis of Hartselle Alabamastan, is more than welcome. And the next time I *do* visit either Brenden stays with Jon or Jon's coming with me to keep B in check.

Anyway, thank you Nancy and Mark for being such good friends and gracious hosts, thank you Helly and Alan for coming up and visiting and putting up with my hellspawn rambunctious child, and thank you mrs. Morris for helping out with B and for lunch Sunday. I promise not to be such a stranger, if you all will promise to give me sh*t if I let a year go by without visiting again.

We now return to our regularly scheduled programming, wherein I whine about my sinuses. Vía Lachelle:

A: "I think I need my sinuses removed."
B: "You can't have your sinuses removed -- they're cavities."
A: "Maybe -your- sinuses are cavities."

Indeed!

Mostly dead and evil dead

Evil Dead 2 : Dead By Dawn VHS
Originally uploaded by p r o f a n i c.

Brenden can say "mama" and "dada" upon prompting now - no thanks to me. He's picked that up in daycare. Yes, I'm feeling guilty.

So that's my Brenden update for the week. This weekend I'm going to Georgia to my friend Nancy's to visit with her and her family, as well as newly-hitched Helly and Alan. I'm looking forward to a change of routine, and yes I'm bringing the rug rat.

I saw Superman last night, and I'm relieved to report it wasn't the cheeseball fest that Superman II was. I'm not going to add to all the speculation about why Richard Donner got shitcanned and what happened with the sequel. It's a crying shame, is all I'm gonna say. Something tells me the producers told Donner to tone down the dark stuff (re-watch it for nothing else than Lois Lane's death. That's some pretty harsh shit right there!) and he told them to kiss his ass. And another promising movie franchise goes down in flames. I am now totally intrigued to see Bryan Singer's spin on the story.

I have 2 more movies to add to the list:

8)Robocop: This movie is extremely violent and cynical but it's a late 80's classic. What's not to love about ED-209? Robocop would have been totally bankrupt if it weren't for Peter Weller bringing so much humanity to the cyborg. It also brought us Kurtwood Smith as an Evil Bad Guy and he was absolutely fabulous!

9)Evil Dead II: If you haven't seen this movie, why not? It has chainsaws, shotguns, eyeball swallowing, posessive demons, and Bruce Campbell.

I had a C-T scan of my sinuses yesterday. Guess what? I still have a sinus infection. My doc has referred me to another doc. Can you say functional endoscopic sinus surgery? Well, I won't jump the gun but everything I have read makes me think that is what he'll suggest. We shall see.

For some reason I've been watching a bunch of mid-to-late 70's movies lately. I watched "the Deep", which did nothing except make me miss Robert Shaw, the apotheosis of pushy bastard. And Nick Nolte was once considered sexy! Imagine that! Okay, don't. It makes me nauseated too. Jon and I watched "Animal House" last night - sometimes movies just become trite because they were copied one too many times. Still, it's kind of a classic.

"Rollerball" was on - we flipped by that one. I haven't seen the remake and from what I understand I haven't missed anything. It all looks so dated now! The best part about that movie is the Bach soundtrack.

Lastly we watched "Superman II". You know, I don't remember it being that lame but hoo-ya what a lame movie! The special effects were atrocious! Hard to believe it was made a year after "Star Wars". Oddly enough, the best thing about this movie is Christopher Reeve. He handled the duality of Superman/Clark Kent quite effectively, even though everything/everybody else was hilariously, well, comical. Even Gene Hackman. Tsk tsk tsk. Although I still love it when Terence Stamp commands "Kneel before ZOD!" but who doesn't? I want to see the new Superman movie even though no one else seemed to want to. I set up TiVo to record the first movie, to see if it was as good as I remembered, or simply a lame movie I liked when I was a teenager.

I'm compiling a new top 10 list: Top 10 pre-1990 Movies I want to watch with Brenden (when he gets old enough) that aren't Star Wars or Indiana Jones movies (because of course he'll watch all those):

1)The Terminator: The original. Because it's a frickin kewl movie, that's why! And James Cameron set a standard with this low-budget action/love story.

2)Jaws: a 70's movie that didn't date. Even with the 70's hair and clothes styles, it looks like it was filmed yesterday. Plus you know, it has Robert Shaw being a pushy bastard. This movie didn't become trite even though other movies copied it again and again and again, because all those movies missed the point about what "Jaws" was trying to say. It's a movie about what it means to be a man and if you don't believe me watch it again!

3)Ghostbusters: Bill Murray! Dan Ackroyd! Sigourney Weaver making out with Rick Moranis! Because it's a classic comedy, that's why! I bet you have that song stuck in your head now.

4)The Road Warrior: Hyper action movies before Michael Bay infected the world with shaky-cam ruled. Mad Max is a pretty good low-budget item and Beyond Thunderdome is only so-so, but RW is a monumental post-apocalypse movie that no one seems to remember.

5)The Princess Bride: Like the young boy being read to, it will be interesting to see if Brenden appreciates this sardonic/romantic tale.

6)Monty Python and the Holy Grail: Will MP's offbeat humor translate to another generation? Knee!

7)Who Framed Roger Rabbit?: Did you notice this movie never garnered a sequel? Imagine that! I loved it when it came out. Speaking of, I wonder if I'll be able to find unexpurgated versions of the Looney Tunes I grew up with. It just ain't a Daffy/Elmer cartoon without Daffy getting his beak blown off on-screen.

I'm still working on this list. Missing noticeably is my favorite movie of all-time, "Aliens". And flesh-eating zombie movies. And Clint Eastwood westerns, gangster movies, and James Bond movies. Of course he'll get to watch those! Although it might be a while before I show him "Dawn of the Dead".

What I'm not doing

Foot drag
Originally uploaded by Sandra Maynard.

Well the pool was perfectly beautiful for exactly one day. Then we had a pretty fierce pop-up thunderstorm which blew a bunch of leaves into the pool.

El monito and I spent the weekend working on the outdoors - I went shopping early Saturday, first to the pool place to make sure the chemicals were balanced, then to Lowe's for assorted neccesities, then to Publix for groceries, then to the Verizon store to find out the phone Jon gave me can't be fixed, only replaced. I don't have a warranty so I'll have to buy a new one. Feh. Brenden did fairly well up until the verizon visit. I had to chase him down several times.

In all fairness he was just bushed by that time. Once I strapped him into the car seat he was asleep before we left the Verizon parking lot. I spent his nap time putting together a nifty kitchen table that folds down into almost nothing so now I can actually eat meals with Brenden in the kitchen. After lunch on our new table B and I went out to do some work in the yard. Bored yet? Me too.

Sunday we worked in the yard, played in the pool, then played in the sprinkler in the front yard as I tried to revitalize the dead grass. I found out that if Brenden tries to fight me when I'm removing him from a not-so-safe situation (like running out into the street - I can move pretty fast for an elderly mom!) he tucks quite easily under an arm. I can keep him from pulling my hair that way, too.

In other words, SSDD.