Monday, October 22, 2007

puddle hopping

mum & i are returning to england after a 5-year hiatus. yay! she booked the trip last night. last week february/first week of march, 6 nights.

things i must do in london, spring ‘08:
two (2) plays, minimum
tut exhibit
london eye
eat at my olde dutch (for the 5th time)

any other 'musts'? this will be my fifth trip in a dozen years, so i've already seen most of it & have plans for repeats on many things.

my dad is rather disappointed about this trip, even though it's been five years in the making. mum's first trip was the same week we declared war on iraq (march 2003) and was a painfully brief 3 days. she'd wanted to go her entire life, which is why she sent me the first time when i was sixteen. anyway, dad says this is all a surprise to him when my mum made the reservations last night because finances are tight (mum has been saving specifically for this for at least 3 years), he wanted to go visit his sister in texas because it could be his last trip (where do i get my melodramatic streak?), when is mother going to have more vacation time and once the jeep craps out they'll need to invest in a new(ish) vehicle. he does know how to lay on the guilt trip. i know he's sick, but he's not helping his health by this depression, which i informed him he should talk to a therapist, whether he's diagnosed with a terminal illness or not. and since he has yet to be diagnosed with one, there's no need to play guessing games as to which dire disease he thinks he may have now. i love my daddy, but if he isn't careful, he's going to quite literally worry himself into an early grave. *sigh* there goes the sparkle on my trip to londontown.

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Friday, October 12, 2007

diagnosis-not CA?

i'd planned on posting an update on my dad's health about a week ago, but just hadn't gotten around to it yet. after all the frustration of having an inguinal lymph node removed for biopsy, then returning as requested in one week to be told they didn't have the results yet & should come back in a week (which happened to be the same day that i was admitted to the hospital for the 2nd time), my parents went back to the doctor for the results. yay, not lymphoma! good news, but there were some spots on his liver, so they had him stay for a ct, whole upper body, chest/abdomen/pelvis/neck, i think. it was late & the radiologist wasn't going to read the scan that day so they sent him home. also, they set him up for a pet scan, which then had to be rescheduled to 10/18 because of insurance pre-authorization that the doctor didn't sign. okay...
and now this morning, talking to my mom on the way to work, she tells me that they received the biopsy report in the mail yesterday and it says 'lymphadenopathy shows likely lymphoma'. wtf is wrong with his doctor?!?! seriously, i am pissed off.

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Wednesday, October 10, 2007

soren @ coe college w/ mat kearney

on tuesday night, s & i went to coe college in cr to see mat kearney. i'd been enjoying 'nothing left to lose' for about a year, so it was good to go to a concert. their live show was amazing and the only thing that didn't translate well was the spoken-word/rap part of the songs. meiko opened, only her 3rd show with the tour & she wasn't half bad, though i generally don't dig female vocalists.

here's the set list:
1) crashing down
2) can't break her fall
3) bullet
4) in the middle (he switched from guitar to piano for this song)
5) renaissance
6) chicago (a new song not on the album)
7) wait
8) where we gonna go from here
9) girl america
10) until tomorrow? (this was a song i didn't know or catch the name)
11) soren's drum jam*
12) nothing left to lose
13) breathe in, breathe out (featured on the grey's anatomy season) premiere
14) undeniable

he may have done an encore, but we left at this point as it was after 10pm, we still had to drive 30 miles home, s wasn't totally digging the semi-mellow vibe & i was exhausted before we even left for the show.

*midway through the show, they brought out the 4 year old son, soren, of one of the guitarists. they thought he fell asleep, but he came out for a rockin' jam on the drums with the band. they said he only knows the classics, beatles & u2. the video is below. i only caught about 10-seconds on my phone, but he kicked it for a couple minutes. pretty incredible.




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Saturday, October 06, 2007

last night i made reservations for dinner at givanni's. partly i wanted to make up for not going out for s' birthday since that was the day i was first admitted to the hospital and partly i wanted a chance to dress up because we missed iv's wedding in the cities today. so i got all dolled up after work and we walked in at 6.30pm on the dot. they had our table waiting for us. the exact same dais where we ate the last two times we've been there, too.
dinner was divine. the prednisone munchies kicked in hardcore on thursday night, so it's kindof a mixed blessing that i can eat solid food now because i want to eat all the time. we had the yummy bread & olive oil/parm/cracked pepper & calamari fritti as an appetizer. i almost always get the vegetarian lasagna (half marinara & half alfredo, so yum), but i saw the sweet potato ravioli on the online menu & wow, was it amazing. the sauce & a smattering of bleu cheese perfectly complemented the sweetness. s had the beef tips with roasted red peppers & handmade pasta. all so tasty!
we talked and laughed and ate & it was sweet and romantic. in one month it'll be a year from our first 'official' date.



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Wednesday, October 03, 2007

prat fall

yesterday i felt pretty good. woke up & was sick at 6.30am, but went the whole day at work without being sick once. i even walked the 30 minutes home for the first time in more than 3 weeks. it felt really good to get some exercise, even though i knew my butt was gonna be sore today. and the torrential downpour that soaked me completely through, but that was all cool.
went to bed just after 10pm and when i woke up around 4 to be sick, all i can hear is my upstairs neighbor & his gf talking loudly. just conversationally loud, not yelling or fighting. so i threw on my robe & went upstairs to knock on their door. i asked if they could talk a little quieter considering the time. he was very nice about it & thanked me for coming to him directly because our landlord had left him a 'nasty note'. (i had previously left two letters for the landlord as written documentation of all the noise disturbances.) the problem was i was so weak while i stood there at his door, i thought my knees were going to give out. i could barely keep myself upright leaning against the wall. when he closed the door behind me, my cell phone slipped out of my hand on the top step. as i bent over to get it i stumbled down one step & totally in slow motion continued to slide face first down the half-flight of stairs. then i had to climb back up to get my phone & go back to my apartment & crawl into bed. not a good night.
at least they did quiet down, thank goodness.

~also, my dad is supposed to get his biopsy results back this afternoon.

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Monday, October 01, 2007

inheritance

i've never really given any serious thought to inheriting anything, money, property or otherwise. my family isn't exactly loaded, not even some great-great 9-times removed cousin-in-law buried in the woodworks.
when my maternal grandmother, and last living grandparent, passed away in april, my mother informed me that she wanted the grandchildren to have the house. technically, according to the trust my mother receives half and my uncle was to receive half. that would mean my brother & i would receive 25% each and my 3 cousins would split their 50% 3 ways. my mother didn't want to argue with her older brother, though legally she has every right to claim it. but she had enough to deal with, especially since he was in total shock that my grandma split the land 50-50 between the two of them. for some reason, he assumed because he farms the land, he'd get all the acreage and my mom would only receive the house, which is about 1/10 of the value of the land.
the house sold about a month ago, so i'll be getting a check in a few weeks. it also means that i'll never get to go back to grandma j's house, the place i spent the night many summers, learned to bake, where we would bring fried chicken for sunday dinners and gran would make banana cream pudding, not to mention grandma's famous buns. *drool* the money will be nice to pay off my recent hospital bill and my car needs new tie rods and brakes soon. this'll mean that i won't have to live from paycheck to paycheck with all my school loans and other bills. as amazing & as helpful as that will be, i'd rather not have this money at all. i would do anything to see her again.

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