travel-ish

in two weeks i'll already be back from nyc and blogher. new york is a nearly unexplored city for me, so i'm hoping to pack in as much as possible. at the least i want to check out grand central terminal, for some more up-close research on my bip that i haven't worked on in over a year. especially now that my laptop is working again. my only real concern about the trip is getting from lga to manhattan and finding my way around the city the times i'm on my own. oh, and not having enough hours in the day
at the end of september, we're planning to get up to nodak to meet my adorable little niece. i might be comfortable holding her since she'll almost be 3 months old. if nothing else, s loves holding little babies (ones he can give back, not his own!) and i can spoil her rotten. we might even have enough for 2 free flights on delta. amazingly, minot now has more than one airline that flies in, which makes less of an iron grip on getting in and out. international airport, my left big toe! but i can't wait to meet baby sophia!

in memoriam

today is memorial day & as suebob pointed out, it's not really appropriate to say 'happy memorial day!' considering the reason for the holiday.
growing up, i never had much of an association with the military. one of my cousins joined the navy when he was 18 & was always off on some ship or other, but even my older relatives didn't have too much military experience that i knew about. yeah, my parents' older brothers both served in korea, but nothing was ever really made of it. and my grandfathers weren't able to serve (paternal g-pa lost an eye when he was young & maternal g-pa was needed as a farmer). my dad's number was up next for the draft just before vietnam wrapped up.
now with this war, i dealt with my brother placed in harm's way. i know that some of his brothers in arms lost their lives. and i have held s in the middle of the night remembering the terror of insurgent attacks on his battalion & the losses they suffered. for those who have lost a loved one and those who will in the future, any loss is too much.

arthur & bruce

ever met the itis brothers? i have.
that was one of my grandma's favourite jokes. oh, i love(d) that woman.
arthritis & bursitis. yay!
as of monday, my joints have been in excruciating pain. do you have any idea how often you use your shoulders? sure, your wrists are useful for moving those things that dangle off the ends of your arms, but your shoulders do quite a bit too. especially when you're trying desperately not to use them. mmmm, washing your hair or taking off your shirt is scream-inducing when you can't exactly move your arms above your head. not that screaming relieves any of the pain. oh no, not your joints that feel like big balls of pain.
last night i couldn't sleep for the hurting. i called the urgentcare clinic this morning when i got to work & they set me up for 10.20am. the doctor who saw me said he could tell i was hurting & said he wanted to do steroid injections into my worst joints (shoulders, wrists, knee & ankle). i politely declined, since he also offered a pill option to try out first. yeah, not scared about needles, but i've heard steroid injections can hurt too. hopefully things will be better by next thursday when i have my 8 week infusion. today was 7 weeks since the last one & i guess my body is in need of the next one.
in fact, i've decided that i love my elbows because they're the only ones, thus far, that don't ache or hurt.