Fresh, Hot Wastes of Time

I forgot to mention the whole episode where I was supposed to have dinner with Ronald Reagan but the snooty maitre d’ kept ignoring me so I finally went off on a 15 minute long tirade. And got seated.

Last night I had a dream that my doctor said I have advanced liver cancer and I had to have chemotherapy. I had to have tearful phone conversations with my family telling them what was up, I had to update my will and make sure the kids were going to be taken care of. The hospital gave me a booklet on the hospital chemo services and what to expect. They provided a medical jar looking thing for me to throw up in if I got sick while I had the IV in, but I forgot it so I took in an empty peanut butter jar. Someone else in the chemo room had forgotten his medical jar as well and had brought a childrens’ sand pail, yellow with a red flowery handle.

I was not sick during the treatment but they said I probably would be next time. As I was changing clothes and packing my things to go, the phone rang in the chemo room for me. It was the doctor, who told me that he had misread all my liver enzyme numbers and I didn’t really have cancer after all. He laughed all through the conversation because he thought it was hilarious that he would make such a mistake.

Hub took me back to the hotel room where we were staying, somewhere on the gulf coast, and I watched out of the window as the tide came in. We were staying on the third story and the water was getting up to just a few feet under our balcony because of a hurricane. Then we saw on the news that an aircraft carrier had been hijacked and steered into a nuclear reactor and it had exploded.

Then I took a nap this afternoon to try to fend off the migraine headache that’s been plaguing me since yesterday morning, and I had a dream that my city was under attack by aliens, which were buglike, a cross between Alien and Starship Troopers (the book, not the travesty of a movie) and Ender’s Game. Since I had read the books and seen the movie, I knew that our infestation was just an advance front, that there was a queen alien in the most central, dark place in the complex (it was a huge museum or something) and she was laying eggs. We needed to kill her before dark because the power was out. Nobody would believe me that I knew where she was and I was the only one who knew how to shoot a gun. I wanted to go take her out, but on the way I had to stop at a friend’s house and give subcutaneous fluids to her sick cat. They didn’t have a clean needle so I refused to do it.

I woke up before saving the earth. I hate it when that happens.

Look at this. It’s honest to goodness real. I played around with it in Photoshop yesterday.

Yesterday I also went to the Austin Quilt Show and joined the Austin Area Quilt Guild. I’m honestly not sure what’s involved in being a guild member, but for $12.50 (and free show admission) it’s not that big a gamble. Then I came home and sewed like a maniac to make 16 more blocks. That takes me to a grand total of 76 out of 144 needed – one short of halfway done!

Today I went nuts at the Hancock’s of Paducah website and bought over 20 yards of fabric. Hub is going to have kittens when the package arrives.

I’m turning into a little old lady, grey hair and all. Staying up until dawn with a baby who wants to play, play, play doesn’t help much with that situation.

I love the pimiento cheese sandwiches from Jason’s Deli. As the baby would say, “Yum”.

Anyone ever heard of Ortho K? No, it’s not a breakfast cereal. It’s a process by which you wear hard contact lenses that you wear, usually at night, and you take them out in the morning and you’re able to see all day. Fascinating. I’m way too chicken for Lasik; this Ortho K thing sounds really interesting.

Shades of Terminator… Two women with the same name slain in Houston.
Ohio man finds hidden camera in a Marriott hotel bathroom.
Rumors of Jason Mewes’s death are highly exaggerated.
Though I don’t necessarily agree with the sentiment, it is kind of fun to make my own Bush speech.

The sole, petty reason for this post is to piss off my brother because I’m up late.

We got some pictures back from the photographer today. Here’s the almost-3-y.o. and here’s the one year old. Personally, I think they’re pretty cute.

Number one daughter has locked her father out of the house and pulled him down to the floor out of his chair tonight. She’s on a roll!

I was going through some old boxes and found my mother’s poll tax receipts from 1958-1966. The poll tax was outlawed in 1966.

I also found:

– a picture painted by my great-great-great aunt in 1938 for my mother
– a whole bunch of my riflery and archery targets and patches and medals from camp
– a newspaper article about a relative who went to jail
– a letter from my big brother to me when I went to camp (I’m still waiting for that Astroworld trip I was promised…)
– a bunch of dim pictures of unidentifiable landscape (pitched)
– letters from my grandfather to his parents while he was a cadet at West Point
– my mother’s confirmation certificate
– all my report cards and standardized test results

I started this project to toss out trash, but it’s taking me hours to go through the boxes. All the letters written to and from camp for the 7 years I went there, for example – fascinating. I got 2 letters in 1981, one from my great-aunt and one from my mom, about how fascinating the royal wedding was between Charles and Diana. My mom recorded it for me. On betamax. I still have it somewhere.