update on the dad

Hey. My dad had surgery yesterday afternoon. The actual surgery was scheduled for 1pm but the doc said he'd probably be picked up from his room by noon. I wanted to see him before the surgery so I got off work at 11:30 and got there by 11:40. My mom said I had just missed him. I kinda had a weird feeling about that. I just really wanted to see him before they did the surgery. Well, they couldn't do it laparascopically because of too much inflammation. They tried it, but had to open him up halfway through (that's fairly common). Now he has a huge incision running down from below his belly button. The surgery was only two hours long, but he was in the recovery room for four hours instead of the usual hour and a half. His blood pressure got really low and they had to give him fluids and other medication. But, today he's back in his room and is doing really well. He's even walking the halls a bit. He'll probably be in there for another five days so they can make sure all the plumbing still works.

My mom and I waited in his room instead of the surgery waiting room - much more comfy and we had our own tv. My sister couldn't be there since she's pregnant and we don't want her to catch anything at the hospital. While we were waiting, my mom told me a bunch of stories I'd never heard before. We were watching TV and there was a program on about how a lot of the fast food that say '8grams of fat!' 'only 7 grams of fat!' actually can have a lot more or a lot less depending on how the worker makes it. My mom starting telling me a story about her parent's old bakery. In the 60's the government told them they had to display all the ingredients in the breads, pizza, donuts, etc and how many calories each one had. Well, they didn't have the money to get it tested, so they asked another place in town if they could just copy their numbers! So, that's what they did. Those wacky kids.

Thanks to everyone for your emails about my dad. As long as infection doesn't set in, I think he's going to be ok.

Not a good week

The last few days of this week really sucked. My dad has been in the hospital since Wed with a perforated colon. I won't get into the messy details, but he's having surgery on Tuesday (by two of my doctors, so I know they'll do a good job) and then he'll be in the hospital for another week so they can make sure the colon and intestines are all working like they should be. They caught it early enough that it wasn't life threatening or anything. In general, he's been in good spirits. The whole thing has just been stressful. This is the first time one of my parents have been in the hospital for something urgent like that. My mom is holding up well.

This morning when I got into work, I found out that the office downtown that holds two of our clinics had caught fire. The fire was contained on the 5th floor, and we're on the 2nd, but the building was evacuated for a few hours in the morning and most of the staff came to my office. So I had to scramble to find desks and phones for everyone to reschedule patients and for the staff I didn't have phones for, I found them busy work to do.

And then later in the morning I realized that I have a urinary tract infection. Yay. Never had one before, and I wouldn't recommend it. I got in to see my doctor this afternoon and she gave me a 3 day pill supply. That should clear it right up.

The one bright and shining thing today is that Michael sent me flowers at work. Such a sweetie! They are so beautiful. It's a mix bouquet of carnations, lillies, and sunflowers. He knows that I despise red roses. I love what he sent. It's a 'thank you' for helping him write his annual review for work. I enjoyed doing it - it's been so long since I've written for a professional paper. I was whipping out all this cool vocab and phrases. I know it's hard to write your own review, so I was asking him questions about what he'd done during the year, how it benefited the company, its customers, and its employees, etc. It's a lot easier to remember what you've done when you've got someone grilling you with questions! I'm really happy that he sent me flowers. I've been wanting flowers for a while, but didn't want to say anything. I haven't been given flowers since my 21st birthday when Sherry bought me a bouquet of wildflowers. Sigh. I love getting flowers.

At least this week ended on a good note.

made it

k, Jason got here around 11:30 - had a flat tire in El Paso and had to wait 4 hours for AAA. Then, his cell phone had no reception in the rest of Texas. At least he's a good-natured guy so all he said was he's having a 'bad day'.

Still waiting

My friend Jason from California is moving to Florida to be with his new girlfriend. He was supposed to stay with me tonight on the way out there. He called at 11am to say he was in the middle of TX on I-10. I have not heard from him since. I left a message around 8:40 and now it's 10:14. I'm not sure if I'm annoyed or concerned. If I'm concerned, there's nothing I can really do about it. If I'm annoyed, again, eh, what can you do? If he wants a free place to stay, he'll call. If not, I'm going to bed in an hour regardless. If he just isn't calling for no reason, well, that's just rude.

Follow the trail of lights....

One of the big things in Austin during the holidays is the 'Trail of Lights'. It's at Zilker Park and it's basically just lights on all the big trees and holiday displays (dioramas?) I had never been before, so Michael, John/Jessica, and John's mom took me. Here are some pictures.

This is a big string of lights that people go into and twirl around while looking up. It's very nausea-inducing. I'm really pleased with this picture - flag flying in the breeze and all.

Here's the entrance. What, are we in Vegas now?

Yeah, they put a lot of lights up

Ok, this is me fucking around with the night mode on my camera

Here's one of the dioramas. If I had been on acid, I think I would have started to freak out. Who created this stuff??

Ok, I know everyone is proud of being Texan, but come on!

Even the cattle skulls were in the holiday spirit! Yeesh.

Putting a little merry into my Christmas

Yeah, I know it's the middle of January. Just shut up and drink your month-old eggnog.

I never would have decorated my house as much as I did if I hadn't hosted the ANK party. Here's some pics:

A ceramic tree my grandmother made for all of her grandchildren. This is the first time I've actually had it out. Yes, it's lit from the inside.


The day after Thanksgiving Michael's had some great sales on garland. I bought a bunch, as you can see.




Chris & Marjean from ANK had bought these lights for their tree and decided they didn't like them. Since I was hosting the party, they gave them to me. I think it was 12 strands. Michael held the ladder while I went up and hung the lights using picture hooks. It looked so cute. I just did one side of the living room wall.


Here's Jennifer and Kelly at the buffet. I put all four leaves into my dining room table and then pushed it against the wall. I had another table on the other side for the desserts. We used every inch! You can also see the fabulous color I recently painted my dining room. It's such a pretty green.

You can see all the party pictures here:
http://www.austinnokidding.com/xmas_07.htm

My holiday cookes. The usual - nothing new. And no injuries! Yay!

Don't get your hopes up

Dear lord...I have so much to write about! Gah! Having a boyfriend really sucks up all my time! I stayed home tonight, hoping to get some cleaning done, blogging, etc. I ended up watching TV and fucking around with my new Quicken software. I've decided that I'm actually going to try and track my expenses. Gasp! I don't think I WANT to know, but I think I SHOULD know.

I really want to get to bed early, so I'll just do a quick recap and post more later:
1. Yes, Michael and I are still together. Almost 4 months.
2. Yes, he took my new blog picture. He is an amatuer photographer and has lights, backdrop, etc. He was testing lighting on someone with glasses and took a ton of photos of me. Most I was just fooling around in them with weird faces and whatnot. A couple came out cute. I'll add them later
3. New Year's was fairly tame - went to Michael's friend's house and hung out. I am slowly meeting everyone. The man knows a shit load of people. Luckily, I really like most of them.
4. My cats are fine. But, I have been very bad and have not been volunteering at the shelter much. I could blame Michael, but really, it started in the summer. I'm still doing Orientation, but I haven't been actually volunteering. I don't know why. It's been 4 years of going every weekend. I think I'm taking a sabbatical.
5. My brother-in-law graduated from the police academy last week. Now he's an Austin police officer. But, after his three-month training period, when he becomes an official officer, the Navy is shipping him out to Iraq for a year. They're waiting till then so APD is required to 'save' his job for him. Of course, nothing is final in the military till the orders are in your hand...but it's fairly certain he's going out. Oh, and my sister is pregnant again. Won't THAT be fun?
6. I am completely over my job. I kept saying 'next year' I'll start looking. Well, crap. That's now isn't it? Gotta get the resume updated and start looking. Why can't I just call up a company and say HIRE ME! so not looking forward to this.

ok, I guess that'll calm the masses for awhile. I promise to work on this over the weekend!

7. oh, by the way, Michael really made a home run with the Christmas presents. He got me RAM for my computer so it'll run faster (and installed it for me) and he got me the same camera that Mike took with us to Italy! It's the newer model, but basically the same thing - shock proof, water proof, in general very awesome. I kept mentioning how much I loved his camera but couldn't justify getting it since mine still worked well.

He also got me the little tripod gorilla grip (http://www.gizoo.co.uk/Products/AvCommunications/DigitalCameras/gorillapod.htm) which is AWESOME! You can get great night shots with it since it holds the camera still. It's also good for getting pictures of you/the whole group since no one has to hold it. Just wrap it around something or perch it on something and you're good to go. I was completely surprised at everything. Wasn't expecting it. I didn't spend as much, but got him more stuff and everything was really thoughtful so I think we were pretty even for our first Christmas gift-giving.

Ok,.........bye!