Celticangel.org

Before I even begin, I want to warn you all that this post will be excessively depressing. Run away while you can.

No, really.

I took my Spock to the vet this morning at 8:30am. I carried her down the stairs and out to the car in her comfy donut thingy. She sat quietly during the trip across town, just watching through the windshield and occasionally glancing at me. At the Vet’s I filled out the paperwork with one hand while holding her with the other arm. When we went in to the room, the doctor very gently checked her out and confirmed my fears. Kidney failure. I wasn’t really surprised. She’d been drinking so much water and she had a very distinctive smell. I had just hoped that I was wrong somehow. The vet said that even if I had come in a month ago, the results would have been the same. He offered to run tests if I wanted, or give her fluids as she was dehydrated in spite of all the water. But there was no point. I could let her linger in pain for another week or so, or do the humane thing and let my baby go. That’s not really a choice. So I stayed with her until she was gone…and then I had to go to work.

I’m having her cremated and then returned to me, so that I can scatter her in a couple of weeks in the same area as we are going to scatter the ashes of my Father-in-law this weekend. I figure she’d like to have someone to annoy, and that way they won’t be lonely.

I hate these last two weeks. Everything from the terrible, unexpected phone call at 4:20am on Monday October 29, to sleeping on the floor up at the house in the mountains while we made all of the arrangements (okay…I got some knitting done, but still), to this, my laptop monitor dying, and the meeting I have tomorrow that I have to be non-specific about right now. Don’t worry, you’ll be hearing about the meeting as soon as I am allowed to say. And we have to go back up the mountain this weekend, picking up my father-in-law’s ashes on the way.

I need a gorram vacation. Oh. I have next week off. That’s good timing. I wish I had the money to go somewhere. Grr. I’m thinking of going anyway. So there.

Now, I need either a lot of chocolate or a lot of alcohol…or both. Too bad I don’t have time. *sigh* Oh, and the title of the post comes from last night’s shopping trip. That’s what we went to the store for. It was such a weird combination of things that I had to use it.

Spock 1991-2007

Okay. I’m going to make this update quick, as I have to get up for work in 6 hours. Hopefully, I will have time for more when I get home.

Some things I would like to say:

* I’m finally home.
* I’m going back up the Mountain on Friday for the very private ceremony
* Those of you that are interested (and actually know my last name) can find the Obit for my Father-in-Law here.
* Heaven is a nice hot shower.
* I am getting too old to sleep on the floor. The jury is still out on sleeping on dirt. (Dirt tends to be softer.)
* TGI Friday’s new Mini Desserts are a stroke of genius. A shot glass full of Chocolate Mousse is just the right amount.
* I am wearing the flying pig socks tomorrow (or later today depending upon how you look at it.) I have no idea about the rest of the outfit, as I’m not sure what is clean.
* Don’t forget that I am holding a silly sock contest this month. Send me those pictures!
* I go thud now (in my own bed. Bliss! Modified rapture!)

I wrote this up a bit earlier, but I finally have a chance to post from the flaky dial up connection.

I am sitting in my Husband’s childhood home listening to a thunderstorm rage outside. I’m twenty miles from Yosemite National Park. There is no cell phone connectivity where I am, and the only Internet connection is very slow dial-up (that drops out a lot) or an old WebTV. So, I’m knitting while I sit with my Husband and Mother-in-Law as we sort of watch the Packers/Broncos game and count the seconds between the lightning and the thunderclaps.

We’re all a bit numb. The thing that really strikes me is the silence here. My Father-in-Law was hard of hearing, you see, and he always had the TV on. The house is small and the only way to escape the noise was to go outside. And now there is no loud conversation, no random old movie on the television. Just the occasional quiet comment, the game at a normal level, and the weather outside.

I’ve finished the longest pink scarf in the west, and started another. KoshVader has fixed his Mum’s laptop and a did a little work outside. Oh, and we’ve been to the grocery store in the nearest town. The Sheriff’s Deputy left a really handy pamphlet here when he left at 7 this morning. (We arrived at 9. It takes three hours to get up here.) We will have to review the pamphlet in the morning. (I already read it…and found a typo. Apparently, The Editor does not sleep.)

At this point I’m not sure how long we’ll be here, or quite what will happen. Hopefully we can all get some sleep tonight and be more functional tomorrow. Either way, It’s a good thing that I brought my bag and that extra skein of yarn.

Oops.
Sorry that I haven’t posted in a couple of days. Between my birthday (which deserves its own long rambling post) and a few things I’ve been working on, I’ve been quite busy. Don’t worry, though. I’ve got some nice before and after pictures to show you. Yep. I may have a tendency to ramble, but at least my rambles are illustrated.

I’ve spend the last couple of days working in my back garden with some friends (one of which was my little sister, Dani.) It was sort of like Ground Force, actually. Except for the fact that I was there and participating. I’ve been living in the same place for about a year and half, now. In all of that time, I have pruned the roses and weeded the back dirt a couple of times. And that’s about it.

In my defense, I was barely here for the first seven months that my stuff and KoshVader lived here. I worked really far away, and I spent a lot of time at my parents’ place. Since the end of February…I have had no good excuse. Excuses, yes. Good excuses, no. So, my back garden looked like this on Friday:

Before (the dirt):

And if you stood in the dirt and looked the other way you would see…

Before (the patio):

No. My back garden is not large, but it is larger than most of the others in the huge apartment complex in which I dwell. It’s about 30 feet long and varies between 10 feet to 13 feet across. That includes the patio, by the way.

Saturday dawned nice and clear (unlike the very rainy Friday.) And then, the crew arrived.

We weeded and tried to even out the dirt area. My sister had brought with her some wood that her Husband had pre-cut and drilled to make some raised beds. My dirt is right next to the stump of a very large tree…which, instead of removing, the builders…built on it. Yes. At some point it will rot through, and my parking overhang will fall down. That and the fence. So, I have all of these huge roots going through the dirt. As you might imagine, this makes it very entertaining to dig any sort of hole in the garden. All hail my Brother-in-law for all of the work he did to get the logs ready! We surveyed the area, decided what we wanted to do, and headed off for the Home Depot. We returned very laden down with stuff.

We managed to get the raised beds set up and lined, and we made a French Drain before it was time to leave for my Birthday dinner. (We’d discovered that there is a drain pipe that runs down next to the neighbor’s chimney. To keep the water from flooding the area during some future rainstorm, we dug a trench, lined it with special cloth, filled it with rocks, covered most of the rocks with more fabric, and covered that with dirt. Now, the water should drain out into the other side of the fence. And I’ve learned a new thing. Cool!)

On Saturday, Dani and I arose early and went to [tag]OSH[/tag] (there is a [tag]Starbucks[/tag] and a [tag]Noah’s Bagels[/tag] next door. Guess what we had for breakfast.) At OSH, we purchased three bricks to finish the French Drain and a few pavers for pots (and a theoretical future chair) to sit on. We stopped by home to drop these off, and ran off again. After a trip to [tag]Lowe’s[/tag] and a lovely Nursery, we returned to my place and got to work. (After a little lunch.)

We filled the raised beds. We laid down the pavers and my cool stepping stones. We planted. We tidied. And now, my back garden looks much nicer. (Even though there are a few more things that I have planned for some point when I have a bit of money. Like a fountain and a trellis.) Like my blue pots? They were on sale!

After (the garden):

And looking the other way…

After (the patio):

That’s my sister there is the second pic. She’s following the family tool cleaning protocol. You must clean all tools before putting them away. Or, our Grandpa Leon will haunt you or something. Seriously.

What do you think of the garden now? The white wall will eventually have a trellis to break it up. It just happens that the ones I like are all a wee bit on the expensive side. I’ve got herbs in the raise bed on the left, and Snapdragons and Pansies(?) in the bed on the right. Oh, and mint in the big terracotta pot in front of the bricks.

Luckily, Dani took all of the recycling with her when she left. My apartment doesn’t have recycling, but I can’t bring myself to just throw all of the recyclables away. (My sister is an Environmental Scientist. I blame her.) So, I took the opportunity to re-organize my tool closet (behind the ugly brown door on the patio) which was where most of the bottles and paper had been located.

I’m exhausted. …But at least my [tag]garden[/tag] looks and smells nice. (Yes, I bought four Basil plants, Rosemary, and Catnip.)

This was quite the Birthday present. Thanks, Dani and Co.!

Hello folks. I have a couple of updates for you since the time of my last post. First, let me say…

Before:

and now, After:

So, as you may imagine, we found the missing package. The [tag]Mail Organizer[/tag] was in fact at the Post Office. It just had the wrong address on the box end. Not on the mailing label, that was fine. Someone who was putting the boxes in their spots put an 8 instead of a 0 on the box bottom. I went over to the post office, and explained my problem. After a bit of computer checking, etc. the nice lady who was helping me went into the back to have a quick look. Lo and behold. There was my box in the wrong spot. Yay! I have now tidied the area and it makes quite a difference. I even discovered that my other cell phone charger was plugged in there. My bumper sticker is even on my car. Now, if I can only keep it that way. *fingers crossed*

Once I left the Post Office with my prize, I went off in search of the DMV. Yes, I had printed out a map before I left, but the map said to take the freeway and I wasn’t planning on doing that. The destination was only 2 exits up according to said map. Why do they always insist on including the freeway for short trips like that? These are the things that I wonder about. Anyway, I managed to get into the correct area, only to find that the road the DMV was supposed to be on (according to their website) was almost completely closed for construction. Argh. ‘Fine’ I told myself. ‘I’m going home to find another [tag]DMV[/tag].’ And I started driving back along the road I’d found myself on.

…And drove right past the DMV. Yes indeed. It turns out that it’s big enough to have entrances on three streets. So I parked my car and went in. It had a completely different set of processes than the last couple of DMVs I’ve been to. It took me a minute to figure out where to go. Oh. Where it says “start here.” Duh. I don’t have to get a number or my forms first. Right. *smacks forehead* The lady at the “start here” counter gave me a form to fill out for a driver’s license renewal and a number that they were going to call. I filled out the form. They called my number. I did my eye test. Paid my money. Got my picture taken (i remembered not to wear white for a wonder) and left with my temp license. No written test or anything. Now that’s a load off of my mind.

I even got to sleep in this morning. And I’m going off to take a wee nap now. I need days off to be like this more often.

Welcome to my favorite month of the year! Here are some things going on this month which might interest you.
October Events:
October is: National Breast Cancer Awareness Month & International Starman Month (as in that show I adored and they canceled.)
September 29-October 6 – Banned Books Week. Celebrate intellectual freedom! Read something forbidden.
October 1-8 – The 6th Annual Blogger Boobie-thon to raise money for breast cancer research.
October 3 – The Great Mofo Delurk of 2007
October 11 – My Birthday. yay!
October 23 – My Grandma’s birthday. She would have been 108 this year.
October 31 – Halloween

Consider yourselves informed.

What do [tag]Chocolate[/tag] and [tag]Physics[/tag] have in common? Well, they’re both really cool, for starters. Also, in a completely random fashion they are connected in a six-degrees-of Kevin-Bacon way to one of my hours on the Reference Desk at work on Saturday.

Don’t worry. I’ll explain.

During that fateful hour, I discovered: 1) Apparently, they’ve done another of those wonderful studies and discovered that [tag]Dark Chocolate[/tag] Improves Blood Vessel Function. Rejoice My Friends! Dark Chocolate is good for you!

and

2) If you hurry (it closes at 6pm today) you can go to eBay and bid on a ZERO-G experience with Stephen Hawking. Please pardon the fan girl squee. That would be so cool! I saw Mr. Hawking in person once. He went past a restaurant where I was eating. (No, I didn’t chase after him. I behaved myself…barely) Now, if I only had a spare $30,000…

Sometimes I learn the best things at work.