If This House is a Rockin’ July 29, 2008

It means you live near a large fault line.

There is something genuinely disconcerting about your home suddenly turning into The Shake Shack from a state fair.

I did recognize an earthquake very quickly this time, rather than spending a few seconds thinking it was a just a large semi driving by the apartment, like I did a few years ago. But this one seemed much stronger, and certainly lasted quite a bit longer.  I don’t think the house stopped moving completely for a full minute. After about 20 seconds, I realized it wasn’t puttering out, put down the iron I was using, made my way to a door frame, and started getting a little worried. It’s been a while since an earthquake caused some actual damage around here. Was this going to be it?

Nope. At least, not in our apartment. The cats freaked out. The chandelier swung crazily. I could see the walls and doors and ceiling swaying back and forth, which is a very odd thing to witness. I heard creaking and rubbing and clinking of the dishes in their cabinets. But nothing fell. Nothing broke. Nothing cracked, which was my first worry living in an apartment built in the early 20’s, and full of lathe and plaster.

I’m a little dizzy, and the cats are seriously spooked.

Just another day in LA.

Just one more reason… July 26, 2008

…to make me dislike this country, and people in general:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25846393/?GT1=43001

That’s right, blame other people for your poor decision making skills, and then make money from it.

God bless America.

The best movie in the history of the world July 23, 2008

That is what I proclaimed once I was finally able to begin speaking again, which took a good ten minutes or so, after watchingThe Dark Knight last night. I think I may have experienced three or four small heart attacks during viewing, and it took me over two hours to unclench every muscle in my body. “An adrenaline packed thrill ride” does not even come close to explaining this movie.

I loved Batman Begins. A lot of this is due mainly to my long suffering crush on Christian Bale, which began, to my embarrassment now, from watching Newsies, which really is horrible. I was the only of my friends at the time to think American Psycho was awesome, and I just recently saw The Prestige, which I enjoyed mightily as well. Plus he’s an Aquarius as well, so he’s got that working in his favor.

Anyway, I loved Batman Begins. Dark, brooding, kickass. Hated Katie Holmes, but who didn’t. The Scarecrow was a good introductory villain, not too involved, so it didn’t take away too much from setting the groundwork of just why Bruce Wayne becomes Batman in the first place. I can safely say I was giddy to see The Dark Knight.

I cannot accurately express exactly what this movie did to my nervous system. Kyle came closest with the term “visceral”. Indeed. My beloved Christian Bale was hunky, as usual, but really didn’t seem to play a huge part in this movie. And his Batman voice is really getting on my nerves. Maggie Gyllenhal was mediocre at best, like a female milquetoast. I didn’t hate her, as I did Holmes in the Rachel Dawes role, but no emotion rose at all towards her. So how did this movie affect me so? The Joker as played by Heath Ledger.

I had been hearing over and over how good he was, heard the Oscar nattering already, but attributed most of it to the fact the he died a sensational death, on my birthday no less, in the beginning of this year. I expected him to be decent, but was not expecting the brilliance I was given. I can safely say his performance is the best acting job I have ever seen. He reached that place in acting where it ceases to appear as though he is acting at all. Even from the best actors in their best performances, you can always get a hint that they really are someone looking into a camera, a character, rather than just happening upon them on the street. Hell, most real people can come off as more a character than their true selves. But Ledger as the Joker made me feel as though there really was a person of this demonic, chaotic tendency, and I loved it. When ever he wasn’t on screen, the movie seemed to slow and drag, as much as a movie like this can.

All I can say is now I’m pissed that he offed himself in real life, because I can never see this character again. And it’s safe to say no one will ever reach this pinnacle of villain ever again. He has set the bar, and I will be forever disappointed in actors attempts from here on out. Thank you, The Dark Knight, for ruining my future enjoyment of basically all movies. I hate you all.

Now I’m off to find a local IMAX theatre so I can see it again this weekend.

A Miracle is… July 21, 2008

…getting 12 people to look decent at the same time. This was attempted recently when all of my immediate family were here visiting over the past few weeks. My mother’s one request was that we get a picture taken, because no one knows when we’d all be together again. This is much easier said than done, especially when there are four small children ranging in ages from 1 to 7 are involved. Not to mention my father had only just been released from the hospital the day before.

But take pictures we did. The next door neighbor, and friend, to my middle brother is luckily a fashion photographer, and offered his services for free. A neighbor just a few houses down offered the use of their lush backyard. We dressed ourselves decently, trying our best to pass as real adults. Here are the results:

 

My whole family

 

My mom and dad, visiting from Indiana

 

My Oldest brother, his wife and two kids (4 and 7 years old), who came over from Madrid, Spain

 

My other brother, his wife and two kids (1 and 5 years), who live 1 mile away from us in Long Beach

 

And lastly, Kyle and myself. We’re looking very toothy, and foreheady.

 

I was very relieved each family set had at least one good picture of everyone. All in all, relatively painless to do so.

And since it’s my blog, here’s an extra pic of Kyle and myself. He liked us so much he took some more pics, but mostly just because we didn’t need a relative making faces and wild gestures behind him to get us to smile!

 

To be fair, here is a really great shot of my sis-in-law and sweetie of a niece. She’s almost cute enough to make me want kids. Almost.

Dear GM July 20, 2008

Dear General Motors,

After watching the documentary “Who Killed the Electric Car”, I would just like to say that I hate you. I hate you, and your other fat, old, balding American car company brethren, even more than I did before. In your infinite wisdom of a typical American, you couldn’t see past 6 months of profit, fought a law that would be pretty damn handy right about now, personally destroyed thousands of your own cars instead of letting people buy them, and decided the Hummer was a better investment of your time and resources, which has now lost you millions of dollars and you just had to sell to the Indian company TaTa. In the meantime, Honda and Toyota are kicking your ass with the likes of the Prius and other hybrids, which still aren’t as good as your EV’s were. The fact that using “Americans don’t want to have to live like Europeans” was part of your argument makes me want to kick puppies. Heaven knows I would certainly hate to have really good universal health care, not have to pay for college, have more than 2 weeks of vacation a year, have reliable public transportation, a currency that doesn’t suck, and crime rates low enough that our police don’t need guns. Guns make things exciting, right! You are all idiots, and I’m not sure how you are able to live day to day thinking you are doing anything but pure evil.

Have a lovely day,

Ms. Kitty

P.S. I really hate you a lot.

In Rememberance, again July 19, 2008

Yes I just wrote another post just a few minutes ago, and yes I wrote this main entry over a year ago. But with Kyle gone, a good friend recently losing her favorite pet, and especially since hitting the one year anniversary of her death on June 6th, I’ve been really missing Nona lately. So I found the entry I posted on Myspace a few days after her death. Maybe it’s pathetic to be reposting, but I don’t really care. I miss the hell out of her, and if she were alive, had thumbs to surf the internet, and could read English, she could know that I still think about her constantly, that doing so always makes me cry, and that I still lover her above all other four leggers.

From early June 2007:

I turned back to look at her one last time through the tiny window as Kyle guided me out of the back room.  I saw the nurse was getting the needle ready, and then we left.  Back to a house, that even though there are still three other animals here, will always be empty to me.  My cat, my pet, the one I have loved beyond all the others, beyond quite a few people as well, is gone, and I’ll never see her again.  She was my family.

I first saw her one late night during the summer of ‘98.  I was home from my first year of college, and was out on my front stoop talking to a friend in the neighborhood.  If my mom knew I was out talking to a boy that late, even right by my own front door, she would be upset.  But it was late, and I was awake, so I did it anyway, fate be damned.  In the light of our street lamp, I saw a tiny little kitten trotting down the side-walk, oblivious of my friend and me.  I made a little kissing noise like I did with my other two cats I had then.  As soon as she heard it, she stopped, turned, came right up to me, and rubbed my leg.  She never left my side since that night.

My mom was baffled to why there was suddenly this cat in the back yard that refused to leave.  It may have had something to do with me petting her when ever mom wasn’t looking, or me giving her water, and then finally, at night, bringing her food.  My mom knew she didn’t stand a chance telling me no.

I named her Nona, after one of the supporting characters on the TV show The Adventures of Pete and Pete.  I had always liked Nona on that show.  It seemed to fit.  Nona was a gray and white tuxedo, and as a kitten, was the cutest thing I think I had ever seen.  She looked exactly like Cartman’s cat on South Park.  Then after a while our cat Jascha started getting a little too friendly.  We got her fixed, and she gained 5 pounds.  Still the cutest damn cat, with short stubby legs and a stubby little tail. Later on Kyle would refer to her as his little Gordita (little fat one).

She was never a brilliant cat, like my first one or the gigantic Maine Coon I have now.  But she wasn’t an idiot either, like my second cat, or the little whiner we have now.  She was smart enough to figure somethings out, like which doors needed to be pushed instead of pulled, but I never felt like she would take over the house hold and kill us in our sleep all for the lack of thumbs (hem, hem, Hebert).  She was sweet.  And that sounds trite as I type it now, but she was truly, genuinely sweet. 

And she loved me.  Loved me more than I thought anything could be loved.  And it’s a different love you get from an animal.  Like every time you walk into a room, or come home, they always look forward to it, and are always happy to see you, no matter what.  There are no fight, or harsh words, or hurt feelings.  No matter what you do, or say, or who you are or what you look like, they don’t care.  She was never disappointed in me, or felt let down.  Jealous, now that she could be.  If she saw me petting Herbie especially, she would come right over and thrust her head into my shin, just a quiet reminder that she was here, and she was the one who loved me unconditionally, not some stupid boy.

Kyle and I would joke that she loved me so much, and couldn’t get near me enough when we in bed at night, that she actually wanted to live inside me.  She would settle on my chest, her face in mine, and would still look as though her little brain was trying to find a way to get closer.  I would open my mouth wide in jest-offering, and more than once she looked like she actually considered it. But when she was truly content, Happy Paws would appear.  The back and forth contraction and expansion of first the right, then the left paw, and back again, over and over. Not even her gruff, throaty purr showed her happiness more than Happy Paws.

And she had some of the best, and most entertaining quirks, most pertaining to her pooper.  She had a strange trait of constantly licking what ever you placed in front of her if you were scratching the base of her tail hard enough.  Great for when conversation is at a lull.  She couldn’t kill anything to save her life.  She actually knocked outa mouse once.  Didn’t even puncture the skin, just scared it into a stupor.  When ever we would play with her, tease her with a toy mouse or feather or string (especially if the other two were around) you had to give her pep talks and lots of encouragement to get her involved.  She was very self aware for being a cat, and could tell she was horrible at the games, and Herbie and Mabel made her look worse.  But a string of “good girl!” and “get it Nona!” would bring her around, and she would bat at it in spite of herself.

I am going to miss that damn cat more than I can really put into words.  Kyle used to joke that Nona wasn’t allowed to die, because I would be an absolute wreck, and he wasn’t sure he could handle me.  And I did make a pack with Nona that I would keep feeding her, and letting her know she was my favorite, and she could never die.  Maybe she didn’t speak English and I should have used Herbie as a translator.

I’m going to miss her warm little body snuggled up to me at night, sleeping perpendicular to me so she gets 1/3 of the bed even though she’s only 9 pounds.  How I’d wake up there in the morning, and she would still be there, right next to my shoulder.  How she would wait for me on the bath mat while I took a shower.  The way she would always arrange herself near you so her butt was on your foot.  They way she could silently come around to my side of the bed with out me knowing it, and creep me out when I’d look down and she’d be sitting there staring at me.  That she would almost never jump onto the couch or bed next to you unless you patted the space next to you to formally invite her up (she had very good manners).  The way her ears would twitch when she drank water.  How she would try and run away from her own tail when it was being unruly. The way she meowed, since coming to Cali, like an old female smoker, because she had allergies.  And her little rising chirp she would make when ever you would first touch her, she had walked into a room and wanted your attention, or right before she jumped.  The little dot on her nose.

But mostly I will miss how she was always there.  I’d turn around, and she’d be by my side, or in my lap, or near my feet.  Even in sleep she would seek me out.  And she knew when I was upset, and would come and put her head on my knee, or curl up beside me.  When times were really bad in college and the depression was at its worst, she was the only thing that kept me from doing some really horrible things, because the thought of her wondering where I had gone, or having to go to a shelter brought me back up enough to make it through another day.  She has been my constant friend when others have come and gone.  Even though it will sound sad to those who don’t understand, she was my best friend.  I have loved her at times even more than my own husband and family (forgive me Kyle!)

But that is gone now.  She is gone.  And with her, part of me is gone as well.  I will miss you Nona, and I hope you know I love you.

 

Enjoying the calm after the storm July 19, 2008

My family members have all gone back to their respective homes. I have started some semblance of a normal work routine at work again. I finally made it back into the gym on Thursday. Most importantly, my dad appears as though he is going to be fine.

He ended up being back in the hospital for three days and two more nights. It seemed like every time I talked to mom, things were getting worse. That first day he was hooked up to a heart monitor. The next morning, mom told me that he had two arrhythmias during the night. This meant he might have to have a defibrillator surgical attached to his heart. He was having a difficult time walking and keeping balance. Later that day, she told me that during a physical testing, he apparently was unable to feel anything in his legs below his knees. A physical therapist did a tuning fork test, and he felt no vibration on his lower legs or feet, which certainly would account for him not being able to walk without help. It felt like the dad I knew was completely falling apart, and I was terrified for what his life, and my mother’s, might now be like at this pace.

But just as quickly as it seemed to get worse, it started getting better. The cardiologist came to look as the results of the heart monitor, and concluded that it was not an arrhythmia at all, but just some sharp jostles to the monitor while my dad was sleeping. That was a serious relief, but seriously, is there no better heart monitor out there that won’t give everyone a panic attack so easily? Just asking.

By the third day he had most feeling back in his legs, and it was only his big toe on one foot that still had no feeling.  Although my mom dug her fingernail pretty deep into it at one point, and he definitely felt that. He was finally discharged, albeit still needing help walking.

The rest of the vacation he took it easy, and after a few more days, was managing the back stoop stairs by himself. My mom still got a wheelchair for him for getting through the airports, but she left me a message today that he is doing much better.

We still have no real answer as to what happened or why, and probably never will. But, for the time being at least, he seems to be almost back to health.

So, this weekend I am mostly just relaxing. Kyle is away on a work trip in Illinois, and as usual, any semblance of schedule is thrown out the window. My meals have consisted of cheese, Ritz, diet soda, and some random cake he bought a few days ago. I have managed to watch “Pride and Prejudice” twice, even though it is a 5 hour mini-series. I went to bed after 2 am last night, only after I made it 1/2 of the way through my last library book that I had started reading around 11pm. I didn’t officially get out of bed until 1 pm today after I had finished it. I was too lazy to walk, ride my bike, or drive the 3/4 mile trip to the library to return said books, so I just renewed them online, using the excuse that Kyle wasn’t done with his last one. Of course, I now regret this, since I have nothing new to read in bed tonight. I’ve only talked to one person, Kyle, since getting home from work on Friday, and I like it that way. Even after staying in bed for so long, I still took a nap on the couch, and only woke up because Audrey was thrusting her cold, wet nose in my face. Damn dog and her bladder. Doesn’t she know that a walk around the block so she can relive herself butts against my plans of not leaving the house? She’s so inconsiderate.

I always become a heathen when Kyle isn’t around. Our phone calls always consist of him laughing at the various examples of my inability to be an adult in the absence of others, and a loving reminder to eat something. I wonder if I only keep him around so I can pull off the appearance of a functioning adult? Nah. There’s his cooking too. 

The worry continues July 10, 2008

Just as I was beginning to breath a sigh of relief, my dad is being checked into the hospital again. Yesterday he was very dizzy all day, but no one was super worried, because my dad has had bouts of dizziness on and off for a few years. We were hoping it was just some mild after effect of what ever it was that happened a few days ago.

Today though, the dizziness continued, and was worse. My brother took him and my mom to the neurologist he had seen at the hospital before, and the doctor requested he be checked in tonight. My dad will have more MR-Is done on his neck, rather than just his head, among other various tests, and will be there most of the day.

What really got me worried was when mom described the physical tests the doctor performed on my dad in the office. He had him walk down the hall, which he did rather wobbily. He could stand with his feet together, but when asked to close his eyes, he immediately started to fall over. Same with feet apart. The part that really scared me was when she said he apparently couldn’t feel anything from his knees down. Absolutely no response from the hammer/knee jerk test. My mom tried her best to brush this off a bit, by saying she hadn’t been able to tickle the bottoms of his feet for quite a while. I don’t care. I’m still really worried.

He can still walk, so I really have no idea what’s going on, or what their going to find, if anything. Obviously something more serious than we originally thought happened on Monday, and I’m really hoping that someone can find out what is causing these issues. I just know I’m scared.

Update on my dad July 9, 2008

It was pretty scary, but seems to have turned out OK.  As I had said, he was admitted for the night at the hospital, and was there for most of the next day. The doctors did a whole barrage of tests, including a CAT Scan, a MRI, and an EEG, which follows brain waves. Everything came back OK, which they actually had expected. Since there had been no physical damage, and his memory loss was minimal, and started to return within a few hours, they figure it was most likely a small stroke, which would not show up on any tests.  The only indication that anything had happened was an certain enzyme was elevated, but was back to normal by the next day.  He seems to be doing OK now, other than not remembering a section of that afternoon (mom and I coming home, getting to the ER), which he probably never will. He says he just suddenly was wondering why in the world we were at the hospital.  So, it seems that he will be fine.

Even still, I can’t help but have the feeling as though “OK, so it this when it begins?” That was one of my first thoughts when my mom came up to me to tell me something was wrong. I saw the panic in her eyes, even though she wasn’t letting her voice hint at it. Of course, we didn’t know how serious it was at that point, but now that he has had one, will it be followed by more, at possibly a larger scale? Is this the point in time where I’ll look back and say “That’s when his body started giving out?”

My dad is 73. My mom will be 70 this year. For many years now I’ve been afraid of them getting older, and having decreasing health. I know it happens, and that it is inevitable. But I do hate being reminded of that, and in such a scary way.

ER = :( July 8, 2008

I’ve been meaning to post something about more things I have been, or not been, accomplishing. I’ve been lazy, as usual. I’m not really going to post anything about it now either, but more because I’m exhausted, but wired, at the same time. Why? Because I spent 6 1/2 hours at the ER this afternoon/evening.

My parents are visiting from Indiana for two weeks, and my oldest brother, his wife, and two kids come in tomorrow from Spain. My mom had requested a day where we spend some time shopping, just us. We decided Joann’s Fabric would be a good time user, and found a dress pattern for some fabric I already have at home, some coordinating fabric for parts of it, zipper, thread, and some large grommets for drapes I want to make for the living room. We left at about 11 am, and got home around 2:30pm.  Pretty good for her and me.

When we got home, I started right in on some laundry that was waiting. As I was walking in and out of the big closet in the dining room, I noticed my mom was sitting really close to my dad on the couch, and speaking in low tones. I at first thought she might be talking about me, because what kid doesn’t have that thought when parents are speaking quietly to each other when you’re around? Childhood instinct, I guess. But they weren’t. I wish they had been.

Apparently my dad had started asking my mom some odd questions when she came in and began talking with him. First, he wanted to know who’s billfold was sitting on the table. It was his, and it was where he had been leaving it for the past four days. This tipped off my mom that something was wrong. She started drilling him.

“Where are you?”

It took him a full minute or so to be able to come up with “Kat and Kyle’s.”

“Have we seen anyone else while we’ve been here?”

“I don’t know.” He had seen my older brother and his family every day since their arrival.

“Are we expecting anyone else?”

“No.” My Oldest brother and his family arrive tomorrow.

“What is the dog’s name?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think I ever knew that.” He met Audrey a year ago, hears about her all the time, and has been playing with her for the last four days.

Some other questions yielded the same results. Confusion, incorrect answers, or eventually even forgetting a question was asked. He knew his name, knew who my mom was, and also his social security number and phone number. It seemed to only be short term memory that had been affected. She tested to see if he could roll his tongue, raise both his arms equally, and other various motor skills.  He could do all of those fine. She finally came to me, and told me what was going on. After a brief discussion, we called my sister-in-law, got a recommendation from her doctor neighbor, and made off for the ER. About half way there, my mom mentioned maybe it would be a better idea to have called 911 instead, because we may get help faster. She decided since we were already driving, to go ahead and keep going.

They got into the Triage room right away, and he passed all of the motor skills tests, but his blood pressure was a little high, especially considering he had probably been napping while we were gone. Since he knew his name, and important numbers, and had done well on all the physical tests, he was apparently bumped to “not so important”, which is understandable. To a point.

My brother left work as soon as my sis-in-law called him, and met us at the ER just a little after we arrived. Then we sat. And sat. And sat a lot more. My dad was bumped for 4 1/2 hours. 4 1/2 hours of sitting in the ER waiting room is not really all that pleasant of an experience. Working with engineers, and having basically all engineer friends, I tend to forget how the general public really is. There are a few places where you really get immersion in all kinds of society for a decent length of time. The post office, the DMV, and an ER. It can make you sad, disgusted and chuckle, and everywhere in between.

Like the homeless man who had come in, and his clothes were so saturated with urine, that they had to keep him in a private conference room, and when we came out and started walking around, they positioned a security guard outside the door to make sure he stayed in, because the smell was THAT awful. It just broke my heart, but also almost made me throw up. It took a good half hour for the smell to dissipate, and he had been over in our half of the very large waiting area for only about 30 seconds. Or the man who brought in a woman doubled over in pain and in a wheel chair, then just left her there, telling the receptionist he had a party that night. And the little girl, holding on to her dad’s hand, walking down the hallway, her face screwed up in angst and crying (just frustration about something than any pain) while wearing a shirt that had a printed on banner that said “Little Miss Sunshine.” While entertaining, 4 1/2 hours is a freaking long time to be sitting and worrying that your dad has had, or may have another stroke.

While we were there, my mom kept asking questions here and there. I had been wondering if he knew who I was, but was too scared to ask, because I didn’t know if I could handle hearing him say no. But my mom asked shortly after we had sat down “Do you know who is sitting next to me?” I held my breath, and got a quick knot in my stomach as he leaned around her to look. “Katherine,” he said, with a hint of impatience in his voice, as though he was thinking, “yeah, it’s just Katherine you crazy woman, duh, why are you asking me that?” I can’t tell you how relieved I was to hear that. He also knew my brother, and at one point was able to carry on a fairly in-depth, detailed conversation with him about engineering engines that my brother was working on at work. Long term memory, A OK.

The good thing was, while we were waiting, he seemed to start to recover his memory a bit. He was able to tell my mom my other brother and his family were coming, and we were planning to go to Disneyland. He remembered he had gone to a carnival the grand-kids, and that Kyle and I had not been there. After a long pause, he remembered Audrey’s name. He did keep asking why he was there, and every time my mom told him why, but by the end of waiting, he was finally able to say that he was there because of a short-term memory problem. My sister-in-law’s doctor friend had mentioned that sometimes dehydration can cause short-term memory loss in someone my dad’s age (mid 70s, by the way), and he did seem to start to get better as soon as he had some sprite. The more he drank, the more he seemed to remember. But that may have just been a coincidence.

When he was finally taken back to a bed in the ER, a doctor came in right away, ans luckily took his symptoms very seriously, and recognized that he probably did have a mini-stroke, and wanted to try and prevent a larger one, which can typically happen. While my mom explained what had happened when we had gotten home, my dad just stared at her, and finally said “Are you serious?” My mom said that she was very serious, and that’s why we had brought him in. He didn’t remember having been asked all the questions, or even us getting home. It was very unnerving, but good to see that he seemed to becoming more aware of what was really going on.

My brother and I were ushered out, and asked to wait in the main lobby, which we did for about another 2 hours. We finally found out my dad was being admitted for the night, would have a CAT scan that night, and a MRI in the morning. The doctor didn’t really expect to find anything, since a mini-stroke doesn’t usually show up, but she wanted to make sure. Last I talked to my mom, he was still about the same, no worse, and would be getting a bed soon.

We’ll see what happens in the morning.