Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Sunday, December 28, 2008
AC Adapter
I finally had to just go with what I had. It was shortly after I burnt the last DVD movie I created that my AC adapter cord fried its brains out - yes, the new one that had arrived from Dell just five days earlier. My computer probably needed the rest. I had been feverishly using every bit of memory space in the little box. So much so, I had to take all my photos and music off the computer in order to make the DVDs for Christmas presents. Of course, that meant I could no longer make any changes to the movie and that meant this would be the time to discover I don’t know how to spell “cemetery” 75% of the time.
Oh, well. It is for posterity. Something the grand kids and great grand kids can watch and wonder who was that guy who was part of the armed forces that dragged themselves onto the Channel Beaches. Only this guy, my Dad, didn’t even get his feet wet. It wasn’t easy after that. There is still another 30 minutes to add to the production, but I'll have to do this later.
So the DVD was “finished” and my computer was dead once again. December 21, 2008.
That's why no Blogs. No photos. And after more than a week without my power cord, I still am without a computer. There is Dad’s. He is one of seven people remaining on dial up Internet, so until I get my cord which arrived at my sister’s house in New Hampshire five hours after I left for home in NY, there will be no photos of pristine blankets fluffed knee-high, feather dressed Christmas pines and boughs and crystal lined mountain tops.
Be patient. Maybe I’ll have my cord by New Year’s Eve.
The electrical outage resulted in my postponement to book reservations to Hawaii. But I called expedia.com today and booked tickets for Dad and me in January. We are flying out this year for $350 less than last year. Go figure. And it nearly reached fifty degrees in Saratoga.
Oh, well. It is for posterity. Something the grand kids and great grand kids can watch and wonder who was that guy who was part of the armed forces that dragged themselves onto the Channel Beaches. Only this guy, my Dad, didn’t even get his feet wet. It wasn’t easy after that. There is still another 30 minutes to add to the production, but I'll have to do this later.
So the DVD was “finished” and my computer was dead once again. December 21, 2008.
That's why no Blogs. No photos. And after more than a week without my power cord, I still am without a computer. There is Dad’s. He is one of seven people remaining on dial up Internet, so until I get my cord which arrived at my sister’s house in New Hampshire five hours after I left for home in NY, there will be no photos of pristine blankets fluffed knee-high, feather dressed Christmas pines and boughs and crystal lined mountain tops.
Be patient. Maybe I’ll have my cord by New Year’s Eve.
The electrical outage resulted in my postponement to book reservations to Hawaii. But I called expedia.com today and booked tickets for Dad and me in January. We are flying out this year for $350 less than last year. Go figure. And it nearly reached fifty degrees in Saratoga.
Thursday, December 18, 2008
Scrooge?
A week until Christmas. At Thanksgiving, I announced I wasn’t buying any presents. So far, I’ve held to my plan, but like a dripping underground pipe filling the grotto with a wet muck, guilt seeps through my conscience from someplace deep and hidden.
I’ll find the source and duct tape it dry.
No cards either. This year’s gap in communication will not doubt cause a loss of contact with a few people, those who contact me only during Christmas and I suspect only after I send them a card. Last year, the number of cards I send only to receive about 10% in return. Bad investment.
This is not to say I have no intensions of giving gifts. I’m making mine. And what a trial it has been, but I finally reached Paris last night – between visits to the bathroom. Makes me wish for the days of half filled bottles of Elmer's white glue and cherry-stained Popsicle sticks. Anyone need a hotmat?
I’ll find the source and duct tape it dry.
No cards either. This year’s gap in communication will not doubt cause a loss of contact with a few people, those who contact me only during Christmas and I suspect only after I send them a card. Last year, the number of cards I send only to receive about 10% in return. Bad investment.
This is not to say I have no intensions of giving gifts. I’m making mine. And what a trial it has been, but I finally reached Paris last night – between visits to the bathroom. Makes me wish for the days of half filled bottles of Elmer's white glue and cherry-stained Popsicle sticks. Anyone need a hotmat?
I Was Robbed
I wanted to see the inner workings of my colon. Kind of like caving from worry side out. The doctor assured me it was a mild sedative, to make me relax. The last thing I remembered was looking at the hugely magnified texture of the thin blanket covering my ass. Interesting.
And then some faded mumbling. The doctor telling me he found one polyp and that he removed it. Something about testing and seeing me in three years. How about ten?
It was warm under the blankets and I didn’t budge. Except for the farting. I remembered the nurse, Mary, said as soon as I did that I could have a drink. Alone in the room I opened one eye. Just a little. At the end of the roll away table was a Styrofoam cup and straw. If I can just get that right hand out – the one leashed to the IV – I might be able to drag the table close enough to snag the cup. In came the nurse.
“Are you passing gas?”
“Like a balloon at John McCain’s victory party”.
She mustered a puzzled look. “Okay, then. You may have some water.”
My thirst matched the volume of liquid I passed late yesterday evening and throughout the night. Even a Desert Flower needs a little rain every once in a while.
“So, everything was cleaned out?” I asked.
“Sure.”
“Good,” I confessed a screw up in the preparation. Instead of guzzling 64 ounces of prep liguid in 8 ounce dosages ever 15 minutes I drank the dosage over the course of 8 hours. One glass every hour. Right down. No bloating.” It was an error on my part discovered after the fact. For two weeks I read the preparation instructions but wrote one hour increments in the margin and that was what I followed, checking off each step beginning last week with no more iron supplements.
“Well, that’ll work.” she replied.
“So why bloat up on a gallon of liquid?”
“Takes too much time.”
That it did. By midnight there wasn’t much left inside or on the roll of toilet paper. I managed to snooze a little ignoring the urge to disturb the cats and rush off to the bathroom. At 6 AM, my last opportunity for liquids before the 6:30 cut off. was missed when I got involved on my computer. Time slipped away in the darkness. Tea turned cold. By 7 AM I had sipped about a half a cup.
Dad, designated driver, dropped me off at the main entrance of the Saratoga Hospital, where two red coated valets stepped out to the curb and opened the door. Just like some fancy hotel. I complimented the young men on their fancy jackets, but gave them no tip. Dad wished me luck and drove Booter, meowing in the back seat, to the ophthalmologist in Latham. I stepped into the hospital where I hadn’t been a patient since the fourth grade, although I don’t remember what for. I just remember playing hangman with Mom. I wasn’t very good at that game.
In the entrance ten people stood in line at that registration window. Oh boy. I stepped to a small information podium where I verified my need to go through this intake process. The lady, named Elaine wore velvet reindeer antlers and a felt Santa helper hat.
“What are you here for?”
“Colonoscopy.”
“Oh no. You can go directly upstairs.” Like a good elf she referred to her list, found my name, checked it twice. “Oh yes, Ms. Perez. There you are.” Elaine volunteered as my personal escort and off we went to sojourn the ubiquitously wandering hallways of the hospital. We rode a maze of elevators entering on one side and exiting on the other. She pointed out which room my procedure would take place.
A lost-in the-woods feeling settled over me. “I guess I should pay attention to where I’m going. Or will you come and get me when it is all over?"
“Oh no. One of the staff will bring you down in a wheel chair.” Dollar signs spun before me.
About this time I began to think of my last hospital procedure. Micronesia. Peace Corps. Third World. But I never saw any M&M’s on the floor, geckos clinging to the ceiling or cats busily scurrying through the ward, tails down, on the defense.
“It’s this your first?”
Coming back to the present, I thought Is this kind of like having a baby? “Yes, I’m a virgin.”
“Here we are,” she proudly chirped as one antler began to droop. Elaine led me into a very crowded waiting room. This is going to take forever. She shook my hand and wished me luck. That’s twice in a span of twelve minutes.
“Merry Christmas, Elaine.”
The receptionist handed me a clipboard with instructions to carefully review my file. The insurance carrier, employer and next of kin were all wrong. It would have been perfect if I had still been in the Peace Corps and Mom was still alive. After updating the forms I ducked into the bathroom. That constant “feel like I need to go feeling” wouldn’t go away. Honestly, there was nothing left.
Nurse Mary escorted me to the prep room. Behind a drawn curtain I learned the man next door was having an Achilles tendon repaired and across the aisle a lady debated a spinal tap. Go for the knock out punch, never-know-you-died drug. As I stood naked in the cubical I turned and looked out the window. Across the parking lot, the field of snow and the new Radiology Center. Could someone be looking at me with a pair of binoculars? Man, my tan line is nearly faded and my ass itches. Cold dry weather of the Northeast. I threw on my robe, pulled on the socks and jumped under the thin blanket.
Mary gabbed away while she tucked a spa warm blanket around me. So far so good. She yakked about friend who came from a family in Italy who owns a spring and bottling plant. Her friend’s mother had been abducted by a well-off man, thirty years her senior. Well-off, but clearly a pig. She was seventeen at the time and the man raped her. Pregnant and disgraced her family forced her to marry the swine and have the baby. After two years of abuse, she fled leaving her son. She hid fearing her family would make her return to the man. He eventually died. She never saw her son again. Other things happened (reunited with her brothers, remarried, other kids, big villa. Now her friend flies to India to do a Zen-Dali-Lama thing. I think this was about where I feel asleep.
It felt like nothing happened and I got robbed of virtually spelunking my insides.
And then some faded mumbling. The doctor telling me he found one polyp and that he removed it. Something about testing and seeing me in three years. How about ten?
It was warm under the blankets and I didn’t budge. Except for the farting. I remembered the nurse, Mary, said as soon as I did that I could have a drink. Alone in the room I opened one eye. Just a little. At the end of the roll away table was a Styrofoam cup and straw. If I can just get that right hand out – the one leashed to the IV – I might be able to drag the table close enough to snag the cup. In came the nurse.
“Are you passing gas?”
“Like a balloon at John McCain’s victory party”.
She mustered a puzzled look. “Okay, then. You may have some water.”
My thirst matched the volume of liquid I passed late yesterday evening and throughout the night. Even a Desert Flower needs a little rain every once in a while.
“So, everything was cleaned out?” I asked.
“Sure.”
“Good,” I confessed a screw up in the preparation. Instead of guzzling 64 ounces of prep liguid in 8 ounce dosages ever 15 minutes I drank the dosage over the course of 8 hours. One glass every hour. Right down. No bloating.” It was an error on my part discovered after the fact. For two weeks I read the preparation instructions but wrote one hour increments in the margin and that was what I followed, checking off each step beginning last week with no more iron supplements.
“Well, that’ll work.” she replied.
“So why bloat up on a gallon of liquid?”
“Takes too much time.”
That it did. By midnight there wasn’t much left inside or on the roll of toilet paper. I managed to snooze a little ignoring the urge to disturb the cats and rush off to the bathroom. At 6 AM, my last opportunity for liquids before the 6:30 cut off. was missed when I got involved on my computer. Time slipped away in the darkness. Tea turned cold. By 7 AM I had sipped about a half a cup.
Dad, designated driver, dropped me off at the main entrance of the Saratoga Hospital, where two red coated valets stepped out to the curb and opened the door. Just like some fancy hotel. I complimented the young men on their fancy jackets, but gave them no tip. Dad wished me luck and drove Booter, meowing in the back seat, to the ophthalmologist in Latham. I stepped into the hospital where I hadn’t been a patient since the fourth grade, although I don’t remember what for. I just remember playing hangman with Mom. I wasn’t very good at that game.
In the entrance ten people stood in line at that registration window. Oh boy. I stepped to a small information podium where I verified my need to go through this intake process. The lady, named Elaine wore velvet reindeer antlers and a felt Santa helper hat.
“What are you here for?”
“Colonoscopy.”
“Oh no. You can go directly upstairs.” Like a good elf she referred to her list, found my name, checked it twice. “Oh yes, Ms. Perez. There you are.” Elaine volunteered as my personal escort and off we went to sojourn the ubiquitously wandering hallways of the hospital. We rode a maze of elevators entering on one side and exiting on the other. She pointed out which room my procedure would take place.
A lost-in the-woods feeling settled over me. “I guess I should pay attention to where I’m going. Or will you come and get me when it is all over?"
“Oh no. One of the staff will bring you down in a wheel chair.” Dollar signs spun before me.
About this time I began to think of my last hospital procedure. Micronesia. Peace Corps. Third World. But I never saw any M&M’s on the floor, geckos clinging to the ceiling or cats busily scurrying through the ward, tails down, on the defense.
“It’s this your first?”
Coming back to the present, I thought Is this kind of like having a baby? “Yes, I’m a virgin.”
“Here we are,” she proudly chirped as one antler began to droop. Elaine led me into a very crowded waiting room. This is going to take forever. She shook my hand and wished me luck. That’s twice in a span of twelve minutes.
“Merry Christmas, Elaine.”
The receptionist handed me a clipboard with instructions to carefully review my file. The insurance carrier, employer and next of kin were all wrong. It would have been perfect if I had still been in the Peace Corps and Mom was still alive. After updating the forms I ducked into the bathroom. That constant “feel like I need to go feeling” wouldn’t go away. Honestly, there was nothing left.
Nurse Mary escorted me to the prep room. Behind a drawn curtain I learned the man next door was having an Achilles tendon repaired and across the aisle a lady debated a spinal tap. Go for the knock out punch, never-know-you-died drug. As I stood naked in the cubical I turned and looked out the window. Across the parking lot, the field of snow and the new Radiology Center. Could someone be looking at me with a pair of binoculars? Man, my tan line is nearly faded and my ass itches. Cold dry weather of the Northeast. I threw on my robe, pulled on the socks and jumped under the thin blanket.
Mary gabbed away while she tucked a spa warm blanket around me. So far so good. She yakked about friend who came from a family in Italy who owns a spring and bottling plant. Her friend’s mother had been abducted by a well-off man, thirty years her senior. Well-off, but clearly a pig. She was seventeen at the time and the man raped her. Pregnant and disgraced her family forced her to marry the swine and have the baby. After two years of abuse, she fled leaving her son. She hid fearing her family would make her return to the man. He eventually died. She never saw her son again. Other things happened (reunited with her brothers, remarried, other kids, big villa. Now her friend flies to India to do a Zen-Dali-Lama thing. I think this was about where I feel asleep.
It felt like nothing happened and I got robbed of virtually spelunking my insides.
Monday, December 15, 2008
Those Two Girls
Snug as two bugs in a rug. Thanksgiving at Jen's. Cold place.
A hike to Hagadorn's Mountain after the ice storm. We then "blogeoned" home, finding squirrel holes, mysterious blood in the snow and deer droppings. No old wells to fall into.
Robin celebrates year 53! Good sisters.
Back in Business
For the second time in the life of my laptop computer (three years in April) the AC power adapter has quit sending the life juice that comes from a wall socket. Of course, this happened while I am in the middle of a project that I have been working on since Thanksgiving and trying to complete before the Night before Christmas. Prior to the failure of the power adapter, I had encountered a program bug in Microsoft's movie maker – too many transitions and the program politely apologizes for the inconvenience but demands to be shut down, no alternative. This discovery came at great expense of time and frustration, but with a valuable lesson. Ain’t nothing good in a free program. (Remember that ObamaNation.)
I even went the radical step of ripping all Microsoft programs from my computer, and reloading the software. This created a few oddities in my computer. One I discovered was none of my video was displayable. After being introduced to the world of codecs - things that make videos work?-I now have, seemingly, all systems working, but continue to have the same flaw that was built into the movie maker. Alas. My father standing in line with me at Best Buy discovered the price tag on the Pinnacle Version 12 Ultimate Movie Maker and handed me his credit card. Merry Christmas. Thank God for Dads.
But just when I thought I was up and creating a movie even little Opie Taylor would smile at, I experienced a Dell equipment failure. Disgusted, I called Dell expecting an Indian to tell me of “No Problem unless Pakistani”. I got a nice guy named TG who told me the product is in stock. Ship date is December 17th. WHAT? Some blah, blah explanation which covers their ass I suppose. Long story, it arrived this morning, four days after the computer power outage, ironically at the same time the ice storm paralyzed the north east.
I even went the radical step of ripping all Microsoft programs from my computer, and reloading the software. This created a few oddities in my computer. One I discovered was none of my video was displayable. After being introduced to the world of codecs - things that make videos work?-I now have, seemingly, all systems working, but continue to have the same flaw that was built into the movie maker. Alas. My father standing in line with me at Best Buy discovered the price tag on the Pinnacle Version 12 Ultimate Movie Maker and handed me his credit card. Merry Christmas. Thank God for Dads.
But just when I thought I was up and creating a movie even little Opie Taylor would smile at, I experienced a Dell equipment failure. Disgusted, I called Dell expecting an Indian to tell me of “No Problem unless Pakistani”. I got a nice guy named TG who told me the product is in stock. Ship date is December 17th. WHAT? Some blah, blah explanation which covers their ass I suppose. Long story, it arrived this morning, four days after the computer power outage, ironically at the same time the ice storm paralyzed the north east.
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Me on the Rocks
I broke down and got a hair cut. If it wasn't for the holidays I would let it get even shaggier and not do anything with it until I return to Hawaii.
Oh, the Weather Outside is...
I try to avoid winter as much as possible. I’ve done this by staying inside. Lately, it seems that some sort of injury waits for me in the frosty air. Like the other day. I stepped outside to find a light frost clinging to the front ramp like barnacles on an old ship hull. I had tossed on my down jacket, the one I wore to Everest, over my flannel PJs to retrieve the thin-as-October-ice newspaper, The Saratogian. Before I could inhale one surprised gulp of air, my feet were over my head. Thump. I knocked whatever remained in my lungs out into the stiff air, the veil of vapor hanging over me like a death shroud. I landed flat on my back. When I thought I laid perfectly still staring at the hubcap of Dad’s Subaru I noticed I was slowly ebbing down the short slope. Shit, that’s going to hurt tomorrow.
And it did. Every damn muscle from my neck to my waist and my triceps – because I made an ill attempt to catch myself on the railings – felt tortured. This caused me to remain inside for another three days before venturing out again for the paper. Now when I do, Dad sitting at the dining room table behind a bowl of cookie-laden cereal and stirring his syrupy tea reminds me to watch my step. Like I’d forget.
And yesterday, the second dusting of the winter caused more injury. A powdered coating annoying rested in the driveway. Since it was Dad’s eighty-fifth birthday, I decided I could help him blast the stuff out of the path of the car. I blew through the fluff as quickly as possible, noting that this is the beginning of the six foot snow bank that will rampart the driveway come February. I managed to lift nothing but white air and in doing so pulled a back muscle. Shit, that is embarrassing. Small wonder I was sore the next day when Dad took me to the Y. All that walking, bike riding and swimming of October and early November rotting on the vine.
You know that Amish heater that has been seen in just about every Sunday’s Parade Magazine since August? Dad ordered one right after Thanksgiving and it arrived on the coldest day of the season, so far. The mercury couldn’t crack the 10 degree line. Wind chill was teeth shattering.
He set the mock fireplace in my old room down in the basement where I immediately set up camp in my own private inferno. If there were a bathroom down stairs, I wouldn’t emerge until it’s time to catch a plane back to Hawaii. But with a little sand on the floor and some Ukulele music, I could almost imagine it despite the frightful weather.
And it did. Every damn muscle from my neck to my waist and my triceps – because I made an ill attempt to catch myself on the railings – felt tortured. This caused me to remain inside for another three days before venturing out again for the paper. Now when I do, Dad sitting at the dining room table behind a bowl of cookie-laden cereal and stirring his syrupy tea reminds me to watch my step. Like I’d forget.
And yesterday, the second dusting of the winter caused more injury. A powdered coating annoying rested in the driveway. Since it was Dad’s eighty-fifth birthday, I decided I could help him blast the stuff out of the path of the car. I blew through the fluff as quickly as possible, noting that this is the beginning of the six foot snow bank that will rampart the driveway come February. I managed to lift nothing but white air and in doing so pulled a back muscle. Shit, that is embarrassing. Small wonder I was sore the next day when Dad took me to the Y. All that walking, bike riding and swimming of October and early November rotting on the vine.
You know that Amish heater that has been seen in just about every Sunday’s Parade Magazine since August? Dad ordered one right after Thanksgiving and it arrived on the coldest day of the season, so far. The mercury couldn’t crack the 10 degree line. Wind chill was teeth shattering.
He set the mock fireplace in my old room down in the basement where I immediately set up camp in my own private inferno. If there were a bathroom down stairs, I wouldn’t emerge until it’s time to catch a plane back to Hawaii. But with a little sand on the floor and some Ukulele music, I could almost imagine it despite the frightful weather.
Monday, December 01, 2008
Black Friday
On Black Friday when everyone seems to be trampling each other for extra low prices, we aborted plans to go to Boston when it began to pour. Not getting anyone excited about going to the movies to see Bolt, I followed my sister Jennifer around like the paparazzi as she went to the post office, Dunkin Donuts, and the shop where she had her couch reupholstered. 
Nothing too exciting.
Not my dog.
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