Saturday, April 22, 2006

MIA? I realize I've been Missing In Action for the past few weeks - just a post every third day or so. I've been sick with some sort of nasty lymph node/viral infection for the past two weeks and just as I headed down the home stretch with the viral infection, I picked up something else. I'm not sure what has happened to my immune system. All my little white blood cells are probably down by the pool sipping pina coladas instead of attending to business. However, that being said, this evening Peter and I saw The Inside Man. I absolutely loved it. Smart smart smart with a good heart. Acting is excellent. And it's also a love affair with New York City. It's my favorite Spike Lee movie in a long time. Just loved it. Plus you gotta love the mental visual of Spike Lee directing Christopher Plummer. New school meets old school and it's all class. A definite must see smart, thoroughly enjoyable caper movie. 10:00:50 PM    comment []

	Friday, September 02, 2005

Voids It's been a really rough couple of days - but I'm hanging in there. For the first two days, I was pretty much a sobbing machine. But I'm doing better - I'm not breaking down every ten minutes. I do o.k. - unless someone asks how I'm doing. Then I start crying all over again. I've cried so much that my left eye is all plugged up and swollen. It looks like I have some sort of disease. The condolences I received were just wonderful. They really helped. In addition to the sheer emotional pain, which was of course expected, I've been stunned by the void. Clemmie's death has left a huge physical and emotional void. The house is so quiet. I never realized how much noise a dog makes - even when they're sleeping. The house is just completely still and empty. The lack of sound, of dog sounds, has hit all of us incredibly hard. Peter, Seth, and I are floored by it. What a true void. The emotional part is huge - Clem and I were a pair - and I knew that. But I didn't realize how integrated we really were. Last night, as I was laying in bed, I realized something. I now get why she always waited at the door for me to come home. She was waiting for her partner - she didn't know when (or if, for sure) I was coming home. So she was there waiting. I know now, that I'd wait a very long time for Clem to come back. To come home. 5:01:08 PM    comment []

	Sunday, July 24, 2005

Brain Lapses One of the joys of Chronic Syndrome is impaired cognitive function. I'm very fortunate. I only experience occasional periods of true cognitive dysfunction - but boy when they hit, the wheels just fall off. This week, I'm experiencing the worst bout I've had in over a year. It's been bad - my dysfunction manifests itself by profound forgetfulness and an inability to stay focused - I literally lose track of where I am. This week's two signature events occured on Wednesday and Thursday. On Wednesday I almost ran a red light - and by almost ran, I don't mean that the light had just changed. The light was red and had been red for a very long time. I saw the light, but the red didn't register. I was roaring up to the intersection going about 40 mph, when all at once, I realized that red meant STOP. I slammed on the breaks and managed to stop just before Henry entered into the intersection. On Thursday, I misplaced my journal. Now, if I had to name the one thing that I would never ever lose, it would be my journal. It's also important to note, that I rarely misplace things or lose things. I have little systems, so I generally know where just about all of my stuff is at any point in time. However, when cognitive dysfunction shows up, the systems get blown to hell. And, I have lost my journal. I have searched high and low for it. It isn't at home. It isn't at work. At this point, the last place I remember having it in my possesion was at my speech therapy appointment. Their office is closed on Fridays, so I'm going first thing tomorrow morning. I hope it's there. Of course if it's there, I really hope no one read it. sigh... 9:27:27 PM    comment []

A Geocaching Fool I'm closing in on my 100th geocache, as a result I've been caching like a maniac for the past week - not bagging large numbers of caches. Instead doing some fun ones so that I can make the march to 100 memorable. Late Friday afternoon, the Ski Boy, Alix, and Gunner and I did the mountain cache, Flattop. This was my second attempt at Flattop - and this time we approached it from the west side. Much better!!!! We had a very good time - even though it poured rain for part of the climb. Yesterday morning, the Ski Boy and I did two fairly easy, low stress caches in here town - my legs were so trashed from Flattop, that they weren't up for much else. We then repaired to Cafe Amsterdam where I had one of my favorite breakfasts - French Toast and Beer! Yum - breakfast of champions! Finally, today, I really took the plunge and did Touchdown. Touchdown is located high above Anchorage on a big glacier moraine locally known as the "Ball Field" because it looks like a giant football field. The climb up is extremely steep and long - tough duty for a wussy slat rat. However, I had a wild hair about doing this cache and nothing - not the Ski Boy, not rain, not anything was going to dissuade me from my mission. I had a blast - although I was certainly a slooooooow moving vehicle. The view was definitely worth the pain and suffering. Even though the Ball Field has a high suffering quotient, it has always been one of my favorites. I also figured that my days of climbing up to it were long gone. Which is one of the reasons I had this jones about doing it. I am so tired of not being able to do things that I'm to the point of saying "Fuck it all, I'm doing it anyway". We'll see how this new approach works out. But at least I'm having fun in the short term - of course I won't be able to get out of bed tomorrow morning... Anyhoo, I bagged Touchdown, and then very carefully made my way down on rubber slat rat legs. Actually, if the adventure had ended at the top, the whole thing would have been about right effort-wise. The trip down was made on a pretty empty tank. I was quite happy when I finally staggered back to the car!!!! Touchdown was cache number 96! Various caching adventure photos will be posted tomorrow. 9:13:21 PM    comment []

	Saturday, July 09, 2005

Where Does the Time Go? I've been bad on the blogging front again - it has just been a crazy few weeks!!! We're in the midst of the final push on my gigantic project at work, Peter's sister Suzie is up visiting, I'm buried in preparations for Government Hill's 90th anniversary celebration which is next Sunday, etc... Plus, I made a new rule - I've got to get enough sleep. The current Slat Rat pace is over the top. In order to ensure that I don't have a major Chronic Fatigue Syndrome crash, the Slat Rat butt must be ensconced in bed by 9:00 PM. Considering that we're in the midst of a gorgeous summer and the sun is still beating down at 9:00 PM, the bedtime rule is draconian. But, I'll keel over if I don't get enough sleep. Blogging is definitely suffering as a result of the Bedtime for Bonzo rule. 6:06:46 PM    comment []

	Monday, June 20, 2005

Today's Melman Moment Today's Melman Moment has a certain aesthetic appeal. But first, the backstory: For the past 20 years, I've had pretty severe Ileo-Tibio Band tendinitis. I can do some things like skiing, biking, walking, etc. But I cannot run, roller blade, swim, etc. I've had three surgeries, run the gamut of anti-inflamatories, done a bazillion hours of every sort of physical therapy imaginable with absolutely no luck. However, other than the no running, it hasn't been a major lifestyle issue - until recently. Over the past two months, my right IT band has tightened even more and is now pulling my tibia and fibula up into my femur. And my poor patella is getting squished off to one side. All of which has resulted in some nasty little knee discomfort. So, my chiropractor suggested we wrap my knee. Well, I've had my knee wrapped a kazillion times and never once did it do any good. But to appease my chiropractor, I agreed (while internally rolling my eyes). Well, she whipped out this very spiffy blue wrap and proceeded to put a strip here and put a strip there. And after a few minutes, she was done. I looked at my knee and asked "That's it? Is this actually going to do something?" She assured me that it would - this same technique has been used with great success on Lance Armstrong. Well - if Lance uses it, it's good enough for me! However, it is very odd looking. I have received a ton of comments. My personal favorite is that someone thought it looked like a Matisse paper cutout. All this being said, it does seem to be working a tad - I can feel a bit of release on my IT band - not a ton - but the tape has only been on for a few days. Plus my tendinitous has a twenty year head start. Realistically, the tape isn't going to fix the problem - I'm going to have to do something more drastic. So I think my next step will be rolfing - we'll get the stuffing ripped out of the IT band. That will be quite the little experience. Here's a picture of my artistic wrap job - I took this one myself. Peter also took a several pictures. But my thighs took on a beluga-esque appearance in those photos. So, we're going with this one: 9:47:15 PM    comment []

	Sunday, June 19, 2005

I am Melman Peter, Alix, and I saw Madagascar last night. There is no question, I am Melman. Melman is a giraffe who is worried about his health plan, has a pharmacopia up to wahzoo, and is looking for a good chiropractor. Actually, I already have a fabulous chiropractor. I should recommend her to Melman. 8:50:30 PM    comment []

	Saturday, May 21, 2005

Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. I have quite a fleet of meds that I take on a daily basis - a batch in the morning and a batch at night. And actually, "med" is probably the wrong term. Most of what I take are vitamins and supplements. My only morning prescription med is the very benign Singular. However, my nighttime meds are a little more potent. There are few supplements tossed in the mix, but I also take two more powerful drugs, both of which are key players in treating my Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. Well, last night I was a total space cadet. I took my meds at about 10:00 PM and promptly forgot the entire act. An hour later, I was getting ready for bed and took another batch - I didn't notice that the Friday container was gone and that I had grabbed the Saturday container. Well, I didn't notice until it was too late - just after I had completely swallowed the whole Saturday kit and kaboodle. sigh... I contemplated the ramifications of my stupidity. I wasn't going to die. But I would completely blow my Saturday - I wouldn't be able to get out of bed until dinner time. It was obvious that I had only one option - the ol' fingers down the throat trick. Which I have never done in my life. But, since I wasn't interested in sleeping my Saturday away, I had to go for it. Which I did. Unfortunately, the potent pills are small and digest quickly. As a result, I was not completely succesful. I went to sleep not having any idea at what time I might actually wake up - morning or night. Surprisingly, I managed to stagger out of bed at 10:00 AM. I've been a zombie most of today and the fog is just now beginning to lift. But at least there's still part of Saturday left. I do have to say that I feel well rested! 3:36:19 PM    comment []

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