Shoulder Twins

 October 1 marks 6 months from my shoulder dislocation and break.   I am still doing physical therapy to gain strength and motion.  It's a slow process that at times is frustrating.

The pain I was feeling on a daily basis has mostly gone away.  It no longer radiates down my arm all day and all night.  However, it is still an issue when I sleep.  I am really only comfortable on my back, probably because it allows the muscles in my shoulders to relax, but I am a side sleeper and when in that state I will roll over and it wakes me up when my hand goes numb.   I'm pinching something in that side position.

I had a meeting with the orthopedic doc last week and I nervously told him about the numbness.  The last thing I want to have is some sort of nerve damage that would need a surgical repair, thus undoing all the work to gain my strength back.    He pulled up my file and read something to me  (paraphrasing):

Patient complains of continuing pain radiating down arm, and numbness in hand when sleeping on her side.

That was the note from the 5 month check-in after the first break on the left side.  OMG!  I totally forgot about that from the last time.  He gave me a wrap to help keep my elbow from folding all the way when I sleep, which should prevent me from pinching the nerve. He said that we'll check back in in two months and if it's still going numb, then he'll do a nerve study, but is confident that it will heal by then.  

He did say that while the breaks were basically identical, that because the right shoulder also experienced a dislocation that the time to heal would be longer because of the additional tissue trauma.  I am continuing to be a good PT patient and working on my stretching at home.

I slept with the bandage on my arm, and it's annoying but does keep me from tucking the arm, which also keeps me on my back.  

A new world

Covid-19 has impacted our daily life.   School is closed, so we are making a daily list of homeschool activities to keep the Peanut engaged and in a school state of mind.   She loves Soduku and is having fun with the crosswords.  Spelling continues to be a struggle.

J's employer made the decision that they too can work from home when special circumstances are present.   The closing of school was the ticket for him to be allowed to do something that he has been able to successfully do for the last few years.   Sometimes it's management that needs to change.

For me, I've been working at home for the last 11 years, so the real disruption is all these people in the house 24/7.  I have always loved my quiet alone time, so this is truly an adjustment.

Thankfully, the weather has been spectacular for the last 5 days, so we have been able to get out and go to the park, get some vitamin D in the chilly sunshine.

I feel for the mom's in the neighborhood with younger kids.  Keeping the littles busy for days and days on end can be exhausting.  L is at the age where she can entertain herself, and reach out via facetime to hang with friends who we can't see in person.    She has one friend that they facetime and then login to a game called Roblox and they play together in that virtual world.   Thank goodness for out high volume Internet.  L isn't able to play or talk with strangers online, and I hope to leave it that way for the next 200 years.

Emotionally, this is rough.  The news is scary, and staying off social media is critical to not getting so much information that it feels like the virus is knocking on our door (but, honestly isn't it?)

We are lucky in that the closure of restaurants and other venus only impacts us as an inconvenience, rather than our livelihood.  It's hard to know how to help folks that are impacted.

This is my life

Confirmed, you're old, that'll be $2,000.

The trip to the doctor yesterday was not a waste of time.  I did ice the knee all day, but the swelling didn't abate, but it wasn't (isn't) overly painful.  Making an appointment for something that is a 2 on the 0-10 pain scale makes me feel kind of like a whiny baby, but as I only get these two knees I figured I have the time to make sure we're not making things worse by sucking it up.

Our doctor is quite funny and seems to read me well.  He had me hop up on the table as I explained the story behind my trauma.  "Ok, so it's Pool, Baby, and Money right?"  Yes - those are the key points of my knee injury.  "I'm just going to write down the medical term for general clumsiness."  Whatever the insurance company will accept doc, that's fine by me.

I explained that the pain was present, but not sharp or consistent when I made regular movements like walking and moving around, but if I twisted quickly or tried to do that squatting thing it would hurt.  So, he pokes pokes and pokes. "Does this hurt?" No. "What about this?" No, and then he pulled or jabbed and I yelled loudly and grabbed his arm with all my might, and then started to laugh.  "So that is what we call a positive reaction." He says mildly deadpan while waiting for me to free his arm from my clenched hand.  At this point I wonder is he going to do it again? You know those doctors want to...do no harm, I don't buy it.  They are just as dark and twisted as the rest of us.  At the dentist... you know that 'test' they do where they "measure the depths of your pockets"  and poke your gums around each tooth?  They don't have to poke you, the x-ray can measure the pocket, but they get off on the poke.  Poke (giggle), Poke (giggle).  Bastards.   But Dr. K does not inflict the pain again, instead off to x-ray I go, where for some reason I have to re-explain the injury. Pool, Baby, Money.

Finally, back to the room and I wait a short moment for Dr. K to inflict pain on the kid across the hall.  After the screaming subsides he's back to me.  We review the x-rays where it is discovered that I have a broken knee cap.  This is an old injury unrelated to the pain of the moment, and I have no idea of when it may have occurred.  I give myself a gold star for living with such a traumatic injury and never once complaining about it.

My (broken) kneecap is displaced and I have a case of Patella Femoral Syndrome.  Sounds serious right?  Well, not really.  PFS is common among runners.   That is a true statement that I would swear to the Supreme Court.  However, as a stand alone statement it could be interpreted that I myself am a runner.  I have taken a 'run' or two, but am not as you may guess an avid runner.  I don't mind it, but my inner dialog is so distracting.  "You're going to die, you can't breathe, stop, you must stop, you're going to die if you take one more step."  It's hard to keep a steady pace with that going on.  Anyway, back to my super serious injury.  It turns out that people who lay carpet, or play on the floor with toddlers are also susceptible to PFS.

The treatment... rest & ice for 2 weeks, then some physical therapy to get the knee cap back where it belongs.  Thankfully, amputation is very low on the treatment lists.

Dr. K also said "you know that old joke 'hey Doc, it hurts when I do this...'  Yeah, well, if it hurts, don't do it.  I don't get to use that line often."   He's a funny one.

Also, my self diagnosis of arthritis was accurate.  But, this is not unexpected and my pain will be managed with my old friend tylenol.  Pain is a strong word at this point.

So, here I sit with ice on my knee and I'm about to make some appointments with the PT people.  I wonder, do they do "Hot Rock PT?"

An actual photo of me.

Perhaps I'm getting old...

I'll be seeing the doctor today for a minor issue with my knee.  Last week during the H-O-T weather we set up the inflatable pool but because it's so large (relatively so) we didn't want to plop it on the lawn, so we used the patio instead.  To protect the bottom of the pool and ourselves we put down some protective mats, but they didn't quite cover the entire bottom of the pool.  I tweaked my knee by accidentally kneeling on the edge of one of the mats and it did a number on the knee cap.


This weekend Lucy and I were horsing around and she stepped on my knee with her full weight and that wasn't great.    Yesterday I cashed in the giant pile of change at the coinstar machine and dropped the bag on the floor.  Squatting and scooping pulled whatever is bad in my knee to the point where it was noticeably swollen by the time I made it back to the car.

I do not think this is an amputation level injury, but I do worry while traversing the stairs that it's going to give out so I made a call to the doctor.   Jason, or rather Dr. Jason has diagnosed my situation as bursitis.  We'll see what Dr. K has to say about that, but to me bursitis sounds like an old persons situation.

But, I feel I should also confess that in addition to odd knee pain brought on by a two year old, the doctor will also be looking at my arthritic thumb and toe joints.  If only there was something wrong with my head and shoulders I could sing him a little song.

Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes....

Yes, I am going to blog about poop (again?)

"I poo poo in da bed mama."

"Yes you did Peanut, but that was days ago.  It was an accident.  Everything is ok."

This has been our conversation after every nap and each morning as we start our day since Saturday afternoon.

The event itself was unexpected and we certainly tried not to overreact so as not to traumatize her, but it clearly had an impact.  She was doing the normal "I don't want to nap" complaints which generally last about 5 minutes before she zonks out for two hours or so.  Jason and I had lots of tasks to accomplish during the freedom window (nap) and were moving around the house quietly but quickly.  I came in from the garage and could tell that the no-nap cries had escalated to the point where it was clear that something was wrong.

By the time I made it upstairs, I heard Jason go into her room and a second later he calmly but urgently called out "CODE BROWN, CODE BROWN."   I was behind him in seconds.  He had Lucy on the changing table and was cleaning her up.  I grabbed wipes and did a collection.  After a quick flush I went back to scoop up all the bedding and friends (damn the stuffed animals and dolls) for a mid-day washing machine field trip.

There has been some debate among the adults in the house about when and how the diaper failure happened.  It has been at least eight weeks since Lucy has removed her diaper in the bed and she has never removed a pull up.  One theory is that the diaper came off during 'the event' rather than before.  We will never know how it happened, but I think the question of why is more of a karmic one rather than logical.  Parents of toddlers must experience this at some point.

With all the bedding in the machine and the flurry of activity around getting Miss Lucy put back together the possibility of a nap was zero.  She and I went downstairs for quiet time (Curious George) while Jason tried to finish some of the chores we had hoped to knock out together.

Later in the afternoon we sadly discovered that during the rapid clean up, Jason cleaned the kid, I cleaned the bed but neither of us located the actual diaper.  These fancy diapers are filled with super absorbent gel.  Washing machines are filled with water and the two together are a very bad combination.  The 'fabric' in the diapers is not strong enough to withstand the expansion that occurs during a wash / rinse cycle.  Upon failure, the diaper released thousands of small gel balls into the machine and all over the sheets and the wet furry friends.

The newly gelled sheets and friends were taken outside shaken violently then rewashed.  I'm pretty confident that if Jason had been observed shaking the naked, wet Raggedy Ann dolls on the front porch that the authorities would have been summoned.  While the stuffed animals were being violated, the washing machine had to be wiped out and vacuumed.  All around - yuck.

I think its kind of sad that the whole event has had such a lasting impact upon Lucy.  She looks so sad when she tells me that she 'poo poo in da bed'.  I try to be reassuring and we talk about using the potty and telling us before she needs to go.  My knowledge of psychological issues is limited to about five college courses in 1989 therefore I'm no expert, but I do recall that too much emphasis on the potty process can really screw a person up.  She's so young and I think it's too early to select the issue that she'll be in therapy over just yet.  I'd like to wait longer and see what my options are, I'm sure we'll find something much better than toddler poop.

The unexpected

I read this yesterday:

The official diagnosis by Oncology this AM:"Adeno Carcinoma of the pancreas which has metastasized to my liver"*In other words - I have Stage 4 Pancreatic Cancer which Metastasized to my Liver. *My prognosis WITHOUT future Chemo therapy is 6-12 months.

This is not the facebook update you want to read from anyone, let alone your friend who is a 35 year old single dad with a bright five year old son. I'm heartbroken and thankful that because of his age and relative health (other than the stage 4 cancer) the doctors are willing to start an aggressive chemo program. It won't be easy and no matter what, miracles included, he's looking at a 5 year window. I'm traveling next week for work which will put me within an hours drive of the VA hospital where he's been the past 2 months during the diagnosis process.

We have a date to visit, but he has the option to wave me off at any point - including if I'm standing at the door and he's not up to it. I hope I get to see him, but naturally I'm nervous that I'll say the wrong thing. ;My instinct is to take him comfort food or a cozy quilt for his next few months of chemo, but I think I'll just go an listen to him.

 We worked together at MegaBank and our relationship was good, I liked him from the start even though it was mostly us on the phone, email, and Instant Message. I think we only were in the same city four or five times in eight years. When things at the bank started to go south, he would call and express his worry, stress and fear and after the bank died we continued to talk from time to time but mostly in the "TP is a great listener" way. So, since my gift to him has always been the ability for him to unload I'll sit and listen as long as he likes.

This visit won't be about my sadness or fear for him but in this venue I can share here that it scares the heck out of me.

Jason and I started doing our estate planning in November and are finally wrapping it up with the attorney this week, which has resulted in phone calls to our most trusted family members to ask the horrible question "will you be willing to take Lucy if something happens to us?" Monday, when I made the phone call to the back up I said "not that we'll ever need it." But, you can't know that for sure... no one can. Seeing someone realistically faced having to work out who will continue the job of raising his beloved child is awful, and almost too real to think about.

I know that Lucy would be loved and nurtured by anyone in our family who took her in. Financially she would be fine, but naturally I want to be there to give her "the" talk when she thinks she ready to date. I want to be the one to talk to her about why it is important to be nice to all the kids, not just the popular ones. I want to be there to talk her off the ledge after her dad tries to teach her to drive. I want to be the one to tell her when she's crossed the line, or when she needs to push herself harder. I signed up for that, willingly.

Lucy has an email account and I send her mail from time to time. I told her all about her first birthday, I write to her when I'm traveling and have tried to encourage the grandparents to write to her. I hope that when she reads these messages that she doesn't think its silly, but I like being able to tell her stuff when I'm thinking about it and not wait until she's eight or ten to tell her these little things.

Our wise #2 Lucy adopt-a-parent suggested that we leave with our wills a letter that talks about our intentions for her regarding religion, morals, money, that sort of thing. I'm not sure we could sum it up into one letter and it would change from year to year, but maybe I'll try. I have faith in the folks we have selected for Lucy and there are no conflicting values that cause me any worry, so a care and feeding letter isn't forthcoming from me just yet. A current where to find the insurance, who to call at our employers, where the will is located and who our attorney is letter is forthcoming.

I think it's natural to look at other people's suffering and want to help and I think it's honest to say "whew, thankfully that isn't me". I don't think we need to live under a shadowy cloud of "oh it could be me at any moment" but learning from others and accepting a wake-up call is important. I'm praying for my friend and his son.

I hope I get to see my friend next week and I hope that he is at peace and ready to battle. I also hope that if there comes a point where the treatment is doing more harm than good that he'll have the courage to stop and simply be with his son. I hope, I hope, I hope...

Workin' It

 This morning when I picked up Lucy from her crib to bring her into our room she put her little hands on both sides of my face and gave me a big kiss. My heart melted and I went out and bought that 22 month old kid a car. (kidding)

For Georgia

Spoke too soon

The layout...

 Never brag about things going smoothly during a home remodel.  That is the exact moment when the Renovation Gods will decide to smite you.  Thursday, bright and early Paul, the tile installer knocks on our door.  On time and friendly - you can't beat it.

He looks at our space, assures us that the wall preparation is sufficient and then asks me to come outside and look at the tile.  I'm excited because I remember the tiles from our selection day, but this is the real deal.

Everything looks really great until he says in a Russian accent (that I promptly picked up and had with me until I called for an exorcism) "We have problem.  You see subway tile too short, other tile tall.  If I install you have bump.  It isn't right, you agree?"

Then he had me look at it from the side and sure enough... the edge of the stainless tile isn't finished (and no one said it would be) and the height differences between the subway and the decorative tile is significant.  In a lot of instances 1/4 of an inch means nothing - but in tiling it matters.  He told me he could build up the thinset under the subway tiles, but where the tile ends it would be ugly.

The problem

I made a call to the service manager, sent him some pictures and after some discussion we sent Paul and his assistant away.

I was asked "isn't it the tile you picked out with K, our tile designer?"    Yes it is, but all the tiles were mounted on boards and since K is the professional designer shouldn't she have known that the height differences would be an issue?  I'm just the customer who knew enough not to do this job on my own, and picked things that were pretty.

K is on vacation until Wednesday, and Jeff the service manager didn't want to place an order for replacement tile without talking to K.  I understand that, it would be bad to order the wrong stuff twice.   The sad thing is that replacement tile takes 3 weeks as I think it's a custom order.

To make our kitchen usable and to avoid damaging the exposed drywall around the sink we purchased foam core and made our own "tile".

My hope is to have this job completed before my in-laws come back in October, but with the lead time and business travel - it's going to be tight.

Another minor update on our weekend

Apologies for the previous discombobulated post, I had a thought that if I bundled all the air travel stories into one block it would be a better read, apparently it was simply confusing.

My mom called last night to ask where was the picture of Lucy in her dress for the wedding.  There is no picture, Lucy did not attend the wedding.  The ceremony started at 6:30 pm and Lucy promptly turns into a pumpkin around 7:00, so we left her with trusted friends and enjoyed a baby free evening.   It was a tough decision as I wanted to show off my cute little girl and the dress we bought for her was fabulous.  Alas, we returned the $95.00 baby dress and didn't even try it on.  Someone suggested we put her in it and take a picture before we took it back, but the risk of marring the dress was not worth the photo.  There will be other weddings and other dresses.  In a family as large as Jason's, I'm sure of it.

Oh a different note, we walked Lucy over to the elementary school in Jason's neighborhood to play on the rather awesome jungle gyms.  This would have been the school that Jason attended as a young person had it not been the 70's and the excellent concept of Busing hadn't been in effect.  He walked everyday to the neighborhood school, then rode the bus for 40 minutes to downtown Denver.  He didn't like it, and I'm pretty sure his parents weren't too excited about it either.  There's no "quickly running over to the school" to drop off a forgotten lunch, or pick up a sick child when the school is 40 minutes away.

Jason's parent's don't live in an exclusive, high end neighborhood, but it is well maintained and the school has recently been invested in.  The playgrounds are fantastic and even though there was a separate area designed for kids under the age of 6, Lucy was taken with the big swings, the big slides and the big jungle gym.  I think we've got a fearless kid on our hands.

This big swing set had a chair designed for bigger kids that need to be in a more secure seat.  It was big for Lucy, but she loved it, as you can tell:







I have to confess, that we, Lucy's parents, are not perfect and we did not notice that there was a locking mechanism to the bracket that held Lucy safely in the seat.  When her dad pulled her back really far so he could do the alley oop (meaning run under her while she was swinging) the bracket opened slightly and she slid right out onto the ground.  Funny how these things go in slow motion.  Thankfully, Lucy took the perfect tumble.  Straight onto her feet, then her bum, she gently tipped onto her back and her head landed lightly on the soft wood chips.  She screamed and cried and immediately started making the sign for "more".  Sure, she was scared and didn't want to fall but she wanted back in that swing - ASAP.  Brave kid!

The other thing I'm grateful for is that Grammy wasn't there to see it.  She had walked back to the house to get sunscreen.  She did arrive in time to hear the crying, but witnessed Lucy's "get back on the horse" spirit.

Taxi cab attorney

I survived the sickness enough that the urgent care doctor told me I could travel to my business meeting Tuesday.  My flight was somewhat easy, but I was the slow lumbering person you hate to get behind at the airport.   Eventually I made it to sunny, but chilly Las Vegas (65... brrrrr)

My taxi driver initiated conversation, asking where I was from and why I was in town.  I said for a meeting and he kept asking questions so much so that I shared that I was in information security and through the course of the conversation that I had worked at a bank.

Serge (not his real name) perked right up and said "You worked for a bank?  What do you know about short sales?"

"Not much, I've done some reading."

"I got this paper here that says that they are selling my house and I need to know what it means."   Then he hands me this 5 page letter from Bank of America.  As he's handing it through the glass I'm telling him, I'm not a lawyer. "no, but you seem smart, please read it and tell me what it means."

I quickly scanned through the document and it was pretty clear.  He had a mortgage for $200k, the bank had accepted an offer for $130k and would be writing off the remaining $70k.

He asked me to explain the fine print which essentially said that Bank of America could NEVER sue him for the  remainder amount of the loan, that he would be entitled to zero monies as part of the transaction, no funds would be handed to him even to hand over to the other party and that the deal would close on December 15.

We had a brief chat about Primary Mortgage Insurance and how the bank would be getting any money from any claims related to PMI on his loan.  It was then that he said that he had saved for years and years and bought this house with 20% down so he didn't have PMI.  He asked why if Bank of America would accept $130k for his house from Eduardo Somebody, why they wouldn't take $130 from him so he and his family could keep the house.   That is the question of the decade Serge.

At the end of the short cab ride, Serge asked if he could sleep that night.  I told him that yes, the deal seemed good, he didn't have to pay anything, he wasn't in any trouble and as long as they were ready to move by December 15th that yes, he could sleep at night. At the hotel he thanked me profusely and took my cab $25 fare and was off.  Heck, he almost hugged me.

I felt pretty good about our interaction until the cab ride back to the airport and the charge was only $12.50.  

I guess no good deed goes unpunished.

I did sit down at a 1 cent machine and put in $5.  I walked away when my winnings totaled over $50.  I felt that for a business trip that was a nice conversion rate.  Other than that little moment in the casino I was in my room.  I napped, took a bath, ordered room service and went to bed early.  So much for Terri's Wild Vegas Evening.  The meeting was good and really worth my time.  It sucked getting home at midnight last night, but much better than another night away from home.

It's only Thursday.

Oh gosh, this baby thing has finally caught up with me.  I'm POOPED and I don't mean in the stinky diaper kind of way - but we could talk about that too if you like.  No?  Ok, onto my baby story.

Lucy is an awesome sleeper.  She gives us some kind of indication that she's tired - like eye rubbing or general crankiness and we throw her little body up over the stairs and she quiets right down.  KIDDING.  Dad or I pick her up for a snuggle as we gently carry her to her room.  The routine varies a bit, she might get a story (Good Night Gorilla !  LOVE IT)  or simply move into the wardrobe change.  A new diaper, pj's and miss thing is zipped up into a sleep sack.  We will be blanket free until after 6 months or when the weather finally gets cold. (Wait a ding dong minute, it is still cold!?)

After she's appropriately dressed and bundled we simply put her in the crib turn on the rain sounds.  As an aside I would like to give the maker of the iPhone application with the pounding amazon rain a big wet kiss.  It has been an amazing gift to our world.  Lucy might fuss for a few minutes, but then she relaxes into her pretty pink floral sheet and she's out.   Daddy (who returns to being Jason at that point) and I will sit down for dinner, pick up the house, watch tv or whatever until it is time to move our base of operations upstairs.

Usually, Lucy will sleep for about 5 or 6 hours and then need food.  If she goes to bed early - 6:30 being what I consider early then she will wake up in the 11pm to 2am range.  She's like my Grandpa Parkey,  asleep at 6:30 awake at 4am and as a bonus, spits food while she eats.  Anyway...the closer it is to 2am when she wakes up the better because it increases the likelihood that she won't be up until 6am (our own wake up time.)

Last night, she was up at 11:30 - down by 12:15, and then there was a wardrobe malfunction that resulted in the swaddle unit of her sleep uniform being bunched up at her face. The part of the sleepsack that binds her arms is not attached to the backing and she can wiggle her arms free from the bottom which bunches up the wrap around her face. This woke her up at 3:00 am.

It would have been VERY easy to give her a bottle of formula and put her back to sleep.  However, we are getting to the age (3 months!) where a middle of the night feeding isn't required.  At night time, 5 hours should be the interval.  So, through the glory of marital partnership and baby monitors we let her put herself back to sleep without a bottle - for the first time.  It took an hour, but it worked.   There was a lot of discussion while we were doing it if we were doing the right thing. It's hard to hear her cry and know we CAN fix it. However, as her cries became more and more spread apart and we could tell she never hit the "Dammit Momma, I'm *&%() HUNGRY" stage we knew we were on the right path.

All that work was great but at 5am when she awoke again she was genuinely hungry - so we were up. 

I need a mommy nap.


As I was searching for an image to borrow to show I was tired I ran across plenty of pictures of parents faking their sleep with their little baby.  But, these folks... WOW  look at the angle of their little one - they are genuinely knocked out.  So cute!

Duh...

A few weeks ago we had our one year warranty walk thru with our home builder.  Our house is in good shape but there's lots of nail pops and hairline cracks in corners, so today is the day that the dry wall repair person is here.  A tile grout dude is also showing up to redo the kitchen counters and make repairs in our shower.  I think they used the wrong products and considering the lack of argument the inspector made I think they know it.

A great thing about working at home is that I can be here without interrupting my work schedule.  However, I made Jason stay home (work from home as well) because I'm attending a charity lunch event that has been on the calendar for months.   We didn't want to abandon our house while the workers were here. This morning we finished prepping for the workers and I got dressed in my finest charity lunch get up (skirt) so as to be ready before the first worker arrived.  I felt a little silly for being so dolled up on a day when so much manual labor was going to take place in our house.  It sort of screams "I'm not helping with anything."

I took my decaf coffee to my desk and looked at the calendar.  Sigh.  The charity lunch is NEXT Wednesday.  I had about 6 seconds to change back into normal clothes before the first worker arrived.  Silly me. 

The good news (other than the fact that our builder cares enough to fix the little stuff in our lovely home) is that now I can use my previously busy lunch time to try to finish my excellent book club book.  The meeting is tonight and I have 230 pages to go.  I'm 415 pages in and the story is zipping by.  I think I can do it.

Again!?

"Drill Baby Drill" aren't these the wise words of Sarah Palin?  Well, here we go again with another rig in the Gulf of Mexico on fire.  Let's pray that the well is contained.

Thanks to the Seattle Times for the excellent graphic that shows us where the rig is located by using Google maps.  I feel so much more clear about where this occurred by that map.

"We're going to love this brand to death" H. Schultz

Oh my...I'm sure you all know that Starbucks owns the Seattle's Best Coffee brand.  It was a smart acquisition for *$ and many thought it would spell the end of a loved Seattle brand.  Well, the demise has been slow - but the plot seems pretty clear.


SBC has been disappearing from loved locations (downtown, Bellevue Square) and now has a "snappy" new logo to go with it's quieter presence in the marketplace.

Frankly, I could have come up with something better than that using my "excellent" Word Art program.  It looks a lot like a jacked up Target logo which makes me wonder will they be co-locating into Target stores?  No, they won't because Starbucks is already there.  Silly us.  Say good-bye to this historic Seattle based brand - it is officially dead.

Put a pin in it

I forgot to mention that one of the conditions of the speeding ticket deferment is that in addition to not getting another moving violation in the next year I also can't get a felony conviction.

With that constraint sitting on my head I guess I'm going to have to put my impending crime spree on hold for a bit.

I know you were all excited about getting to read my insider story of crime in the big city of Renton under my super secret pen name, but it will have to wait until after February 15th, 2011. That's when I'll be free to plunder.

I could spend this time plotting the perfect crime, but instead I think I'll go get a coffee.

Arts & Crafts

My dream of making a swinging 70's disco outfit for my fella has died. I have cut the fancy white fabric (with a hint of sparkle) into the pattern pieces and after a few hours of pinning, sewing, cussing, cutting the seam out, repinning, and then resewing - I have cobbled together a flowing white monstrosity.

In an effort to not make it too small it is ENORMOUS and shapeless. We've decided to "finish" it, but only to a point and then try to make it something else at Halloween. I'm thinking... clean room janitor for Elton John.

I think it was a gallant effort and I did manage to put a nice neat hem on our new dining table cloth.

The floor is strewn with tiny pieces of threat shrapnel and I've dipped into boxes I haven't seen since before I started shacking up with the dude last September. (Look at me admit I went over for a weekend and never left.)

So, I tried. I don't think it was a total failure, but I'm thankful we ordered a backup plan from super costumes.com or some such place.

No matter. It's the weekend!

Have a good one.

How breakfast can be an all day activity

For some reason (maybe the wine with friends the night before) I was moving a little slower this morning than I normally would. We didn't discuss it, but I knew when I awoke it would be a miraculous event for me to be motivated to head to church.

Around 8, I moved from the wondrous nook on my side of the bed and headed downstairs. Jason has been working on our wireless network for days and days and he was already at it when I shuffled by the office door. "Coffee?" "Yes please!"

I made us two coffees and shuffled back upstairs. He was not at his desk, but was coming back, so I set the large RED cup filled with hot coffee on the corner of his WHITE desk. It was not teetering on the edge, or in a dangerous location. I then moved back to our room and HGTV.

About 1 minute later I heard a crash and a panicked husband calling "help! towels. ahhh." The entire cup was on the floor, dripping down the edge of his desk, pooled in the drawer pulls on the dresser thing where we keep paper and pens.

I thought, wow. I'm glad I wasn't the one who spilled (because even though the clothes detergent flung itself off the washing machine when I wasn't even in the room I feel responsible) this time. The clean up involved essentially dismantling the desks to move Jason's PC tower away from the brown liquid. This took quite a while, and things are still not back to normal in the office.

The cleaning operation became a one person task so I again moved downstairs to make breakfast. Eggs, hash browns, rolls and low sodium bacon (honestly, you can't tell the difference.) I am still quite excited about cooking in the new kitchen with the wedding gift pots and pans. The bacon browned up nicely but the hash browns were a terrible mess. The oil almost instantly turned my beautiful skillet an icky brown. I thought that our secret trick of using baking soda as a cleaner would work it out in a jiffy after we ate.

WRONG.

I let it soak for hours, but no dice. I made a paste and tried elbow grease... no change.

Jason reminded me that the Macy's lady and the William Sonoma people were trying to sell us "Bar Keeper's Friend" so off to Target we head (well, I went to Target, and Jas went back to Fry's for one last attempt at wireless network building.) Target is a wonderful place to find treats. I found Santa cheese spreaders, a trash bin for my side of the bathroom, saran wrap, catsup, and a 6 foot lighted artificial Christmas tree. (I knew I would get a tree upstairs and downstairs this year. glee!)

Once we arrived back home - well over an hour after we "zipped" out for the cleaner I gave "BKF" (that is the name on the packaging) a try. I would conservatively estimate that it took about 30 minutes of hard core elbow grease and BKF to get the pan back to its original state.

So, here it is 3:30 and I'm just finishing the breakfast dishes.

I need a nap.

WE HAVE TO MOVE

The new house is now marred and ruined for all eternity.

It is sad.

Today, I opened a box that had a wonderful blanket called "The Minkie" that Peter the cat use to love... and by love, I don't mean adore and respect, but LOVE in that husband and wife way. I'm pretty sure I have shared that information before, but a quick search of the blog finds no relevant entries. (found it. ) What I can say is that it's a good thing the cat was neutered and that the blanket has no rights because I'm sure the Blanket Protective services might have wanted to take the blanket into protective custody.

My point... the blanket after all THAT abuse and a year in storage needed a good wash in the clothes washer.

The Samsung commercials that show some kid balancing delicate stuff on the washer and dryer to demonstrate their "quiet and non-jumpy" the machines - are, well BULLSHIT.

Our new tub of blue liquid clothes detergent launched itself off the washer and exploded when it hit the floor. I would estimate about 2 cups of liquid hit the carpet and another half cup was splattered, Jackson Pollock style across, the ceiling and walls of our brand-damn-new house.

Jason made the saddest sounds as he soaked in (no pun intended) the damage. Frankly, for someone with mild OCD I thought he handled himself pretty well. As I started to mop up the floor and carpets he made his way to QFC to get a carpet cleaner.

We got the carpet back to normal, but the walls and ceiling in the laundry area and stairwell are a nightmare. The "quality" builder grade paint turned to mush while simply dabbing the blue drips. I got one spot so "wet" that when I touched it to test the spot my fingerprints left indents in the reliquefied paint.

I will have to touch up the ceiling (thankfully a low one) and the walls on the stairs. But I'm not thrilled. I know I could take the paint sample to a quality paint store like www.dalyspaint.com and have them match it, but I'm afraid that since I'm doing spot touch up that the difference between even mildly decent paint and this shitty builder grade paint would be noticeable. I certainly don't want to have to paint the whole staircase (considering it's at least 18 tall.)

So, the house is ruined and we have to move. I'm so bummed because we just unpacked most of the boxes yesterday. What are you all doing next weekend? Wanna come over?