I Missed a NaBloPoMo Day

I got home from the night job at 10 last night and settled in to watch Rachel Maddow interview Jon Stewart, planning to do a blog post during the first commercial break.

I fell asleep somewhere after they exchanged their opening niceties. 

That’s no reflection on Rachel and Jon, who my husband said did a terrific interview.  It has more to do with my current physical state:  exhaustion.

I’m disappointed that I missed a NaBloPoMo deadline, because I had done so well this year — actually posting for 10 days straight.  But I’m going to pick it back up again and see if I can finish this month off with a daily post — without writing a bunch of them ahead of time and setting them to automatically post. 

Now, back to work, me.  Let’s get on with it!

R.B.O.C. Post

Every morning, I have a brilliant idea for a post.  By the evening, it’s gone.

So,now I present random bullets of crap:
— Sydney threw out her back.  Trying to keep her comfortable is hard. 
— Never again will I teach 2 new-to-me classes in a semester.  Too much start-up work.
— It’s supposed to snow this weekend.
— I’m going to a WordPress Camp this weekend. I may learn to code PHP.
— I need a vacation.
— I need a housekeeper.  Must price a cleaning service, because I’m not getting the promised help from the family.

Sent from my Palm Pre on AT&T

Oh, Her Aching Back

Sydney’s not been herself for the past couple of days.  Each day, she appears more miserable, and was starting to breathe funny.  Plus she had a funky smell about her head that I couldn’t pinpoint.  I called this morning to make an appointment with the vet.

By the time I got home from work and took Sydney to the vet, she was shivering constantly and doing some heavy panting.  I was wondering what kind of temperature she was running, and was she going to seize up on me on the way to vet.  We made it in one piece, with nary a peep from Sydney, who is usually my backseat driver.

Got to the vet.  He took one look at Sydney and said, “Oh no, not another one!”  Apparently there had been three other dogs he saw today with back issues.  He touched her back, and she flinched.  Manipulated her stomach — no problem.  No fever, and the smell was just because she has bad breath and needs her ears cleaned.

After a set of x-rays to check for spinal issues, and to double-check her heart and lungs, Sydney was pronounced perfectly healthy, but in a world of back pain.  So I went away with a prescription for some pain killers and a low dose of prednisone.  (For Sydney, not for me)  Also good to know there was no disk issues and her spine is essentially healthy.  She’s 12 1/2-years-old.  You just never know..

Sydney had fallen off my bed last week, but I didn’t think anything of it.  I was too busy yelling at Rachel to pay attention and make room for the dogs.  Sydney was slow to get back on the bed, but seemed fine.  I guess now I know she was faking being fine until she couldn’t fake it anymore.

She’s sleeping in a slightly-stoned bliss now, and breathing much calmer.  I just have to keep the kids from messing with her while she heals.

I now know shivering and heavy panting are a sign of pain in dogs.  I did not know that.  It’s a good day — I learned something, and Sydney’s just fine.  Before we left the clinic, she tried to take the face off a cock-a-poo puppy.  She may be in pain, but she’s always The Feisty Squid.

In the Way

While trying to find out what Macalester T was barking at, I got in his way.  I guess I was blocking his view of the vermin in our neighbor’s yard that he was trying to bark away.  He let me know I was underfoot, and gave me a good hard bite on the back of my hand.

It didn’t break my skin, but it was so close, I could see the black and blue mark forming from underneath.  He must have grabbed a nerve in the same area, because it felt like my hand was on fire.  Being a Scottie, he was totally unrepentant of the injury he causes me — I was in the way.

This evening, getting in the car after having pizza at a local joint, I whacked the same hand, in the same spot, on my car door frame.  Yet again, in the way.  You’d think I’d know where the door was on this car — I’ve been driving it for 4 years now!

It will be interesting to see what it does overnight.

Documentation

A document came in the mail today from the MN Historical Society.  It was a copy of the death certificate for my Uncle Marvin, who had died in childhood.  All I knew about him was that he was 10 when he died, he had leukemia, and had a favorite nurse at the U of M where he had had some treatment. 

The one or two pictures that I have seen of him were of a blond little boy, with a big scarf wrapped around his neck to cover up a tumor on his neck, sitting next to his nurse, and he was wearing a huge sweater that looked hand knit.  I have a small headshot of Uncle Marvin, probably cut from a copy of the larger picture.  My brother David looked just like Marvin at that age.  Probably one of the many reasons my grandparents doted on him.

That’s all I know.  Uncle Marvin just wasn’t talked about.  My dad won’t say anything when asked, and my mom filled me in on the few details that I have — it’s all she knows.

When I found out I could get his birth and death certificate through the MN Historical Society, I decided to order copies.  I wanted to have some documentation of this mystery family member to go with the small picture I have of him.  I have no idea if there were other pictures.  My Aunt Phyllis had all the family pictures, and never responded to my request to get some copies of the pictures.  She died two years ago, and the pictures are long gone, I guess.

At least have something other than a small picture — Uncle Marvin’s death certificate.  The death certificate revealed some new information.

Uncle Marvin was 9 years and 2 months old when he died — right to the day.  His birthday was 9/27/1932 and his death date 11/27/1941.  He was buried on 12/1/1941.  Lymphosarcoma has been the contributing reason for his death — whether it was Hodgkins or Non-Hodgkins, it doesn’t say.  There may have not been that designation in the 1940’s.

He had had lymphosarcoma for 2 1/2 years — so he must have been diagnosed when he was 6 1/2 years old.  He died in Grove City, the small town near my grandparent’s farm.  The actual cause of death was pressure on the neck and mediastinum.  Which, according to what I’ve been able to figure out, means he suffocated to death, under the weight of his tumor.

What I’ve been able to figure out, thanks to the internet, Uncle Marvin’s cancer is pretty survivable these days.  One site has the survival rate at 75% with some standard treatments.  Not perfect, but darn good.

All this makes me wonder what it would have been like if Uncle Marvin hadn’t gotten sick, hadn’t died.  Would he have stayed on the farm?  Would he have moved to the Cities like his big brother?  Would he have been in the military and have seen action in Korea or done service in Japan or Germany?  Would I have cousins and another aunt? So many questions, and absolutely no answers.

All I have is a little bit of documentation of a short life.  It will have to do.

What I’ve Done Today Before 7:30 AM

It’s been a busy morning for me already, pre-caffeine. I’ve:

  • responded to a student and resolved a technical issue with an online exam
  • created a 10 slide PowerPoint presentation
  • scratched a dog or two or three
  • written a blog post (this one)

It’s my day off. It might as well be productive. I’ll be doing a bunch of grading and class prep for the rest of the day. Bring on the caffeine!

**** Update ****
By 7:50 am, I had redesigned the blog.  What do you think?

Now I’ll eat breakfast and grade some papers.

I’m Too Old for This

I’m not putting up with bull shit, bullying, or any kind of crap anymore. I’ve officially had it up to ***here*** with people determining I’m incompetent because they don’t like my style .

I use to joke that when I was an old lady with a cane, I’d be using my cane to keep people in line that weren’t behaving. Well, I’m not that old and I’m not planning to have a cane in the next 40 years, but I’m feeling the need to whip some assholes into shape.

My cane will be my words, until the day when I officially need a cane. And then my words and the cane will tag team.

Today I had to publicly dress-down another election judge. He was jumping into every conversation I was having with voters who had registration questions (my election job is a voter registration judge) and distracting/confusing the answers I was giving.

After about two hours of this interference and in the middle of another interfering act, I publicly dressed-down this guy clearly and concisely, and made him shut up. I then smiled at the voter, answered his questions, and made sure he had the right documentation that would allow him to register to vote and vote on the same day. AKA doing my job.

The other irritating thing was that this other judge had been trailing me and critiquing everything I did once he found out I was the registration judge. I was being bullied.

It’s too bad it took me two hours to deal with it, but I needed that time to figure out how to address the situation without using a bunch of obscenities. Plus, I had a bunch of registrants that needed my help. They come first.

I don’t know how the actual elections will turn out (other than how they turned out for my precinct), but I know there was one clear winner today: me.