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I received an email today from an old friend's daughter, Danielle. Nancy (her mother) and I have been friends since we were 13 years old. While I moved to the West Coast soon after college, Nancy stayed in Illinois, married at 21 years old and started a family. I was her wedding photographer. Over the years, phone calls became fewer and letters dwindled to the yearly xmas card. About a year ago, we found each other on IM and we've had a few marathon sessions exchanging the unabridged version of our xmas card letters; adding the "how and why" of the "who, what, when" of our lives.

Danielle is her oldest child and she is getting married in September. Her very sweet letter asked if I would photograph her wedding. I'm very touched that she would want the same person who photographed her parent's wedding about 30 years ago to document her special day. She grew up seeing my photographs on the wall and looking through the wedding album. Even if I could find a way to go to Illinois in September, I would never assume I could photograph a wedding. I don't have the equipment anymore, I don't know if I have the eye or the stamina to do a good job. Her mother's was my first wedding shoot and I only did a handful more during my free-lance days. I approached all of them as an ethnographic study, the outsider recording a rite of passage.

I haven't responded yet. I know I will decline, but part of me wishes there was a way I could do this. I'm feeling very old tonight.

Current Mood: touched
Current Location: 94577

test

Finally after much needling from

stonebender and

dbubley , I have a new computer - that and the last straw in the form of a very bad infection that made my computer only open in Safe Mode. My new baby is bright and shiny and I have a 22" monitor too! The only down side is the OS, it's Vista. I can't say I hate it yet, since I've only been on it maybe 2 hours total, but it does seem bloated. Although compared to my old, old computer esp. after it was infected, this one is like driving on the Autobahn vs. a single lane gravel road. The jury will be out on Vista for a while. I always hate the first part of the learning curve, there will be lot of grumbling "XP had it right there - where did Vista f*cking put it?"

dbubley has the same one, since her computer died while she was on her "medically mandated vacation." We paid a little extra and had a Fry's nerd come out and hook us up and make our network secure. Now, when friends come over with their lap tops, we have the password for them. Yay!

Now the hunt for all the software, so I can load up what I need.

Current Mood: accomplished
Current Location: 94577

Don't know how and when I picked up a Trojan virus, but it has made my computer completely dead except in safe mode. I'm trying to get my data off it and then I'm thinking I'll drill a hole through the hard drive and buy a new one. Or not. My computer is about 7 years old, I think. I'm ready for a new one.

dbubley 's computer is also dead. It's been sitting there for 4 months. I think I turned it on once. Maybe it died of loneliness. Perhaps we'll be shopping for two computers.

After four long months,

dbubley is coming home today. The hospital bed arrived and it's all set up. There might be some problems, but we'll deal with them as they come up. I took the week off, I think this will help us both. We have to figure out food stuff because she has to eat a low potassium diet to protect her remaining kidney.

Now I should get some sleep. I have to get up in about 5 hours.

Current Mood: anxious

We had some very rubbery calamari for dinner tonight. I gave Pippin a piece. She carried it around for 15 minutes. She'd run outside with it, then run back in, drop it on the floor, look at it and then pick it up again and repeat the running outside. Finally, she had the breading off, which I assume she ate, but still the little tentacle survived. She'd come around the corner, stop and looked at me with about two inches of it hanging out of the side of her mouth. She's still running around with it, tossing it in the air and chasing it. Who knew squid could be so entertaining for our dog.

Current Mood: silly
Current Location: 94577

Can you tell which photo was taken with which device? Neither one has had any manipulation. If you would have told me 10 years ago that I would prefer digital photography, I would have called you crazy. If you told me a year ago that I would have trouble telling a cell phone camera photo from my digital camera, I would again have pronounced you crazy. And now I'm really loving the prints I get from my little HP Photosmart printer. You're sane and I'm falling crazy in love with photography all over again.

Answer is in the comments.

Current Mood: surprised

Me: Good Morning, Rent Adjustment

Caller: Hello, you send me my filo.

Me: Excuse me?

Caller: December 18, 2008 is my filo

After several minutes we struggled to an understanding. She wanted a complete copy of her file mailed to her. She didn’t know the case number, but the Hearing date was Dec. 18.

Me: To order a copy of your file, the cost is .06 per page and it must be paid before we make the copies.

Caller: How much?

Me: I don’t know because I have not seen your file yet.

Caller: How much?

Me: I will need to find your file and count the pages and give you a call back with the cost.

Caller: Okay. How much?

This went on for a few more minutes, with several more requests to mail her “filo” as soon as possible. Finally we both understood each other and I promised to call her back within the hour. When I called her back about 30 minutes later, she was not there.

An hour later she called me and said “Cancel my filo. I fine filo in house.”

At this point we were pretty good at understanding each other. She had found her copy and no longer needed us to make a copy for her.

Filo Canceled – Case Closed!

Current Mood: calm
Current Location: 94612

Just as I was going to jump in the shower and go to the hospital, she called and said they were sending her back to KPPACC. Her numbers are normal. Now I'm off to work with absolutely No spring in my step. And I have a file review with someone who is sueing the city this morning. Must*Keep*Mouth*Shut because the brain certainly ain't up to speed today.

Current Mood: exhausted

I was trying to get to sleep. I heard a phone ring and I thought it was on tv, but it wasn't. Nothing like a call at 3 am to get the adrenaline going. The man said he was from Kaiser and wanted to talk to dbubley. In my half asleep state, my first thought was some kind of stupid Kaiser customer survey. I told him she was still at KPPACC and why are you called at 3 am! He said he was from the Kaiser Lab and was checking on her because she had a high potassium count (6.1.) Okay at this point my mind cleared, as I whipped off my cpap mask and jumped out of bed. I don't know why his information didn't include her current location, but I'm glad he got through to me. I assume he called dbubley's number first and I'll probably find a message on her machine tomorrow. It's good to know they have my name and number correctly in their system. He's going to call KPPACC. I thought about calling her, but I don't want to wake her up. I'm sure the staff will do that soon enough. I just sent her a text message, so if she is awake, I should get a call back.

I know I need to get some sleep - I have to get up in 3 hours for work. Puppy class is tonight too. It's going to be a rough day.

I'm so tired of all this scary medical shit. And then there's the swine flu.
*pulling the covers over my head and setting the alarm for a year from now*

Edit/Update: She just called and they are taking her to the hospital. She says she feels fine, but obviously the rehab center doesn't feel they can deal with the high potassium level and possible complications. I'll try to get a few hours sleep and then see what I need to do. Work or hospital or some portion of each.

Current Mood: exhausted

She called me a little while ago and said she stood up under her own power for the first time this morning. Right now it looks like she might come home the first week in May. They will probably give her a hospital bed with a trapeze bar, which means we'd take out the futon in the front room and put the bed there. I hope I can get the dimensions before they deliver it, because I'm not sure how it will fit. We may have to move other stuff too.

Current Mood: busy
Current Location: 94612

I haven't posted a

dbubley update for a while. She is still in the rehab center. Her surgery incision is taken its own sweet time healing, but healing it is. To protect her one kidney, she is on a low potassium diet. I try to bring her some meals, because the food choices there are pretty limited. She never liked turkey or white meat chicken, but now she pretty much hates it.

On the mobility front, she is not getting up by herself, but once they help her up, she is taking 5 or 6 steps with the walker.

dbubley said it's like she has forgotten how to get to the standing position. Both she and PT's think she is strong enough to do it, but she can not get herself out of the chair. She thinks it might be a mental block and we're looking for someone to go to her and try some hypnotherapy to help her get over this. The only hypnotherapist we know doesn't travel. If any local folks know someone who might be willing to travel to San Leandro and work with

dbubley , please let me know.

We really hope she is home before this, but by the 3rd week in May, she will be out of her 100 days and have to come home, ready or not.

to be continued . . .

Current Mood: worried
Current Location: 94577

( Read more... )

Current Mood: bored
Current Location: 94612

I finally got all our taxes in the mail. With

dbubley still in the rehab center, I had to get hers done too. Such weirdness around the domestic partner stuff. I used H&R Block. Their software works in this fashion: Fill in Federal info first, then it imports it into the State version and WA LA your taxes are done for another year. But wait, The Fed's don't accept DP, but the State of CA requires DPs to file as "Married". So the dance begins, fill in the Fed as if you're married, let it import to the State, e-file or print out the State portion. Go back to Fed, remove all references to "married" and replace with single, e-file or print out the Federal portion. Doesn't sound too bad except you have to pull out each and every connection to the DP manually - separate all income and deductions. Then go back and forth to make sure you have everything, In addition, there doesn't seem to be anyway to save several versions so you can compare the best way to take each deduction. It took forever for the very sweet woman to complete it all. Then I made it worst by forgetting to bring some forms back that

dbubley signed. So even though I had my initial appointment on March 31, I only picked up the final paperwork on April 14th. I stood in line about 20 minutes to mail the big bulky State envelope.

I asked the woman why their software didn't have a way to make this easier and she said because H&R Block is national and they didn't want to confuse their agents in states were domestic partners were not recognized, which is still the vast majority of the states. You know another way they could make this all easier - the Federal government could just recognize DPs and then it would all be the same. Or let the government drop this entire "separate, but equal" crap and make all unions Domestic Partnerships or Marriages, I personally don't care which word they use. I know I'm preaching to the converted, for the most part, here on my friends list.

Glad it's all over for another year.

Current Mood: cranky

Here's the list of all the things I want/need to do today.
Clean Kitchen (I've actually cooked the last few days!)
Straighten Front Room
Sweep & Mop floors
Take out garbage
Laundry
Put grass pile in green bin - it's been sitting there for 2 weeks
Put all the tax stuff together and mail it.
Go through pile of papers and make sure I'm not missing anything important.
Make breakfast (that should move to the top of the list)
Take Guy to a movie
Bring

dbubley sushi today
Work on performance evaluation questionnaire due on Wed.
Work/play with Pippin - Tuesday's puppy class is coming fast.

or I could just go back to bed.

Current Mood: busy

I have a cold, a nasty "sit in my sinuses, hurt my whole face" kind of cold. My brains have turned to cotton and I think I have weevils. My ability to track even the smallest item takes an extraordinary amount of energy.

dbubley had another meal of meat loaf (which she doesn't like) and plain penna pasta - no sauce, no salt, nothing - at the rehab center tonight. I had planned on cooking tonight and bringing her dinner, but I just dumped 1/2 can of peaches into a 1/2 cartoon of cottage cheese and called it dinner. Taste buds have deserted me, so I could care less what I ate. Yesterday and today are Mandatory Business Shut Down Days, so I didn't have to work, but then I don't get paid either. The only thing that could make this worst right now, is if

stonebender or

dbubley got sick too.

Current Mood: sick
Current Location: 94577

Pippin is a crazy, happy, little dobie girl. She's a little over 8 months old now. Here are a couple of her "sharking" pictures with her friend Misha. Pippin is in the purple collar. They were together for 12 hours last Sunday. They wore each other out, both of them slept A LOT the next day.

Current Mood: happy
Current Location: 94577

swiped from

epi_lj : The subject line gives all the information.

Current Mood: cranky

I'm sure there will be more lawsuits and it will most likely go to the voters, but at least another court has said you can't make laws banning same-sex marriage. Baby steps, baby steps until we're running full out.

The Iowa Supreme Court unanimously rejected a state law Friday that banned same-sex marriage, and opponents wasted little time in pushing for a state constitutional amendment that could send the issue to voters.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/04/03/iowa.same.sex/index.html

He played my favorite character on Angel. At 33 years old, he died of heart disease caused by a tooth infection he had years ago, I never watched Angel in the original run, but in the last few years I'd catch it every weekday morning. They play the episodes in order, one at 6 am and another at 7 am. I get up at 6:30 am and leave at 7:30 am, so I see about 1/2 an hour of each episode. It starts my day.

I know very little about Andy except he had the chops and pipes to pull off playing a green demon who ran a karaoke bar in L.A. A demon who could read your future when you sang. He often was the comic relief, a scaredy cat clown, but when his friends were in danger, he was there hitting a high note as needed. He could be a world weary cynic on minute and crack me up the next with a pithy spot-on comment. I know the words had to be on the page and the director had to do his thing, but Andy pulled this minor character off that page and made him the heart of the show.

In the last episode, the big battle against evil, Angel asks him to do something important, but something he finds despicable. He says, " Hey, Angel, I'll do this last thing for you, for us...but then I'm out, and you won't find me in the alley afterwards. Hell, you won't find me at all. Do me a favor. Don't try."

Now we'll never find him, no future "hey, isn't that the guy who played Lorne" when watching a new tv show or movie. And then the required run to IMDB to prove if we are right or wrong. Funny how a person I never met, most likely never would meet, even if we both lived into the next century, has left a little mark on my heart.

http://www.eonline.com/uberblog/watch_with_kristin/b106789_angel_star_andy_hallett_dies_of_heart.html

Current Mood: sad

Life should be easier today; I heard all the Fools are taking the day off as a national holiday!

Too bad it only comes once a year.

Happy Day Without Fools

Current Mood: silly

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Just Another Herd Creature

or How I Got a DW Account

Recent Entries

Flattered, But Feeling Old

test

New Computer

Dbubley & Computers

Food or Toy? Toy or Food?

Camera Phone vs. Digital Camera

CANCEL MY FILO

dbubley update

Waiting

Another Dbubley Update

Dbubley

I should be working but . . .

Tax Day

Continuing Saga: Too Much to Do, Too Little Time

My Head Weighs 300lbs!

Our Puppy Makes Me Happy

Will this day never end?

A Push in the Right (I mean Left) Direction

Andy Hallett Died aka Lorne from Angel

Enjoy the Day