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I find it close to impossible to believe that it’s been one year since Katrina. One year? ONE?
It seems simultaneously like it’s been at least three years, and also like it just happened yesterday.
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I’ve been watching a lot of TV this week. I got caught up on all the episodes of
Secret Lives of Women I’ve taped in the last month (the weirdest episode:
Fetishes. I just don’t get the whole idea of being turned on by “training” another person who’s dressed up as a horse, but you know. Whatever floats your boat, I suppose.).
I also watched the two-hour series premiere of
China Beach, which I tape and watch every few years. That part where McMurphy is trying to take off her scrubs and the back of her shirt is glued to her back with dried blood brings me to tears every single time I watch it.
So many of the actors and actresses from that show will always be their China Beach characters to me.
Dana Delaney will always be McMurphy.
Brian Wimmer, Boonie.
Jeff Kober (who I’ve seen all over the place in small parts on shows like The Shield, CSI, ER, 24), Dodger.
Marg Helgenberger might be Catherine to an awful lot of you, but I still see KC, the hooker with a heart of gold.
Ricki Lake, Holly.
And what the hell ever happened to
Nan Woods (Cherry)? According to Internet Movie Database, the last acting she did was China Beach, and she hasn’t been seen since.
MAN I wish they’d put China Beach out on DVD.
Although now that I know how to work that whole BitTorrent thing, I wonder if I could find episodes to download?
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Earlier this week, Fred talked to our insurance lady (we get all our home, life, and car insurance through the same company) about the new house. She’d apparently made a trip out to the new house to look it over, over the weekend, and she told Fred that she thought that the fact that there were no stairs outside one of the doors meant there was going to be a problem with the appraisal. So Fred called the mortgage company and the woman he was dealing with there said the insurance lady was right, that it was a liability issue, and she’d call the appraiser and see what they had to say, so naturally we spent a day and a half worrying about it.
Eventually we’d like to put a small deck outside that door –
this door, for the record – but we didn’t want to do that quite yet (it’s pretty far down on our list of priorities), and we bitched and moaned about how idiotic this was, that we might be forced to put steps outside that door so that someone coming over to visit (“Can we sign a piece of paper stating that we never ever have anyone over to visit?” I offered.) wouldn’t say “Hey! A door with no steps! Let me see if I can fall out the door and harm myself!”, and then do so.
The answer came back from the appraiser that any old set of steps would do, so Fred called the owners Tuesday, and they said they’d have something in place by the end of the day.
Last night we went out and drove by the house just because we wanted to see what the drive was like at rush hour (answer: not bad at ALL) and we were wondering if they’d gotten anything in place for the stairs, and we drove by the house to see a set of concrete steps in place.
Then we came home and Fred emailed the owners and asked if they were going to be at the house on Saturday, because we’re going to be in the area for Fred’s father’s family’s family reunion, and we thought we’d eat and then leave and go over to the house and walk through it again.
“They’re going to refuse to sell the house to us, because I keep harassing them,” Fred said.
“Hey, she
said they were glad to be selling the house to us because we obviously love it,” I reminded him.
“Oh yeah.”
We’re now down to less than 30 days ’til closing. Once the appraisal goes off without a hitch (which I expect it to do), I think that’s really the last big hurdle and there’s nothing else that would prevent our buying this house.
I can’t WAIT.
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Last night we got into a discussion about whether or not we really want goats or sheep in the back part of the property. Fred wants them because he doesn’t want to have to cut back there every week. I don’t like the idea of having animals whose sole purpose is to eat grass so we don’t have to cut it; if we were raising animals for meat or milk and they also kept the grass short, that would be another story.
Of course, I don’t necessarily want to raise animals for meat or milk, either.
“We could just have a 4 1/2 acre garden,” Fred said.
“By all means, let’s not start out small and work our way up,” I snarked. “Let’s do something that will completely overwhelm us so that we give up and go running back to the suburbs.”
We’re definitely going to have chickens – layers, at least at first, and then possibly later on we’ll raise chickens to eat. Fred doesn’t think he could possibly kill a chicken. I think I’d have no problem – at least that’s what I like to think. When the time actually came, I can’t guarantee it’d be easy.
Fred is obsessed – OBSESSED, I tell you – about making it so that the cats will be able to see the chickens. He’s talked about putting up a fence in the back yard that will be privacy fence on two sides, and a chain-link fence on the back. He’s dying to see the cats all lined up, staring at the chickens.
He’s also obsessed about bring a goat or sheep into the back yard so he can see the cats react. I keep telling him I expect that after a while of the cats being freaked out, we’d end up looking out back to see Mister Boogers riding on the back of the sheep or goat, bitching the entire while.
I suggested last night to Fred that I can see a whole new section of my journal coming into focus. I think it’ll probably be called “Today’s ‘goddamnit’ moment.” As in, “Goddamnit, how did that CHICKEN get on the roof of the HOUSE and how do I get it down?”, or “Goddamnit, what’s that racoon doing trying to get into the chicken coop?”, or “Goddamnit, how’d that fucking sheep get out of the pasture AGAIN?”, and so forth.
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Okay, I just got back from my appointment with the surgeon. My appointment was at 10:15; I actually saw him around 11:30, but I was okay with that, because I got all Zen within my tiny little brain before I stepped into the office, saying “I have a book, I have a bottle of water, he’s going to be running late, what’ve I got planned for today? NOTHIN’.” And so when he walked in, I was perfectly happy to be sitting there with my book (though I was a little worried, because I was coming to the end of it, and to be in there without anything to read would have been BAD).
He checked my incisions, told me they looked good (especially my belly button incision), asked if I was having any pain or nausea (I’m not), and looked to see what the pathology results about my liver said.
Basically, the pathology results favor either
drug-induced cholestasis (one of the drugs that can cause it is oral contraceptives – which I’m taking) or, less likely, a virus. He told me to follow up with the GI, and I told him I had an appointment on Tuesday.
He also said that my gallbladder was sandy and sludgy and inflamed, but that there were no actual gallstones.
Eh. Who needs a gallbladder, anyway, right?
Then I got his okay to start exercising again (which I’ll be doing as of Monday morning.), but he told me no heavy lifting until six weeks after the date of surgery. Which means Fred will be cleaning out the litter box until then.
And my heart, my heart is broken. Because I SO adore cleaning out the litter box, as you can well imagine.
Luckily six weeks past my surgery will take us right up to closing on the house, so I’ll be okay to do any heavy lifting that I need to do at the house.
Naturally I’ll report back and let y’all know what the GI says on Tuesday.
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Miz Poo was laying in this bed minding her own business, when Tommy walked across the desk and settled in next to her. Miz Poo sat and fumed for a few long minutes before she got up and stomped off, muttering cat swear words under her breath.
“Miz Poo! You going to the vet? You going to the vet, Miz Poo? Because *I* am *not* going to the vet!”
“Shut. Up.”
No trespassing, you hear me? No trespassing on the median! Or else!
“Hellew.”
All of today’s uploaded pictures are
hither.
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Previously
2005: Is it just me, or does Eric Schaeffer play an inordinant number of characters named Sam?
2004: My day, in progress.
2003: This entry is comprised of nothing but cat pictures, because I’m clearing off the memory stick to start September fresh, with an empty memory stick.
2002: No entry.
2001: No entry.
2000: He said “Maybe you’re losing slower than me because you BELIEVE you’ll lose slower than me!” ]]>
