Alyca's Daily Life

2012-01-14T12:03:00.000-08:00

Apparently I am irritated enough to actually break out the blog and blog about it. Shocker.

My manager at work sucks. So does *her* boss. Suck, suck, suck. There. I feel a bit better.

It is not that they changed our role at work--stuff happens, we could all deal with that. It is that they LIED to us and treated us totally disrespectfully and without even a hint of professionalism.

Tell us the truth--we all know the hospital has no money--we are equisitely aware of this fact. This was a change to cut the budget and save money. We get that.

My manager and HER manager have zero clue about what it is that I actually do every day at work. No idea whatsoever. And THAT is why they have taken away my most important resource/way to GET information, and done away with my primary means of SPREADING that info to other staff. It is not personal, they are just clueless. Which is a statement against THEM, not me. What kind of freaking manager doesn't know what it is their employees are doing?? A crappy one, in my opinion. But just my opinion. They should BOTH have spent several full days following different UDFs around and seeing what we actually DO at work. I am sick of getting phone calls and emails asking about what we do, or changing things based off of stupid assumptions about what it is we do.

At this point, they have completely lost the respect of my workgroup. In the long run, this is going to cost my manager her job. Not one of us can respect her after the way we have been treated. And calling us out as whiners??? Saying it MULTIPLE times?? Seriously?? Wow. That was some complete crap. And threatening us over the MD teams voicing their support of our old roles?? Wow. People are supporting us because they actually KNOW what it is that we do for a living, and appreciate the help we provide them. We are not lying and WHINING to people. They see a stupidly implemented new policy coming into effect, and have voiced concerns about it. THis is not us whining to people and manipulating people---this is people seeing a stupid new workflow being implemented, and being concerned about it's stupidity.

We have now been told that basically if the new program fails, it is on US. WE are getting extra pay at this job because we are supposed to be flexible and intuitive and able to overcome the shittyness of this new program....so if it fails, we don't deserve the pay we get, and can basically be replaced by a $10 an hour peon who can fill in the blanks on their precious new computer whitboard system.

Am I irritated?? You bet your ass I am. I have not been as angry as I was yesterday, when I walked out in the middle of our last meeting when we were told how crappy we are. I did come back, after calling Ethan and recomposing myself, but I seriously wanted to throttle someone. And I am NOT generally the throttling type.

I will do my best at my new job. I will not come in early or stay late, and I will take my breaks each and every day. I will NOT answer my phone anymore during my break, just like they are telling me to. I WILL fill out incident reports each and every time I come across a 'delay in communication', which management was so kind as to let me learn. You gave us the incident report manuals, which clearly says a report should be filled out for communication delays. I did not know about this before, but you bet your ass I do now. Have fun dealing with the slew of reports that will be heading your way. I fully intend to very clearly document each and every problem that comes up with this new stupid role. Not making anything up, just very clearly, factually documenting each and every stupid change you make.

ANd the MONEY you are wasting on the laptops!! And your sadness that we were not approved to all have iPads!!! How dumb is that?? You want me to walk into each patient room with a laptop and impersonally fill out a stupid form with info, rather than walk in TALK to them, and develop a therapeutic rapport with patients and INFORM them of the plan and make them feel like they are a part of the team?? Patients first?? Doesn't sound like it to me.

9/11/01

2011-09-11T14:16:00.000-07:00

I know I remember where *I* was on 9-11-01.

I was driving to work, on my second day at Harborview as an RN. I was still in orientation.

Sports Radio 950am KJR was on, and they were talking about a plane crash in NY City at the World Trade Center buildings. They are goofy in the morning, and I wasn't sure if this was some sort of a joke or not, so I called Ethan up at home and asked him to turn the TV on. He told me I had it wrong--there was a crash at the Pentagon, not in New York. Then a few seconds later, the coverage switched back to New York and we realized that there were attacks in both cities, and that our world would never be the same.

We were glued to the TV at work that day, and for several days afterwards. Seattle had a huge memorial/unity event that Saturday, in honor of those whose lives were lost. I went with some flowers and took a few pictures while I was there.

2011-09-11T14:13:00.001-07:00

2011-09-11T14:11:00.001-07:00

2011-09-11T14:09:00.000-07:00

2011-09-11T14:08:00.000-07:00

2011 Fremont Solstice Parade

2011-06-20T10:45:00.000-07:00

We had a great time at the Fremont solstice parade with Tobias and Stacy in the heart of Fremont, the Center of the Universe. A thick but very misty rain for the hours before the parade when we sat in our chairs waiting for things to get started, but it died off shortly after the parade reached us.
The parade as always started with the naked cyclists. We were quite impressed with some of the creative paint jobs they did. And with their bravery on this chilly, rainy day!

2011-06-20T10:43:00.000-07:00

2011-06-20T10:38:00.000-07:00

2011-06-20T10:36:00.000-07:00

These were the Mormon missionaries

Santa!!!

The Solstice parade take on Seattle's Hammering Man

2011-06-20T10:33:00.000-07:00

I saw this guy go by twice, and didn't realize he was nekkid until I looked closely at the picture while editing it. He did a good job with his jeans! I especially like the pockets.

Optimus Prime biker

2011-06-20T10:29:00.000-07:00

Naked Unicyclist with a Storm theme

2011-06-20T10:28:00.000-07:00

2011-06-20T10:17:00.000-07:00

A razor clam

the dung beetle's.........dung

A dung beetle

2011-06-20T10:10:00.000-07:00

It wouldn't be a Seattle parade without the Pike Street fish guys

2011-06-20T10:08:00.000-07:00

The dog with his little legs sticking out straight totally cracked me up

2011-06-20T10:06:00.000-07:00

I will fully admit that I really have no idea what these are supposed to represent. Although, the flowery ones seem to fit into the whole solstice idea...

2011-06-20T10:02:00.000-07:00

Little girl on stilts

I think the teeny shoes are my most favorite part of the kids on stilts!!

Nuclear reactor checker guys with geiger counters

Nuclear reactor. Leaking one, at that...

2011-06-20T09:58:00.000-07:00

Aliens who I believe either caused or were somehow created by the nuclear power leak

Queen of the zombie apocolypse

Got brains???

Member of the zombie apocolypse.

The kids loved this giant ball! There were lots of smaller (but still huge) ones rolling around and being thrown into the crowd. People would line up and lie down in the street to be run over by this biggest ball.

2011-06-20T09:52:00.000-07:00

A true bag lady...

Giant octopus made of paper cups

2011-06-20T09:50:00.000-07:00

All recycled clothing designed by the wearers.

2011-06-20T09:44:00.000-07:00

These dresses are made entirely from coffee filters!!

Collecting money to support next year's parade. This entire parade is entirely commercial-free. No sponsorships, no writing allowed anywhere within the parade. All donations and hard work and volunteers.

2011-06-20T09:42:00.000-07:00

The Flying Spaghetti Monster. We were touched by his noodly appendages. We are considering becoming closet Pastafarians.

Capturing True Emotion Photograpy seminar and safari

2011-05-23T15:09:00.000-07:00

On Saturday (rapture day), I used my very first ever Groupon purchase and attended a photography class. I have never taken a photography class before, so I was pretty excited to learn more about how to use my camera. Most of what we covered were things I had already figured out on my own, but learning how to put all of the elements together and take a correctly exposed picture was awesome.

We covered things like choosing your ISO, differences between aperature settings, and shutter speed settings. I also learned how to use the settings within my camera as a light meter for better picture taking settings first time out (rather than my current trial and error style). And, I learned that my camera has the ability to adjust up or down my flash. Which I did not know before. Which is awesome. And got tips on how to take fabulous pictures on a sunny day using a teeny bit of flash to fill in the shadows on someone's face.

Prepare yourself to be amazed at my photographic awesomeness. Here are a couple of pics from the safari portion of our class. Just working on getting the exposure correct, and playing with a short depth of field.

2011-05-23T15:00:00.000-07:00

I suppose I should note that the awesomeness of photography will come with future pictures taken whilst on vacation. Not these demo ones. But I really did learn a lot and had a great time at this all-day class (4 hours of lecture in the morning, 2 hours of wandering around the Museum of Flight in Seattle taking pictures and trying different techniques)

Tuesday--Puerto Vallarta

2011-04-25T17:17:00.000-07:00

OK....back to cruising.

On Tuesday, we made our first stop--in Puerto Vallarta. We took a snorkelling and sightseeing cruise to the little town of Yelapa. Ethan and I went on this same tour a few years ago, but were advised NOT to bring a camera (could get wet....), so we have no pics. The boat is large and dry, so we DID bring a camera this time. And an underwater one, too. Here are snorkelling pics. I was able to pet one of the big blue ones. Against his wishes. Scaly.

2011-04-25T17:16:00.000-07:00

Justin and Kim decided to do some kayaking instead of snorkelling (since our Mazatlan kayak tour was cancelled). And here is our boat, the Vallarta Adventures 5. They are not creative with their boat naming, but this is an awesome tour company that I would recommend hands down. Every single tour we have done with them is awesome. They are now in cabo, too....

2011-04-25T17:15:00.000-07:00

After snorkelling and lunch, we headed to the small, inaccessible by road town of Yelapa. Took a 15-20 minute hike through town and ended up at the town's waterfall. Pretty, pretty.

2011-04-25T17:14:00.000-07:00

After the small hike, I conned the local rosewood carver into selling me a chunk of rosewood to take back to mom for use in inlays. Yes, she appreciated it and was all excited....

We headed back down to the beautiful beach, where we watched wildlife and wild dogs and cats, and had some beverages as we relaxed for an hour or so before reboarding our boat for the ride back to Puerto Vallarta.

2011-04-25T17:13:00.000-07:00

The Oosterdam whilst in dock in Puerto Vallarta

2011-04-25T17:12:00.000-07:00

After our tour, we reboarded the ship to shower and refresh, then headed back out into town for dinner and drinks and some generalized wandering and investigation. It turns out that, even though this is our third time in Puerto Vallarta, Ethan and I had never actually set foot in the town--we land at the airport, then head north to Nuevo Vallarta, where we have always stayed in the past. Huh. But PV is awesome, and we enjoyed the sculptures and sand creations we saw as we moseyed the boardalk area.

2011-04-25T17:11:00.000-07:00

We finally decided on a restaurant and had a light dinner and drinks watching the sun set over the ocean. Then it was time to head back to the ship once again, where a towel elephant awaited us in our stateroom.....

I will eventually finish my cruise postings...

2011-04-18T17:29:00.000-07:00

Just sidetracked by cats and cat issues and life in general. I did finally resize the pro pics so I can post them. Here is one, check out the others on my facebook profile....

Guilty as charged

2011-04-17T13:40:00.000-07:00

After consulting with a surgeon, internist and my regular veterinarian, we have reached the conclusion that there is nothing I can do for the Shadow Man other than supportive SQ fluids and potassium replacement (his K+ levels are low).

At first, I was at peace with this. Then I learned that there is actually a veterinary hospital in New York that has successfully treated many, many cats with ureteral stenting, and also ureteral bypass for the past 5 years. With an extremely successful postop success rate. According to one of the vets there, they have had cats die since they had this surgery, but none from kidney/surgery related issues. Shadow is a perfect candidate. They actually consider the surgery pretty minor, and will even do it in very sickly cats, but Shadow is very young and healthy and perfect. He could live another 10+ years after this minor surgery.

Except......

Except I can't afford it. So now I feel really guilty. They estimate $6-8K for the surgery and hospital stay in total, maybe as low as $5k because Shadow is so healthy and would likely be able to leave the hospital sooner. I don't have $6-8K plus travel expenses. We can't do this. I feel guilty. If his owner had oodles of cash, he would/could live a long and healthy life after stenting or bypassing this obstruction. But we can't afford that, so his life span is now unknown, but likely to be quite limited. Sucks. I almost wish I hadn't heard about this, because I was feeling OK with the idea that we were doing everything possible for Shadow, within the guidelines of keeping his quality of life as our determining factor for what we will or won't do. To know that there is a minimally invasive surgery with a permanent solution for him, that I simply cannot do for him because of my own financial status is crappy. The combination of tripling what we owed the IRS as compared to last year, and paying off all of Boo's vet bills and our spendy cruise vacation before Shadow was sick and now all of Shadow's current bills means that we are already in some credit card debt, and can't really go that much further in.

Anyway. Supportive fluids and potassium supplementation. He doesn't mind the fluids as much has he does that nasty potassium. I tasted it--smells sickly sweet, but tastes like gluey gaggy nothingness. I sure wouldn't want it smeared in my mouth twice a day. But, he forgives me a few minutes afterwards, so we are doing OK.

If it wasn't for bad luck, we'd have no luck at all

2011-04-09T15:38:00.000-07:00

Boo: After several thousands of dollars worth of tests and diagnostics and treatment, we now know that he has congenitally deformed kidneys, which are now barely functioning. He will be on every-other-day subcutaneous fluids and twice weekly calcitriol for the rest of his life.

Boo is currently thriving. His weight is up, he is happy and healthy and extremely energetic. His chronic renal failure is not holding him back at all.

Shadow: After XRays and ultrasounds and bloodwork, we now know that his left kidney is full of stones and all shrivelled up and not working. Probably been that way for several years now. No biggie, since you get two kidneys. Well, usually. His good (and now only) kidney is all dilated, and the ureter leading to the bladder is all dilated, up until some sort of blockage. It is not a stone--maybe some sort of infective process or hematoma or a tumor or god knows what. He does have a stone in his bladder, which could have come through his ureter and scratched it up, leading to any of the above. We don't know.

Within the next week, Shadow will either build up enough urine pressure behind the blockage (a little urine is getting through, so it is not a *complete* blockage at this time) to force it through, into the bladder, or the antibiotics we are giving him will shrink it, or he will have surgery to rotoroot it out, or surgery will show that whatever is there is not mobile and therefore not fixable, and Shadow will die.

Two random kidney problems in two genetically unrelated cats. Both congenital sort of problems, both diagnosed within a 6 month period. Both in kidney failure (one hopefully just acutely). Both living in my house, both holding a piece of my heart. This is really, really not fair.

2011-03-23T17:27:00.000-07:00

The beautiful Swarovski crystal globe hanging over the atrium, as seen from the Pinnacle Grill

My steak (had to cook it a bit more because juiciness and blood scare me, but it was good)

Baked Alaska for dinner. We all 4 shared one serving. It had Cherry Garcia ice cream in the middle.

A towel swan awaited us in our room when we got back

2011-03-23T17:10:00.000-07:00

Oh yeah--since we were all dressed up, we got formal pictures taken, and paid several arms, legs and a torso to bring them home. I will have to get Kim's versions and scan them as well. I totally forgot to post pictures from the previous night. We had formal pics taken then, also. And, now that I think of it--Monday wasn't a formal night. It was a fancy restaurant, and *that* is why we dressed up. And Kim's birthday and all that. Anyway. Pictures.

Nevermind. Formal pictures scanned so big, they are freezing up my computer. I will fix and try again. Here are pics of our dinner and the restaurant.

Ethan's seafood appetizer

French Onion soup for me. Not as good as the same soup in the main dining room, but still delicious.

Seafood amuse-bouche that I gave to Ethan. Apparantly it was delicious.

The beautiful china and chairs of the Pinnacle Grill

2011-03-23T17:06:00.000-07:00

Since this was Kim's birthday, and one of the two formal nights on board, Kim and I decided to have our hair done. I got a fancy updo with crystals and 54 bobby pins (I counted as I took them out....), and Kim got curls for the evening

They weren't quite ready for us when we got to the Pinnacle Grill, so we headed to the nearby Pinnacle Bar for some pre-dinner cocktails while we awaited our table.

2011-03-23T17:02:00.000-07:00

After our wanders, we headed up to the aft pool for some more lazing around. Scored a table right next to the pool which was convenient. Another warm, sunny day with a slight breeze to keep you from overheating.

You can just see Ethan and Justin on the back right corner of the pool in this pic. Random guest Steve in his purple shirt is just walking away from them (odd, odd guy who wanders around and gets very chatty with other passengers--we thought he worked for the cruise line, since he has on a shirt and tie. But he was a bit drunk, so I guess that should have been my first clue)

Cruise: Monday (at sea and scenic cruising)

2011-03-23T16:51:00.001-07:00

Monday was our second sea day. It was also Kim's birthday. A little note: We seem to all (Ethan and I included) know that Kim likes the occasional glass of champagne. I think she had 5 or 6 total bottles of champagne gifted to her throughout this cruise. We need to branch out a bit =)

This morning, we got up bright and early (I think it was 8am), and headed up to the Crow's nest to see the scenic cruising of Bahia Magdelena. We were looking for whales and other sea life. As you can see by this photo, it was extremely foggy. I don't think the blaring foghorn on the ship was helpful in attracting wildlife, but we did manage to see a few whales in the bay, and the coastline was beautiful as the fog lifted a bit.

After our hour of scenic cruising, we moseyed back to our room, putzed a bit then headed down to the promenade deck to walk around a bit. We found this interesting patch of grass tucked away for the guide and service dogs on board. Never thought about it before....but they have to go somewhere!

Oosterdam, Day 1 (Saturday)

2011-03-21T17:59:00.000-07:00

We just recently returned home from our cruise on the Holland America Line's Oosterdam (rhymes with toasterdam). I guess I
should preface these remarks by saying that we cruised on Holland America Cruiselines, and we got a screaming deal through our friend Kim, who works for the company in the Seattle office.

Our cruise left from San Diego, and travelled to Puerto Vallarta, Mazatlan and Cabo san Lucas before returning to San Diego. We had a total of three days at sea as well. Maybe three and a half. We left San Diego Saturday afternoon, stayed at sea on Sunday, did some scenic cruising along a bay on Monday (but did not stop anywhere), then to PV on Tuesday, Mazatlan Wednesday, Cabo on Thursday, at sea on Friday and back to San Diego early Saturday morning.

Cruising is a lot of fun. Tons of things to see and do on the ship, and if you are blessed with a balcony (as we were), you can sit back and relax there and listen to the sounds of the ocean as the ship steams along.

Here is the Oosterdam at dock in San Diego. Picture taken from our room at the W Hotel where we stayed the night before the cruise.

After a leisurely morning, we gathered aaaaaaaall of our bags and took a taxi the 7 or 8 blocks to the ship. We breezed through the check-in process, and were able to head straight to our rooms. Ethan and I were impressed. Last cruise we took, we stayed in a shoebox with a porthole. Not so much, here.

View of the bed from the doorway to our balcony

Our bathroom--double sinks, a full tub and a walk-in shower so tiny I seriously got claustrophobic the one time I used it, despite the solid glass walls.

You can just see the couch and the door to the balcony here.

2011-03-21T17:52:00.000-07:00

While I wait for this next set of picture to upload, here is a little bit about my thoughts on cruising....

Cruising can be spendy. Yes, your meals are all included in you fare.....but that is about it. Drinks (alcoholic, carbonated and juices) are not included. All those fancy pictures they take of you when you get off the ship?? Not included (but you don't have to pay to have the picture taken--just if you want to take it home when you see it later). The fancy steak restaurant on board?? Costs extra. They also try to entice you with art auctions and a casino.

There are exceptions to the charges above. At breakfast, you can get as much juice as you like for no charge. They had tons of different kinds of fruit juices in the main Lido buffet, and we also had several choices for room service. Room service is also free. They put a big card in your room at night with a list of breakfast choices, and you check the ones that you want, and pick what time you want your breakfast to be delivered. Ethan and I had Eggbeater ham and cheese omelets and OJ and bagels and cream cheese and English muffins and sausage and potatoes. Not all in the same breakfast, of course. Throughout our stay. Good food, delivered at a time
convenient to us.

If you drink alcohol, you can save some money in a few ways. HAL allows you to bring aboard as much wine or champagne as you want. If you drink it in your room (they provide wineglasses), there is no charge. If you want to bring a bottle to dinner, there is an $18 corkage fee. A few times on our trip, the corkage fee was changed to
a 'purchase' of some Holland America shot glasses, so we essentially were not charged.

Another money saving idea for alcohol is to pre-purchase a bottle of alcohol on board. We bought a bottle of Vodka for I think $27 for a 1L bottle-not a bad deal! We purchased a 50% discounted soda card (paid $25 for $50 worth of beverages), and bought sodas along the trip as mixers.

Probably the best money saving idea is not to drink alcohol at all. That is my plan for the next trip. I have offically stopped drinking alcohol. Forever. For a wide variety of reasons. It will definitely make vacationing cheaper.

One of the drawbacks (in my opinion) of cruising is the dress code. On a 7 night cruise, there are two formal nights. To eat in the main dining room, men must have on a jacket of some sorts. Many have tuxes and go all out. Women wear formal dresses. Well, most women. Ethan and I winged it as best we could. I really don't like the idea of being forced into fancy clothes. We don't own fancy clothes. We have to buy fancy clothes. And that gets spendy. Yes, you can get
around it by eating at the buffet instead, but I would much rather have the clothing relaxed. I am OK with the 'smart casual' nights (every night that is not formal), where men must wear long pants, and women are just forbidden from shorts. I have capris galore, and Ethan has a wide variety of short sleeved silk button down shirts (I love shopping at Coscto!!)

Ahh...the pictures are ready.

Justin and Kim and a bucket of Coronas as we leave San Diego. The waiters get your name that first day, and they will remember your name AND your preferred beverages the entire trip. They also come around and open the beers for you as you need them. Excellent service.

Ethan and I as we leave San Diego

A skywriter plane was writing a message as we left. I think it ended up as 'we love you XXX Love XXX'. I don't remember the exact names. It was cool to watch the plane, though!

The Lido pool midships (kiddie pool). We used the aft pool (adult pool) instead...

Ethan and I with beverages in hand....

Sunset, day one....

2011-03-21T17:51:00.000-07:00

Probably the best sunset of the trip

Sunday--Sea Day

2011-03-21T17:49:00.000-07:00

For our first full day on the ship, we lazed around a bit. Slept in, then meandered over to the aft pool for some more lazing outside. Found a table and a few lounge chairs, and I got a book from the ship's library (yes, they have a library!! Lots of books to choose from--probably over 1000 all together, with new releases, classics, nonfiction, etc. I got Rounding with Oscar, about a nursing home cat who seemed to know the day a patient was going to die, and how that affected the staff and family members). Anyway. Book. Got terribly overheated, so we got into the pool and relaxed there, too. This was the night we were heading to the Italian restaurant for dinner. Good food, excellent service, as always.

A fruit and cheese plate with champagne on our adjoining balconies before dinner

Another sunset

First towel creature of the cruise--a lobster

It's a hard knock life....

2011-03-09T16:49:00.000-08:00

Yes, it's a tough life.....but someone's gotta do it...

Having a wonderful time in Mexico. Only slightly sunburned, and no Norwalk for any of us. Did not mention the date we were leaving on Facebook because some of y'all are not trustworthy and we want all of our valuables to be intact when we come home. Special thanks to Jobie for looking after our kitties. They are our babies and we have thought of them often. I found a white kitty in Yelapa yesterday who was loving and gave me a bit of a cat fix to tide me over.

Off to Cabo tonight, and a whale watching tour tomorrow. Oh, it is the rough life!!!

My sister

2011-02-26T07:00:00.000-08:00

I have several sisters. One of them is having a round number birthday today, and this post is about her.

My sister's name is Davinie. She is 20 months older than me, and was a year ahead of me in school. Because I am tall, and she was always petite, we were pretty much the same size growing up (until I finally passed her, probably in junior high). I remember a picture of the two of us squeezed into a bathtub, lying side by side in the bottom of the tub, laughing up at the photographer. Two peas in a.....tub?? We were the same size, anyway. I also remember fighting over that darn yellowish sweatshirt with Pepe le Pew and a embroidered on it. We both swore up and down that it was *ours*, and not to be shared with anyone. I think the shirt spent more time hidden in someone's drawer or other secret hidey hole than it did on one of us.

Davinie and I had all sorts of adventures together. She convinced me to climb up onto the counter and get the rock candy out of the cupboard above the refrigerator (where I was caught red-handed); and talked me into letting her drive over me on the three wheeler (we wanted to see if it would hurt--our theory was that the tires were so wide, it wouldn't be painful.....it *wasn't* painful, but I cried anyway because I was scared). We spent lots of time in the field below our house in the canyon in Alaska flattening down the tall, tall grass to make 'rooms' for our playhouse. I think we were re-enacting Little House on the Prairie??

I was heartbroken when Davinie started Kindergarten when I was 4, so Mom set up 'school' for me at home to keep me busy. I think that trying to keep up with Davinie as a little kid was what motivated me in school, at least when I was small. I wanted to do what *she* was doing!

As we got older, we became big fans of Little House on the Prairie. We had all the actors names memorized, and knew the order they would come up on the screen at the beginning of the show....and would call them out just before they appeared.

I remember searching through the house for spare change, then heading over to Expressway to buy as much candy as we could. I remember walking to downtown Bend so we could ride up and down an elevator in some poorly secured law offices.

Because of our different school grades, and often different schools, Davinie and I had periods of time where we were not as close, and periods of time when we *were* pretty close. In high school, as Davinie approached graduation, we became much closer. In her last year at home, we would drive home for lunch every day, and we spent a lot of time together. I remember when she was banned from driving on the school campus for a week because she was falsely accused of bumping a twit with her car, so *I* got to drive us home for lunch. She would occasionally goose the car as I was trying to get in it....then stop and wait for me to catch up....then goose it again. When I was driving us home, I got my payback and pretty much had her run all the way home while trying to get in the car, with Kandy Easterday laughing hysterically in the front seat.

I remember the three Cooper girls heading off to Volleyball camp together, and Davinie got a speeding ticket. We were so scared when that cop yelled at her for not stopping sooner!!

After high school, Davinie was very supportive of me heading off for college. I visited her a few times in her apartment, and she came to see my dorm room and the campus shortly after I started at Linfield. I remember one of my last visits with Davinie, when we decided to go to a lake for some tanning and lazing in a rubber raft (this was of course before I resigned myself to the fact that I don't tan--I can burn purple, then resume my natural paleness, but that is about it). It was a nice, warm day, but there was still snow in places up in the mountains, so the water in the lake was cooooold! Our oar fell apart, and I was elected to jump in the water to retrieve the fallen portion of it. There is something about older sisters that just makes you go along with what they tell you to do. Or maybe I am just easily swayed. Anyway, I think my feet went numb in my attempted oar retrieval, but I eventually got it back and we had a wonderful lazy afternoon.

Even though we are not always close, and we have had our differences, I know that Davinie is there for me. When I have something I need to vent about, I can always call her and vent away. That is nice to know. When she had her babies, I rushed out from work and headed to Oregon to be there. And if Ethan and I ever decide to have babies of our own, I know Davinie will be up here for me, too.

So, today I am wishing Davinie a very happy round-number birthday. May it be the very best one yet.

Another teeny update

2011-02-22T14:56:00.000-08:00

What to say, what to say....

When I don't update my blog, it is generally because absolutely nothing interesting is happening in my life. Nothing to report. Which is why I wasn't reporting it, see???

Anyway. To report.

I have been unable to wean myself from putting two spaces after a period. I have tried. It was ingrained into me back in high school typing class with Mrs Bennett, and I just can't let it go, even though I know that it is now no longer necessary.

I just spent a weekend at Mom's house. We cut thin pieces of wood into sequentially smaller rectangles. It was fun. I will eventually have two wooden versions of my scrapbooking paper exploding picture box. It is awesome and the wood ones will be even MORE awesome.

**It is currently snowing in Seattle. Big flakes, low quantity. I don't think it will stick, though.......**

Good time at Mom's house. We also went to the Melting Pot, and I know mom loved it. We had an artichoke and spinach cheese dip, delicious salads, and a variety of meats for cooking. Veeeeery full afterwards. Watched a movie, then off to bed.

Other than the small trip to Mom's.....not much going on up here. The Boo Kitty is doing well. He weighs more than he ever has before, and now is picking on Shadow, rather than the other way around. But he is nice about it, and only picks a little. Doesn't have a mean bone in his body. He is very active, chasing around my hair ties and the milk top rings that he loves. He actually seems healthier now than he ever has been. He still overgrooms and rips out the hair on his back so he looks a bit mangy, but he is very happy and healthy and we love him dearly.

Boo is going on an adventure in a couple weeks. We are taking a cruise, and are going to board him at the vet's office. I checked out the space, and I know it will be OK. They will give him his SQ fluids every other day, and make sure that he is happy. The staff there bring their own pets to work, and they wander around the offices in the back. On breaks, people hang out with the boarders and give them love, and I think Boo will tough it out. Jobie has agreed to pick him up Friday, the day before we get home, so he can hang out with the Shadow-man until we get home Saturday evening.

The Shadow-man will be staying home alone. I feel really bad about this, since the last time we left him home alone (when we went to the coast with Boo for Christmas), he apparantly spent all of his time eating and gained a bunch of weight. I am going to pick up one of those timed feeders that doles out food over time. He will be bored and lonely at home, but he does NOT tolerate change well, and would be totally freaked out at the vet's office if we boarded him, so he stays home.

On to the cruise. We are *so* in need of a vacation. Almost a year since our last vacation!! What is this world coming to. The Amersons vacation more than that! We bought some spendy leaf guard gutters this summer, which sorta took over our vacation budget. Better now! We refinanced our mortgage in December, and with the $$ we are saving each month, we have upped our 'home' and 'vacation' smartipig.com funds to better/more accurate levels. Let the vacations commence!

We are headed to San Diego, then onto Mexico on a Holland America cruise. We stop at Puerto Vallarta, Mazatlan and Cabo san Lucas. Ethan and I have been to each of these cities before, but we are really looking forward to the warmth and sunshine and cruise ship experience. We are going with our good friends, Justin and Kim. Kim actually works for the cruiseline, so we got a nice deal on our room, and are in a suite with a balcony. Ooh la lah!!

So far, we have booked two of our excursions. Our first stop is in Puerto Vallarta, where we are doing a snorkelling tour, then visiting a tiny town only accessible by boat. Ethan and I actually visited this little town (Yelapa) last time we went to PV, but were told by the misinformed tour desk that we should not bring cameras.......so I didn't get any pictures of the beautiful scenery or the gorgeous waterfall nestled in this teeny ~100 person town. Not so happy. But, I get a do-over now.

In Mazatlan, we are doing a sea kayaking tour--heading out to a teeny island, and kayaking around it. Should be fun. I know Mom will be proud.

In Cabo, Ethan and I are undecided. Justin and Kim have booked a relaxing resort getaway, but Ethan and I are thinking of maybe a whale watching tour or maybe SNUBA diving or snorkelling again or even ziplining. Not really sure. I would totally zipline, but the beauty of Cabo is in the rock formations on the water, and we wouldn't really see that up in the mountains at the zipline. Plus, there are some scary rope bridges to traverse that I really don't think Ethan would enjoy. He doesn't trust safety equipment as much as I do.

Anyway. Ethan checked and his suit from Justin and Kim's wedding still fits, and I found some dresses for the 2 formal nights on the ship. Just gotta sort out Cabo and we are set.

We head down to San Diego a day before the cruise, and are going to stay at the W hotel through another friend of a friend deal. More ooh la lah!!

We have a busy time planned. We are hoping to make it to the space shuttle launch in mid-April. Won't know about the timing until after this (already very)delayed February one goes up, but I have my fingers crossed. It is the chance of a lifetime, and Ethan and I are big enough science/space geeks that we *must* go, or at least TRY to go.

After the lauch, our next plan. Well, MY next plan is to go to Australia. Maybe leave the week after the Superbowl in 2012?? Summer time there, and not missing anything here but bad weather. Ethan mustmustmust see the Great Barrier Reef with me, and I think he will totally love Sydney, too. And, they speak English there. Easy. We almost have enough airline miles to fund two tickets, so my plan is to wait a month or so until we have enough miles, then bombard Ethan with my cunning plan until he wearies and agrees with me. I am definitely the planner and the spender in the family, and Ethan remains the voice of reason. However....I am not an idiot, and we don't spend money we don't have. Hence the post about 2/12 written in 2/11. Planning makes things possible. And our smartypig.com account accruing several hundred dollars a month, earmarked solely for vacation spending. Planning is the key. It is still my lofty goal to someday travel to Hawai'i with my entire family and rent a massive house (that I will scour the internet to find) for a week in lieu of our annual coast gathering. Planning is the only way that will happen. And saving. Lots of saving. But wouldn't it be fun!!!

Why it IS constitutional to require people to purchase/pay into health insurance

2010-12-13T09:28:00.001-08:00

In this country, whether you have insurance or not, you get healthcare. If you are hit by a truck, they whisk you away to a hostpital, and they fix you. They don't ask if you can pay, they just save your life. Spending hundreds of thousands of dollars, sometimes. My hospital alone does over $100 million in charity care EACH YEAR.

People say that it won't happen to them, or that they don't smoke/drink/eat crappy foods, so they shouldn't need health insurance. Well, these same people are just as likely to get hit by a car or fall off a ladder or step off a curb wrong and shatter their ankle. It happens. And when you don't pay into some sort of health insurance, that ENTIRE BILL gets passed along to some charity care payment system, which is likely funded by tax dollars. If you had some sort of insurance, most of that bill would be the responsibility of the insurance company, and we could focus those charity care payments for the smaller portion that the patient has to pay (if you are unable to pay it). More people could get help, and our tax dollar requirement for healthcare would go down.

I work in a hospital. I focus on discharge planning. I see the costs of healthcare. I can see the hospital charges for my patients, and they are OFTEN up above $100k......and these are trauma patients with fractures. Not heart transplants or dialysis patients--just broken bones. Often *very* broken bones requiring multiple surgeries or amputations...but these are people who were healthy, walking around, normal people....until their life suddenly changed in the blink of an eye.

When this country devolves to the point where we will let you die in the street if you have no insurance, then I will support your right to choose not to have health insurance. Until then, you've gotta pay. We are gonna scoop you up and run you to the nearest trauma center, and do our best to fix you, regardless of the cost. You should bear the responsibility of helping to pay for your care. No, I don't think this healthcare legislation is perfect....but it IS a step in the right direction.

A small Boo Kitty update

2010-12-01T07:33:00.000-08:00

Boo went back to the vet on Monday for a blood draw and follow-up visit. His results came back on Tuesday.

He has gained over a pound, which terribly impresses our vet (Dr Bergstrom). His creatinine was 6.5 when he was first diagnosed (severe kidney disease is a creatinine over 5.0), then dropped to 5.0 after a few days of IV fluids. After a couple weeks of subcutaneous fluids at home and a new renal diet, his creatinine is now down to 2.5 (normal for cats is up to 2.4). Almost in the normal range!! Everyone is quite impressed.

Boo had an ultrasound a few weeks ago, to further diagnose the WHY of his kidney disease. It showed that he has some sort of congenital deformity in his kidneys. They look funny, aren't shaped right, and are now damaged enough that they weren't able to see the normal kidney structures. Sounded very ominous. But...he lived with them for 8 years, and has found a way to compensate for them.

The vet is pleased enough with his progress that we have been instructed to back off from the daily SQ fluids and do them every other day instead. We are also starting him on calcitriol, a Vitamin D supplement/hormone that helps keep needed nutrients in his body (that his damaged kidneys would otherwise urinate out). All in all, it was great news.

Boo is back running around and chasing things and being his regular self. Shadow took a minute to re-accept Boo, but they are hanging out now just like they used to.

In the long run, we have to figure out our vacation plans, since we will not always be able to bring Boo with us like we did at Long Beach last week. There are boarding services offered by our vet, and I have also heard of groups organized for people who have cats on SQ fluids at home, where we would help each other out when people go out of town. Boo will likely be on the every-other-day fluids for his entire life, and now has the twice weekly calcitriol (which is thankfully in a fish-flavored liquid I can easily squirt into his mouth).

The timing of this all could not be more perfect. We basically spent a mortgage payment with vet bills and supplies on Boo. We also happen to have been in the middle of refinancing our mortgage, so we take December off from paying it (3.63% APR/15 year fixed.....unbelievable!!). What great timing! Instead of having some extra money to save or play with, we used it for Boo. Totally, totally worth it. Especially when he climbs onto my lap, curls up in a ball and looks at me upside down. Then squirms around, looking for the perfect petting position.

Meet the Boo Kitty

2010-11-05T07:10:00.000-07:00

This is Boo. Or, more commonly referred to as the Boo Kitty. We adopted Boo from a shelter in February of 2003, just after our beloved kitty Sahab died of feline infectious peritonitis. We wanted Shadow to have a brother to grow up with, and the Boo Kitty fit the bill.

Boo's adoption story is special to me. I found him through a shelter that places pets in PetCo stores. He was in a cage in the center of the store with his brother. I met Boo and his brother, and chose....his brother, who was friendly and happy and playful. I picked him up and walked to the front of the store, then changed my mind. That frightened, fearful, terrified kitty I had left behind would surely have a harder time being adopted. The happy one would easily find a loving home. So I picked up the Boo kitty and brought him home to become a part of our family.

When Boo first arrived in our home, he was a mess. He had no hair on his neck, because a too-tight collar had not been checked, and it was rubbed off. He could climb up onto the couch, but couldn't figure out how to jump off. A little pitiful.

Within days, Boo came out of his shell and got the hang of running around and jumping off furniture and became a very sweet little companion. He got his name from his scaredy-cat demeanor--he still to this day hides from us when we are walking around, and from noises (even not so loud ones) and sudden movements. He is very sweet and loves to sit on our laps and head butt us until we pet him.

Boo has always had his issues. He over-grooms himself, and pulls out the hair on his lower back, so he looks a bit mangy. He also occasionally overgrooms his 'elbows' on the front legs, and we have to put him into a kitty cone to protect him from himself, because the skin there is more tender and will weep or bleed. But he is the Boo Kitty, and we love him.

Boo is very smart. He opens cupboard doors to hide from Shadow amongst our pots and pans. When Shadow was acting up and peeing everywhere, we could put him into the bathroom with the door mostly closed, and he couldn't figure out how to pull the door towards him to get out, but Boo has that skill down. We have never been able to keep Boo out of our linen closet, despite piling books in front of the accordian door to keep him out. Ethan says he takes after his daddy, the locksmith. He never met a door he couldn't open.

Boo is also very athletic. He tears around the house sometimes, chasing nothing at all. He will take our steps 3 or 4 at a time (while Shadow can only manage 2 or 3 on a good day). He also jumps up and hangs out on our pot-shelves above the kitchen cabinets. Shadow can't do this, and that area has become a bit of a Boo-Kitty sanctuary.

Boo is very instinctual. He 'buries' anything with a hint of an odor. His food, *my* food....anything. It stresses him out to have odors in the house. He is also very particular about food. He will freak out and meow until the food dish is full to the brim, then go about his business. He is not hungry, just worried about the kibble level. This is why Shadow is chubby. We keep food out all the time for Boo, and tempt him with treats....but he is never that interested, and Shadow ends up with extra.

We started training the cats to use the toilet instead of the litter box. Boo got this right away. He was at the point where he would pee/poo directly into the toilet through the small training hole in the special over-toilet litter box. When we had to back up a step to accommodate Shadow's slower learning, Boo took things into his own paws and started balancing on the garbage can (where we empty dirty litter into) and peeing/pooing directly into it. He gets what we are trying to accomplish, and is totally on board.

We very much love the Boo Kitty.

Last week, we noticed that Boo was tired and listless, and had lost some weight. He has always been very skinny, and throws up a lot because he scarfs his food down too quickly. We actually have him on a special kibble diet with really big kibbles just to force him to chew them up and slow down his eating. The vets in the past said he was pretty skinny, but since he had such great energy and was feeling healthy, they weren't concerned.

I took him into the vet last Friday, and found out that he had lost about 3 poiunds--from nearly 9 pounds in February, to 5.8 pounds now. Not good. The vet was hoping (with his usual excellent energy and skinny body) that he had a thyroid problem. Great--a pill a day, and a healthy cat comes back. We drew some blood and headed home.

I go a call from the vet on Saturday, telling me that Boo was in kidney failure with a creatinine of 6.5, and needed to come in right away for IV fluids. We took him in, and they placed an IV and kept him the rest of the day. We picked him up in the evening when they closed, and took him home for the night, returning him to the clinic when they opened the next morning. Three days of IV fluids and some meds. They were very impressed with his great appetite at the clinic, which is unusual for renal failure cats. They had been planning to force feed him while he was there, but that was not needed. Boo came home with an IV in, wrapped up in coban to prevent him from messing with it. We had an orange camoflauge wrap the first 2 days, then a Husky purple one the last day. Boo HATED that wrap. He would take a step, then fling that leg around, trying to get the wrap off, then take another step and repeat. It would have been funny if we weren't so worried for his health.

After the 3rd day, we had Boo's blood drawn again. The results came back better, but he still showed kidney failure with a creatinine of 5.0. He also had a very low hematocrit of 18, but we think that part of that is a dilutional effect of all the IV fluids he had received that day. The vet recommended that we do an ultrasound on Boo the next day (wednesday), since he is far too young to be having kidney issues. We were hoping to see evidence of some sort of kidney infection that was not showing up in his urine, or something else (treatable) that we could work on. The final report comes out today, but what they found was just some small kidneys (congenital issue) with severe damage. No one is sure what this means long-term for the Boo Kitty. I learned how to give him subcutaneous fluids on Tuesday, and have been giving them each night since then. 100ccs of Lacated ringers in the scruff of his neck. I have only done it twice so far, but all I need to do is pet him and get him to lay on the floor for a belly rub. I slip the needle in and continue his belly scratching for 2-3 minutes while the fluid goes in, then remove the needle and tell him what a good kitty he is. He really is a good boy.

He had some diarrhea at the clinic, probably from stress. Today is his last day of flagyl, which is fixing the diarrhea. Already have normalish poo today, so it did it's thing. Boo feels much better this morning. He was hiding away and sleeping on his bed for most of the last week, but now he is roaming around his room and running up to get good belly rubs. They shaved his belly for the ultrasound, and I think he is really enjoying the extra sensitive belly rubs he can get now.

We have Boo living in one of our spare bedrooms. He has a litter box, water bowl, foods to tempt him, and several beds and hidey holes to hang out in. Shadow knows something funny is going on, and is having a hard time. Boo looks different, smells different, and is getting a lot of attention and special foods. So he wants to growl and slap at Boo, which is not OK right now. Boo needs rest and relaxation, so they are being separated unless we are right there to run interference. Hopefully their brotherhood will be re-established once Boo has his energy back and can defend himself again.

We love the Boo Kitty dearly, and are very happy that he is feeling a little better. He goes back for another blood draw in a week or so, and we will see how things are, but the most important part is how he acts and how he feels. Right now, it looks like we are headed in the right direction. As long as we can give him a good quality of life, we will continue the SQ fluids. If he can run around and play and enjoy things, it is totally worth it. We know that someday this will change, and we will have to let him go, but right now, things are looking up.

2010-10-26T11:55:00.000-07:00

Am getting very excited about the upcoming holiday season.

We are planning to go on an Argosy Christmas ship cruise with Justin and Kim and company--always a fun time. I think the ship we are doing is the 11th or 12th or something like that. A few hours of fun and carols and hot beverages. Good times.

We are also going to go see the Nutcracker ballet. I am excited!! I have never been to the ballet. Also going with Justin and Kim. Seems to be a theme here....but glad we are tagging along.

Before the December Christmasy things we also have our upcoming Coast Christmas gathering, which should be a ton of fun. Clamming, lighthouse exploration, beachcombing and tasty cooking are all on the docket this year. Maybe even a Harry Potter movie trip, if I can convince enough people to do it.....

What else, what else....

Oh, we have changed our Florida plans a bit. Still seeing the shuttle launch (weather cooperation dependent), but we will head out a week early and go on a cruise. We are looking at the Holland America Line's Eurodam, which does a western Caribbean route. There are a couple other cruises we looked at and liked as well....but Kim may be able to get us a 'friends and family' discount, so I think we will stick with Holland America. Plus, the ship is less than 2 years old. And Justin and Kim took this exact same cruise on the exact same ship last year, and had a blast. Should be fun times. We are thinking of splurging a bit and going with a veranda rather than the cheapie no window room we would book otherwise. Woohoo!!

Anyway. That is the Amerson update for today.

Back on the blog again

2010-10-17T12:24:00.000-07:00

I really need to quit facebook. I would totally post more on my blog if I did. It is just so darn easy to add pictures there, and write little snippets.

But...back to the blog.

New and exciting news for us involves our cats using the toilet instead of the litterbox. It is still a work in progress, but I am confident we shall prevail. Boo is 100%, but Shadow is still an asshole, so we will continue to threaten him into compliance.

Also new and exciting? We are refinancing our mortgage. Again. Yes, we have refinanced a lot (I think 3 times in the condo, and this is our third in the house??), but we have crunched the numbers, and since we are staying in this house for at least another decade, we will save oodles of money in the long run. Our APR is going down to 3.68% which is unheard of. You should refinance, too!! (not really....please run your numbers or consult a professional...) We will save about $400 a month in mortgage payments, and have already allocated that money.

I have posted before about smartypig.com We love it. We have funds for vacation, home upgrades, new car, baby(maybe), general savings, Coast Christmas, car insurance (we pay twice yearly), and season tickets. Money is taken out every month from our bank account automatically, and the whole thing really adds up quickly. We are putting the extra money straight into the home and vacation funds, since those are the ones that bit us in the behind this year. Face it--whether we have the money or not, we are going on vacation. Makes sense to have the money pre-set-aside so we don't come home to credit card bills. Same with the house--I am very glad we got our leafguard gutters....but didn't like having that on the credit cards for 3 months. Glad it is paid of now. Hopefully we won't fall into that hole again.

Suze Orman would still deny us if we asked her about our upcoming vacation, but we are doing it anyway. We are headed to Florida in February to go on a cruise, then settle on the shoreline and head to Cape Canaveral to watch the final shuttle launch. We are hoping to score tickets to be right on the jetty, and I will totally update everwhere if I am successful. Won't know until December, when tickets become available.

Anyway. We are looking at two cruises--a 7 night one, and a 6 night one. Good reasons for both of them, and may have a friend who works for the cruise lines be able to help us get a deal on the 7 night one. Otherwise, we will take the 6 night cruise. Heads to Ocho Rios, Jamaica, among other places. We will totally do Dunn's River Falls again (went there for our honeymoon) if we do go. Should be lots of fun!

We will have 4ish days after the cruise to enjoy the launch then head back to Seattle. Really looking forward to this one!

Our big vacation after this one I am hoping will be AUstralia/New Zealand. Maybe just Australia. We will see. I am targetting January 2012 for a 2-week trek. Sydney, Cairns, and the Great Barrier Reef at a minimum.

I am sure there will be other travels before this one, and we are TOTALLY going back to Europe. Many, many times. And I wanna see O in Vegas. And New York City. And Victoria with mom. And the Smithsonian. So many places, so little vacation time!!

2010-08-09T12:08:00.000-07:00

What to say, what to say.......

Unlimited boringness is my life right now. Ethan was moving furniture (Unsuccessfully) and caused a big scrape and a hole in the wall, so he consulted with the wall-fixing people in the engineering department at work, and we learned how to patch a hole in the wall or a scrape. The hole is filled and I just covered the entire house in powder because I used the rotary sander to sand the putty stuff down so we can apply the orange peel texture and then paint overtop. I have one more area that needs sanding, and I don't care if it takes me an hour--I am doing this one by hand.

Bit of an issue finding the same color of white paint that the house already has--we have a can of white paint labelled 'snowdrift'...which turns out to be outside paint and not the same as whatever is painted all over the walls upstairs. This will be fun....

Other than that....we have decided to take all the furniture upstairs and exchange it with the furniture downstairs (see hole in wall above)....but that hasn't happened yet. Ethan tried to do it himself while I was sleeping, but got the loveseat stuck halfway down the stairs because he forgot that the couch 'legs' have to go OVER the railing for the stairs. So I tried to help him pull it back up, and used very poor body mechanics. Tearing pain and all that...and now I have an unhappy disc in my back. Awesome!! Much better now, and if the pain doesn't go completely away, one of the spine residents at work said he will write me a prescription for PT and I will get tuned up there.

Still working on Frank Sinatra the cat. The shelter in Rome is keeping an ear out for anyone travelling from there to the US--I will fly anywhere in the US to meet him/pick him up and bring him to Seattle. We will eventually get this worked out..

I am still working on *@&% issues at work regarding my vacation time--they have made it all but impossible to get time off....and then there is a sort of wishy washy 'first come, first served' policy where they said if you can't find someone to cover you for vacation time, the first one to request those specific dates off can still have them off......and I have THREE different vacation requests in with no coverage, and no one else wants those dates off.....and STILL not approved. Getting irritated by it all.

One of the dates I want off is for the CKC Scrapbook convention in Bellevue in November--I took Friday off from work last year, and went all day Friday and Saturday taking classes and had a wonderful time. Trying to do that again this year, and adding in an evening class on Thursday (a workshop to help me with design issues). Should be lots of fun....if I ever get approved!! I can cancel the classes within the next few weeks if I don't get the time off...but they need to really give me the days and be done with it. First come, first served and all that. I won't *even* get into the whole 'find your own coverage' drama. I did (I think) a good job choosing scrappy classes that actually use colors/themes that I have an interest in (multiple picture page ideas, travel themed classes, an envelope scrapbook class I plan to use for all the tickets and stubs from our Europe trip, etc)

We are also trying to take off a couple of days around Columbus Day in October (Seahawks bye week), and may head into Victoria, BC. Kenmore air (seaplanes out of Seattle) recently became an airline partner with Alaska Air, and it is only 10K miles ROUND TRIP to fly from Seattle to anywhere in WA or to Vicoria BC. Ethan said he was OK with the teensy seaplane idea, so we want to get this booked ASAP. If they have awful restrictions on using airmiles like some airlines, we may go to San Francisco instead to see a play calledScapin that Ethan saw back in high school and loved.

We are also trying to take off some time around Labor Day to do....something. We thought about a big camping trip to Central Oregon, but haven't gotten a ton of interest from anyone on that one, plus it is getting down to the wire on reserving multiple camp sites. Might go to Portland for a couple of nights at the Edgefield McMenamin's winery--stayed there once before and really liked it. We shall see.

Still scrapping in my room on the weekends, mostly. I have now moved on from Germany pages to my first Amsterdam page. May skip all those flower pictures for now, though, and come back to that later on. I got some really cool old-timey paper with Paris themes, and I am looking forward to using that.

I guess that is about it for this update. Not a whole heck of a lot going on up here in the Emerald City.

More scrappiness

2010-07-13T17:39:00.000-07:00

Bacharach, the town we stayed in. The letters RAC are attached to ribbons, which pull out the hidden journalling.

Two pages of Marksburg castle

Page 2 of Marksburg Castle

Page 1 of Marksburg Castle. A square of journalling hidden behind the picture of the castle

The view of Boppard and the Rhine River from the so-called '4 lakes view' atop a bluff. The scene of the crime for my massive German sunburn. Sonnenschutz, people. Sonnenschutz.

Recent scrappiness

2010-07-12T13:40:00.000-07:00

I have started the long, never-ending journey of creating a scrapbook of our Europe trip. Taking it nice and sloooooow and enjoying all the memories of the things we did. Hoping to go back next April to Brussels, Belgium, then Amsterdam, then London. Or vice-versa. Brussels only because it is easy to find frequent flier flights into there. London because Ethan thought it was awesome and wants to experience it with me. Amsterdam, because Amsterdam is awesome and we want to try the craziness of Queen's Day again, and get a chance to check out the many museums and sights that we missed the first time around. Love that combination of 'anything goes' and the laid back, quiet atmosphere of the canals.

Bad Salzig, where we inadvertantly exited our train and spent an hour of our first full day in Germany

Two page layout of our Rhine river cruise

Page 1

Page 2

Our hotel in Germany.

I am not a big fan of seeing a lot of writing/journalling, so I generally type my thoughts up and hide them behind pictures on the pages--the hotel page has our bill and postcards and my journalling tucked behind the darker green patterned paper that the pictures are arranged on; the ribbon on page 2 of our Rhine cruise pages pulls out to show my journalling on a card there; and the large picture on the Bad Salzig page has journalling on the card tied with green ribbons you can see on the left side.

I have finally decided that my scrapbook style is more of a collage of randomly sized pictures arranged together, occasionally overlapping. Evenly spaced apart. Not actually randomly sized--my printer does up to 5x7 pics, so I can do 5x7, 4x6, or half pics (3x4 or 3.5x5), or quarter pics (2x3 or 2.5x3.5), so that is what I choose from. Works for me.

I have some more layouts done of our Marksburg castle tour and the town of Bacharach, but no pics just yet.

My scraproom

2010-07-12T13:22:00.000-07:00

Spice rack re-purposed into an embellishment holder

My solid and pattterned papers, divided by color (solids/cardstock) and manufacturer (patterned)

My fishing tackle box repurposed into an embellishment holder. Each tray comes out, and has around 25 little compartments for things like buttons or prima flowers or brads/eyelets.

My newest addition--4 long trays of tip-out embellishment holders. Bought at an estate sale in Portland with Mom for a total of $6. Absolutely awesome and PERFECT for little things. The clear trays each can be easily removed for better access to the teeny things inside.

2010-07-12T13:21:00.000-07:00

Ribbons on spools above my (neverused) printer that came free with our last computer.

Flowers sorted by colors into a variety of jars

Rae tube2.wmv

2010-07-11T10:11:00.000-07:00

2010-07-11T09:50:00.000-07:00

We had a whole lot of fun at Great Wolf Lodge!

2010-07-11T09:42:00.000-07:00

Rome, Day 2

2010-06-16T11:34:00.000-07:00

This was an action-packed day. We got up bright and early and headed out, walking from our hotel to the Colosseum. We had prebooked a group tour of the colosseum/Palatine Hill and Roman Forum areas for 0830. We gave ourselves plenty of walking time, and made it there with time to spare. We did have a heck of a time figuring out how to get from an upper street area, until we figured out that the nearby metro station had an escalator down to the lower level. Once we were down there, we saw two prominent stairways that we had somehow missed in our earlier explorations. Whatever. We *do* have great senses of direction, but they failed us at times. At least we are good map readers!!

We were to meet our group and guide at the Arch of Constantine, situated right next to the colosseum. Ethan and I took pictures of the arch from every angle...and started to get a little worried when 0830 came and no one else was there. No guide, no tourists....no one. Two or 3 minutes later, a man came running up to the arch and introduced himself as our guide. He was delayed on a metro train, it seems. And it turns out, we were the only ones to book the tour for this day. Private tour!! They charge a whole heck of a lot more for private tours than group ones, so we really scored a deal.

2010-06-16T11:33:00.000-07:00

Our guide was the fastest speaking person I have ever met. Anyone who knows me knows that I am *so* not one to point this sort of thing out, being a fast talker myself.....but this was micromachinemannish. I will upload some videos of parts of our tour so you can hear. It took a few minutes before I was able to get my brain to move fast enough to understand what he was saying, but I got there in the end. The guide was British, and I believe the company itself is Irish-owned. Real Rome Tours, for those who are wondering. Anyway.

We started out learning about the Arch of Constantine. This is one of what was at one time over 100 triumphal arches. After massive victories abroad, they would build a commemorating arch and have a huge parade through the city, going through all of the arches. They displayed the booty they had acquired, along with the slaves and leaders of the conquered area (dead or alive). There were also massive paintings of the area that had been conquered, so the peasant Romans could see the land their government had gotten for them. The arches usually had a giant chariot on top, with horses pulling 'winged victory' (goddess of victory). This particular arch is mostly made up of sculptures/reliefs pulled from buildings or other monuments, since at the time when it was built, there were not many artisans left in Rome.

Palatine Hill and Roman Forum

2010-06-16T11:32:00.000-07:00

From here, we headed over to the Palatine Hill area, learning about the origins of Rome and some of its fabulous history. Lots of ruins here that would not have made any sense to me without a guide. He really made those bits of stone and brick come to life. After this, it was over to the Roman Forum, where we saw more extensive ruins, and also some restoration work going on. There were several archeological digs going on, so a few areas were off limits, but we still got a lot of information on exactly what it was we were seeing.....and what we might have been looking at were we here a few thousand years earlier. There are still some temples that are used today as churches. My most favorite story was the Temple of Antoninus and Faustina--originally the Temple of Faustina, built by her husband the emperor when she died and was deified. When HE died twenty years later, his successor, Marcus Aurelius didn't want to be bothered making another temple....so he had Antoninus's name added on to this existing one. How tacky.

This temple's columns have deep groove marks near the top, when medieval people tried to tear them down. At that time, the temple was half buried underground, and they were not able to pull down those massive slabs of marble. So, they decided that this must be a holy place, and converted the pagan temple into a church.

The colosseum as seen through the Arch of Titus

The ancient Appian Way

2010-06-16T11:31:00.000-07:00

2010-06-16T11:30:00.000-07:00

The Colosseum

2010-06-16T11:29:00.000-07:00

After the Forum, we headed at last into the colosseum. We beat the lines to enter here by using our Roma Passes, and took the elevator to the top, where our guide explained the history of the building. We told him that we had watched Rome:Engineering an Empire before we headed to Europe, which he loved. It was great, in depth documentary that gave us a good background on Roman history before seeing the real thing. We talked a lot about some of the info presented in that show, and learned which areas were a bit shaky on factuality. Once the colosseum was explored, our guide left us to take pictures and wander on our own. We took our obligatory photos, the headed out to find a restaurant to grab some lunch.

Arch of Constantine as seen through one of the arches of the colosseum

2010-06-16T11:28:00.000-07:00

2010-06-16T11:27:00.000-07:00

After lunch, we walked past the Forum to the Capitoline Museum, located sort of behind the Victor Emmanuel monument. This is billed as the oldest museum on earth, dating back to the 1400s. I was beyond excited to see the colossal hand of the statue of the emperor Constantine. It is huge--my entire hand just fits over his ring fingernail. This hand is pictured on a big poster here at Harborview, advertising for orthopedic hand surgery. It still gives me a little thrill every time I walk past the poster on the 6th floor east clinic wing. Anyway. They also have part of an arm and the head of this ginormous statue.

Statue of Marcus Aurelius--the only equestrian bronze sculpture to survive from ancient Rome (they thought it was the Christian emperor Constantine, so they left it alone whilst destroying all the pagan statues) This is actually a copy of the original, which is housed inside the museum and no pictures allowed.

2010-06-16T11:26:00.000-07:00

We wandered through the museum looking at sculptures and paintings and artifacts, using an audioguide. After a few hours, we were museum'd out, so we returned the audioguides and headed back out into the glaring sunlight. Did I mention that it was raining when we were at the colosseum?? The weather in Rome changes even faster than the weather in Seattle.

One of the statues of Castor and Pollux (and their horses)--the twins that make up the constellation Gemini

2010-06-16T11:25:00.000-07:00

We walked down the looooong set of stairs from the museum, then over to the front of the Victor Emmanuel monument. Locals mock this bright white building....but I liked it. We snapped our pictures here, then decided to walk to some churches nearby, making our way to the Pantheon.

The Pantheon

2010-06-16T11:24:00.000-07:00

We ended up a block off from the church we were heading to, so we went straight in to the Pantheon. After all the ornate churches we had visited already, the Pantheon seemed subdued and understated. I love the simple geometric designs everywhere. The catholic church has set up their gilded altars and worship area, but this ancient building belongs to all faiths. We sat for a while on some empty pews, enjoying the different archetectural details. The earlier rain left behind some puddles below the oculus, so they cordoned off the center area of the building, which made it seem not so crowded in our nearby pews.

Santa Maria sopra Minerva

2010-06-16T11:22:00.000-07:00

After resting our backs and feet, we went to a nearby church, Santa Maria sopra Minerva, for another religious experience. This church played a role in the life of the famous Galileo Galilei, and they had exhibits inside related to his scientific discoveries. There is also a short obelisk outside, with an elephant at it's base. Not quite sure what this is all about, but it was interesting nonetheless. As was the kook who came out of the church, flung holy water on an unsuspecting young woman, then ran off. Terribly entertaining. This church is one of very few decorated in the gothic style, and we enjoyed checking out all of the ornate details inside.

Torre Argentina

2010-06-16T11:21:00.000-07:00

From here we decided to get some Italian gelato, then walk over to Largo Argentina, home of the Torre Argentina cat sanctuary. I have previously discussed this wonderful place on my blog, but it is just so very wonderful I must discuss it again. Staffed by volunteers, they care for several hundred cats every day. Cats that are left to die in the US, or are put to sleep. There are cats with three legs or no eyes or nerve problems. Cats who are very old, cats with open wounds and abscesses. Cats, cats, cats. Many are outside, free to come and go as they please. Others are kept inside until they are healed, or their vaccinations are complete. Some are segregated out because of infectious diseases. All are cared for, and cared about. We fell in love with a teeny tiny black kitty named Frank Sinatra, who is scared of his own shadow, and everything else.

We bought some trinkets at their thrift store and made a donation, then followed the advice of one of the volunteers and headed to the Trastevere area, across the Tiber river. Along the way, we stopped at Piazza Navona, and watched a street performer get out of a straight jacket that was padlocked shut. We walked for quite a bit, and found a little restaurant tucked along an alleyway and stopped for dinner. Delicious pasta and a wonderful carafe of wine. Just the teeniest sparkle to the wine. I loved it, and so did Ethan.

Piazza Navona

2010-06-16T11:20:00.000-07:00

2010-06-16T11:18:00.000-07:00

From Trastevere, it was a loooooong walk back across Rome to our hotel on the far side of Termini station

The Tiber river

Rome Day 3

2010-06-16T11:17:00.000-07:00

Our plan for this day was to go to the Vatican Museum, then St Peter's Basilica. That is all. But.....we took the metro over to the Basilica, exited to a whole lot of rain, and saw a line that wrapped around the entire square, and then some. At this point in our vacation (the very last day), I was *so* not up for standing in the rain for an hour. So, we left. I know we will go back. I *will* get to see everything. I am unconcerned about having missed it.

We headed instead to the nearby Castel St Angelo. It has had many uses over the years (as a fortress, as a hiding place for popes, etc), and now houses a museum. We toured around, ending up at the very top, where we had fabulous views of Rome and St Peter's Basilica.

2010-06-16T11:16:00.000-07:00

2010-06-16T11:15:00.000-07:00

One of many 3-legged cats safe amongst the ruins

Our focus today was on getting back to Torre Argentina, the cat sanctuary. Over our 2 hour lunch earlier in the day, we talked about that little cat we saw the day before--the tiny black one who was so skittish. We made up our minds that we were going to try to adopt him. So we headed back.

Unfortunately, one of the volunteers there dissuaded us from attempting adoption, since we live in the US. He said he would rather we adopted a cat in the US, since we have kill shelters, and the Roman cats would never be put to sleep.

I spent a while in the enclosed cat area, petting little Frank Sinatra the cat, who was hiding in a covered litter box--the one enclosed area he could find where he knew no one would sneak up on him (litter box was clean). He was quite happy to be petted, and rubbed up against my hand asking for more...but not ready to be picked up and held. Too much going on. He was being playfully stalked by a one eyed cat who could easily tell that he was freaking little Frank Sinatra out, and was totally enjoying himself. I shooed him away again and again.

We reluctantly left as the shelter closed to visitors at 6pm. Upon further reflection......we changed our minds and started emailing the shelter right after we got home. Yes, we can adopt a cat here...but this particular cat, our Frank Sinatra, needs us. We met him, we know him, and he is NOT happy in the situation he is in. Constantly being spooked by one of the other 30 or so inside-only cats there, always looking for a quiet hidey hole. He will be happier here. Still working on the logistics, but we WILL get him home.

2010-06-16T11:13:00.000-07:00

From the sanctuary, we wandered the streets of Rome, taking pictures and talking with no real plans. It was very sunny as we headed toward dusk, but clouds soon rolled back in and a heavy downpour started up, which continued through the night. This was supposed to be the driest month of the year for Rome, but we certainly caught a lot of rain!

2010-06-16T11:11:00.000-07:00

After a brief rest break in our hotel room, we decided to use our Metro passes and head over to the Colosseum to take some pictures of it lit up at night. Nevermind that it was pouring down rain. At least there were no other tourists there jockeying for position for the best pictures!! I used Ethan's hat as a cover over my camera, and got a few pictures in. We were having fun, so we took the metro from here over to the Spanish steps to repeat the process. Usually jammed with tourists, we were pretty much the only ones there, too. These two places are the only touristy places right on the Metro line (other than the far off vatican), and we didn't want to walk in all that rain, so we headed back to our room (at this point it was nearly midnight anyway), and packed up for our return home the next morning.

It was a rush for our shuttle bus in the morning, then a long ride to the airport. A rush onto our plane.....where we sat for 2 hours on the tarmac awaiting the Spanish airspace to free up from extra volcano traffic so we could take off. A long 10.5 hour flight to Chicago, where we found our Seattle flight quite delayed. After about 4.5 hours of that delay, it was another long flight back to Seattle, a taxi ride home, and some cats who were seriously peeved with our long abscence.

You never know how it will be travelling with someone, even someone you love dearly. Ethan and I have taken beach/resort vacations before and had a wonderful time, but we had never taken a travelling/museum/site exploring vacation, and were really not sure how we would be together-differend styles/interests/energy levels?? As it turns out, we did awesome. No major gripes or fights or anything at all. I am sure Ethan was not my biggest fan after that German chair lift incident, but he brushed it off and went on with his vacation. We rock. Totally going back again. And with the Euro plummeting, we are considering heading back in April of next year. Not sure where, but we will have an awesome time regardless.

2010-06-16T10:54:00.000-07:00

2010-06-12T09:41:00.001-07:00

Rome, Day 1

2010-06-06T14:43:00.000-07:00

We left Paris well before the sun arose, catching a 7am flight to Rome. Our hope was that this would give us the best chance of actually USING our travel day, rather than it being a wasted day.

The flight itself was pretty uneventful--we were on easyJet, which has no assigned seats, a la Southwest Airlines. We managed to get two aisle seats near the front of the plane, me sitting just in front of Ethan. I snoozed off a bit as the flight took off....but let's just say that one of us developed some sort of a bug or food poisoning or something and spent a significant amount of time in the teeny airplane bathroom educating themself on the best way to vomit into a teeny toilet when there is no space to kneel down nearer to it. Really, really sucked. I have never seen someone look so gray and pasty. The flight crew brought him some water, but there wasn't really much to be done. He toughed it out, and was totally wiped out once we landed.

After collecting our luggage, we headed over to a shuttle bus (I purchased tickets while we were on the plane, to avoid some hassle once we landed), and had a ~45 minute ride to Termini train station, a few blocks away from our hotel.

We crossed our fingers in hope that we would be able to check into our room early (like 5 hours early....), but it was not to be. So we dropped off our non-camera/computer luggage, and did some slow rambling. We will not discuss the meal we ate. We have decided to wipe it's unappetizingness from our consciousness and enjoy every other meal we had in Europe that was delicious. That bad. Literally bad. Bland. And cold. And obviously sitting under a heat lamp for an extended period of time. And this was AFTER I asked the server for his suggestion on what was best. Awful.

Anyway. We decided to get *something* out of our first day, so we walked a couple blocks to the nearby Church of Santa maria degli Angeli, within the ruins of the Baths of Diocletian. These baths were so enormous that several thousand people could bathe at one time. There were separate areas for men and women, and this was a major amusement for the working class and the elite as well. A place to forget about your troubles and enjoy hanging out with your neighbors.

From the outside, you would never suspect that there is a gorgeous, enormous church inside. We walked through the rough stone entrance......into a huge chamber, softly lit with light coming through stained glass windows high above. There were very few modern lights added, which kept things a little dim. Oh, so beautiful.

2010-06-06T14:42:00.000-07:00

2010-06-06T14:41:00.000-07:00

Look at poor Ethan with his heavy, overloaded bag. We hadn't checked in to our room yet, and didn't feel comfortable just leaving the laptop sitting around unsecured, so he has it (and all it's attachments) still stuffed in his messenger bag. Usually, it was fairly empty--mostly used for his coat when it was warm/sunny outside.

2010-06-06T14:40:00.000-07:00

2010-06-06T14:39:00.000-07:00

A man started playing music on a huge pipe organ in one of the many alcoves a few minutes after we arrived, and it totally completed the picture. (video on youtube under alycaamerson) Almost a surreal experience, being in this unbelievable church with the organ softly playing.
We wandered through every nook and cranny for quite awhile, then headed back outside into the bright sunlight. From here, it was maybe 6 blocks to our room. We were able to check into our room a few hours early, so we headed in and took a power nap.

2010-06-06T14:38:00.000-07:00

One of my most favorite shots from Ethan, looking straight up at one of the domed skylights.

Our room in Rome

2010-06-06T14:37:00.000-07:00

This is our room at the Beehive in Rome, very close to Termini station. Several bathrooms were down the hall, but we had a sink in our room and lots of closet space.

Santa Maria Maggiore

2010-06-06T14:36:00.000-07:00

We woke up refreshed, and decided to see a few other nearby sites of interest. Unfortunately, our first stop was at the National Museum of Rome, and they were no longer renting out audioguides for the day (they stopped like 5 minutes before we got there), and we felt that we would not get a whole lot out of the museum without some sort of English translation/description. So, we headed to the next place on our list--the Church of Santa Maria Maggiore.

2010-06-06T14:35:00.000-07:00

2010-06-06T14:34:00.000-07:00

This church is massive. Much more popular/well known than our previous church, but still a place of quiet beauty. Tourists were actually pretty good about being quiet as they wandered through. But, there was a group huddled outside one of the alcoves where a service was actually being held.....and despite the large, clearly viewable signs asking them not to.....they were taking pictures and videos of the worship service in session. Tacky, tacky, tacky. We were embarrassed to see it, and moved along so as not to be lumped in with idiot tourists.

This church was located here after the Virgin Mary appeared to the Pope way back in the 300's and told him to build her a church at the place where the snow falls--the next morning, there was snow here and nowhere else, so they built the church here. Snow in August, by the way...

This is the burial place of the famous sculpter Bernini, and also houses relics that are supposed to be part of the Nativity crib. A lovely church with beautiful architectural touches everywhere.

2010-06-06T14:33:00.000-07:00

Is it me, or does baby Jesus look like he is rocking out??? Showing some love for the fans??

2010-06-06T14:32:00.000-07:00

2010-06-06T14:31:00.000-07:00

2010-06-06T14:30:00.000-07:00

This church has some of the oldest mosaics known, dating from around 400 AD

The Spanish Steps

2010-06-06T14:29:00.000-07:00

After this church, we were hungry!! Our crappy earlier meal, combined with all that walking around while looking up definitely worked up our appetites. Using our handy dandy National Geographic map, we decided to walk towards the Spanish Steps area to find a restaurant. We came upon a beautiful building guarded by men with machine guns, and a set of steps. I asked Ethan if these were the Spanish Steps, but he didn't think so--they didn't look familiar. But, walking down them....we discovered that we were in fact at the very top of the Spanish steps, so we continued to the bottom and took some pictures. Looking back at Ethan's pictures from Rome in 2006, there was a ton of scaffolding over that beautiful building at the top, which is why it didn't look familiar to him.

2010-06-06T14:28:00.000-07:00

2010-06-06T14:27:00.000-07:00

2010-06-06T14:26:00.000-07:00

We wanted to walk a few blocks away to find a restaurant that wasn't too touristy. Tucked into a nook at the back of an alley, we found a place that fit the bill. And oh, what a great meal we had!! The only downer was the group of American tourists (sounded like New Yorkers....) sitting at the table next to us. Yelling (yes, yelling) for the waiter to bring them some butter for their bread (this is not bread meant for buttering), and for ice cubes to put into their wine. Yes, ice cubes in their wine. We cringed and pretended to be Canadian.

The dinner was divine--fried artichokes for an appetizer, seafood pasta for Ethan, and tortellini for me, with a shared bottle of rose wine. We also had a chocolate dessert to share whose name totally escapes me....but it was delicious.