Pansyiana: July 2006 Archives

picture after the jump

My cat, Chun Li passed away today. She was a spunky, and quite lovely half-tabby, half-Persian.

We purchased her as a teeney-tiny kitten in January of 1995 (she was born in November). She was a gift from my husband due to the fact that our first pregnancy ended in a miscarriage. So she has been with us for quite some time longer than any of our boys.

We noted her mellowing out a bit in the past couple of months and we cropped that up to old age. She was always such a spitfire. She never liked to be picked up much, but would show affection by following you around the house and sleeping on your feet at night. She was the easiest pet in the world to take care of. Less maintenance than those stupid turtles, and certainly less maintenance than the crazy country cats we had on the farm. I often wondered if I wasn't taking care of her right, but on her check-ups, she always got a clean bill of health. The only problem we had with her was depression when we moved, and she had to be put on anti-depressants.

The past two days, she was keeping to herself a great deal. This in and of itself is nothing new. She always found spots to hide and would pop up at night. Well, she didn't pop up last night or the night before to sleep on my feet. Yesterday evening the thought entered my mind maybe something besides heat and old age might be wrong, and if she continues to act funny, perhaps a trip to the vet was in order. Today, she didn't wake up. I am so heartbroken. I hope she was not suffering while I was "wondering" if there might be something wrong. She was a good pet.

My husband just came back from burying her in the woods near the North American Martyrs Shrine.

My husband was speaking to my mother-in-law today. She randomly mentioned to my husband that we "better not make anymore babies" (my husband has not told her yet).

My husband asked "well, what if we do?"
"Then you're just stupid!" And she hung up on him.

I am so tired of people. No one sticks to "the rules" anymore. You know the ones about respecting other people by not calling names and trying to twist their arm into doing what you want them to do? If she wants to say "I am not sure another baby is wise," and leave it at that, fine. That is her choice. Respectfully voice your opinion and move on.
But for some reason, when it comes to issues of family planning, yelling, name calling, making assumptions about other people's sex lives and voicing them is all fair game.

My brother and I email back and forth occasionally. Since I blogged blow by blow narratives of his basic training experience, I thought I would update. (Josh is my husband, by the way):

Well I hope Josh gets his eyesight back, cause he would suck at a game of charades. I hope he is alright.

Also how are mom and dad?

Yes things have been real busy here. Right now our higher ups are talking to us about N.Korea cause a missle hit not to far from us the other day. The Commandant of the Marine Corp talked to us and told us some stuff.

Work is really tiring me, the sun is real strong here. We PT in the morning and we push ourselves pretty hard. Like I was running and slowly things were coming up from my stomach.

I feel bad for some of the Marines I work with because they have a lot of problems. Every day is like a drama at camp foster.

Things are getting rougher with the world in the middle east and n. korea, there are crazy people over there. I'd say this feb. or next summer I will go to Iraq.

Why does Josh always get injured badly?

We have been trying to find activities for the kids to beat the heat other than going to the public pool which has been very active. I hate public pools-people pee in them.
Luckily, in upstate NY, particularly in the Adirondacks, there are many lake regions with great breezes; so being outside is not so tortuous, depending on where you go. Today we went to Eagle Mills which was fun enough for the kids, and leisurely enough for the adults. The only problem was it was a bit pricey. Probably not for one kid, but 4-5 is another story. Still we had a nice time.

I apologize if there are too many pictures. I tried to get at least one of everyone, not just to share with my fellow blogreaders, but family and friends I do not see often.

RoseyPosey, Gorbulas, and Fastolph looking at the Mill Creek below.

It looks like the "he" might be a "she" after all!!! OK, before I get my hopes up, let me add some of the realism: the first radiology tech said it looks like a girl, but she went and got someone else in to give second look and confirm. The second person said they agreed, but it was still not 100% sure.A later scan will be more definite. As a matter of fact they said 60% sure. The last four boys however, it was right away 100% clear-bing oh yeah, that's a boy!

I didn't think I was capable of making girls. We have one girl, so I guess it would be more accurate to say "I didn't think I was capable of making any more girls!"

I am so excited. My husband just said "Haha, that's silly. We will finally have a girl after all these boys." I have no idea what that means.

Rosey Posey I think is feeling a little insecure at the idea as she is the only girl, the only granddaughter (except for me), and the only female first cousin. I hope I can set her fears to rest that another girl does not mean we will suddenly be like "Rosey Posey? Who's that?"

As for me, I cannot believe I get to experience pink, and hair ribbons, and little girl dressies, and tights with ruffles on the butt, and little baby earrings. The flip side is combing hair every morning for a few years.

We brought him back to the ER yesterday for a wound check and to remove the bandages around his eyes. The staff there was very nice and friendly. They really seemed to enjoy their job and working with people.

When they removed his bandages, his eyes were a bit puffy, his eyelashes were all stubbly and the area was all slimey from the tons of Erythromycin they applied under the bandages. Thirty seconds later they did a vision test, to which he did "OK". But regardless of injury, I cannot imagine you will see very well after your eyes have been wrapped up for 24 hours and are covered in gooey antibiotic ointment. The doctor said to give it about 24-48 hours to see if his eyesight returns to normal, if not seek help from an eye doctor right away.

His nose is all burned, so I have to change the bandages for the next three days, twice a day,and carefully clean off as much dead skin as possible, which seems to be painful to him, and apply Silverdine (Silver Suladiazine) to the area. He also has to have Erythromycin applied to his eyes 4xs a day. The motive in his treatment seems to simply be to prevent infection. I guess burns make you very prone to infection.

Also he has a great deal of light sensitivity in both his eyes and skin. So he needs to wear sunglasses and when he stops wearing bandages, he has to be fastidious about sun block on his face for the next few months.

I am so relieved he will be OK though. That knowledge feels like Christmas to me! Thank you all who prayed for him.

Today I have my 18-week ultrasound to make sure this is another boy.

On the same day as our little accident, there was a propane explosion just south fo Albany that was tragic. The hearsay I heard was they were grilling in the basement, but all the newspaper stories cite it was from a falty hot water heater.

Yesterday was hot, hot, hot, so we did what we do every hot day-grilled! We had shrimp and veggies on skewers and the looked quite yummy. In the middle of cooking, we ran out of propane. My husband went and got a new tank in record time (I was going to ask where he went, but never had the chance), returned and installed the either refilled, or newly traded-in tank (I never found out which either). When he went to light it and bent down to click on the ignitor, there was a huge whoosh of fire in his face and his face got burnt. He went right away to the ER and my oldest, God bless her, accompanied him. I insisted on calling him a cab because his biggest complaint was pain in his eyes, but he insisted on driving himself (the hospital is right down the street-my OB's office is located there and I have walked there and back). For some reason that struck me as a "man thing". I do not say that as an offense to men, but I can see my father insisting on doing the same thing. In his mind it meant less financial burden on the family, of paying for a cab. Not the most logical, but I think in his panic as well, that was what was important to him.

I continued dinner (as the grill was on and the other children had not eaten). The food was cooking, but then the fire rose. I turned the knobs off, nothing happened. I closed the valve (later I saw I did not close it all the way), and nothing happened. I grabbed the fire extinguisher and extinguished the whole thing-shrimps and all. Afterwards I checked the valve on the tank, and I think in my calm panic, I didn't close it all the way, so I closed it tight.

My husband and daughter returned home via cab. The hospital staff kind of looked at him like he was crazy when he told them he drove there. He suffered second degree burns on his nose, first degree on the rest of his face, and his eyes are bandaged. Tomorrow he has to return and see if his eyes will heal.

We ordered pizza for dinner. I feel terrible about wasting the other food, and then wasting more money ordering out, but pizza lightened up the heavy mood that was starting to ensue a bit. And God bless my daughter (again), she sat next to her father saying "You know what I want to do now? Play a nice family game of Pictionary. Or better yet, charades!"

Tomorrow I will check the valves and the lines with soapy water to make sure there are not any leaks. Part of me would rather not grill again. Almost. I don't know how to cook inside in the summer.

I am feeling kind of freaked and very, very guilty (which is why I am up blogging instead of sleeping). Years ago, when we started grilling with propane, I used to check the lines with soapy water everytime we changed the tank. I don't know why I totally forgot about that procedure. I was not being lazy and skipping the step, I just totally forgot you do that. I think it was somewhere between when the grilling job got passed on from me to the Job of The Man of The House, and when were living off-grid. We got so used to dealing with fire and propane for everyday living, I guess we got kind of complacent, which is stupid.The flip side of course is we always have new fire extinguishers on hand (as Fastolph has been known to find them and use them out of curiosity in the past).

Please say a prayer my husband makes a full recovery. If he cannot work, it will make it difficult finanacially, as usual. Not that I want to ship him off injured. It's just that the life events=financial problems ratio never ends sometimes. Whenever you do little things to get ahead, it is just covering up what went wrong and is not really getting ahead.
Oh, another thing. My poor parents. My mother has been begging my father for years for a propane grill. He finally relented the day before yesterday and he spent 3 hours in Sears perseverating over whether or not this decision would eventually lead to their death, but finally purchased one. He spent hours afterwards worrying about where to keep the propane and insisted that wherever they put the tank (in the garage or basement), my brothers (23 and 21) are not allowed to enter that room ever again. Then I called them with this story: "Polo is in the ER because the grill kind of blew up in his face. Please pray for him!"

That and my grandmother used to get hysterical when I said we used propane to heat our hot water and for the stove when we lived off-grid. She used to scream into the phone that her heart would stop from the worry because that is so dangerous.

-On Sunday morning, I felt little, happy (I think) baby flutters for the first time. It felt like bubbles. I am always amazed how neat it is to have a teeney tiny 5-inch person hanging out inside you.

-Gorbulas (4.5) tells me everyday, "Mommy, I like your bel-llee!"
I asked him why. I wanted to see if he understood why I am so round, or if just being round is intriguing to him, but all I get is "because, I like your bel-llee."

-The diet has helped my syncope greatly and I continue to lose weight, but I am still queesy and extremely fatigued. I have stopped my morning work-outs because I cannot seem to get myself up at 5.30 AM
to work-out. I try to take walks during the day, but that is not really a "work-out" to me. Oh well.

My blood pressure has gone up a bit and is about 110/70 now. I hope that is not due to my current laziness. I have also been drinking iced coffees here and there for energy (and because they are yummy and a coffee with Splenda soothes my craving for sweets). This is not an everyday thing, but a once-in-awhile thing. I am such a light weight when it comes to any substances though, one iced coffee has me wired for hours and hours afterwards.

-Next week I see all my doctors and have an 18 week ultrasound.

I cannot seem to figure out the scanner thingy on my 4-in-1, so I am testing to see if this wedding picture works.

Pansy Wedding 6.18.94