Well, it's not going to kill you

Getting Ready

Ah, winter has finally arrived with it's blessings and it's curses.  It's fricking cold out in fact we had about 10 minutes of hail this afternoon.  We were just finishing bringing in wood because there are a string of Alaskan storms headed our way.  Heavy rain, yes!!!!, possible snow down to 500 ft, no.  We're at 1000.

On the schedule for tomorrow is an appt with Dr. Sanity at 1:30 and my three month feel-up with Amy at 3:00.  I can feel the joy of driving in the rain now, NOT.  I hate to drive in the rain but you gotta do what you gotta do.

Making sure we have batteries for the flashlights, propane for the propane lights, food I can cook on the stove top, oven is electric and we're bound to lose our electricity.

Oh well, the joys of living in the country makes it all worth it.  I am not however looking forward to walking Colin in a monsoon.

Crash and burn

The day has caught up with me at a whopping 9:33.  So embarrassing.  But we have lots of work to do tomorrow.  Take care of the tenants we didn't get to today. 

BRING IN FIREWOOD, lots of firewood.  We have a string of storms poised to hit us tomorrow night, very cold, very wet storms, snow levels possibly down to 500 ft.  We're at 1000.  I'm pretty much predicting we'll loose our power for a few days - ah the country life.  Note to self, buy more ice.

Thankfully our water heater is an instant on and propane, the stove top is propane.  Warm, clean hair (something of a fetish) and food we're fine plus we can always cook on the wood stove.

It will also stop our beloved tenants from using electric heaters - we pay the electricity for 2 of the cabins - and therefore reducing our bill.  Funny how our entire house runs on $90 per month and 2 tenants have managed to rack up almost $500 in PG&E bills in 2, yes you got that right TWO MONTHS.  However they are both HUD tenants so their rent is subsidized.  We have one who pays a whopping $21 on a $900 rental plus she gets free housekeeping twice a week.  The tenants while either have to go out and gather wood (hello we live in the forest there's lots of wood laying around) or God forbid pay for their own propane.  Seriously not a cheap option.  We've relied on our wood stove most of the past cold days but when it got cold enough we lite the propane heater in the living room keeping the doors to the bedroom and bathroom closed - nothing quite like a shower in a 51 degree bathroom.

However our Section 8 (HUD) tenants feel as if they're owed something.  Most of our rentals were built in the 40's, they have 40's wiring and 4o's insulation but the tenants seem to feel as if they should be able to run any and all electrical devices at the same time and not have the fuse blow.

OK I have to stop now before I totally lose it.  Talk to you all later.  If you live in Northern Ca and possibly Southern keep safe, keep dry, don't go out unless you absolutely have to, take care of yourselves

No but it's going to piss the living hell out of me.

This assault upon women's healthcare.  Of course you need to take into account that this public health studies were begun under the Bush administration so there was probably no science or scientists involved.

However now that the crackpots in the House and Senate have their bribed little hands on our health I'm feeling a bit wary.

Jen asked in a comment on the post I wrote about her and the 3 day walk "what should we do?"  Because my focus is breast cancer, duh, I told her to talk to the doc who delivered her kids as a first step.  As an OB/GYN he or she is the perfect place to start.  Lot's of tumors get found by OB/GYN's.  I suggested that she find out if there is a digital mammogram machine in her community, if there's not one in San Diego we're all in big trouble.  I suggested all of you start rabble rousing in your communities and raising funds for digital mammo machines.  NOT digitized films mind you a digital MACHINE and along with that a dedicated radiologist to read the films.  No more what ever radiologists hands the digital pictures happen to land in that day.  We deserve and should demand nothing less.

Don't be intimidated if you're told that can't be done, especially you Kaiser people.  Yes it can and the Sutter NorthBay Women's Breast Care Center is living proof.  It's not easy, it took us 10 years but it got done and we can now say with pride that we have the best equipment available with literally the country's best radiologist to read them.  Our ultrasound machines come from a place the sounds like "WE".  "We" sends it's people to our radiologist to learn what can be done with their machines.

If any of you are interested in more info please feel free to email me.  If I can't answer your question I can certainly find someone who can as my personal doc is also director of the Center.

Fellow women, we need to unite and make it very clear we will no longer be pushed around.  WE have voices and we can raise them very loud if we choose too.

I shall now remove myself from my soapbox for the evening.

Here are my beloved nephews

 
Who are sadly part of the dark side (hence Sarah)  Eric, on the left is 19, Christopher, on the right in 21.  Egged on by their father I'm sure. I hold out hope that I may eventually lure them from the dark side back to reality.

This was their response to an email I sent.

OMG, this is hysterical, I think even the Republicans in the crowd will enjoy the read.  I KNOW the Democrats will.
Cath
www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2009/11/25/notes112509.DTL

New Controversy Brewing

 There is a new study out that suggests women should not be screened for breast cancer until the age of 50 and then only every other year.

Yes well, statistics and theories are nice but what about women in their 20's through their 40's?  Or women like me who had a clear mammogram one year only to find a tiny but deadly tumor the next?

I realize that there are inherent risks in getting mammograms but it seems to me the amount of radiation you're exposed too is more than outweighed by the benefit getting it in the first place.  Did that sentence make any sense at all?  I know what I'm trying to say but it's not coming out of my brain clearly.

Obviously, to me anyway, the sooner you have a mammogram and catch something that looks suspicious, the sooner you have an ultrasound or MRI which confirms the findings good or bad.

Yes these are expensive tests, health care reform anyone, but they save lifes.

'The CISNET analysis shows that screening every other year maintains almost all of the benefit (an average of 81 percent) of annual screening with almost half the number of false-positives.'  And what about the 19% it doesn't benefit.  That's one hell of a huge number by my standards.

I'm sure there will be more information to follow but I wanted to open the door to get  people's attention.  The more questions you ask, the better informed you are and the better decision you and your doctor can make.

That's my soapbox rant for today.

Even Dr. Sanity caught the bug

The new dog bug that is.  She allows her patients to bring their dogs to their therapy sessions if they choose.  Apparently a number of us have new dogs and it's made her long for a new dog herself.  She had to put her beloved dog down about 18 months ago.

She read in the paper about these puppies and went to visit them.  One came up wrapped herself around Dr. Sanity's feet and it was mutual love at first sight.  Dr. Sanity first said yes then no.  She told me how on fire she was for a new dog at my Friday session.  But she was going to wait for a couple of things to happen on Monday first.  She decided she couldn't wait, went to visit the puppy today who put her paws around Dr. Sanity's neck and snuggled up to her like a baby.  The wall fell and Dr. Sanity will be picking up her puppy next week.

I never thought I'd be a sucker like that until I met Max.  I'm not a dog person, I've ALWAYS been a cat person but Max was special.  When I was so sick during chemo all I coud do was lay flat on my back he laid on the floor on my side of the bed every single day from morning to night until I recovered.  He was protective of Larry but especially protective of me.  I thought I'd never even like a dog as much as Max after he died.  I really wanted another Pyrenees but the fates were against us at this time.  Larry, wheelchair, walker, crutches ...  Thus we ended up with Colin.

Yes Connie I've gone to the dark side again but my first loves are still Sophie, Ted and Emme.  You would get the greatest kick out of Emme.  She spent her entire life, about 16 months living in the shelter.  It's a delight to watch her discover new things. Now that it's winter of course fire wood is coming in.  There was a stick of kindling on the floor and she pushed it.  IT MOVED.  I thought she was going to have a heart attack right there but maybe she only needed a sip of champagne : )

A brief interlude ...  we went to meet the dog trainer last night because we had missed the first class, orientation. Our main event for the evening was going to a friend's for a dinner of choppino, OMGF it was go good but I digress.  As we arrived at the designated spot, Copperfield's in Healdsburg  we realized we'd forgotten the walker and the wheelchair.  How could we have possibly forgotten not ONE but both.  As a result Larry and Colin spent the hour I spent with Mike in Copperfield's in the car.

The three of us headed off to dog school this morning.  We knew we needed a training collar because 1) Colin paid no attention to the training harness and 2) he chewed through part of it so it's off for repair.  Apparently the hot new training collar is the Martingale .  It's basically a cloth choke collar that's easier on the dog than a traditional metal collar.  We purchased our collar and went off to class.  He was less than impressed with the collar and got bored toward the end of class because he already knows how to sit, is so smart that most of the training bored him - RAPIDLY.  The most hysterical was the one where you place a treat on the ground and as the dog goes for it you cover it with your foot.  If the dog looks away it gets rewarded.  He was very excited the first 2 or 3 times.  After that he laid down and looked at us as if to say "how stupid do you think I am?  I know you're going to cover the treat with your foot so I'm not even going to bother making an effort"  I personally found it quite hysterical and he got rewarded for it.

As it turns out Colin has converted me again to being a semi-dog person again.  He's big, only 13 months old and 110 lbs.  He's expected to gain another 20 to 30 lbs and grow a bit taller.  Currently he stands 31" at the shoulder and 36" at the head.  Yeah he's going to get bigger.  But he's the most mellow guy.  In fact one of the people we had dinner with last night tried to smuggle him out and Mike doesn't even like dogs!

Everyone at Western Farms, our go to place if Healdsburg dog house doesn't have what we need, fell in love with him.  He's generally calm and approachable for kids up to adults.  Now If we could just get him to stop using his giant feet when he's excited.  I have bruises down both thighs because he gets so excited and he doesn't realize the power he has.We're greatly looking forward to the next six weeks of dog school.  We may ever cure him of a kid's version of "I didn't do it".  His version is "duck did it"  Every time he does something he knows he's not supposed to do he runs over to duck (who was once fluffy and white) grabs him and either shakes him for all he's worth or makes him squeak.  You know he's feeling particularly guilty if he makes duck squeak - riotous.  He is a great lift to my spirits which as you know have been sinking of late.

But it better news

I'm finally beginning to feel like a normal human being.  I was sustained by adrenaline rush for so long after Larry's "what in the fucking hell were you thinking" accident that I felt burned to a crisp.  I told Dr. Sanity it reminded me of one finals week in college where I had an organic chemistry, physics and calculus final all in the same week.  It left me physically and mentally drained.  One of those "great" college memories.  My mental health had taken a hard blow and I regressed so far it feels as if I'm starting from zero again.  But start I will because staying in this place is not an option.  Oh gooody I get to scrape myself up off Dr. Sanity's carpet again just to get back to were I was.

Last Monday she sent me home early from our session because I was so tired, so tired in fact that I almost fell asleep driving home.  When I came into her office on Friday she said "you look like you".  Of course I had been sleeping 28 hours a day in the week in between.

Sleaze ball tenant has FINALLY left the property, the garage is full of her stuff because she and her none too intelligent friends burned out the clutch on her car.  Instead of backing the trailer up to the house they pulled it past the house and managed to get it stuck in a ditch.  They decided the best way to solve this problem was to pull the trailer up the hill - unfortunate problem there is a car in the way.  They decided to solve this problem by pushing the car back into it's storage space, uuumm guess how successful that was.  So they decided to just try to pull the trailer out of the ditch by doing who knows what that resulted in trailer still in ditch and no clutch in the car.  She's promised she'll have her stuff out by the 3rd.

Last we heard her "friends" who were part of a gang of thieves were seen hitchhiking out of town.  YES!

We think we rented the house today.  To a very nice, very trusted young couple we met through friends.  He's a handyman type which would be wonderful to have on the property.  There is SO much to be done and Larry just can't keep up with it anymore, especially from a wheelchair!

The tenant wars down at the cabins continues but I don't care because all that stuff is back in Larry's lap.  Unfortunately our best tenant is moving out.  The young couple came up today to look at the place but there was no way to get in.  He changed the lock on the front door and super glued pennies over the locks in the back doors, in addition he put a lock on the inside of the gate to the backyard and booby trapped it.  Larry needs to track him down because we're putting an ad in the paper tomorrow.  He also gets to tell the tenant that I told she could have the place that she can't.  He's decided no more Section 8 housing than we already have.  She's section 8, still hasn't paid her deposit or the $25 she borrowed for gas over 2 months ago.

Actually in worked to our benefit because when they looked at former sleazy tenant's house they really liked it.  Now they just have to negotiate with their current landlord's to get out of their lease.  Better yet they'd like to rent the entire house which includes the currently trashed apartment.  He's willing to refurbish the place as well, sometimes dreams do come true. 

Guilty Pleasure

It' so decedent to sleep all day when your doctor orders you to do it!  Thank you Dr. Sanity.  She sent me home early from our session again yesterday with a GO TO BED AND STAY THERE because I was so tired words were disappearing from my mind before then were even spoken.

What with everything going on around here and having to shoulder most of the burden (or at least THINK I have to shoulder the burden, I've burned myself and my brain to a royal crisp!  As in I'm thinking one word and type another kind of burned out.Larry's getting better so I passed most of the tenant work back to him which is good because he's now as seething with anger as I am.  I passed it back to him but told him I'm going to do backup so he does not slip back into his sweet guy mode, because he is MUCH nicer than me.  I've worked extremely hard to get the tenants to recognize that we are 1) only their landlords and 2) they live in very old houses that bear no resemblance to living in a current era apartment and cannot always be repaired to their standards.  Please don't even get me started on windows because if I hear from a certain tenant ONE MORE TIME ABOUT HER FRICKING WINDOW I will loose my mind.

Dear Tenant,

Your house was built in the early 1940's without a foundation.  The house has settled over the intervening 60 some years.  The window CANNOT be repair to your exacting standards.  If you are unable to cope with this fact please feel free to take you and your whining self and find yourself a new place to live.

signed,

At my wit's end your landlord.

ps you are not going to be raped and murdered ( especially when you have a gun which reminds me I need to call Susan Chief of Police to see if it's legal for you to have a gun because you are a serious nutcake), there is no need to create drama where this is none or use that pathetic, whiny, oh woe is me, no one loves me voice every fricking time you call either.  It just makes me more pissed off.

I would really, really love to post this letter on her door but Larry frowns when I call the tenants nutcases to their faces.

We're all still alive reposted - spell checked this time

But exhausted!  Between Larry and I we've been to the doctor 4 times this month and that doesn't include visits to Dr. Sanity.  Oh and of course that doesn't include all the time he was in the hospital and rehab last month.  And Larry has 2 more visits next week.  One for his eye and one for physical therapy.  He's hoping to be transferred to crutches at the physical therapy visit.  I don't want to burst his bubble but I think it going to be a more gradual process so I just keep my mouth shut.

The other thing we did was adopt a dog.  We brought him home Wednesday and it feels as if he's always been here. No pictures yet, can't find my damn camera cable.

When Larry was in the hospital in Oakland he said "I need a dog"  I promptly got in touch with my friend who is the director of the hospital for the Humane Society and said "Larry needs a dog"  Carol is the person who found Max for us so I knew she would know the right dog when she saw it.  It had to be big and it had to like cats.  Well, he's definitely big, a combination of Brindled English Mastiff and German Shepherd.  His face looks very Shepard, all black and eyes that just make you melt.  He was raised with 2 cats and 2 small dogs.  The family had to downsize and there just wasn't room for 110 lb dog.  Carol said the owner was weeping when he turned him in and it's easy to see way.  He's about 18 months old as mellow as can be and CUTE.  She sent us pictures of him on Friday, we went to visit on Sunday and fell in love. I went to the shelter fully prepared not to like him but one look at his face and it was love at first sight.  Even better he walked over to Larry who was in his wheel chair and put his great big head in Larry's lap.  Larry just lite up like a Christmas tree.  It was the first time I've seen him really smile since he came home from the hospital. The owner said he was leash trained but my version of leash trained and his are 2 very different things.  I spent half the day yesterday yanking on the leash telling him "don't pull on the leash" and feeling terrible for doing it.   We solved that problem by making a visit to Healdsburg Dog House.  Natalie has a wonderful harness  that circles his body and the way it's designed you can very easily reel him in if you need too, teach his to walk properly at your side and we can leave it on for a long time as we want (I have a feeling it's going to be a long time, he's very smart but he's also 110 lbs and can be some what "difficult" to handle him.  We will be going to dog school but that will have to wait awhile as he's going to be Larry's dog I want Larry to do the bulk of the training.We'd been home about five hours when I glanced over at the couch.  Larry was sitting there, Colin had his head on his lap and was sound asleep.  Last night I couldn't get to my camera fast enough but Larry was stretched out on the couch sleeping and Colin was stretched out on top of him sleeping.The owner said he was leash trained but my version of leash trained are 2 very different things.  I spent half the day yesterday yanking on the leash telling him "don't pull on the leash" and feeling terrible for doing it.   He had to got back to the hospital yesterday to get his foot checked, they had removed a foxtail from his back foot when he came in.  In order to get in there on the appointed time I had to take him to Dr. Sanity's with me.  She frequently has other dogs come to sessions but I was a little worried about his manners of lack thereof to be more accurate.  He behaved very well. And best of all while Colin got his foot checked Carol and I got to spend some time talking to each other.

We used to talk frequently when I was doing volunteer work with Pets Are Loving Support.  But I stopped doing that years ago so our conversations have been via email and phone.  It was a total delight to see here happy and smiling.  Her husband died 4 years ago (hard to believe).  She still gets together with 4 other people that were in her hospice support group once a month which gives her great comfort. That's about it except for the ugly tenant wars and I've turned those back over to Larry.  My brain is fried to a crisp, I angry at them for being so stupid, and angry at myself for being so intolerant.  I'm perfectly happy going back to taking care the the money side.

OMG, I just got off the phone with my 21 yo nephew who is madly in love with Sarah Palin.  I keep telling him I'll eventually convert him from the dark side.  This kid is as smart as a whip, intelligent, funny, witty, loving, caring, supporting but he doesn't have a lot of guidance in  his life.  So while his little brother is attending UNR ( University of Nevada of Reno), he's still attending the local jc trying to find his way.  He's so funny he decided that his apartment was occupied by 2 ghosts so he went to the local Catholic Church he attends in Hollister, got a bottle of holy water and sprinkled it in all four corners of his apartment.  He says the ghost is now gone.  One I established the holy water was not stolen ( don't even ask) I agreed that the ghost was probably gone.  This is why I LOVE to talk to him!

I remember when had him up for a visit when he was about 3.  He's ALWAYS loved mechanical things.  We had a VCR that had died and Larry was going to toss it out, I said NO, let's keep it for Chris it will keep him entertained for hours.  And sure enough it did.  We started of just giving him a screw driver.  Pretty soon the questions started coming "what do you think will happen if I do this, or this or this."  He ended up with a pair of scissors and a wrench in addition to his screw driver.  He had the time of his life.

Well it's time to take Colin out, gee I wonder who's going to do that? So I'll close for now.  I think things have settled down enough that I might get some regular posts going.  But in the meantime I'm thinking of all of you.

If this post seems a little disjointed - it is there's been a lot going on and between dog wrangling and loading the wheelchair into and out of the car my lower back is killing me!

Well I just discovered I'm being followed by an award winning journalist - corrected*

How very cool!  Maybe she can help me spread the word on my latest crusade.  Yes you know me, the consummate tilter at windmills.

This one is the FDA.  Larry has to catheterize himself 4 times a day.  He is allowed 12 catheters per month.  So I wash them in the sanitary hand soap, dry  them and put them in plastic bags so he can reuse them.  To me this seems to me to be a walking invitation to a very  bad infection similar to the one he had a few weeks ago when he didn't know where he was, who he was or what year it was.  I was looking back at my archives but there's nothing really clear except he spent 4 days in the hospital getting pumped full of IV antibiotics.

So FDA here I come.  As I said I'll probably be tilting at windmills but when have you ever known something as small as that to stop me?  Also I have a question for you out there.  I'm putting together a wisdom box to send to my 18 yo niece at college.  Someone should benefit from our collected wisdom as women right?

So far I have one of my many breast cancer bears to remind her that young women get breast cancer as well and perhaps they should arrange for someone from a local breast care center or the ACS to come and teach a group of them the proper way to examine their breasts.  I know that wouldn't have helped me since mine was SO small and up against the chest wall but they should know the basics.

A copy of the Giving Tree so she remembers it's good to give but save some of yourself. 

A copy of the newest edition of Our bodies, our selves because she's only got one body and she should learn as much as she can about it

.And a funky little art kit of a wooden body with paints so she remembers she also needs to play.   She's a civil engineering major with a minor in concrete management.  She wants to build roads.

Any other ideas???  Jen, Eliza, Tiffany you're all way younger than I am, Connie, Erin, Nik, Little Miss Sunshine what would you at our advanced ages include?????  I was thinking of finding her a magic wand because every girl needs one - or at least a cigarette holder (She was Ursula in  her dance school's production of the Little Mermaid 
, the one with the grayish wig is Marissa and as she called them her unruly tentacles.  Notice the very long left arm trying to wrangle a tentacle?   After her performance her mother turned to me and said I bet you didn't know she had that in her.  My reply - oh yes I did.  She is truly her mother's daughter!  *correction, no arms are shown wrangling tentacles, that was another picture.  And I remembered to run spellcheck this time : )