Go team! You suck!
I gotta admit, I love Fall. That clear, pale light that makes you know the sun is shining but it's not hot out. The stores getting ready for Halloween (OK, not ready for Christmas yet, thank you very much). And football.

Much to the amusement and confusion of my family, I like football. And while watching the Niners/Seahawks game today, I realized how, at times, it can be a lot more enjoyable when your team is losing.

Now eventually, miraculously, unbelievably, the Niners won. But for awhile there, they were sucking, big time. And it was such fun to just get out all my pent-up frustration by yelling at the TV. "How can that not be offsides?? They looked like the fucking Rockettes?" "Nice of you to clear a space so the runner doesn't get bunched up....can somebody please tackle him?" It's great. It gives you a harmless outlet for your anger and angst and is, strangely, more satisfying than hating the other team.

Sure it's fun to rag on their lame passing game. But when your team is screwing up, it's intensely cathartic to just scream out your superiority. (Yes, even I with my weak health and newly-discovered ulcer can run better than our Running Backs.)

Now, on to Steelers vs. Browns. No clue who to root for, as I really don't care, but I still have some leftover piss to get out.

An exception...
I don't usually like insult humor. But this is hilarious. Triumph the Insult Dog vs. Star Wars geeks. Thanks to Husband for the laugh...

She limps! She eats!
My friend the ever-wonderful Finny just wrote about doing an 11 mile run in preparation for a mini-marathon she's running in 3 weeks. Yeah....right.

These days I get winded walking from the sofa to the kitchen. I know I have an excuse: I haven't eaten in 18 months. I've nibbled, I've zarfed. I've eaten, and I've zarfed. I've done nothing, and still I zarf. If I were a superhero I'd be BarfGirl, the worst superhero ever. To fight crime all I'd have to do is eat a cracker then point my super self at the evil-doer and I'd throw up all over their nasty shoes. They're not going to be making a cartoon of me anytime soon.

I envy people like Finny who have bodies that work. Mine hasn't since, oh, about 1980. But the past 18 months have been a cavalcade of awful. Even though I'm not in the hospital, I'm still sick. I'm still doing the zarf tango at unpredictable moments. Today I did get all crazy and wild and went out to breakfast with Husband. I had two or three bites of his scrambled egg and one half of a half of piece of toast. Oh yeah, and a glass of milk. I eat like I'm 80.

I move like it too. I'm not limping, but I am wobbling. Most of my food this week came in an IV bag. Now that I'm unhooked, i eat very little and it feels like very much. After today's tiny breakfast I swear it felt like I'd just come from an all-you-can-eat hot fudge sundae buffet. But I'm trying to eat when (and if) I can so that I can get some strength back. Honestly this weak-as-a-newborn-kitten feeling is getting old.

So Finny's exploits have inspired me. Not to run 11 miles (who the fuck am I kidding?) but to completely appreciate how good it'll feel when this is all over. I long for the day when I can do basic things like have dinner with my husband in public. Take a walk without having to sit down every 15 feet. Do laundry without having to take a nap afterwards.

Oh the joys of not zarfing! People, enjoy your health.

Paging nurse idiot
I forgot to tell you about the idiot nurse who nearly caused me to sue the hospital on Wednesday night.

1. Instead of coming into my room for the usual "hi, the shift is changing and I'm your new nurse" at 11:30 pm, she came in at 1, when the lights were off and I was trying to sleep, for the soul purpose of introducing herself.

2. When I rang for pain meds she came in and then forgot me for nearly 90 minutes.

3. She then came back in, 20 minutes after giving me the meds (turned the lights back on) and said "I just need to do something" then stood at the monitor in my room and typed for about 5 minutes, leaving without a word, with the lights on and door open. (Up I get to close door, turn off lights.)

4. She comes back in 30 minutes later and says (Her: lights on and door open) "I've lost a piece of paper, have I left it in here?" (Me: Close door, turn off lights.)

5. 10 minutes late she comes back in (lights & door) looking for the same piece of paper. (Me: close door, turn off lights.)

6. Two other nurses come in a few minutes apart looking for the missing paper. They at least turn off the lights and close the door.

7. Nurse and supervisor come in (lights & door) and both look for it. I get up and close the door, leaving the lights on because admitting defeat is easier than being blinded every 5 minutes.

8. She comes in, not looking for anything, asking if I need more meds. I do. She goes away. I never see her again...until she comes back in at 6 and says "I found the paper in my pocket." Oh good, can I have my night back please?

She's the only nurse I've ever had who pissed me off. Every other nurse there was amazing; kind, caring, gentle, considerate, compassionate, all that good stuff. She was a disaster.

She's back...and she's got a hole in her stomach
Yeah, it's an ulcer.

I'm fresh out of the hospital and freshly diagnosed with a (apparently rather large) ulcer. The last time they did an endoscopy they noticed I had lesions but no actual hole. After Wednesday's endoscopy they found the culprit. They're not sure it's causing all my problems, but it's definitely causing some of them. I need to have another test on Tuesday where I drink something nasty and they x-ray me and follow the path. There's a chance that the ulcer is preventing food from going where it needs to go. I think that might be right considering I've zarfed up everything I've eaten today. But thank god I'm home.

I hate hospitals. Fine places full of noble, caring, hard-working people. And completely non-conducive to healing. Aside from the lovely drugs that kept me from noticing the pain in my back and tummy, the entire week was awful. I'm not exaggerating when I say I had no sleep for two of the nights I was there. Between them coming in every hour to check on my condition, getting blood drawn at between 4 and 5 every morning, and regular comings in for my vital signs -- it was nearly impossible to sleep. Add in lots of noises from the corridor, alarms going off, an uncomfortable bed, my usual pain, and missing Husband and Cipher (the World's Most Amazing Cat, Screw You if You Don't Agree tm), I just never slept.

Yesterday when I got home at about 4 I took a bath and jumped into bed....and woke up at 9:30 last night. I got up for a while, went back to sleep an hour later and slept until nearly 11 this morning. I haven't slept that long in ages! But god did I need it. I'm still really week after having not eaten for a week, but at least I'm rested.

Anyway, not much to report. But I am relieved that, at last, there is something to fight against. I'm on drugs, might need an operation if the food isn't going to the right place, but damned glad to be home.

Thanks to everyone who called to find out what the heck happened to me. I love you all.

Catching up
Well, Labor Day Weekend has come (yay!) and gone (boo!) and I didn't do much of anything. I'm having a hard time recovering my strength after my last bout of the Creeping Zarfs ... mostly because I just don't eat enough. But I really don't have much energy these days. Luckily Husband the Wonderful took great care of me. We did get out into the sunshine yesterday with a short walk by the bay. It was glorious and SO nice to get out of the house.

It looks like tonight is the return of At the Cafe Bohemian. I asked for someone to sub for me, but nobody's stepped up so I guess I'm on the air. To be perfectly honest, I'm worried that I won't have enough energy to do the full show. If you listen, be prepared for lots of 10 minute songs in the last hour.

Today is also Cipher's (The World's Most Amazing Cat, Screw You if You Don't Agree tm) birthday. Two years ago today we brought her home from the Peninsula Humane Society. And yeah, it was love at first sight. Thanks for all the love, play, and sleepless nights, cat. We love you.

In other news, Husband and I watched Zodiac this weekend. The 2006 version with Robert Downey, Jr. It was....um....long. It would have been quite good had it been about 45 minutes shorter. But interesting. As someone who lived in the Bay Area during the Zodiac murders (even if I was only a kid) it was interesting to revisit the sort of the hysteria it caused. I remember the SF Chronicle carrying the front page story. The curfews. I remember the adults discussing it and warning my older siblings to be careful. Fascinating how one lunatic with a gun and a secret code can terrorize an entire region.

Heat
It's hot. Not Tucson in August hot, but hot enough to be uncomfortable. I know people have this view that California is always sunshine and surf. But I'm a Northern California native, used to fog and mild temps. This minor heatwave (it's currently 83 in the house) has both me and Cipher (the World's Most Amazing Cat, Screw You if You Don't Agree tm) curled like two lumps of warm dough.

I don't do heat well. Of course I don't do cold well either, but cold is easier. A hot bath, a cozy sweater, some cocoa....there are always ways to warm up. But when you're hot, there's very little you can do. Because we get all of seven hot days a year, we don't run to AC. We have fans...but they're hardly the same. So you lay around in as little clothing as possible, in the direct line of the fan, sipping ice water and wondering if you can possibly sit through some atrocious movie because at least the theatre has air conditioning.

Poor Cipher, in her fur coat, probably has it worse. Last night she was too hot even for her nightly play session with Husband. At the moment, she's looking at me like "hey, you're god, do something." I wish I could, kitty. I'm on the floor, because it's cooler down here and because lying down is easier on my back. She's a few feet away, looking like she wish she could melt. I'm exactly the same....too hot to move, too lethargic to do much of anything but wish it were winter.

What is there about heat that just sucks the energy out of you? From the moment I got up this morning all I've wanted to do is, well, nothing. Water and lots of it. That's it. No appetite. No desire to do any of the hundred things I should do. When I got up to feed the cat a few minutes ago I saw someone jogging past the house. Who are these people? How in the world do they have either the energy or the desire to run when it's so hot out? OK, maybe to earn a milkshake at the end of it, but that's the only reason.

Oh, and this weekend marks the hallmark of culture in our sleepy little town. It's the annual Art & Wine Festival. They block off all of downtown and the place gets invaded by thousands of people wandering around looking at painted driftwood birds, customized mail boxes, and all the tedium of craftiness. Plus the nutritional gift that is Funnel Cakes, frequently bad live entertainment, plus booze. And when it's hot, the booze really flows. It's amazing how much beer people can down at these things. Husband and I rarely go to this thing -- mostly because we really don't like ugly things that pretend to be "art," but sometimes the people watching is amazing.

Have you ever marveled at the sheer unlimited number of hideously ugly t-shirts there are in America?

We'll always have....oh pass a tissue
Oh, the perfection that is Casablanca. Is there a more perfect movie? Rick and Ilsa. The problems of two little people not amounting to a hill of beans in this crazy world. Victor leading the house band in a rousing version of the French national anthem. And all the wonderful, amazing, unforgettable characters...Karl and Sascha, the "what watch?" couple, the young Bulgarians trying to win at Roulette and, of course, loyal and lovely Sam.

It's on right now, just winding down. Ilsa and Victor are just getting on that airplane and, once again, I'm a sentimental fool. I must have seen Casablanca 50 times and I still love it. I love the end when Louis orders the rounding up of "the usual suspects." I love Rick, leaning in the doorway of a French train as he realizes Ilsa isn't joining him in his exile. I love Sam singing "Knock on Wood."

Yeah, it's corny and so famous that it's almost a cliche of itself. But for sheer wonderful moviemaking, can it be beat? If you haven't seen it in ages, I urge you to do so again. It just might be the start of a beautiful friendship.

Life, the universe, and peanut butter
Sometimes the world comes down to a spoonful of peanut butter.

As loyal friends and bored readers know, I've had shit-all to contribute to the blog world for about two weeks now but "I zarfed." And "Hey, I zarfed!" Followed by "I zarfed. Then I went to ER." Thrilling, isn't it? No wonder I have all of three readers.

But today's posting isn't about that. It's about how a spoonful of peanut butter can change your day. I may do an informercial about it. You see, I'm still not eating much, but I am forcing myself to eat when I can. If I wait until I want to eat rather than when I can eat, I'll just fade away....like the Cheshire cat. So today's goal is "pack it in" well, in moderation, of course.

So I had this spoonful of PB and, in the words of The Old Book, "it was good." It was one of those "being sick teaches you to appreciate the little things in life" moments. Hardly a glorious sunset or the first bloom of spring, but a "wow, this tastes so good" kind of thing. Where you're just damned glad that you can have something as mundane as peanut butter and not have it necessitate a trip to ER. (Well, not yet, anyway.)

I've been pretty damned sick for about two weeks now and let me tell you, I'm really fucking sick of being sick. So I'm working as hard as possible to not be. And a little super chunk Skippy may not seem like climbing Everest to the rest of you, but to me it's huge. And it feels it. It's like that one spoonful psychologically symbolizes my saying "screw it, I'm willing myself to get better." Maybe it'll work, maybe it won't. But I'm trying.

It's been hard, watching all these buff, healthy, strong, amazing Olympians the past few weeks while I lie winded and shaking after a marathon trek to get more apple juice. I envy all of them those bodies that aren't letting them down (damn them!). And yet with all the inspiring performances, the athletes haven't given me the "I can be like that" vibe. But give me a bite of peanut butter and suddenly I'm a movie of the week in the making.

Maybe London will put peanut butter eating on the medal stand -- I'd be a shoe-in.

By the way, sorry to be so unbearably dull lately. I'll try to stop writing about how miserable I am.

I want my own parking space
At the emergency room. Yup, back we went. Thursday night. 8 days between ER visits...I can't recall if that's a new record or not.

My wonderful friend the incredible Finny has spent the past week waxing lyrical about her home grown goodies and her farm share crop, her general gourmetitude (complete with fabu recipes). Meanwhile, I've had Husband forcing me to eat Cup of Soup and take spoonfuls of Jell-O. (They lied, there isn't always room for Jell-O.) Oh where or where has my appetite gone, oh where, or where can it be?

In other news, this is the closing weekend of the Olympics and after watching 900 hours of coverage, and in the absence of anything of actual importance to say, i have these observations, questions, and peeves.

- How come male beach volleyball players can compete perfectly well in shorts and tank tops but female players need a bikini for full range of motion? Come on folks, talk about sexism! Either give the ladies shorts or put the guys in Speedos.

- Who decides that we need to see every frickin' point of every frickin' volleyball game by every frickin' country, but we can't spare 10 minutes of screen time for archery, shooting, judo, fencing, modern pentathalon, or various other "obscure" sports.

- The same question applies to men's basketball. We can see men's basketball 47 months a year -- we get to see archery once every four years and I think it got like 15 minutes at 3 am.

- Is anyone else sick of hearing Rhapsody in Blue in those creepily animated United Airlines commercials? The Gershwin estate has a lot to answer for.

- Bob Costas is worth every penny NBC is paying him. And the more tired he gets, the funnier he is.

- Years ago it seems Olympic coverage was padded with endless athlete profiles featuring every hardluck shot-puter whose deaf grandmother fled a locust hoard and started a roadside fruit stand in Ethiopia. Now they've gone completely the other direction and haven't bothered really to tell us about anyone. A middle ground would be nice. I don't need all the sob stories, but it would be nice to be able to recognize someone other than Michael Phelps.

- The Chinese divers are robots. Only explanation.

- Why is rhythmic gymnastics a sport and yet they're getting rid of softball. That just sucks. And BMX racing? That's what suburban kids do outside of the local Subway sandwich shop -- it's not a sport.

- Who knew there were so many things you could do on the water? Kayaking. Canoeing. Skulls. Various numbers of participants. Flat and fizzy water. The 500 meter mixed 9-men, 3-women Perrier Swan Boat obstacle course was especially interesting.

- Which brings me to the only Olympic sport I can compete in. I could be a coxswain. I could sit in a boat and yell at people while they row their guts out.

Back to bed....Cup of Soup, anyone?

Would you like fries with your bowling ball?
I'm in the "forcing myself to eat because every time I stand up I get dizzy and develop the kind of shakes that makes the neighbors think I'm on methadone" phase of recovery. Yesterday's dietary toll: one half cup dry cereal, one cup of less-than-stellar matzoh ball soup, one cup of juice. Call Jenny Craig. Yeah, that's it.

Today I daringly added milk to the cereal and had a real, old-fashioned, all-American bowl of Cheerios for breakfast.

And can I tell you that it feels like I just ate a bowling ball? No, really. I had less than a cup of cereal and about 1/4 cup of 2% milk and here I am still feeling it sitting like concrete in my not-used-to-food-at-all tummy.

I know that I have to eat. I know that my biggest problem right now is that I have absolutely no strength and feel like I'm going to faint if I do more than one thing per standing up trip. (I can get juice OR I can answer the phone. I can't do both.) But the problem is that I just have no appetite and when I do eat a little it feels like I've gorged on half a wildebeest with fries.

Oh dear, and now I need to go lay down (lie down? I never learned the rules on that one) because I am, you guessed it, too weak to be sitting up any longer.

Damn, damn, damn
Today we cancelled our grand tour. Damn.

I was so sick this weekend that the concept of being well enough to count on two weeks of good health seems impossible. The last day to cancel was upon us, and I just couldn't commit. I dreaded the thought of being offshore of some exotic port and being too sick to leave the cabin. Between my bad back and my unpredictable ability to actually eat for two whole days in a row, it just seemed like a bad idea.

The bottom line is that I wasn't looking forward to it. I was actually kind of dreading it because I kept thinking "what if I get this sick in Turkey?"

Well, at least we no longer need to stress about what we're going to do with the cat.

Damn, damn, damn.

That darned cat!
So Husband and I have to finalize payment for our Grand Tour this week....and how lame are we that we're still upset about the prospect of leaving Cipher (The World's Most Amazing Cat, Screw You if You Disagree tm) for two weeks?

No, really, we are. Every time we think about our trip and look in those sweet green eyes we just melt. As Husband just said "we're gonna be tied to this house for the next 15 years without ever taking another vacation."

The problem is that she loves us. When she realizes that we're in a different room than she, she immediately gives out with a "where are you" meow and comes to find us. It's completely endearing....and heartbreaking when we think of her meowing in an empty house for two weeks.

Yes, we could put her in kitty boarding but:
a) we hate the thought of her being in a cage for that long
b) it's bad enough for her to misplace her people, without having to lose her familiar, cozy home
c) we've heard enough horror stories about cats getting sick from other cats in the boarding facility

My sister has volunteered to come in every day to feed her and clean her box, but that's only 15 minutes of human contact a day; not nearly enough for a cat as social and loving as Cipher.

Sigh....what are we gonna do?

Words as art
LOVE this! It's Wordie where you enter words (whatever strikes your fancy) and it turns it into art.

I made a short list of world music artists and created the above. Too cool!

Meanwhile, back in ER
Yeah, me. For the record, Wednesday morning at 6 am is the perfect time to go to Peninsula Hospital's ER. We walked right in, the doctor arrive as I was still tying up my ever-so-fetching-the-opening-goes-in-the-back gown, and we were home by 8:30.

I was up all last night with my patented mixture of excruciating back pain and nearly non-stop vomiting. (I'm hoping it's just a coincidence that I spent yesterday with my mother.) Luckily tomorrow I have an appointment with my wonderful massage therapist, Michael from PUSH Therapy and he's really helped me. And if he can't, the ER doc gave me a small prescription of Delaudin (or however it's spelled) which I will dole out like gold for those night, like last night, when I'm in pretty bad shape.

Anyway, once again the amazing folks at the ER made me feel better. And once again the amazing Husband puts his own life on hold to stay by my side, hold my had, pick up prescriptions, bring me juice, and remind me that in spite of all the pain and illness crap I deal with, I'm still the luckiest woman I know.

The great mother-daughter insanity continues
Please someone tell me that eventually you get over having a crazy mother.

Most of my Fabulous Female Friends have, or had, good relationships with their mothers. Me? Not so much. It might have something to do with the fact that I was raised in the 20th century by a 19th century woman. Unlike my other friends, whose parents took it for granted that college was in their future, my mother expressly did not want me to go to college. (Why bother to go to college when all you can hope for is marriage and motherhood?)

Literally since I've been able to think for myself I've thought "how do I be the exact opposite of what they want me to be?" And it hasn't been easy. Oh sure, sometimes, there are wonderful "don't let this happen to you" role models. When faced with a difficult decision, just ask "what would X do?" and then do the opposite. But most of the time it's uncharted water and when faced with extended periods of time with my mother, her unguarded mouth, and extremely weird viewpoint, I find myself desperately in need of some tequila, a hot bath, and a big ego boost. ("You really haven't done much with your life, have you?")

The one great consolation in all of this is that many of the aforementioned FFFs are raising equally fabulous daughters....who they are teaching to be strong, brave, proud, and ready for anything. The only problem is I'm secretly jealous of all these kids for having such amazing moms.

Hip deep in archers, fencers, and rowers
Yeah, Husband and I are total Olympic gluttons. We'll watch all 97 hours of coverage a day. (Oh the wonders of TiVo!) We especially like those sports you never see or hear of outside of the Olympics. We couldn't care less about basketball (Kobe who?), beach volleyball (why do the men get to wear shorts and tank tops but the women have to compete in two-piece bathing suits?), or soccer. Nope, we love the obscure sports. Give us more archery, fencing, or shooting.

Sure we'll watch the A-list sports (except for the above mentioned, we fast-forward through those). But we like swimming and track. But the "little" sports are just more interesting. Unfortunately, they get very little coverage. A network will show all 2-hours of a basketball game, but give you 10 minutes worth of shooting (basically the round that decides the winner), if they show them at all. It's annoying, but there it is. If it weren't for the US women's Epee team taking all three medals, I doubt we'd have seen any of that -- and all they showed was the gold medal round.

I know it's hard to compete with Michael Phelps, but it's sad that Olympians who work just as hard at their sport as he does get no love from the networks. Still, I'm loving having something to watch at 3 am other than informercials. Being able to turn on the TV and see Eventing Dressage (that involved horsies, for those who have no clue what I'm talking about) or women's skulls (which has nothing to do with anatomy) just makes me so happy.

And I love rooting for the underdog. The US will take home a passel of medals...I'm a sucker for the one swimmer from Tunisia or the first equestrian team from Israel. I'll cheer for them every time.

In other news, wish me luck....for the second week in a row I'll be doing kitten duty alone. It's freakishly hard on my back -- you wouldn't think taking care of kittens would be so physical, but it is. So no doubt tonight will find me in a Vicodin heap on my back and forcing poor Husband to take care of dinner. But it's worth it. I love taking care of the little guys until they're old enough to go to loving homes. Horray for kittens!

Missing culture
I just finished watching a fascinating documentary on PBS entitled A Yiddish World Remembered. It looked at Jewish life in Eastern Europe before WWII, featuring the memories of eyewitnesses about life in both small villages and large cities.

In spite of the poverty faced by most and tragedy and hardship faced by all two things struck me about these wonderful old people: how proud they were of their culture and how fondly they remembered their long-ago communities and rituals. Old eyes would light up at the memory of mother's latkes and and the preparations for Sabbath. Each had some wonderful memory to hold on to of being Jewish. And it struck me, once again, how much I wish I had a culture.

I'm a typical American mutt, a mix of French, Basque, Scots, a bit of Irish and (rumor has it) a tiny tiny bit of Native Canadian. But I have no culture. I was raised Catholic but no longer believe. And anyway, Catholics don't really have a culture, just guilt (which, unfortunately, I've kept). I'm not enough of any one national culture to have grown up with Scots folk dancing or Basque ... uh ... whatever it is that Basques do (besides herd sheep). I don't look forward every year to any kind of annual festival that celebrates my identity and I don't belong to any community besides where I live and my family of wonderful friends.

And sometimes I do feel like I'm missing out.

I've mentioned before how much I envy those of my friends who have a culture, or who have cultural traditions that they celebrate. I have no such touchstones in my life. Oh I have memories, sure. But nothing that I can share with people outside of my family. Once when I was in college I introduced two people who were friends of mine but who had never met. They both had Irish last names and within minutes where trading stories of step dancing classes, fiddle lessons, and debating whose mom made the best soda bread. People from different cultures can have similar discussions. At a Greek Festival once a Japanese friend and a Greek friend started commiserating at having their parents insist on traditional dress for certain occasions. All I could contribute was a story about how my mother would always try to get me into a dress for Easter.

There is a certain sense of rootlessness I feel at times. Sure we celebrate Christmas and Thanksgiving, but neither has a sense of continuation about it, though I do hang on tightly to what few rituals I do have regarding these occasions. For instance, I insist on a real tree. I always have to watch White Christmas while trimming the tree. And I don't consider Thanksgiving complete without the traditional food.

But sometimes I wish I had traditional dress or ancient dances, remembered prayers or a larger community with whom to celebrate occasions. Husband has no culture either so we share this desire. Although raised in the African American community, he feels to desire to start celebrating Kwanzaa or start wearing dashikis in public. I guess he and I are just destined to remain rootless mutts.

Sometimes there's just nothing to say...

Ta-da!
Behold the finished (well, nearly finished) music office! It's our new favorite room in the house and turned out better than we could have hoped. The photos are a bit dark, but the room is just plain gorgeous. The orange walls really set off our new furniture; especially the gorgeous CD case and new table. We splurged on a hideously expensive and equally hideously comfortable glider chair, and the new stereo arrives later this week. All we need to do is hang the art, get rid of a stack of empty boxes, and start wearing out the chair. I'll never see Husband again...