Pictures, movie, museum

Ok, so most of y'all have seen these photos already but just in case not, some pictures from the early fall.
These are mostly of a couple specific events - a trip to apple picking and Santa Cruz beach one really incredibly hot weekend in September and a trip to the bounce houses/slides down at the corner "pumpkin patch." Be sure not to miss those photos - especially Geneva climbing up the incredibly tall slide thing and then tumbling down. Man oh man. I can't believe she wasn't more terrified.

Next up, last weekend we went to East Bay Mini Maker Faire, where we managed to have a pretty good time especially once it stopped raining. There was a station where Geneva just glued tons of things together (using uGlu - I'd never heard of the stuff but it basically is as good as hot glue but for the toddler set) and another where they made her a cape. Geneva also stuck a bunch of legos on the Lego Jeep and rode around on this peddle power merry-go-round. I totally want one of these for the back yard.


Last weekend we also joined the San Jose Children's Discovery Museum and we've already been twice. Geneva loves the sand table and the water tables and the bubbles and the fire truck and the etc etc. Basically everything. It's gonna be our perfect rainy weekend activity.

In follow up news to a previous post: I went to a psychiatrist 3 weeks ago and was diagnosed with Generalized Anxiety Disorder. Basically, I worry lots (about my health, specifically) and it was interfering with my life. I was told to stop drinking caffeine, take a low dose of Prozac every day, exercise and eat healthy, and take Xanax as necessary. And I can report that it's all helped a lot. I'm still anxious sometimes but I can think about other things too now. And I don't get the creeps and feel like I need to crawl out of my skin anymore. So that's all good. I hope to be able to stop taking the drugs eventually, but for now I'm happy where I am.

This and that

Here's a few things for you to chew on. First, pictures from Alaska as compiled from photos that many of the adventurers took.

From Alaska

So kid adventures have been of the less fun sort recently. Specifically G got her first ear infection two weekends ago. When we were giving her more and more pain killers and fever reducers and her fever kept going higher and higher we finally decided to risk looking like paranoid first time parents and took her to the urgent care. We met the strangest doctor there. I mean, she works in pediatric urgent care and seemed utterly freaked out by the fact that our kid was screaming the whole time we were there. I mean, doesn't she see this all day long? What's the deal? Anyway, yeah. Ear infection. Oh, and she had pink eye also, so for a week we were giving her two kinds of medicine she hated, although she's getting to the point where we can reason with her. As in "If you don't drink this willingly we're going to hold you down and force you. We're sorry, but it's for your own good, so don't you want to just drink it?" And she would. But only if Dada was holding her hand while I gave her the medicine, which is just too sweet actually. And then toward the end of last week Chris got her illness (the one that led to the ear infection) and I got the pink eye. He was laid up the whole weekend (almost literally didn't get out of bed on Saturday) and I found out that I'm allergic to the preservatives that are in standard eye antibiotics and spent the whole weekend with an eye almost swelled shut. Woo hoo!

Lest you think I haven't been having any fun though, I also made an awesome blueberry pie last weekend and went hiking and spent a lot of high quality time with my kid and went to two farmers' markets. And in the world of fun kid stuff, we bought a potty for G since she's started showing interest in bathroom matters, and on her 2nd try she actually used the thing. Wow! Although since then she hasn't seemed that interested and we haven't been trying all that hard since she's pretty young for it. But I'm sure not going to miss diapers.

Finally, for something completely different: I was talking with Chris recently and he said it was a family rumor that his grandmother had seen the Tacoma Narrow Bridge (the famous one) so I sent Chris's mother off to ask her and got the following wonderful story:

A week before the bridge collapsed, my mom and a boy (they both went to UW) drove out to the Tacoma Narrows bridge, and drove across it, even though the surface appeared to be "galloping." The next week, when the news went out that it was expected to collapse early Saturday morning, she and the boy and his friend drove out there again, but it had just gone down. The police had put up barricades, but being college kids, they slipped past the barricades when the cops weren't watching and walked out onto the stub of the bridge in a pouring rain. She remembers that later they went to his parents' house to get dry and fill up on hot soup :)

Weekend + Pregnancy vs. Cancer

So, I had a nice long weekend. Some highlights include:

• Seeing the new Indian Jones movie. I think it's my 2nd favorite of all of them. My 1st favorite remains Last Crusade.
• Making lemonade with the lemons from our backyard. Actually, what I made is some kind of lemonade concentrate. I juiced a bunch of lemons and then made a really thick simple syrup (water + as much sugar as you can get to dissolve in it) and mixed it and served it up. Turns out the outcome is both unbelievably sour and sweet. Totally drinkable, but afterwards you don't need anything sweet for days. I stopped drinking it straight and instead have just a splash in my iced tea.
• Hanging out with Chris. He's still on break while waiting for a response from his advisor regarding his thesis. It's such a luxury to have him around to just hang out with. We biked around, worked outside in the garden, ate together, played games. So relaxing and nice.
• Finished not one but two secret knitting projects. Will reveal more after they have been gifted to their owners.

Unfortunately the weekend has some lowlights too. Mostly just that I continue to feel sick: mostly nausea mixed with feeling extremely hungry. It's weird how closely those two have come to seem to me. Also, I have this theory that spring allergies give me a headache. No other symptoms, just a headache. Which is totally bizarre, but it happens every single spring when Chris is sneezing his head off.

So, I was chatting with my mom today and she asked how it was that I could have gone through 9 months of cancer treatment with almost no complaint and yet I'm only 3 months into my pregnancy and she's already sick of my whining. (Mom doesn't mince words.) I think the deal is that when you're being treated for cancer you're considered sick. You stop whatever it was you were doing, stay home, have people to take care of you (in my case, my Mom). No one expects you to do anything except survive and an attitude of cheerfulness just shows what a strong person you are. Furthermore, you get all the drugs you want to make you comfortable and if you sleep 14 hours a day (like I averaged those 9 months) then you're just doing what's good for you.

Pregnancy on the other hand, is not considered an illness. It's considered a gift (!). Granted I'm not exactly as as sick as when I was in cancer treatment, but I haven't felt wholly well since this began and some days I can barely get out of bed. Yet I'm expected to be able to hold down a full time job, do all my own shopping and dishes and cooking and laundry (with Chris helping out, of course), and be cheerful and happy (or at least non-whining) all the time because, just think of all those poor people who can't have children and would just love to be in my position. Oh, and you can't have any drugs for anything because they might hurt the baby.

I don't know, it just feels totally different to me. In one case you're surviving what must be survived and devoting all your energy and resources to it. In the other case you (perhaps foolishly) basically got yourself into this position and who cares if you're sick, better keep going. And quit whining. Sigh. Maybe I shouldn't write late at night when I'm tired (and hungry and nauseous).

Pumpkins, doctors, babies, etc

First off I want to say that I don't much like getting older. I suppose no one does. I went to the eye doctor today and they tell me I have developed an astigmatism. And also blood vessels are starting to grow into the colored part of my eye from oxygen deprivation due to long term contact use. None of these things are serious (they're changing my contact type and not even bothering to correct such a minor astigmatism) but they just seem like symptoms of my overall old-and-bustedness. I feel like our Honda - some part always a little messed up. Hopefully, like the Honda, I'll live on practically forever. Heh.

I've had a great weekend in spite of the fact that Chris is in Boise to see an ill family friend. On Saturday I spent most of the day at Chris and Shannon's. By command performance I made a pumpkin soup recipe that Shannon had seen hanging on my fridge. I think the pumpkin I got needed more hollowing out than I gave it though because it took forever to cook and there wasn't enough room inside for all the vegi broth, so it turned out more like a casserole. It tasted really good - with all that cheese and pumpkin and bread you really can't go wrong. It also got an A+ for presentation. I mean, cooking in the pumpkin? Very cool. Here's some photos.

 

Below Anne is using her mad packing skillz to stuff filling into the pumpkin as tightly as possible.

 

Below: the finished product. So elegant looking. In the background is the mac n cheese that Chris made which was also amazing.

 

Such a fun event. I ate so much that my stomach about exploded. I called Chris and told him I thought I was going to throw up just to make myself feel better and he told me that was called an eating disorder so I better not. I felt better after a couple of minutes or so but then about busted a gut laughing over a game of Oh Hell. The rules of the game indicate that you get most of your points by taking exactly the number of tricks you bid. On a certain round there were 4 available tricks, and people bid 1, 2, 2, and Shannon bid 4 tricks. Heh. On the first hand Shannon turned to Anne and said "Let me take this trick, ok?" Anne responded, "Ok." So Shannon played a low card, Anne played a higher one and took the trick. And then the pumpkin/cheese crazies set in because Shannon's reaction was hilarious. She was yelling at Anne and calling her names and threatening to storm off... all while we all laughed hysterically. Oh man. I'm laughing just thinking about it. Maybe you would have had to have been there though.

Sunday I went to book club where we talked about sex, babies, food, and the book, which according to the people who attempted it was terrible. Glad I didn't bother. After that I went to Brandy's where I helped her watch Amelia while she made dinner and we just got to chat some. It was nice - I feel bad for her though. They all have colds at her house and she just seems so tired. They're talking about Bran quitting her job and staying at home which would probably help with both of those problems (colds, tiredness) and also would mean they would stay in this area. Yay! I hope she does.

All in all it was a very relaxing weekend and now I'm looking forward to Chris getting home tomorrow. I guess we're still newlyweds because I miss him even when he's gone such a short time.

Health stuff

Since I got new health insurance through work I've been catching up on doctor appointments. This week I had a checkup with a regular doctor and she decided that I needed a tetanus shot because I couldn't remember when my last one was. Now I feel like I've been punched in the arm. Those suckers hurt. I also made an appointment to get through the first step of lasik eye surgery (which I've been wanting to get for awhile) and then as soon as I hung up realized I'd made a horrible mistake. Actually I don't dislike my contacts all that much and the eye surgery is just so irreversible. So I called up today and canceled the appointment and I've felt so relieved ever since.

The kitties had a yearly checkup this week too - turns out they're both overweight. Neither Chris nor I believe this. Marie is just not overweight. She's such a slim little thing. I think the vet was just wrong. Also, Isaac has really severe gingivitis and has even lost one of his teeth! He has to go back to the vet for a very expensive tooth cleaning (and sedation) next week. Poor kitty. I can't believe he's lost a tooth. Otherwise they were healthy though.

I think that's all I have to report. Lots of fun planned for this weekend. More later.

A month without corn syrup

Barbara Kingsolver makes a comment in her book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle that a year without corn syrup is a step in the right direction for her household (or something like that). So in addition to getting as much produce as possible at the weekly farmer's market (and just living without what's not there), I'm adding one more challenge to my semi-fanatical locavory: don't eat any corn syrup for the month of October. Chris then immediately asked: high fructose only? or all corn syrup? I'm going for no corn syrup at all. So then I started going through my pantry trying to figure out what I couldn't eat. So far I was only able to come up with jelly beans and cheapo Safeway Jelly. I did notice that the Luna bars I just bought have rice syrup as their first ingredient. I'm going to allow rice syrup though. Then I got to work and eyed my coworker's candy jar. The usual Snickers bars, Milky Way and 3 Musketeers are now off limits. So I'll just have to hope she puts the straight chocolate bars back out. I'm not even sure why I'm doing this... it just seems like an interesting challenge. And what is corn syrup anyway? Is it even food? I'll report back on if it's difficult or not...

I've been trying to track down things I've knitted that never got posted in my FO albums (Finished Objects, to non-knitters out there). So here's some photos of stuff that I knitted awhile back but never posted about:

First, a sweater I knitted for my nephew Grant. This was commissioned by my sister when I was visiting for her baby shower and was really quick and easy and fun to knit. But is huge on him. Hopefully it'll fit when winter comes.

The socks I made for my sock pal for Sockapalooza. These were sent off to Germany and as best I can tell from my pal's blog post she seemed to like them. The yarn was a type I had always wanted to work with but it's pretty pricey... these were like $25 socks. Pretty though.

And finally, going way back in time, a dress I made for Amelia more than a year ago. It still is too big for her, though I suspect that the yarn stretches out under the weight of the dress itself, so it gets bigger every time she wears it. Anyway, here's some really cute photos of her I took this weekend.

Weekend wrapup

The webpage for the ride I'm doing across Iowa (RAGBRAI) recommends that I bike 75 miles per week every week in June. I kicked it off this weekend with 61 miles of biking that I made more palatable by first listening to radio shows as suggested by Annie (yay! Cartalk is a podcast now!) and by also going on rides to places that I wanted to go and would have driven to otherwise.

On Saturday I biked to San Mateo to attend a knitting class at the wonderful Nine Rubies knitting shop. The class was on how to make a mitered square blanket out of yarn that you just have leftover from other projects. I thought this would be an excellent way to get rid of odds and ends and it makes a very cool patchwork. The class was very fun and making those squares is quite addictive really. I took a picture of my efforts from the weekend:

I opted for the style where you use any old yarn and always size 4 needles. It's so fun to work on I'm having trouble going back to socks and sweaters.

Yesterday Chris and I biked down to Sunnyvale to attend the art and wine festival. Boy, bike was so the way to go there. When we got near the festival there was huge amounts of traffic and people just parked in the streets waiting for real parking to open up. We just cruised right by all that and pulled up to the guarded bike parking right on the edge of the festival. The festival itself was pretty fun too - I enjoyed eating the roast corn and fried artichoke hearts but the arts themselves were junkier than I remember. There were a few crafts I've never seen before and I had to remark once again on my ability to pick out the most expensive crafts by just deciding which ones I like best.

In other news, I talked to my advisor on Thursday and he said he really liked the draft of my thesis I'd given him and then gave me a few tips about parts where I'd thought it was weak. Oh oh oh! Did I even mention on the blog, I can't remember. I'm defending on July 10! I got the fourth member of my committee on board on Friday after blowing off most of the day and going to Watercourse Way with Brandy.

Which reminds me, I had to stop taking the muscle relaxers entirely because I became a total zombie on them. The anti-depressants don't appear to be having any effect (good or bad) so I'm continuing them for the moment because apparently their effect builds over about two weeks. But that means I'm still having the headaches. But only (pretty much) when I'm trying to concentrate on my thesis. So I'm trying to trick the headache (or something) by only working on tiny bits of thesis at a time and then doing something really relaxing afterwards. It's kind of working. I'm going to try massage and acupuncture this week.

Drug experimentation

I think Chris is generally appalled when I talk about health problems on my blog. I don't know, I've never been embarrassed ever since I revealed all while in chemo treatment 10 years ago. So here's health talk.

I started getting tension headaches 10 years ago. I was under the close watch of many doctors at the time so I got a thorough diagnosis. After an MRI, among other things, a neurologist decided that I was having tension headaches because of "all the shitty stuff that's happened." (His words exactly.) Anyway, since then I've had tension headaches. Usually more in the spring, often for about a week. Well, for more than two weeks now I have had a headache. Not a huge one, just enough that when trying to concentrate about all I can think about is how my head hurts. It feels a little like a made up hurt because I don't notice it when I'm doing something fun that I want to be doing and I feel it most of all when I'm doing something not fun, like trying to write my thesis. Last week I read online that sometimes anti-depressants can help with tension headaches so I made an appointment with the doctor to see what he thought about it.

I have a great doctor here - perhaps what I like best about him is that he lets me do a lot of stuff by e-mail. I need frequent blood tests (my thyroid doesn't function anymore, in case you were wondering) to check my medication dosages and whenever I feel like I need another one, I just send him an e-mail and he sends orders to the lab. It's nice, because with other doctors I've had to make an appointment to come in and all they do is write the orders and we've both wasted our times. Anyway... Yeah, so this doctor looked in my eyes and poked me a little bit and agreed with my own diagnosis, that I was having tension headaches and it was not surprising given all the stress in my life at the moment. So after jokingly suggesting that I write thesis while on an exercise bicycle (biking relieves the headaches) he wrote me some prescriptions for muscle relaxers and anti-depressants. Basically, I'm going to take the tiniest dose of both that is possible and increase the dosage until the headaches go away or the side effects get too annoying. Chris seems kind of scared by the drugs - I have to confess the labeling is on the intimidating side. These drugs have tons of potential side effects. I'm so sick of the headaches though. Doing nothing was having no effect, so I want to try something.

I'll try to remember to report back on the results. So far all I've found is that whatever the muscle relaxer is, it would probably be an effective horse tranquilizer. I slept until noon today and didn't really get perky until after dinner. I'm only taking half a pill tonight. Whew.

Company B

Well, I was pretty shocked, but Company B made me a job offer! And it was a pretty good one so I think I'm going to take it. I have to say I'm really amazed about how much money you get paid right out of grad school. I guess only if you choose to go into certain professions. But I'm already thinking about ways to spend the money. He he... like on a house near work (buy? rent? probably rent. But I know Chris would prefer a house instead of a condo). Or an iPod shuffle (big spender here).

Work is going amazingly well actually. I made this video of the Capuchin robot on Friday.

If you've ever wondered what I do, here it is: before I came along this robot just sat on the table. It could twitch its arms around but not really do anything too coordinated. Then I came along and wrote code to run it and now it does that video. And it's really climbing too.

Above is the overall setup. That's a pretty steep wall! My advisor and co-advisor (who owns the robot) are both elated. My co-advisor made this crack yesterday after seeing the video: "Now you just need to work on the lighting and film quality." I replied, "Oh, I just made that video with my tiny digital camera!" He started laughing, "That was supposed to be a complement! That there's no way to make the controller better, you just have to improve the video!" Anyway. I'm pretty giddy about the whole thing. Maybe even more than the job offer.

Regardless, I've been having more tension headaches. I wish I understood what caused them. Tension headaches are annoying because you feel like if you were just less tense they would stop. But I'm not sure it works that way.

Headache

I get lots of headaches. I have for about the last 10 years and they usually last between days and weeks at a severity level that impairs concentration without being totally killer. Medicine only sometimes helps. Caffeine usually helps significantly, although it mostly just makes me perky in spite of the headache but doesn't actually relieve the pain. As the headache wears on I always come up with increasingly bogus sounding ideas about what might be causing it. Today's theory: allergies. I've noticed that I seem to have more headaches in the spring, and my worst ones are during times when Chris is also having severe allergies. I don't have any stuffy nose, itchy eyes, or any of that. Just headaches. Pretty bogus sounding, huh? Today I took benedryl to see if it would help. So far, nothing, but if I take another one I bet it will help by putting me sound asleep.

Yesterday we went to a housewarming for Julia, and Chris and I were both drooling. It was such a cute little house! They have great neighbors and the house has a yard and tons of character and their food was amazing and I think we were both somewhat covetous of the whole deal.

Friday's interview went well, although I was given the feedback at the end that I didn't seem to show much enthusiasm for the company when I gave my technical presentation. I have no idea what to make of this feedback. I mean, it was supposed to be a technical presentation about my own research. Was I also supposed to talk about how what I learned from my research would be great for the company? If so I feel like I should have been warned about that. It was exhausting talking to all those people all day. They're supposed to get back to me early next week with an offer or not, so we'll see.

Matt, Carrie, Wedding Dresses and Veils

So Chris's brother Matt was out visiting with his girlfriend Carrie this weekend. They're one of the few people I've ever known to actually be spontaneous and take an airline up on one of those crazy last minute flight offers. Here's an example of the type of exciting things Chris and his brother do together: Mac Party! We also went to the Ferry Building in San Francisco, Chris and I
finished our last marriage counseling class, and we went and saw the movie Stranger Than Fiction (I recommend it). That was all Saturday.

On Sunday the boys did a ridiculous bike ride, and girls went and helped my friend Stephanie pick out a wedding dress. Here's the first one she tried: Next I hung out with some friends and we made hair combs to go with my veil and wedding attire. Here's some photos from that:



Notice anything in one of those photos? Like maybe my new teeth?These are my teeth post whitening but still with the old temporary cap on my right front tooth. Looks pretty nice huh? Even the temporary cap isn't as jankey as the old tooth.

The price of vanity...

...apparently is 400 bucks, 2 hours of being rather uncomfortable and at least 24 hours of being pretty acutely uncomfortable. Whatever that whitening treatment was it made my teeth hurt so badly. They're really white now though. Too bad I don't feel at all like smiling.

Pestilence, Udon, Amazing Music and Disgusting Dentistry

Lots of stuff happened this past weekend. First off, Friday we were visited by numerous nasty visitors. Chris noticed Thursday night that Isaac was missing some hair on his tail, and he thought of a reason that would account for that and also the unusual ring shaped itchy spot on my arm. That would be ringworm (don't panic! it's not a worm! it's the same fungus as athletes foot). So we had to drop the kitties off at the vet on Friday for a ringworm bath and I went to buy ringworm cream. Also, when it starts raining in California the ants decide to come in the house. We'd been fighting a recent infestation our normal minimal kill way, which is to vacuum up the ones in the house and spray ant spray around the hole they're coming in. Only this time they were coming in through cracks near the tub and every time we sprayed they just found a new way in. (Friday morning I woke up and there was an ant highway so dark that it looked like someone had spilled coffee on the rug.) Friday evening we got ant bait that they take back to the hive and it kills all the ants, and at first there was an absolute explosion in the ant numbers. We're talking scary ant numbers here. Numbers that caused us to talk about a story we'd heard of friends in Africa who, when the army ants came, put their bed in the front lawn, put all four legs in kerosene, and just watched while the ants ate everything even remotely edible in sight (we were a little worried for the kitties). When I closed my eyes I saw ants. Whew. I hope never to see that many ants again. Anyway, eventually the bait worked and now there's no more ants. Blegh.

Saturday we went for a Catholic marriage counseling class in San Francisco. It wasn't any big deal and we didn't learn anything we didn't already know (except perhaps that I want kids sooner than Chris, but whatever). The class makes me really glad I'm marrying Chris and not any of the guys who came before. Anyway, the class is right near Japantown, so afterwards we went and had delicious Japanese lunch (udon with vegi tempura! yum!). After that we went by the Giants' stadium, where they were having, of all things, a ski jump competition. We watched for awhile and saw some amazing falls - the snow was really bad (read, slow) and so we saw some horrendous falls - especially for the girls who were lighter weight and didn't quite get enough speed going. One girl fell in the netting between the jump and the landing (like a 30 foot fall!), another girl landed switch, skied off the snow onto the two by fours along the side of the jump (what were they thinking??) and eventually off the jump. She had to be taken away in a stretcher. Scary really. We also got to see Tony Hawk in the half pipe. He was rad, man.

After that I met Brandy in Berkeley for an unusual no boys no babies night. We went and saw one of our favorite artists, Rachel Garlin, give a fabulous performance at the Freight and Salvage. I'll be so excited to hear her newest album! It was great to get to spend some time just chatting with Brandy too.

Sunday was an especially long bookclub with an interesting life modification component. We all wrote on a piece of paper one thing we were going to do between now and the next book club to improve our life (or generally keep it going well), and then each of the other members wrote something they suggested we do along the same lines. It was easy to see how well my life is going by comparison. Mine were things like: finish knitting sweater, write vows/sweet letter for wedding. One poor girl's was things like: sleep at least 8 hours, 4 nights per week. Eat at least one vegetable per day. Exercise at least 3 hours per week. She's having a rough time. Anyway, it was unusually constructive compared to our usual gossip/rant-fest.

And now the last part of my title: today I went to have the first appointment for getting my tooth capped. The dentist (who had a much lighter touch on the novocaine than the last dentist) filed down my tooth and then as long as he had the drill out offered to file down some of the unevenness on my other teeth. He got out the mirror to show me what he meant and I got a glimse of the filed down tooth that is to be capped. Oh man. You have never seen such a hideous tooth in your whole life. It was filed down to a little stubby cone shape. On top of that, that tooth is kinda greyish brown because of the dead nerve, and the worst colored part was the part that was left in my mouth. And on top of that, the poking around and drilling bruised my gums a little bit, so what I saw was a disgusting stubby, grey-brown nasty tooth stuck in some really disgusting gums. We're talking Dr. Bukk's special. The dentist had to stop drilling while I laughed my ass off. I wished I had a camera because it was hysterically nasty.

They made a temporary crown and I'm going to come back on Wednesday and have my teeth whitened. I'm finding I'm unbelievably vain and they match the color of the crown to the color my teeth are right now and then the crown doesn't ever change color. So I wouldn't be able to get my teeth whitened later. Then after that they make a permanent crown to match the color of my freshly whitened teeth and when it's done I come back and have it cemented in. I may take a photo of the temporary crown because even it's kind of weird and Dr. Bukk like. But it's a better color than the old tooth at least.

Elective dentistry

Chris and I both went to the dentist today for a regular cleaning. (Well, Chris hadn't been in ages so he gets to go back for debridement - which means cleaning the tarter off his teeth so the dentist can see them.) While I was there I asked about what I can do about this front tooth that's still discolored (I talked about this with regards to the root canal back in April here and here). Here's a photo: So I talked with the dentist today about what I can do to make this tooth the right color again. Maybe I'm vain, but it just drives me crazy that in all these photos I have it doesn't match the other tooth and I don't want a zillion wedding photos with this tooth I hate. The only real option they offered was a crown, which is expensive and requires two office visits (and two novocaine shots - ouch!) but I think I'm going to suck it up and do it anyway. Apparently root canals (well, the dead nerve that necessitated the root canal) weaken your teeth and eventually you're likely to have to get a cap. Blegh. Dentists.

More kittens, and the plague

Here's some more photos of our little kitties. They've been pretty sweet recently except the wet cat food seems to disagree with their little bellies, resulting in bad aromas.

The plague has come to our house. Chris's advisor had something he called the 12 hour flu, which his whole family had and then Chris had last night. He ran a fever for a couple of hours, generally felt bad for about 12 hours, and is now at home sleeping it all off.

Over the weekend I went to the air show in San Francisco and started work on my first ever sweater for myself. I'll show pictures shortly... oh, and also on Friday we threw a really fun part. Actually, it was at our house but Chris Carlson made most of the food. He's such a good cook.

Isaac and ....

Why get one kitten when you can get two, for twice the fun and trouble making potential? On Friday we adopted a pair of adorable kittens, over the weekend they were fixed (probably - the boy still looks like he has his... uh... equipment. Does anyone know if they just cut the connection? We expected they would cut everything...) and we picked them up at the shelter this morning. We got them from a shelter that rescues cats that are in other shelters and are supposed to be put to sleep. It was amazing to walk in there - there were hundreds of cats in cages all meowing and wanting to be petted, it seemed. It was a very different experience from all the cat fairs we had been to previously where they wanted us to fill out lots of paperwork and said they'd call us later to let us know our application had been approved. Those cat rescue places just didn't know the number of cats needing adoption... We picked our two kitties out of a cage of guys that all rushed to the edge of the cage begging to be petted. They'd been fostered so they all had very sweet personalities and these two seemed especially friendly. The calico is a girl and I haven't yet figured out a name for her. The other (gray?) is a boy and Chris has named him Isaac - short for Sir Isaac Newton. Aren't they cute? Here's some more photos.




On Saturday Chris and I went sailing in the bay with Prof. Cannon and a bunch of other folks from lab. This trip has become a yearly tradition and Saturday was a beautiful day for it. Unfortunately on Sunday I woke up with a killer headache and spent the whole day in bed pretty much. I theorize that there's a couple of muscles in my neck that when they get overused give me these killer tension headaches. The last time I felt like this I had ridden a road bike where I have to hold my head up to look at the road and wore out the muscles in the back of my neck. On Saturday while sailing I spent a lot of time looking at the windex at the top of the mast, and I think that made my neck muscles all messed up. Anyway, I feel much better today, which is good because I can play with the kittens and go to work and get out of bed.

Sorry I haven't posted photos from Germany yet. They're cool too and really should be posted, but life has been happening.

Blood draw

A couple of weeks ago Chris had to go into our campus clinic to have his blood drawn. I asked him afterwards who had drawn his blood and told him that guy was a good stick. Chris replied, "Ok, sure. It hurt about as much as the other time I had blood drawn." I was totally amazed - did that mean he had only had blood drawn twice in his life that he remembered? Apparently, yes. I have had blood drawn countless numbers of times. Surely well into the hundreds. When I'm healthy these days I still have blood drawn twice a year. This gives me insight though on why he drags his feet about giving blood. I wish I could donate but I'm, alas, ineligible.

In other news, I bought a wedding dress this week and Chris came back from his 12 days in Taiwan and Japan. He has some really lovely photos from Taiwan especially. I may try to get him to post them. My robot is almost kind of climbing and I hope to get some video sometime soon. I'll probably post that too.

Kirkwood

What fun! We went skiing for 2 days in Kirkwood. It was incredibly warm there - for skiing anyway. This wasn't great for the snow, so by 2:30 the 1st day and by 1 the 2nd day I was totally ready to quit. Slush just doesn't glide along under the skis like snow or ice does. I'd be skiing along and all of a sudden it would be as if something had grabbed hold of both skis and it would be all I could do to not end up on my nose.

Kirkwood is pretty different from the other Tahoe resorts I've been to. They don't have as many high speed lifts and they'll groom some really steep stuff. I had a couple of really fun runs on "The Wall", which is their double black diamond(!) showpiece. The condo was really cute and surprisingly cheap considering it included two lift tickets per day. It was really close to the lifts so we could just walk over in the morning. There wasn't really anything to do anywhere near Kirkwood, but that was ok because I had brought tons of food and movies and knitting and so on. So basically, it was a really fun little trip.

My tooth only hurt the smallest bit after the root canal, so I didn't have to use any of the high power drugs I was prescribed. Although I am on penicillin right now because they like to make sure the place in the tooth doesn't get infected.

When we got back from Kirkwood Josh had moved a lot of his stuff out. The place is a mess again - but in a different way. He had a lot of the shelves and end tables, so the stuff that was on those is now all on the floor. All over the floor. I'm looking forward to getting to straighten things up and put things in their new places. It'll be so much less crowded. It's not that any of the three of us are all that cluttery (well... probably), but with 3 people in that space there was almost no way to not feel cluttered.

Tomorrow I'm going to a CITO (Cache In Trash Out) event. We're doing litter pick up on Davenport Beach for Earth Day and I'm not sure what the Cache In part is about. Maybe we all go find geocaches afterwards?