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Thursday, G came by after work and had some dinner with me. I gave her the rest of the Mexican casserole from the week before.
Friday, I took Punkin to get his stitches out. The doctor showed me how to flex & stretch his joints because he is stiff. She encouraged me to give him subcutaneous fluids at home, but I’m not about to do that. The PT is bad enough!
Saturday I dug up my crop of beets and cooked them and their beet greens. I like having free food in my back yard! There is still some kale left out there. I took down the tent cover from my back porch and washed it, and washed a few other loads of laundry and hung them out. We had beautiful sunny warm weather all weekend! This doesn’t feel like November or Thanksgiving. Saturday night was drum night, and it cooled down enough that we huddled by the fire.
Sunday, my neighbor Jackie had her baby. This is their second girl. I took Punkin out for a walk and let some little neighbor kids pat him. He loves attention! I mowed the yard with the bagger on the mower, which picked up all the leaves. I had to keep emptying the bagger, but it sure beats raking! The compost bin is full to overflowing now. Sunday afternoon, one of my drum buddies who lives nearby came over to drum with me on the front porch. Some neighbor kids came by and played with us. Then we had pizza, beets, beet greens and wine for supper and watched my copy of The Visitor. I forgot to take the cardboard out from under the pizza, so it was doughy. This lady (Becky) is very interesting! She flew to India for hip surgery, where they resurfaced the joints instead of replacing them. She flew to Thailand for other surgery, and apparently the care is just as good as in the US, but much cheaper.
Punkie is getting restless and is tired of being cooped up in that cage for so long. I let him sit on the sofa while I watch TV, but when I put him to bed in the cage, he cries. I hear him yelling at night sometimes, even with the door closed. The doctor says I can let him out a little bit at a time, so I’m getting ready to confine him to the kitchen again, the way he was before the surgery. Building stuff for my cat out of boxes makes me feel better. I hope it helps him!
Sunday was chilly and rainy. I washed the blanket from Punkie's cage and reset all the clocks. Cooked the pumpkin and mashed it up. I still have pumpkin from prior years, so this time I got the bright idea to freeze individual portions in muffin pans.
Today, the vet called me to ask how Punkin is doing. Isn't that unusual! She is a recent graduate and she really seems to care about her patients.
Thursday evening I went to B&N after getting Punkie settled. Afterwards, some of us went to see Zombieland at the theater. That was funny! Friday I took a vacation day, which worked out well. I made another walk-in litter box for Punkin because the first one was too small. Then I cleaned up the house some and made up my own recipe for Mexican food, inspired by the stuff Wayne made for Lois & me last summer. It didn't turn out nearly as well, of course, but it was edible. This was thin steak, onion, peppers, tomatoes, a little bit of leftover salsa & leftover black beans & cheese rolled up in tortillas (wrapped, I can't roll them), covered in enchilada sauce & cheese, and baked; served with plain yogurt & fresh cilantro. C came over for dinner & gave P his sympathy. We went to Greene Memorial again this year. They showed the silent movie Nosferatu, made in Germany in 1921. The church organist jammed on the pipe organ as accompaniment. That was cool! C went home & I went to the midnight movie at the Grandin, Ghostbusters. Couldn't find my friends at either movie, but I enjoyed them. I think the Ghostbusters print was either damaged or cut; one scene in particular was missing.
Yesterday I was all energized and did a bunch of projects around the house. Got outside and enjoyed the lovely October weather some. Last night about 6:15 (OK, this morning) I started feeling bad. Now I don't have much energy; although I put the ghost decoration up in the attic and made French bread for C. He came over and helped me tie up a bush beside the driveway, then we both sat on the front porch while I carved the pumpkin. I made pea soup with a big ham bone in it.
After work, I picked up take-out from Taaza and took it to MiG's house for dinner. Her husband is out of town and she has 2 toddler boys, so she appreciated the dinner and adult companionship. I got to play with the boys and their toys while she had some time to fold laundry and chat. She seems to be an excellent mother - she makes them be polite and mind her without yelling or spanking; at least not while I have ever seen her.
- Mood:
chipper
Met up with Jim P after work Monday and we rode all the way to the Southeast end of the greenway.
Called the vet this morning to check on Punkie, and the lady held the phone up to his cage so he could hear me. Later, the doctor said he is up and around, but has a catheter in his arm and a splint on his broken leg, and he doesn't like either one. They may take the splint off today. He couldn't sit down all weekend, he could either stand or lie. Poor baby. I got depressed today. My blessings vastly outnumber my troubles, but I can allow myself a little bit of depression once in awhile. The doctors are very optimistic about his recovery.
Went to Walmart on the way home today & got brave enough to try making enchiladas for Friday.
- Mood:
depressed
Thursday I parked at Jim & Claire's house and Jim & I crossed McClanahan and went through the tunnel to the ball fields and the greenway that goes to Wasena. The low water bridge is closed for repairs so it doesn't connect now. We rode back toward RMH and saw where the Wasena greenway is now connected to the new greenway that goes to Southeast! Woo-hoo! Rode on that one partway. The plans are to extend the greenways all the way to west Salem.
My plan for this weekend was to attend the movie party on Saturday and wash Punkin on Sunday. He is elderly and has stopped taking care of his fur. Friday evening he came in limping very badly and wasn't using his right rear leg. He said it hurt when I examined it. I took him to the vet first thing Saturday morning, and the thigh bone is broken and bent at an angle. Poor baby! They gave him a shot of pain killer, so he was very mellow. I stayed with him while he got some IV fluids. They scheduled surgery for Monday morning to put a pin and some wires in the bone. Again, poor baby. I brought him home with some pain killer. I took the chairs out of the kitchen and put a soft blanket under the table. I can close him in the kitchen where he has access to the bathroom and his food and water. He has been very calm and stoic.
My neighbors are all very close, and Friday morning I got ghosted! It's kind of like Secret Santa, where there was a gift on my front porch and a little poem that says to give a gift to another person. I got a skull-shaped mug, 2 cookie cutters, a glow necklace, and some candy. Saturday afternoon I bought some trinkets to ghost another neighbor. Also Saturday was the Halloween movie party. I took a pumpkin spice cake and met Clare, Marty, and Blair at Keith's house. We watched the original Halloween, Phantasm, Halloween H20, something else, and The Lost Boys.
Today I hung out 3 loads of laundry & took the screen off the tent on my back porch. Didn't have the energy or ambition to take the tent itself, or do much of anything else. Carried Punkin outside 3 times and stayed with him for a brief outing. His surgery is tomorrow, so I hope it goes well. Poor baby.
Sunday we had an online meeting for SheVaCon. My neighbors had scheduled a baby shower during that time, so I ran next door for about 5 minutes. I'd already RSVPd that I couldn't stay long. During the meeting, I played with the new LED kit I ordered, and got it working. Woo-hoo! It's a HAL 9000 eye that fades off & back on constantly.
I'm a pack rat; I save everything if I think there could be a use for it someday. When I skim the meat grease off the top of foods, I store it in the freezer until the container is full. I used to throw it in the garbage, but now C saves the sawdust from his woodworking for me. After the meeting, I mixed a batch of meat grease & sawdust and packed it down into empty tubes from paper towel rolls. Voila! Home-made fire starter!
Friday evening, my drumming friends got together at Grandin Gardens for pot-luck supper. I took some butternut squash that I grew in the yard, and we drummed awhile. The next morning, some of us worked on building a rock wall around a small fire circle. We gathered the rocks a few months ago. I helped haul them from the parking lot to the fire circle; even walked home and brought back my hand-truck to move the bigger ones. Later, I re-hemmed some corduroy skirts and lit the furnace for the season.
Sunday I hung out my rock-work laundry and took apart the wind harp that was on the front porch. The top ring had broken so I got a new one of stronger material. Grace & her friend Kori came over briefly and helped me take down the screen tent from the pool. We only broke one tent pole this time.
Grace's grandmother passed away this week. She was a really nice lady and quite a character! She had a big family and lots of friends. I made sure to go to the visitation & funeral and to take Grace to see relatives that she hadn't seen in years. They were all happy to see us both. The visitation was Thursday evening, and G & I ate at Cici's first. I lay awake most of Thursday night because the cold has reached its coughing stage. I had a dentist appt Friday morning and went by G's work to pick her up, but she had overslept. I found her at her apartment just as she was about to leave. I took her to BK for breakfast, then to the funeral at OLN on 419. We paraded across town to the cemetery and met some more relatives and saw the graves of some of G's ancestors there. I just wish C didn't object to my socializing with them.
Sunday I washed & waxed my car and got some things done around the house.
Dragon*Con was utterly AWESOME again this year! We left early Thursday morning and arrived about 2:30. I had pre-registered and that line went quickly, but K was in the TicketMaster line. The TicketMaster people didn't arrive until about 5:00 and their machines didn't work, so they had to do everything by hand. Waited for an hour in the room for the luggage to arrive, due to miscommunication. We met up with Carl and Barbara and her brother Eddie from Richmond and ate at the Hard Rock Cafe.
Friday, we all got up early for the first panel, and the line was stretched outside the hotel by the time we got in it. We still got in the 7th row back! Watched the early morning info show as it was broadcast on DCTV, then the Trek Trak director introduced Leonard Nimoy and William Shatner!!! I had the biggest crush on Mr. Spock in 8th grade, and 40+ years later, I'm in the same room with both of them! It was a tremendous thrill to be so close. Wow! They mostly picked on each other during the panel. My face hurt from laughing.
Next, I went to a panel with Malcolm McDowell about when he was in A Clockwork Orange. He was very entertaining. Then I saw Terry Gilliam of Monty Python speak for awhile. He showed a clip from his new, unreleased movie but it ended just as I got into the panel. Went to the dealer rooms to shop some. Hiked up to the Sheraton and saw a panel with Tom Felton, who plays Draco Malfoy in the HP movies. There were a lot of teenage girls in the audience and they asked him some Twitter questions. He was very pleasant and gracious (and cute)! Went to another panel called “When size DOES matter”. It had Richard Kiel (the tall alien on To Serve Man), Peter Mayhew (Chewbacca), and another big guy, can't remember his name. Lou Ferrigno was supposed to be there, but I think he hadn't arrived yet. Went to a panel about the Large Hadron Collider. I haven't kept up with particle physics, but it was interesting. Next was a panel on Ptolemy's Ptelescope. That was about how it would have been possible to build a telescope with the materials and technology available thousands of years ago using 21st century hindsight. They had a telescope set up on the pool deck of the Hilton and I saw 2 of Jupiter’s moons. Went to the drumming Friday night and took some videos.
Saturday morning was the parade. They close off a few blocks of downtown Atlanta and group the categories of costumes together to walk in the parade. Some of the celebrities ride in convertibles in it, too. The costumes are very elaborate and skillfully made! Everybody took lots of pictures all during the con. Next, I went to a panel about the Apollo 11 mission 40 years later. They had people in the audience get up and tell what they were doing when the astronauts landed. That was a nice panel, but going to it turned out to be a mistake, because the line for the next one was wrapped through several rooms and into the building next door. This was to see Patrick Stewart, who played Captain Jean-Luc Picard on Star Trek TNG. It started at 1:00 and I didn’t get in until 1:30 because they were still loading people into the room at that time. I was near the back, but still basked in his presence. He was very entertaining. There was another panel later with Kate Mulgrew, who played Captain Janeway on Star Trek Voyager. I found some of my friends in the line not very far outside the building and got in with them. She spoke about being the first female starship captain and how she related to her character. Next, I hurried up to the Sheraton and got in the end of the line to see Adam Savage of Mythbusters. He read a list of his wishes, which is not really a panel topic, then answered questions about the show and how he got started working with Jamie on it. Went to the food court by myself. Hung around by myself most of Saturday evening, taking pictures of the amazing hall costumes and not knowing what to do until I realized the costume contest was on. I wish more people from our Roanoke group had gone, or that I had found them to keep me company. Caught the end of the costume contest. Went to drumming again Saturday night. Rodney found me there & brought me a glass of wine, how nice! He tried drumming a little bit, too.
Sunday morning I went to another panel with Leonard Nimoy and didn’t feel a pressing need to get in line early. After he finished telling about a deranged fan, William Shatner walked in and the crowd cheered. They talked about the show instead of picking on each other as in the first panel. There was another panel with Patrick Stewart later. I made sure to get into the line plenty early this time, but it was already outside the building. I walked about four blocks before finding the end of the line. Thank goodness the downtown high-rise hotels have gigantic ballrooms that will hold that many people!
Dragon*Con made an attempt this year to break the Guinness Book of World Records for having the most people dance Michael Jackson’s Thriller. The current record is held by 242 William & Mary students, and a large group in Mexico had even more, but Guinness didn’t include them due to a technicality. I thought it would be fun, so I signed up. After 3 days of running around the 4 hotels and standing in lines, my legs were tired. Then we had to learn the dance and practice it awhile. They held rehearsals Sunday afternoon to teach us the dance. I didn’t grow up with music videos, so I was pretty bad at it. Most people were in various costumes – the alien, MJ’s glove, MJ himself, the flying spaghetti monster, Star Wars storm troopers, and lots of zombies. They got us signed in and counted, and we squeezed into one ballroom and spaced ourselves out from each other. There were about 5 big video cameras on platforms filming us all. We did one practice dance all the way through, then counted the next one as the official Guinness attempt. Score! We had 903 dancers! We’ll see if Guinness puts Dragon*Con into the record books. Even if they don’t, it was a lot of fun. There are videos of it all over the internet. I can catch glimpses of myself in the crowd, but that’s because I know where to look. My feet were sore by the time I got out of the costume boots.
Went to the Sunday night drumming, but I was too tired and sore to do much. Got into the Mad Scientists’ Ball where they have the 2 singing Tesla coils. Those are impressive! I saw them last year. This year, the lightning bolts were aimed at each other instead of straight up, and there was a metal cage between them. A few people in the audience were allowed to stand in the cage, one at a time. The electricity goes around the metal cage without hurting the person inside it.
Monday I scanned the 3 dealer rooms one more time. Didn’t buy much this year. Went to a panel on The Prisoner TV show. I watched that a LONG time ago and loved it, and recently found it online. They have re-made the mini-series! This new one is made in Namibia instead of Wales, and the Village is surrounded by desert instead of ocean. Two guys in the panel audience were wearing Village blazers, and one of them was selling Prisoner logo buttons, with the old-fashioned bicycle on it. The buttons had numbers, and I got #42, which is the answer to life, the universe, and everything. Another guy who wanted that button didn’t have exact change, so I sniped him and got it myself. I apologized later and chatted with him some. (I’m not sorry!) I bought a Prisoner graphic novel and had the author/artist who was in the panel autograph it in the artists’ alley. Made a quick run through the art show just before they closed. A lot of the art was gone by the end of the con, but I made note of some of the artists whose work I liked.
Hung around awhile before going down to the robot battles, and they ended just before I got there. Rats! K collects autographs, and he got one from the lead singer of the Cruxshadows, who also hugged him. Then he hugged me! This is a Goth band and they are very fan-centered. Went to the very last panel with Peter David, who has written a lot of various stuff. He was an interesting speaker and he got onto a rant about how boycotts are ineffective. Got dinner in the food court just before everything closed, then went for a relaxing swim in one of the hotel pools. Ahhh! Rode back on Tuesday.
Sunday's weather was nice in the morning! We all sat on the front porch to chat & eat. EJ & D left. I swam while C & CC went for a walk, and G showed up. She had overslept Saturday and missed our fun. We 4 played cards awhile and ate leftovers, or "prepared food". Watched AFV.
They left this morning. It's all over, boo-hoo! People need to come back more often than every 7 years. At least I get my computer back.
Carolyn & Chuck drove here from Connecticut on Thursday! They hadn't been here since 2002. Carolyn has her high school reunion, so we talked Elizabeth into coming to visit, too. Friday morning, CC & I went to the store and made a cake for EJ. She had me drive her Prius (nice car) to show it off. After lunch, I drove it again and took them cruising. Showed them the downtown and the new art museum (didn't go in), and they saw the trolleys and where the new medical school is being built. Then we cruised past Andrew Lewis High School, which is now a middle school. Drove around Salem a little bit and dropped in on Grace at her work. I usually try not to stay too long and get her in trouble.
Back home, and Elizabeth and Dan arrived from NC. We waited for Grace to get off work, then she and Hillary came over. We all went to Applebee's at Tanglewood for dinner, C & CC treated us all. then we came back home and lit up the cake for Elizabeth. Her birthday was a week ago. She was surprised!
Sat in the LR and chatted all evening.
I woke up early on Saturday morning, at 7:00. Got a shower and bought a newspaper, cleaned up a few things in the kitchen, and sat down to blog before anybody started talking to me. Just then, Carolyn got up.
Wednesday I went to the Rescue Mission again. I don't know how much help I can be. Thursday I went shoe-shopping at Valley View. I've gotten new athletic shoes before, but they are just nowhere near as comfortable as the old, beat-up ones. I wound up getting 2 pairs - one is so comfy they hardly need breaking in, and the other is designed for running. It has lots of cushioning and feels very springy! I got on Skype with my niece, sister, & brother-in-law that evening and showed them the shoes. Chuck said I could jump up to reach the ceiling in them, so I named them my "flubber shoes".
Saturday it rained a lot & I straightened up the house somewhat. I watched the movie Twilight. Sunday I hung out laundry, mowed grass, and weed-ate all afternoon. I watched Atonement in the evening. Punkin has been inside a few times to visit me. I'm just keeping the back door to the cat flap open so he can come & go at will.
I went out running again this evening, and when I got back I had a call from my old boss when I used to work at Shenandoah Life! That was in the early 80s! I hadn't heard from her in decades, but she says she still thinks about me and tries to keep up with her old department. That was in the early days of PCs and she and I learned stuff together, so she thought of me now because she is having trouble with her PC. I'm hardly an expert, so I referred her to Geek Squad. I hope they can help. I feel honored that she called me.
- Mood: impressed
