Miles & Monk

Ken and I took a chilly walk with Mandy, down to Blueberry's for an egg croissant, then to Savers looking for gloves to replace the nice knitted ones I've worn out, then stopped at the library and checked out some music CDs, before heading home. The snow promised for today never really arrived, except for a few flurries that never stuck to anything.

While K was at dialysis, I dedicated this evening to learning how to use the new turntable we bought last Spring during the remodel. It has a USB output, so supposedly we should be able to play one of our many records, and capture the output into the computer, convert each track to an MP3 file, and then be able to play the album with our new Sonos player in any room of the house. If that all works, then we should also be able to burn the music files to a CD and play it in the car. So goes the theory anyway. Naturally, my first stumbling block was that I couldn't find the user manual for the turntable, and for awhile it went downhill from there. As soon as I plugged in the turntable USB cable, my computer speakers went dead. Then I couldn't capture anything until I discovered the neat freeware audio editing application named Audacity. Then I could only record mono sound, left channel only. Then I could only generate one huge MP3 file with the entire album on it, until I learned how to label the quiet spaces between songs and export to multiple MP3 files. Sheesh. Eventually, I learned how to do everything I needed, and as I write this, I've just finished capturing the "Miles & Monk at Newport" album and have been listening to it through the computer speakers for the past few minutes. Nothing like success to cheer me up a little, before heading to bed!

Eagle Eye

We woke up to a gorgeous 25 degree morning, with the sun shining, and a medium thick layer of white frosting on everything, including the local foothills. Later in the morning, the deck furniture looked like someone had scattered a thick layer of diamonds on it, as the snow melted and the sun caught the beaded water drops. The temp never left the 25 degree mark all day, until night fell. Now it's a nice chilly 12 degrees out there. We watched Eagle Eye tonight with K&F - a thrill a minute! K says her foot wounds look about the same - no miraculous healing (at least yet) from the new treatment.

New Foot Regime

The two wounds on K's right foot are still serious, and have kept her off the Kidney/Pancreas transplant list throughout 2008. This week we visited the vascular surgeon who performed her Fistula surgery last year, this time to hear him report on the ultrasound scan that was taken recently on her feet. We hoped he might be able to surgically augment the arteries in her legs to improve the foot circulation. The good news is that there's still healthy circulation in the large vessels, and the not so good news is that the problem must therefore be in the smaller vessels, which means there's not much he can do to help with it. However, he did have some new ideas about how to treat her wounds, and she's now onto his new program. Wish her luck!

My cold symptoms are doing their usual drag-on thing, mostly just a runny nose, and an occasional sinus headache, but they're not keeping me from doing anything important.

Mandy feels so soft and fuzzy after her bath yesterday, very pettable. On our walk today, I was always on the lookout for her to lunge for the grass, and try to grab a quick roll. I'm hoping we'll get through a month without any more of that.

The weather's been just awesome the past several days, sunny and in the 50-60 range. I see the forecast calling for much colder tomorrow, and maybe even a couple of inches of snow.

Happy New Year!

We're wishing everyone a really different and wonderful year in 2009! We had an awesome New Year's Eve dinner at The Melting Pot, with our neighbors Ken and Freddie. K had her regular evening dialysis at 5:15 (no special schedule for New Year's), so we went to the 2:30pm dinner. Mmm! A beer-cheddar fondue with bread and veggies to dip, followed by a bubbling broth fondue with Filet Mignon, Teriyaki steak, Chicken, Shrimp, and Salmon, followed by a decadently delightful Cherries Jubilee chocolate fondue with strawberries, marshmallows, and various cakes. We used the convenient handicap parking and lower entrance, so K didn't have to climb any stairs. It was dark enough inside, to need a flashlight to order, and coincidentally I had brought my LED key chain light, a handy contraption I got for Christmas. We finished just in time to get K to her dialysis. We reconvened after dialysis, to watch the Dog Whisperer and the New Year's Eve countdown, and exchange Christmas gifts.

I slept in late enough this morning, that I only caught the last half of the Rose Parade, but I did see the Cal Poly float, which was a very cool little amusement park this year, complete with a roller coaster. Ken and I took Mandy for a late morning walk, in search of brunch, but everything was closed except Starbucks, so they got our business. Mandy took advantage of an off-leash exercise, to roll in some fresh goose poop, yet another first in our lives, and only a week after her first bath in practically forever. (Coincidence? I wonder...) Ugh. She's been such a wonder, I was hoping we could skip that little doggie trait. Of course that called for a bath after we got home, and it was nice to get through it smoothly, after our initial home bath experience that didn't go so well. After all that excitement, I went down and relaxed for awhile in our new basement steam shower.

Cold Snap

And the cold and snow just keep on coming! Lately, when I'm wheeling K out to the car at 10pm on MWF, we're definitely re-thinking the advantages of having her dialysis scheduled so late. By the time I'm going to pick her up, my metabolism is slowing down, and the cold just sinks into the bone.

Doesn't it figure, the hint of a sore throat this weekend turned into a cold with all the symptoms today. Nuts. Just in time for the holidays. So we stopped at Rite Aid on the way home from dialysis, to get me some day/night Comtrex.

K got a ride from Freddie to wound care today, for her regular Monday morning checkup. She also had an ultrasound appointment to check out her leg circulation, which turns out to be quite good. So they don't think they can blame her slow healing wounds on that. They took Mandy in the car with them, but maybe didn't quite keep her as warm as I do, and now K is thinking she'll never take her out on a day like this again. She said Mandy appeared to be enthralled by the Cherry Creek Mall, which she got to experience from K's lap in the wheelchair. Her eyes were very big, and she was checking out everything and everyone they passed.

Brr!

OK, now it's getting to be just plain cold around here. We woke up to a beautiful clear, cold, minus 8 degree day. The Denver airport set a new record low for today, at -18 degrees. I tried to snap a sunrise picture out the deck door, but the outer door window fogged up the second I opened the inner door. At work we're wondering what brainiac decided that the men's bathroom, which is on an outside wall, didn't need to be heated.

Snow

It was a cheery 5 degrees F this morning! There were a couple of inches of snow on the ground when I took Mandy out for her morning ritual. She really hopped to it, and was ready to come back inside in about 10 seconds. Don't blame her. It was cold enough to sting my cheeks as I stood out there and waited for her. The snow has started up again, a very holiday-ish light curtain of white drifting down.

K told me yesterday afternoon that her foot is doing pretty well.

Cold Snowy Day

We woke up to a beautiful snowy morning! A nice brisk day for a trip to the dentist. K had a lousy night, and didn't get to bed until I was getting up this morning. Mandy wasn't too excited about going out in the snow this morning, but jumped at the chance to go for a short walk, this cold clear evening.

Lights

Mandy and I went for a walk around the neighborhoods, and enjoyed the Christmas lights that are starting to pop up everywhere. I thought it was kind of funny that she showed up in this picture. I didn't notice her silhouette until I got home and pulled it off the camera. Sorry for the blur. It's tough getting a decent night picture with any kind of hand held camera, much less the primitive one in my cell phone.

Mandy and the Fox

She's been so good most of the time, and then... I took her out to the side yard near midnight, for her pre-bedtime relief break. On this rare occasion, I didn't have any shoes on, and was shifting my weight from one sore foot to the other on the cold hard concrete, while admiring our neighbor's Christmas tree, and waiting for her. Then I heard a quiet little "rrr" and the rapid patter of little feet, and looked over to see her disappearing across the street, between our neighbors' houses. I could only presume that she'd seen a fox on a yard over there, and that the fox was leading her into the shadows behind the houses. I nervously watched for a few seconds, and sure enough, out from the other side of the house came a fox at full run, big fluffy tail floating in the breeze, with Mandy a few feet behind. I called for her to stop and come back, but of course she was pretty well fixated. They flew across the street, and disappeared into the space on the other side of our house. I guessed they were heading down the hill toward the fox's den under the juniper bushes. I went into the house and put on my boots, then went out on the deck with a flashlight, hoping I could see or hear them down there. I heard a jingle that I thought was Mandy's collar tags, and whistled and called for her to come home. No response. I ran down the stairs and went out on the patio to see if I could see her. Nothing. I realized the neighbor's dogs were out, and the jingle was probably them. I was losing hope every second, that she'd survived her midnight encounter with this fox. Then I thought hopefully that maybe the jingle *was* her, coming back up the hill, and went back upstairs and out the side door where we'd been, to see if she had returned there. Nope. I wandered around to the front of the house, and right then, here comes Mandy, trotting proudly back from around the front of the house and up the driveway in the dark. At first I thought she was limping, but then I realized she was having a hard time walking, because she was so busy strutting her stuff. She's such a lucky, lucky, lucky, dog.

Racine's

After watching a half dozen sappy holiday movies yesterday and last night, we slept (way) in this morning. It's snowing again today, not much, but enough to set a cheery scene outside the windows, and leave a thin layer on the roads. Mandy wasn't very excited about going for a walk, after a minute of tromping about in the slush, so we stopped in at our neighbors and visited for a little while, before heading back home. After missing breakfast and lunch, we had a relaxed early dinner at Racine's. Nice strong hot coffee!

Snow!

Our day started off early, with shoveling a few inches of snow off the driveway, coaxing Mandy to venture out in the snow for her morning ritual, then an (invigorating) drive on slippery roads, to drop K at dialysis for the 6am slot. She couldn't make her regular time last night, having gotten really nauseous just when we were packing her up to leave. I stopped for a nice hot latte on the way home, and have been popping my head out of the front and back doors, snapping pictures of our first real snow accumulation this season.

Lights Up

Man, am I sore. I did a few sets of pull-down exercises at Buck Center on Thursday, and I guess I haven't used those muscles in too long. I can barely lift my arms above my head today.

John and Michelle headed off in their rental car for the airport at noon. They missed out on the forecast snow, which just never showed up, and got to enjoy some beautiful sunny days instead. Michelle said the security line was quick and easy, a welcome change from their past experiences at DIA.

The afternoon turned out really nice, and while walking Mandy, I noticed several neighbors putting up their Christmas lights. That was just the little incentive I needed, to steel myself for the task. I wasn't looking forward to hunting for our lights in the crawl space, after all the frantic shuffling of boxes that occurred, as the remodel was finishing up this year. Miracle of miracles, we had already pulled out the box of lights, and it was waiting for me on the shelf in the furnace room. I was very happy to find everything I needed in the one box, to put up all the outside lights. This year we're trying those new LED lights that aside from being pretty, should also save a little energy every season.

Oops, I guess I spoke too soon about the snow never showing up. We looked outside before going to bed, and the lights on the deck railing looked a little funny. That's because they were under a layer of soft fluffy snow.

Thanksgiving

We had a pretty full day! I was up early. The temperature was at 30, then 32, then hovering at 29, as the weather tried to decide whether or not to honor the forecast for snow. I took Mandy for a chilly but relatively short walk, maybe a mile. John and Michelle arrived at 10. While John relaxed around the house, Michelle and I went for a short workout and a dip in the pool at the Buck Center. The jacuzzi felt really good on my tweaky back. We made a quick stop at Starbucks on the way back to the house. Next, we were off to the Brown Palace, for the Thanksgiving buffet at Ellyngton's, with lots of choices of very delightful food. It was over almost before we knew it. Mandy spent the afternoon snuggled up all nice and warm in her bed on the back seat of the car. When we got home, I treated her to half a can of "Thanksgiving Dinner" dog food - the ingredients sounded healthy - with turkey and a bunch of vegetables. She (amazingly) scarfed it down in seconds, which is pretty rare for her. The funny thing is, she's the only one that will have Thanksgiving leftovers tomorrow morning! We settled into Big Red and watched a fairly dark Philip Seymour Hoffman movie called "Before the Devil Knows You're Dead." We never did get any snow. During the one last walk around the neighborhood with Mandy this evening, I thought I felt a few bits of cold precipitation hit my face, but I never saw anything. Happy Thanksgiving to all, and to all a good night!

Mandy and the Geese

This morning much was nicer at 47F than yesterday's 22F. Mandy and I walked to downtown Littleton. I let her chase a few geese off the grass in Sterne Park. This time I was ready with the camera, and caught this video to share. Too fun. K says, "No wonder she loves to go on walks with you!" I had a tasty Gyro and Latte lunch at Abe's Cafe. She was so good. I invited her up on one of their patio chairs to wait while I went inside, and for the first time, she laid down on command on the seat of the chair, and waited there quietly, the entire time I was inside ordering.

Twitter Buzz

Brr. A bit chilly at 22F this morning. Beautiful and sunny, though. I really enjoyed the honking of the flock of geese that went by awhile ago. I'm looking forward to a walk for hot coffee and breakfast with Ken in a few minutes

I spent a few minutes trying to figure out what Twitter.com is all about. It seems simple enough, but there's this big gap between how much buzz it's getting on the net, and how little I can see myself using it. I did find their public timeline very amusing, and (apparently!) a great way to lose some time on a quiet Saturday morning.

Snowy Flying Day

It was snowing pretty hard at the house this morning, coating our deck furniture in a fluffy layer of white. We've been struggling with the decision of whether or not to put the protective all-weather storage covers on the new furniture for the Winter, but our inclement weather is generally so short-lived, that it seems like it'll be more trouble than it's worth. So we got to see how our "water-resistant" cushions handle the snow. As it turns out, very well, thank you.

Coincidentally, after being away from airplanes all year, I went flying with JB in his Comanche today, as he got in his six IFR approaches while buzzing around Fort Collins airport. Once we got away from the snow at our house, it was sunny and awesome up in the Northern territories where we were flying.

We stopped at Pita Pit in Boulder for lunch, for a tidy (!) and tasty Gyro sandwich, then picked up some hot and sour soup for K at Yen King on the way home. I got home and met up with Jen, a person K is considering for a part time home companion type of role. Our neighbors Ken and Freddie were also there, and my hat's off to them - they did an awesome job of preparing for the interview, with a 3 page handout describing ways to help K stay off her feet.

Busy Week

It seems like I spent this entire week at work in some kind of training or meetings. The Error Prevention training was pretty interesting, especially because I had the instructor with the great flying stories. When it came to the "tell about one of your personal mistakes" part in the PIC training course, I decided to tell my infamous biplane story. That was cathartic, even if I found myself experiencing the adrenaline rush yet again. The award luncheon for my 30 years of service was tasty and fun. I was slightly embarrassed to have someone at my table bring up my story from the day before, although it was done in a friendly way.

Catching Up

Hi all! Sorry for the lack of updates. Our current routine has been in effect for a couple of months, but I apparently haven't figured out how to fit K&S Updates into it yet. Things are mostly the same here. We just completed Session 9 of 11, of the Littleton Police Citizen Academy, on Thursday night. The Academy classes have been very interesting. Two weeks ago, we had an exercise where we had to enter and check out a dark conference room, looking for a person who was reportedly hiding in there, possibly armed. It only lasted a few minutes, but I came out of it with a pretty big adrenaline rush. Too many (potentially life-threatening) unknowns in that job! Last week was particularly fun, as we drove police cruisers around a big parking lot, with lights and siren going, pretending to chase and pull over volunteer "speeders". Our neighbor Ken took particular pleasure in being "the rabbit", leading his chaser in circles around the light poles. K went on a real life police ride-along last night from 6-10.

In two more weeks, we'll get our Thursday nights back, and we'll be moving into yet another weekly routine. K goes to Dialysis MWF nights from 5:15-9:45. Sometimes she gets a ride over there from a neighbor, and sometimes I get home in time to take her. If I take her, then Mandy and I usually go for about a 2 mile walk from the dialysis parking lot, along a few nearby popular walking/biking trails. My walking isn't quite as fun lately, since my feet started hurting a bunch. I'm pretty sure, based on some research online, and emailing my doctor, that I've got Plantar Fasciitis, and am dealing with it by using prosthetic shoe inserts for now. Notwithstanding the discomfort, I still try to get out for a couple of 4-5 mile walks with Mandy and our neighbor Ken each weekend. Mandy has been doing better and better with her short off-leash sessions. We'll stop at a big grassy area, and let her run her legs off, which of course she completely loves.

Yesterday, I let her off leash as we walked through the little preserve along the Platte River, and she stayed within two feet of us most of the time. Very gratifying, that all my patient training and bonding seems to be showing results. This morning I let her off leash for a few minutes at Sterne Park, and with my encouragement, she took off across the grass, and delightedly flushed a flock of about 200 geese into the air, and then another flock of 50 a minute later. They all seemed content to settle onto the lake a few hundred feet away. We continued on to downtown Littleton, for breakfast at Cafe Terracotta. The food was yummy as usual, but it was a bit chilly (47 degrees), sitting at an outside table with Mandy. Almost everyone who walked past us stopped to say hi to Mandy, or to comment on how sweet she looks. I had to agree, of course.

The house remodel saga continues. The main floor powder bath toilet cracked and ruined the newly refinished wood floor. After some back and forth about exactly what broke and whose fault it was, we've finally got a new toilet on the way, and the floor may fix itself as it dries out, so we'll just have to wait and see. It would be good to have that done, before John and Michelle arrive for Thanksgiving! We're slowly shuffling things around in the house, as K tries to adapt to the new living space and furniture. The dining room furniture has moved to the kitchen nook, as the dining room is morphing into a reading room. We're loving our new living room sofa and reclining chairs.

K's left foot is still looking good. She's trying very hard to stay off her feet when possible, especially the right one, so she's using her crutches and wheelchair a lot. Because of that, it appears the two remaining wounds on her right foot are finally starting to get better.

Work has been crazy, with our new company's two year "IT Separation" deadline fast approaching, and the occasional launch in the midst of all that, to keep things interesting. The next Atlas V launches from both East and West coasts have slipped quite a bit, but somehow that doesn't make things any less busy for my group.

We're heading up to the Chart House for dinner tonight with our neighbors - no particular occasion, just wanted to do something nice for ourselves. It's up in the foothills, and there's a bit of a nice view of the Denver area lights at night.

Fall Colors

Here are some pics of fall colors and leaves I collected with my phone cam, while walking with Ken and Mandy today...

Boulder Baked Reopens!

We drove up to Boulder for the grand re-opening of our friends' Boulder Baked Cafe at its new location, 1911 Broadway. They've found themselves a nice spot near the corner of Broadway and Walnut, and right next door to a Migun beds store, which is also someplace very fun to visit. Their desserts were as great as usual, and visiting the Cafe was a very pleasant experience. I told Katie their colors reminded me a lot of the Cal Poly University Union, which turned out to be very well accepted, back in the day. 

We had a fun day overall. We started by driving up to Arvada at noon, to visit with Dee, the woodworker who did great things with our window sills and the doors for the living room TV. At K's request for my birthday, Dee had made me a tool carry box from Aspen, a very light hardwood. It's a real work of art. She showed us around her workroom, and that was fun, looking over all her cool woodworking tools. Then K asked her to show us her train set in the basement, and that is something really amazing too. Seems like miles of track, and many assembled trains ready to run on many combinations of track.

Just before we left Dee's, I took Mandy over to the nearby Independence Park for a short walk. It's a nice little park, with a good sized expanse of open grass. Mandy loved getting off leash and prancing around the grass for awhile. Then I put her back on leash, and we got a little more serious about circling the park at a nice brisk walking pace.

I heard a train horn approaching, so just for fun, I moved us briskly over to the North side of the park, nearest the train tracks, and sure enough a great long freight came by. We enjoyed watching this real train, a long freight with perhaps six engines in front, as it came lumbering by on the nearby tracks, all of the engines working hard as it pulled the long stretch of cars up the hill.

Academy 3

Cold wintry day. We attended the third Citizen Academy class this evening. Fun stuff! We made casts of footprints and "dusted for prints" tonight. At the end of the evening, we were presented with a possible crime scene, and tried to locate any relevant evidence. I found the shell casing on the floor, and spotted the bullet hole in the ceiling :-o

Academy #2

Tonight was our 2nd Citizen Academy class. This session covered criminal investigation and street drugs. Even though I had exposure to some of the information over the years, I'm pretty sure I increased my knowledge by several times. Scary, dangerous, and very sad stuff going on in that world. Especially the part about meth users aging 10 years for each year they use. The term "tweakers" was new to me.

K's back on antibiotics for her right foot. It heals up for awhile, then she feels the need to walk around on it, and it deteriorates quickly again. She continues to have trouble with bouts of severe nausea almost every day.

I think I'm going to declare victory over my sore throat and coughing from that incident back in July. I still have a little cough that sneaks out every once in awhile, but I've been sleeping through the night for weeks now.

K had Mandy out on the deck yesterday, and she snuck a drink from the drip pan below one of the Meyer lemon trees out there. K got worried, since those plants had recently been fertilized, but with everything she had going on, she forgot to check in with the vet before it was too late. Not surprisingly, Mandy got me up every couple of hours last night, to take her out so she could hunt for grass to eat. The last time we went out, around 4:30am, the newspaper delivery car came by, and she took off after it, disappearing down our street around the corner. Sheesh, as if worrying about how she felt wasn't bad enough, now I'm worrying that she'll get run over, or be eaten by a local fox or coyote, on her way back home. But she came right back, after scaring that nasty old car away. I was disappointed, since she's been very good the few times I let her off leash. She seemed in great spirits after the big chase, though, so I guess it had some theraputic value. Today K took her over to the vet, who pronounced her OK, and clipped her nails and renewed her shots for good measure. She seemed fine to me tonight, while we were walking around the parking lot during a break in the class.

It's starting to get just a bit cooler around here during the nights. And I noticed on a short walk recently, that some bushes and trees are already starting to change colors. Well, I guess it's not unexpected that we'd be seeing signs of Fall in September, but it sure caught me by surprise.

Home from traveling

I got home this morning from a quick business trip to CA for a tanking test. Everything at work went well, though I didn't have much time or warning to visit with family, and they didn't have time for me either. I did get to play disc golf a couple of times, thanks to my coworker bringing an extra disk with him. I took the 6am flight to ensure I got home in plenty of time to get to the Littleton Police Citizen Academy class in the afternoon. I expected Santa Barbara airport to be deserted at 5am, but I guess all the other people were surprised too. The security line went out the door, and halfway around the block. A bunch of us would've missed our flight to Denver, if they hadn't pulled us out of line to go through security ahead of the others. Then they departed four flights at practically the same time. When I was walking out to the tarmac, and asked the first United employee I could see which of the four planes I saw ahead of me was going to Denver. "That one," he said, and pointed to the plane to my left. Then he paused, and said, "No, that one over there," and pointed to the plane slightly to the right. I didn't feel very confident at that point, so I asked the flight attendant when I got on board, just to be sure. Lucky me, on the right flight, after all.

While I was gone, one morning, K said she went to pet the dog in her bed on the floor, and Mandy was lying there very still with her eyes bugging out, and felt stiff to the touch. For a moment, K thought the dog had died right there, and she was momentarily overcome with grief. K stroked Mandy a few times gently, whereupon she started making her little happy dog grunting noises. Mandy must've just been very relaxed and just beginning to wake up. What a scare, but it ended in the best way possible.

We attended our first class of the Littleton Police Citizen Academy this evening. We got some interesting overview talks from the Chief of Police and her department heads. We're looking forward to the next 10 weeks of classes, which should familiarize us with the workings of the our local police, and give us some interesting things to learn and do.

GeoEye Launch

I had asked my coworker to support the Delta II launch of GeoEye on Saturday, but then there was a power outage at work for several hours in the early morning, and I decided I wanted to be there to make sure everything was working again. So I got to watch the launch on the monitors in the launch support room. The payload is interesting - a commercial earth imaging satellite that users including Google Earth will be using to upgrade their maps to a higher resolution in the future. Here's the writeup on SpaceFlightNow. 

Life's OK

Just a quick note to say things have been busy, but for the most part everything's fine here. K's right foot is onto one of the many uphill climbs toward being healed, but as always we're watching for a backslide, which could occur at any time. People are asking lately, "So, is the house finally finished now?" and it's always difficult to answer. A lot of the remodel work is complete, but there are still things to be done, including one or more big things that need to be reworked.

Mandy's continuing to be a happy little camper, and even she's enjoying our new basement living space. There's enough room down there to race around the couch and run herself out of breath, when the urge arises. She's still not very interested in using the dog door, but we're making a little progress each week in that direction. She reminds me a lot of the teenagers we've known, who didn't rush out to get their driver's license on their 16th birthday. The freedom's there, and I guess she'll take advantage of it when she's ready.

Dad and Adele were here from 8/7 to 8/25. We had a couple days of nice cool rainy weather, which worried them, but then it got back into the 90s which made them happy. Adele had an intestinal illness which put her in the ER and then a hospital room for a few days. That delayed their departure just a little, but they're safely home now.

Flu or something

I started feeling really sick on the way home from work yesterday, unbelievably nauseous and a powerful tingling, almost a buzzing, in my arms and legs. I got home to the neighbors' house, and all I could do was lay there on my bed in the basement, and wiggle my legs to help keep the nausea down. After talking to a nurse at Kaiser, I had my neighbor Ken drive me to urgent care, where they gave me an anti-nausea drug by IV with a liter of saline. I felt a little better by the time the IV was done, at least while lying down. Sitting up didn't go so well, but they kicked me out anyway, and Ken drove me back home. I felt a lot better in the morning, so go figure. We went to see WALL-E this afternoon, very sweet and really good animation of course, by Pixar. Afterwards, I had a free birthday burger and sundae, courtesy of Red Robin. So far I feel OK, if a little tender, so I guess whatever hit me yesterday has pretty much taken its course.

Painting

K's evening dialysis schedule is working way better than any of the other times. If I hurry home from work, I can take her there and then pick her up at 10pm. This way, she gets most of the day to do things like doctor's appointments, and talking to the people working around the house. The heel wound on her right foot isn't getting any better. They've got her back on oral antibiotics for that.

My illness, whatever it is, it acts a lot like a nagging cold that won't leave. It seems to be getting better during the days, but it really hits hard at night, and first thing in the morning. That's a lot like a cold goes with me, too, so I'm not too worried about it, although it's really annoying to not be able to sleep for all the coughing, runny nose, and watery eyes.

K really wanted Mandy to have a nice, covered, place to go, on rainy and snowy days, that she could get to from inside the house, without being at risk from the local foxes and coyotes. Well, her new "dog run" is almost finished, with a dog door from my office, a nice closely-spaced railing that lets the air in but not the predators, and even a plywood roof to keep out the precipitation. It just needs a little something waterproof to be laid over the top.

The interior painting seems to be going well, although the painters took one look at the house when they arrived on Monday, and announced they wouldn't be done until the middle of next week. By that time, Dad and Adele were supposed to be here, and sleeping soundly in their guest room. There's still a chance the master and guest bedrooms will be available by then. We'll just have to wait and see. Been doing a lot of that, lately.

Painting

K's left foot is still looking good - it's still off wound status. The surgery incision on her right foot is still open but slowly healing. She's watching the wound on her heel carefully.

I'm still suffering from whatever malaise I got from cleaning out the neighbor's freezer on the 17th, but I'm beginning to get a sense that it might be getting better. I did start taking an antihistamine at the doctor's recommendation, and maybe that's helping.

There's a huge team of painters at the house this morning. They'll be repainting the main floor and upstairs interior this week, so we'll be sleeping at the neighbors. This is the last really big thing we need to get finished, before we can start putting the house back in order. It's been a very long time, since we started getting a few little things fixed up last year, and then dove into finishing the basement back in March. I think all three of us (Mandy included) are just about wiped out by all the upheaval in our lives.

Minor Setbacks

More (minor) upheaval in the home improvement area - delays by folks finishing up current work have caused us to reschedule the main floor interior painting until next week.

K's new boot caused some dark red bruises on her right heel. They look like they might be deep blood blisters. She got instructions over the phone, to stop using the boot until her next appointment.