Never Again Will I Ever...Or Will I?

This was the prompt:
"Think back to a fiasco—a moment when you were helplessly, hopelessly human. A mistake, a misstep, a plan gone spectacularly sideways. Write about what happened, what you were afraid it said about you—and what it revealed instead."

We were on a work assignment in Hamburg. Our project manager had quit and hadn't been replaced yet. We didn't think we could get our crates (artwork, AV equipment) past customs for no good reason other than fear, and the registrar at the museum was cackling with laughter because this was her last act / responsibility before retirement. Also she made disturbing jewelry with glow-in-the-dark rubber zombie fingers. You'd think I would like that but I did not.

With great relief, in our penultimate evening in Hamburg the bulk of our work was complete and we'd passed inspection. We went out to dinner and we / I got hammered.

A guy tossed a colorful postcard on the table, advertising a nightclub. Cool! Before the guys could stop me I walked out of the restaurant and hailed a cab. They managed to jump in with me, and off we went. And thus, at the tender age of 50, I found myself dancing in a cage at a raging gay nightclub in St. Pauli. I had so much fun until I realized that someone had stolen my purse which contained my passport and a week's per diem. My more sober companion, an air force veteran, noticed it in the hands of a woman in the parking lot. He snatched it from her and returned it to me.

The next night at dinner I apologized to my workmates. My hero responded "THAT was AWESOME", which took away a tiny piece of my mortification, which I feel even now, for obvious reasons.

What did I learn? Nothing, to be honest.

Return from Vacation

The week at work was up and down. Pulling materials and prepping for a YouTube shoot. Trying to remember what to say in what order on camera. Turning right around from on-camera talent to Right away pulling together digital collections of material we showed off on camera for our colleagues to use as stills in the filmed segments. Pause the action to do photo documentation of some offices with a photographer at work. He reminded me that there was a New Year's mochi pounding underway, so he and I went to that.

I participated in the pounding. That mallet is so heavy! And then they made mochi balls with the still-warm mochi and put out two sauces -- red bean paste and a thick shoyu sauce. It was beyond delicious. Then back to work.

On Friday I worked from home -- still collecting the digital files for the YouTube segment. Mrguy wandered in and mentioned that during the night before he'd had one of those episodes. Kind of the worst one yet. He told his oncologist, who asked him to go to the ER to get checked out. So we did. I brought my work computer so I could continue with the project, but the connection wasn't great. Still I was able to hand off, and explain to my colleagues what I'd been able to accomplish so far and, more importantly, what I had not.

Mrguy is fine. The odd thing about this episode is that it's been mysterious. He has them during infusion or close to the time of infusion (day of, and now night after). His doctor has removed various drugs from his regimen, only to have the episodes continue. This time he only had 5FU. But he had *no* 5FU once, and it still happened. He's had it on and off Kanjinti. And I believe on and off Oxaliplatin, but I'm not sure about that. It's gotta be his pre-med regimen. This would be good, because he needs those drugs in order to be alive, and stuff.

In the meantime, his regular neurologist has handed him over to a neurologist who specializes in seizures. And, in a few weeks, he's going to have an electroencephalogram *while* having his infusion. Bring it on!

I liked this plant that was in the ER parking lot...pretty in winter.

Summer Like Winter

This morning I woke up, came upstairs and it was blowin' like stink, as our old sailor friend used to say. This is the best summer ever, weather-wise. The middle of the country is suffering with heat, and it is dragging the marine layer over our part of the world like a cozy blanket. The little boy cat is in his window, surveying the neighborhood, and mrguy is dressed for cool weather and working in the garage.

The junk folks are coming today to take away much of my mom's old furniture. The tyranny of chairs. Bye chairs! After they leave us we'll have a tiny splash of room in the garage where we can do further triage.

In the meantime, mrguy has still been blown off by the allergy department and will rattle their cage. He had a brain MRI yesterday, and will have an electroencephalograph tomorrow. Hoping they find nothing, but we still have to figure out why his thighs itch and he loses control of parts of his body when he's being infused.

Tomorrow is filming in the archives. Man, do these people like forklift designs! I have to find an outfit and do my nails and think of things to say, in case they ask. They might just want my hands to point at designs. You never know. I am the designated pointer.

 

Random Haps

Mom is back in the state. Her visit with my sister didn't go as planned. I think they're getting COVID tests today to see whether they can get her safely back to her community. After that I don't know what happens. We're still sheltering in place over here, and my mom has been on two plane rides in two weeks, so I hope she and my sister are ok.

This week I hit the wall with a project that I've been supporting for many years. First I realized that I can't actually make the project better, then I realized I can't do it any more. That was actually depressing, because I might be made to continue. More later.

On the up side, mrguy is painting the lady bathroom for me.

I have started randomly poking plants into the barren hump of land in the middle of our street.

Boy Kitten is still in isolation for another couple of weeks, and he keeps growing like crazy.

Yesterday I made chicken and slickers, which was quite tasty.

And I have been working on the aku room. I bought two benches and organized the plants I've been growing in there. Today I might try to make an upside down tomato pot out of a cranberry juice jug.

We had a beautiful sunset the other day.

And last week I made a bunch of succulent cuttings and people from the "Buy Nothing" group on Facebook took them away. And yes, that's poison oak in the bush above!

When times are tough (family, police brutality, futility, pandemic), it sometimes helps to document the good stuff.

Random Notes From The Coronavirus

Oh Pandemic.

I have a box where I put notes about things that I am grateful for. It's just shy of lightening my mood.

The thing that is most upsetting is uncertainty. I'm not one of those people who can be upset about the entire world. I leave that to my mother, who pre-dementia would call me upset about bad things that happened to people she didn't know. "Did you hear about that accident on the highway?"

Anyhoo, I'm concerned about how long the caregivers will last, working so many days in a row without our helping (cause we can't during the lockdown at her community). I'm worried about the factory that I work for, which is hemorrhaging cash. I'm concerned about losing my job.

On the other hand, I know which of my garden weeds is edible.

Moving on to the random parts of the day, news from camellia grafting is grim -- I think there were no survivors. On the other hand, as I have mentioned I have come to really enjoy the camellia we have! And the recent warm weather has led to the camellia deciding to make every bud into a flower, which has prolonged the blooming season. And I am enjoying that.

The remnants of the grafting project have led to a new project: rooting. I bought some rooting hormone and watched some videos and I am trying to make new camellias out of the old branches. Hope springs eternal, it turns out.

In the "things you never wanted to know" department, I bought log spray a while back. It is better than air freshener and this particular variety, from Squatty Potty, smells really nice. Plus it is called "unicorn Gold". What could be better? Displayed next to the world's worst nail color and my new Davines tinted hair conditioner. Did I mention this before? It's really nice. A little pink here, a little purple there. Have to liven up those Zoom meetings, Zoom pub quizzes and Zoom salons.

On the mama front, she's fine. Freaked out yesterday because she didn't remember that she had seen me. I drive to her place, she comes out front with her caregiver and I stand on the sidewalk and yell to her. Her voice isn't strong and her place is next to a freeway entrance, and she doesn't want to wear her hearing aids with her mask, so our visits are unremarkable. I don't fault her for not realizing that I had been there, but her kind of dementia is the one where you don't know you have dementia, so she worried that she has dementia. Too late, Darling!

I make little love notes or funny notes for her caregivers to give her, with candy inside. Sometimes that helps.

I wish I could hug her.

Let's Hear It For The Man!

The Man.

I am so grateful for him. Still. After 12 1/2 years. I work really hard and love what I do and benefits are awesome. The Man does me right. On a day like today when I'm cut down in the prime of life by some mysterious body-ache-and-laryngitis thing and am too sick to work, he pays me. He is paying me right now as I type. Thank you, The Man. I appreciate it.

And congratulations to my friend, Paul Lukas, who is celebrating his 17th anniversary of not working for The Man. He works really hard and loves what he does and feels the lack of bennies are an o.k. tradeoff for being self-employed and never going into an office again.

Vive La Difference!