Almost Here!

Well, PoopsaLot II is about to make his grand entrance. CrazySis reported that not only has he dropped, she had contractions that got down to eight minutes apart Sunday night. Her due date is Friday, but since PoopsaLot was two weeks late (and even then had to be induced), I wasn't holding my breath. Now, the breath is held. I've packed an overnight bag and am waiting for the call from MomTook.

In other news, the bathroom is supposedly done. I'm not happy with part of the trim work, but it is otherwise finished. Yay!

Only Tuesday

Gah...it's only Tuesday morning and I already feel like this week has been lasting FOREVER.

Got my new phone set up yesterday, but finally found out that I'll need a $30 kit to be able to transfer music to it. Blah. So much for a quick fix to the broken iPod problem.

Kermit the Kontractor came by yesterday to look at some weird creases in the surround of the new tub. He said it should be fine. I made it pretty clear I'd be calling him if it broke in a few months like the last one did. One of his guys installed the new rain-style shower head, so all that's left is the shower rod, which should be happening today.

Went to Karate last night. All I could do was watch, but I learned some good stuff I intend to put to use in sparring. I also helped out with teaching kata because IronDad was a bit overwhelmed with people to train. I got the expected "You just couldn't stay off the floor, could you?" remarks.

Well, that's it for now. Brown belt and surgery done. Tub supposedly done today. Only the Dr. Z thing left. And two more days of this month. Thank GOD.

PipTook's Back (All Right!)

...Sorry. Had to go for the Backstreet Boys joke.

Anyway, surgery went really well. Got to the hospital at 11:30 as they requested and was given a "room" (really a curtained off alcove large enough for a couple chairs and a bed). MomTook was endlessly amused by the fact they had put me in a children's room, completed with Pooh posters and toys.

The nurse was hysterically Ditzy Granola. She took my stats and hooked me up with an IV. It was a crazy busy day there, so I ended up waiting around for a looooong time. It was almost 1:00 before the doctor even came around. I ended up having someone I knew as my anastesiologist. (He's the father of one of the brown belts.) Chatted with him a bit and described my previous issues with general anastesia. He verified my weight and said that I might have been overmedicated.

I was finally given some Versed around 1:45 or so. Best. High. Ever. I believe my words were "They have GOT to put this in pill form!" I was quite amusing while on it. I was wheeled to the OR around 2:15. I said something to one of the surgical RNs about it being awkward knowing BrownBeltDad since my girly parts where going to be on display.

BrownBeltDad injected the sedative and next thing I know I was waking up in Recovery with just that extra-groggy feeling you get if you've napped too long. In fact, the nurse said that I was "bright-eyed and bushy-tailed" and that she didn't see too many smiles. I was just so relieved to not have any nausea or extreme muscle weakness like last time I had surgery.

Was wheeled back to my "room" before too long. MomTook said that both the doctor and BrownBeltDad talked to her. (Anastesiologists don't usually talk to the waiting person, it's true, but it was probably just because of my history with general and our concerns.) She also told me that while I was in recovery for about an hour, last time (when I had an awful time with the lingering anastesia) I was in recovery for FOUR FUCKING HOURS. Overdose, anyone? Especially since I was STILL weak and vomiting when I left FIVE HOURS AFTER SURGERY. My mother suspects they were just desperate to not have to keep me overnight.

Anyway, I got dressed after doing the "liquids in, liquids out" requirement for leaving after outpatient surgery and went to MomTook's house. I even felt well enough to eat some Chicken and Stars and bread for dinner.

I had no pain during the entire recovery. I did sleep a lot though. The only problems I had was some shaking on Friday morning (probably withdrawal from all the meds they gave me) and irritation from the catheter.

I came home on Saturday morning and by yesterday was actually getting antsy. I'm back at work today and the only way I can even tell I had surgery is my hilariously glued-shut navel that prevents me from standing up straight.

It is Time...

Last night I tested for my brown belt. I was told by Sensei I unofficially passed.

I'm off to the hospital. See you on the other side.

On Edge

Man, my nerves are just SHOT. I cannot wait until this freakin' month is over. Well, on the list of "shit I have no control over," most of them will be done by tomorrow. My brown belt test is tonight (Item 1), surgery is tomorrow (Item 2), and the tub should also be finished today (Item 3). Item 4, the Dr. Z thing, won't be taken care of until we talk post-surgery. It's a shame the thing that's on my mind the most is the last item to get cleared up. I just keep telling myself that at least it's keeping my mind off of all the other shit. Like, I'm just now starting to get nervous about surgery. Usually I would have hit the ceiling about a week ago.

So, I'm on edge, but within a week it will ALL be done. Thank God. I can't maintain this level of stress any longer.

Misc. Stuff

Well, I spent most of yesterday recovering from staying out late watching the ALCS. Go Sox! PhillieFan was hurting too so I made us a hey-uge pot of strong coffee. I ended up falling asleep in front of the MNF at 9:00. I woke up at 11 and went to bed and didn't wake up again until 7:20. Talk about needing sleep!

Went to Karate last night and got some work in on my kata, although we spent most of the class on two-step kumite. I found out that I will (finally) be tested for my brown belt tomorrow. Yay! Most people wouldn't want that stress the night before surgery but I welcome the distraction.

Spent a good chunk of the day trying to find a somewhat-affordable option for replacing my cellphone. Verizon gave me a new Razr for half price with a contract extension. I didn't like extending my contract, but it was better than paying the full $220 for the phone.

I'm also doing some last-minute items before Thursday - grocery shopping, laundry, that sort of thing. Amazing how much you have to do just to take four days to recover.

Lowe's...My Favorite Store

Didn't do too much Friday night or Saturday morning due to fighting off this damn cold. (Which, not a cool thing to have FOUR DAYS BEFORE SURGERY.) I did go for a walk around the lake before it started raining though. When I got back, I called MomTook to see if she wanted to ride along to Lowes and Bed Bath & Beyond with me. Figured it was a good time to make the trip since it was crappy out anyway. She needed to get out of the house herself, having been abandoned by Geritol for hunting, so I picked her up and off we went.

First off was BB&B. I found a very nice shower curtain and liner for the bathroom since Kermit's going to replace the doors (which I didn't like anyway) with one of those bow-shaped curtain rods. It's a simple white fabric curtain like what they use in hotels. (Their "hotel brand" white curtain was fifty damn dollars, but they had a nearly identical one just a few curtains down that was only twenty, so I nabbed that one, of course.) I also found one of those rain shower heads. I figure since they had to remove the old one anyway they can just put up the new one instead. With all these additions, I'm going to want to shower there instead of in the master bathroom.

Then it was off to Lowes. I got some more knobs to replace two that were broken from Kermit the Kontractor's guys going a bit haywire with the drill. (Not that I mind replacing the cheap wooden knobs he used on the closet doors anyway.) I also picked up white paint to brighten the archway between the dining room and living room. Oh yes, and a can of silver spray paint since the two curtain rods from my old apartment that I was going to use in my study are the same design but TWO DIFFERENT FINISHES. (Yes, I am an idiot. A forgetful idiot.) Basically I picked up little things to finish little projects around the house.

Afterwords, I hung out with MomTook at her place. She of course fed me. Of course it was delicious. I was going to go out to watch the ALCS when I got home, but decided it would be better to relax and heal a bit. Plus the Sox always seem to lose playoff games when I watch them in a bar. (Hey, it worked didn't it? They POUNDED them!)

It's clear and unseasonably warm today, so I'm outta here.

Finally Friday

Although nothing's been fully resolved, PhillieFan has indeed shown up the past two days. Hurrah! The cracks are slowly but surely being fixed, just as my bathroom is almost looking like a bathroom again.

It's unseasonably warm for the second day in a row. Yesterday hit the low seventies and today's supposed to be even warmer. It's not even nine and it's already 64 degrees outside. In October. In the Adirondacks. Amazing. I may even *gasp* sunbathe during lunch.

Anyway, I'm hoping to take it easy this weekend because I'm in such bad shape for my surgery as it is. Dr. Z wants me to come along to the martial arts tournament, but I have to weigh which is less stressful - getting up at 5 in the morning and driving a total of six hours but having an all-day distraction from things or sleeping in and resting but risking getting caught up in all the shit that's going on. I have to decide soon though. Argh. In any case, at least Sunday should be restful.

Going Nuts with the Waiting

Ended up not going to Karate last night. I just couldn't deal with teaching kids after just teaching on Monday. Got an e-mail this morning from Sensei saying he was going to be there, so it looks like my Brown Belt test is going to be delayed yet AGAIN. Hence with the waiting.

Dr. Z still hasn't made any decisions and is pretty much pretending issues don't exist. I need to pin him down at least a little bit so that I can eat and sleep again. In the meantime, with the waiting over here.

PhillieFan is supposed to show up tomorrow, but we'll see. In the meantime, waiting for a working tub.

Surgery is a week from tomorrow. I'm dreading it but all there is to do is...say it with me...wait.

I hate waiting on things I can't control. Sigh.

*Snore*

Quiet Tuesday here. On a positive note, we finally had a sunny day after almost two weeks of heavy clouds. It's not supposed to last, but it certainly was nice while it lasted.

Found a Mexican tortilla soup recipe to conquer in my quest to learn how to cook. I just need to go to the Big Grocery Store for green chiles. (The Local Health Store didn't have them.)

I'm going to help out in Karate tonight. With so many things out of my control right now, I want to exercise what control I DO have with getting my brown belt. Not that I have any say, but at least there's something I can DO to sway things my way. (Unlike the Dr. Z thing and the surgery thing and the tub thing.)

Well, that's about it. They can't all be interesting days, after all.

Just Another Manic Monday...

...wish it were Sunday. Not. With everything up in the air I'm glad to be kept busy. Had not one but TWO pre-op appointments today. Joy. The first one was with the pre-admission staff. At first I did NOT get the warm fuzzies because after waiting for a while I finally called THEM and the person they first transferred me to took a message. The woman who called me back though was really good.

Then it was time to go to the doctor's office. After a rushed visit with the petite, perfectly groomed, fake RN (who was TOTALLY in a sorority in college and probably a cheerleader in high school), I went for bloodwork. I did find out that I won't be able to do physical activity for two freaking weeks. Great. As if I'm not out of shape enough. I also found out that all my piercings are going to have to come out. Pain.

At Karate, I showed Sensei my kata (since I was literally the ONLY STUDENT who didn't get any training during the class - I trained some orange belts on THEIR kata and then when Sensei grabbed the black belts, who were the only other ones training people, I had to go with the colored belts and WOW is this a run-on sentence of Dickensian proportions) and he was VERY pleased with what he saw. He made noises about scheduling a brown belt test, but we'll see if it actually, you know, HAPPENS.

A Good Saturday

The sun was actually out for a brief time yesterday morning. It inspired me to get a lot done, including going to the dump. (I even did all my recyclables.)

Went over to MomTook's fairly early as CrazySis had woken up at 4:45 in the damn morning and was on the road by 6:00. It was great to see her and PoopsALot even if I missed out on a road trip. Of course, since CrazySis is due in a couple weeks I'll be making a road trip up to her place soon enough.

Left around 4:00 or so and chilled and had dinner before going out to see MMAMusician's band. They rocked, as always, and were playing the Maroon 5-type stuff that was perfect for the sucky week I had. However, I bumped into these three girls out together and this couple who had just gotten married that day after living together for twelve years and having four kids. We all had a blast and I even got up and danced for a few songs. Since I was wearing my hot new jeans, I did not mind shaking my ass in front of MMAMusician. (See: Smoking hot.) The bride was making all these comments back to him during one of the songs and at one point he goes, "I'm being sexually harassed up here!" Hee. Too bad his hot girlfriend was there and accounted for.

I left around 11:30 shortly after the other girls did since the set was going to end at midnight anyway. Came home and watched the ALCS until it went into extra innings at 1:15 in the damn morning. They got CLOBBERED in the eleventh inning anyway, allowing SEVEN RUNS, so I'm glad I went to bed. Thank god there's five games left.

Since it is SNOWING, I plan on staying in and watching the football all day. And eating. A lot. I weighed myself this morning and thanks to all the stress of the month instead of gaining back the weight I lost backpacking, I've lost another pound and am down to 99. Not good.

I Hate This Week

Well, Day Three of contractors is going on. I got my ass out of bed at 6:30 but they didn't show up until 8:00 today. Of course, I'm just happy they showed up at all. (I've now had enough experience with contractors to not take that for granted.) Kermit the Kontractor also showed up. Turns out I'll get to see PhillieFan next week as he'll be back to patch the drywall yet again.

I ended up not going to Karate last night. Even some most righteous tunage just couldn't get me pumped up enough. I almost did it...I was like..."YEAH! Let's GO...ummm...sit on the couch like a lump." Oh well. Between the contractors being here and them using the spare room as storage, I haven't been able to practice my kata anyway.

On a positive note, I'm pretty much all caught up at work. Just have to finish up my monthly report. Yay!

Also positive? Tomorrow's Friday. That means the end of the Week from Hell. Double yay!

Blah

Well, on a positive note, I finally got around to setting up my receiver. The surround sound doesn't do much with cable, but the difference while watching DVDs is awesome. Still can't get the optical cable to work for some reason. It appears to be carrying the light signal, but maybe it got damaged somehow.

Once again, it was a day of distraction with the contractor here. It was good because it forced me to work and keep my mind off of things. Otherwise I would have spent yet another day crying off and on. Looks like I'll have a third day of distraction too - although things are looking a lot better, they still need to do all the finishing work.

So...yeah. STILL no resolution on anything. Well, I'll drag (and I mean DRAG) my ass to Karate. Who knows? Maybe I'll actually get promoted. I ain't holding my breath though.

In Media Res

Yes, everything's still up in the air. With Sensei out last night, no brown belt nor resolution on the FakeDaughter issue. Dr. Z and I had another very tough discussion where we clarified things further, but still no resolution on that either.

And finally, the tub. I thought it was going to be a one-day job, but not so much. I got your in media fucking res right here:



I will say that as distracting as construction is, it's exactly that. Distracting me and taking my mind off of all the shit that's going on.

So, yeah. Everything's to be continued. Argh.

A No Good, Very Bad (Mon)day

Ugh.

Well, good things first. Yesterday was beautiful as promised and I managed to put away the hose and lawnmower for the year and take out about half the screens. I was surprised at how much more light comes through after taking out the screens and washing the windows. Dinner with JewishMom was also very nice. We had barely seen each other all summer and it was good to catch up. In addition, the Sox and Pats both won. The Packer lost, but you can't get them all, I suppose.

Today, however, has SUCKED. First off, it's been gray and drizzly ALL DAMN DAY. Secondly, my run, which I thought was going well, ended up being a terrible 27:19 5K. Then to top it all off, Sensei sent a note around noon saying he wasn't going to be there for the adult class tonight. There's yet another couple days I have to wait for my brown belt test while fucking FakeDaughter fucking smirks at the purple belts who are a HELL of a lot better than her.

So...yeah. Sucktitious Monday here, folks. God, I can't wait for it to be over.

Next up: Whether Kermit the Kontractor shows up tomorrow and my tub actually gets fixed after being broken for a YEAR.

Boring Weekend

The other awesome thing about Friday that I forgot to mention was the fact that it was sunnny, dry, and EIGHTY-TWO FUCKING DEGREES. In the Adirondacks. In October. Awesome. Not so awesome? Having Mr. Z run me through my kata later that night and finding out that I've forgotten about four of the middle kata. Well, didn't forget completely, but extremely rusty on them.

Also not awesome? Trying to get back into running after nearly a month off. Friday I ran 5K in 27:31. That's over two minutes off my PR, but staying under 28 after being out of it that long isn't bad, and I got it down to 27:05 yesterday. I should be back to my old sub 25:30 times before too long.

Yesterday it poured (and thundered at times) all day, so between that and angsting over the Mr. Z situation, I did absolutely nothing aside from the running. Seriously. I started off strong, with the running and a little vacuuming and even some reading, and then 2:00 hit and it was Couch Potato City and I was the mayor.

Today is supposed to be a beautiful fall day - dry, sunny and 50's, so I'm doing some of my winterizing projects. The duvet and kitchen rug are in the washer for one last wash (they can't go in the dryer and have to dry outside) and since I already did the last mow of the year I'm going to hose down the lawnmower and bring it in. I'm also going to start taking the screens off of the windows I don't usually open. Window washing, trimming down the garden, and doing one last hedge trimming before I bring THAT in for the year are next, but I'm not sure if I'll get to them.

And...while I was writing this JewishMom called. We'll be getting together for pizza and perhaps a movie tonight. Coolness. I need to get out of the fucking house.

Postivia

Well the handyman Dr. Z recommended not only showed up when he said he would - he was EARLY! On top of that, he fixed three doors that needed realigning due to settling for TWENTY BUCKS. That's right. Less than $7 a door. You rule, Ed.

In other good news, hey, it's FRIDAY! Yay! Nothing planned for this weekend and I'm alright with that. The forecast has changed from unseasonably warm and sunny to rainy and cool anyway. Maybe I'll do more house projects.

And so it goes...

Not much has happened since Monday. I did find out on Tuesday from Mr. Z that Sensei is considering promoting me to brown belt again. I thought it might happen last night since that's about the amount of warning one gets, but Sensei didn't say a thing about it. We sparred last night and ClimbingSensei clocked me good on the back of the head. I had to take a couple seconds to shake off the stars. RetiredSensei wasn't wearing a shirt under his gi and I had the disturbing revelation that at 65 (or so) he has an amazing chest that most 30 year old men would kill for.

Managed to get ahold of the handyman yesterday to fix the doors (and potentially the support walls outside that need to be remortared.) He's supposed to come by around 11. I also pinged Kermit the Kontractor about replacing my tub, but we'll see if it happens in the next two weeks like he originally promised. I've now been tubless for a year.

Well, that's it for now. We'll see what today brings.

Coming Back with a Vent

Wow...I knew it had been a while, but I didn't realize that I hadn't posted at ALL in September. Well, I'm back, but having the shittiest week in a long time (and it's only Tuesday morning).

Good stuff first: The Colorado trip was pretty awesome. I climbed my first 14er, which was tough but so worth it. It was only Dr. Z, Slave2Fashion and I, unfortunately. Three people just isn't enough when they're the only ones you're going to see for five days.

Now all the bad shit. In barely over twelve hours, I shit you not, I found out that FakeDaughter got promoted to brown belt while I was gone, Dr. Z and I had a major falling out (I still don't know what's going to happen), and my Title Insurance just got back to me saying they don't have to help me with the Zoning Board issue.

First, FakeDaughter. It was bad enough when Sensei hurried to promote her to my level and then said we couldn't spar, but giving (and I do mean giving) her a brown belt when he said *I* wasn't ready was a real slap in the face. And I feel like by waiting until I was gone he went behind my back so that he'd be able to promote her first. When I saw her belt last night I literally had to go to the ladies room to compose myself.

Then after class I had it out with Dr. Z. I won't go into it except to say I finally called him on all the bullshit he's put me through in the past year. Once again, I have no idea if I'm going to retain my one close friend here or not.

Oh, and in addition I found out yesterday that I have no choice but to go under general anastesia for my surgery at the end of the month. This despite the fact that I have a history or horrible recovery from it.

So like I said, suckiest week ever.