Friends

My daughter came home from school today with a new necklace. Her friend at school gave it to her. It is half of a "Best Friends" heart. K and her friend are not in the same class this year, and for the last month of last year, her friend was out of the country. I am so glad that K's friend came back and is in the same school as K. I was really touched by the gift to K.

It is looking more and more like I am going to have to have a hysterectomy. My internal female organs are waging a war against me, and the situation is becoming untenable. As of two years ago, I did not have cancer, I do not have fibroids, I just hemorrhage for weeks at a time (sorry to be so damned graphic). I am having difficulty keeping a handle on my depression.

Yesterday, I missed my Tuesday morning breakfast with my friends because of other pressing business. They thought that I may have been upset that I showed up last week and no one else was there. I wasn't. It gave me an opportunity to have some good face to face time with K before school started. Anyhow, apparently in my absence, my friends have planned for my surgery. They are planning on bringing breakfast, cooking dinners and taking K to school when I cannot drive. I am so deeply touched by this. Seriously. When I was talking to S (my friend) today, she told me that they were going to totally impose on my life. We chuckled, because she knows that I have big difficulty asking for help.

I also ran into one of my other friends whose daughter was on both K's softball and swim teams this summer. She told me that I had better call her if I need anything at all.

I got a subpoena in the mail today. It totally freaked me out. Apparently the theft ring that stole my purse are starting to have their days in court. I am feeling rather apprehensive about this, part of me is like "Yeah, man, burn baby burn!" while another part of me feels exceedingly vulnerable. Plus the wording of the subpoena "commanding" to appear in court is, to say the least, offputting.

Spontaneous Amusement Park

We had an earthquake today. The magnitude was 5.4 and the epicenter was in Chino Hills. My estimation is that Chino Hills is about 18 miles away (as the crow flies). It hit at 11:42 this morning. We have been having aftershocks ever since, ranging in magnitude from 2 to 3.8. I am really not amused by this.

The earthquake was a "roller" rather than a "crash" (my terminology). I estimate that it lasted about 45 seconds. It seemed like an eternity. I was out with some of my friends at a local McDonald's, and apparently I lost all color and gripped the table. I started to cry. I must have looked like a complete ninny. Thankfully my friends were there and calmed me down. Sheesh.

Now all the networks have gone into "all earthquake all the time" mode, which is NOT helping. I think earthquakes are the Earth's way of telling people that we should NOT live here.

The initial reports were saying that it was a 5.8 magnitude, but they downgraded it to 5.4 (whodahell determines that anyway?). I was doing okay until the CalTech seismologist, during the press conference made mention that she was not sure if this was a "pre-shock" or not.

PRE-SHOCK??? REALLY???

My anxiety level is now in hyperdrive. Really trying to keep it together for my daughter, no need to freak her out. I know it was not "The Big One". But the thought of "The Big One" completely frightens me.

EEEEEEEK

Check out what I came face to face with this morning.



OK, so it was not this very Spider (because at 6:30 in the morning I am almost always without my camera). But there was a Black Widow Spider on the wheel of my trash can, in my garage.

I am still freaked about this. I gingerly rolled the trash can out to the street (it is trash day here in north MasterPlanistan). I was bare footed, so stepping on the beastly thing was not an option. I was ready to just completely firebomb the garage after seeing the precious specimen.

I only hope she was as terrified of me as I am of her. I usually like spiders, but venomous spiders that can KILL me and my family, I am not a huge fan of. Something to be said for self preservation and all that.

I am now afraid to go into my garage.

American Cancer Society - Relay for Life

Today I am participating in the American Cancer Society's Relay for Life. It is a 24 hour event, where people walk laps, camp out, and raise funds for the ACS. I will be walking in the Survivor's Lap.

On February 5, 1987, I was diagnosed with Hodgkins Lymphoma. It was Stage IIA, and was treated with mantle radiation. Many of my health issues stem from the long term effects of the radiation.

My fundraising page is here if you would like to make a donation in my name. Thank you for reading this.

Common Sense - Not So Common Anymore

Yesterday, my daughter had her last softball game. Nice day for a game, a bit overcast, but the weather was on the cool side. Her game was at 8:30 AM, so most of the parents either bought coffee at the snackbar or brought their own. I had a cup of the snackbar coffee, which I set down underneath my chair in the dugout (I bring a chair because I cannot sit in a bleacher seat for any length of time without serious pain). Since I was the bench coach for the team, I get to sit in the dugout.

One of the assistant coaches set his thermal mug of coffee down on the bench seat in the dugout at the bottom of the second inning of play (we were the home team) with the admonition, "don't spill my coffee."

These are five and six year old girls. They climb up on the ledges, climb the chainlink "walls" of the dugout, and otherwise do NOT stay still for more than 3 seconds at a time. I was busy keeping my lineup going, making sure the girls got helmets on and ready to bat. All of a sudden, at the end of the inning, one of the girls... you guessed it, knocked over the coffee. It spilled all over the place, but mostly in my daughter's "street" shoes (she wears cleats when playing, but her regular shoes were under her seat in the dugout), coffee also spilled all over my daughter's glove, etc. etc. etc.

So in addition to trying to get the catcher's gear on one of the girls, I had to wipe down K's glove, and while I was doing that, Mr. Coffee comes back in and starts complaining about how his coffee got spilled.

It took everything in my being not to yell, "You were the [insert curseword here] dumbass who put a cup of coffee on the bench with energetic children. You could have put your coffee in the corner of the dugout and a can guaran[insert curseword here]tee you that it would not have spilled, and I would not have had to wipe your sticky-ass coffee off my daughter's glove and out of her "street" shoes!"

The stupid, it hurts.

Air Show

We went to the airshow at March AFB yesterday. The weather was beautiful (a bit cool even, which is saying something for Riverside County CA). The Thunderbirds were the headline act, and there were several biplane acts and two parachute acts. There was even a wing walker (not enough money in the world to get me to do that - I have difficulty even getting on a commercial jet).


Here are some photos I took of the Thunderbirds.







Here is one I took of the C-17 demonstration.



I really need a good digital SLR camera with a fast lens to get better shots of the planes and stuff. My point and shoot digital's shutter lags just a bit too much to be able to do the feats of aerodynamics justice.

But It Is a Dry Heat

If I ever hear the phrase in my title for today's post again... I may have to hurt something. As far as I am concerned, anything over 85 degrees Fahrenheit is dang hot. Seriously. Especially in mid-April.

Saturday the high temperature here was 97, and yesterday's high was 102. Not good, not good at all. We did not turn on the air conditioning yet, since the temperature was only 84 today and the forecast for tomorrow is 68. At night I have been opening the patio door and had the fan on full blast. Thankfully the temperature at night is much more livable. Unlike last summer when we had unusually high humidity. That is the ONLY good thing about dry heat, at night because the humidity is not there to hold the heat, the temperature goes down to the high 50s.

It is hard to beat the heat when it is 100 degrees.