Vogon called to dictate a list of things he would like me to bring him tomorrow. He didn't want me to pick books for him [1] so I had to go into the stifling hot study and read titles off a pile of books. Much repeating and explaining where a particular title fell within a series ensued.

Somewhere after the end of that, he said "Oh, and I want [mumbles]". I asked him to repeat it.

Vogon: Hitchee goomee.
Me: Hitchhiker's Guide?
Vogon: Hitchee goomee!
Me: I still don't understand what you're saying, so I'm just going to pull the hardcover Hitchhiker's Guide. (I think that he has the pre-Mostly Harmless edition, but whatever.)
Vogon: That's what I said! Hitchee goomee!
Me: I think your mouth is too close to the receiver, because it sounds like you're saying "hitchee goomee".
Vogon: That is what I said!
Me: It must be an abbreviation that doesn't carry over well in speech.
Vogon: [slowly] H. 2. G. 2.
Me: I get that now. You could have just said "Hitchhiker's Guide".

--

1. I was going to pull Musicophilia, The Mind and the Brain, and Banvard's Folly.

As announced earlier on my Twitter/Facebook feed, Kevin has been diagnosed with diabetes. Friday morning he had a blood glucose level of 167 and blood pressure of 61/40; he was given insulin on Friday and had a blood pressure reading of 90/60-something this morning and a 'better' (he didn't specify) glucose level.

I only saw him for about five minutes Friday night because of bad connection timing, which I have planned better for today by taking an earlier local bus. Depending on where things are Monday, I may go down to Akard Station (and ride the train there, woo) and buy a weekly pass.

I am doing fine on my own, did a lot of decluttering Wednesday night and will put in some quality decluttering time again on Sunday. Squeaky has been showing some separation anxiety and has been scratching one of the door frames event though I refreshed the catnip spray on his scratch-friendly places (scratching post, kitty condo and cat tree) but I think he's getting used to it.

Kevin seemed a little embarrassed when I told him a lot of folks are praying or thinking good thoughts for his health, but I'd like to thank all of you for it. I believe every bit helps.

Looking back, I realize that most of my posting this spring has been friends-only or otherwise filtered because of sensitive things that have been going on. Rather than make them all public, here's the condensed version of what's been going on with Kevin (vogonpoet):

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Recent appearances of my photos, courtesy of my Flickr stats:

- A picture my friend Rich took of a sawfish at the Dallas World Aquarium last November appears in the Southern Bulb Company blog entry A Little “Garden Variety”.

- Laurel's 2009 science fair project board illustrates the HubPages article How to Organize a Science Fair Project.

- A picture of then 3-year-old Laurel sitting on her training potty and looking at movies in an armoire drawer opens the About Parenting Tips blog entry Potty Training Your Kids.

- Squeaky playing in the paper shreds makes another appearance in an environment-related article, this time Shred it at the Shred-a-thon, help a local food bank at the Beacon Hill Blog. (Hello, Seattle!)

One of my favorite things about Flickr is seeing where people use my Creative Commons-licensed photos. It satisfies my curiosity to see what people think about after looking at them.

Found via batspjs, the Sewing Machine Meme from Sew, Mama, Sew!:

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If you want me to follow you there, leave your username here so I can find you. (Comments are screened.) I'm using my OpenID there, so I will show up in your circle as oddharmonic.livejournal.com.

Vogon went to sleep around 0830 so I let him be and went to the ACE portfolio sharing lunch. The kids had made Powerpoint presentations and each had a laptop to share it on, so I watched Laurel's and a couple of her classmates while noshing on school lunch tacos. When we get a copy of her presentation on CD, I will extract the photos so you can see some of the projects she's done this year and the awesome Bessie Coleman puppet from the biography section that was this quarter's project.

Among the requisite paperwork sent home with the parents is a packet on the Duke TIP program, which has a 4th/5th grade program that is wholly new to me. I've been planning to start saving in case she wants to do CTY in middle school, but Duke TIP already? My PEGlets are still so young to me! I'm going to sit in a corner and feel old now.

I told him to go get some sun so he doesn't get rickets from staying inside with the blinds closed, so he's out with Laurel at the pool for a bit.

Laurel and I were walking this afternoon to run an errand and saw the B-24 Liberator (Ol' 927) fly out and back from Addison Airport. Crossing the parking lot by the dollar store, she looked close enough to touch and I had to fight the urge to yell "the sound of freedom!".

After that I told her about Uncle Stir, her great-grandmother Dorothy's brother, who was a waist-gunner on a B-24 during World War II.

Thanks for serving, y'all.

Things are in a holding pattern around here as school winds down and Laurel looks forward to flying "by herself" (as an unaccompanied minor) to visit her grandparents for the summer. Waiting to hear back on paperwork submitted with what seems like minute details of our finances. And the mama mourning dove, dubbed Isabel by the little miss, has laid another two eggs in one of our hanging baskets I haven't planted yet this year.

The downside of Texas spring weather is frequently painful sinuses and I'm trying to go easy on the Sudafed (it works, but it's spendy), so until then please enjoy the happy little trees around the corner from me.

Happy belated Mother's Day.

This is what I did with mine, although I'm not entirely pleased with some of the details I recreated:
( Old family photo restoration before/after, 79 kb image )

I keep forgetting the product line name because it's so horribly cheesy, but for smaller between-cup sizes these bras are made of win: Playtex Thank Goodness It Fits.

My favorite daily-wear bras for nearly ten years have been from this line. I will inevitably forget the name, so I'm posting it for future reference.

For the past few days, Time Warner Cable repeatedly auto-dialed my cell phone. Either no-one was on the other end when I answered or it repeated the "important message please hold" message repeating every 20 seconds until it hung up. Someone finally was on the other end tonight and informed me that our cable was in danger of being disconnected. I was baffled -- it's one of the bills we have set on auto-pay -- but I was pretty surprised when I found out it was about nine dollars.

If I could get him to quit watching TV, I'd cancel it and find a different high-speed internet provider. Our current bill is $120 a month for expanded basic cable and 7 Mbps internet access. I do not understand why it costs $40/month more for less service from them than it did two years ago.

In late February, I mentioned Laurel's science fair project observing Squeaky's sense of smell and determining his preferred treat flavor. Her project was awarded second place and she brought home the ribbon a few weeks ago, but kept forgetting the display board. It finally came home so I took a photo of it for her to enjoy when she's older.

( Laurel's project 'How Well Can A Cat Smell?', 181 kb .jpg )

My aunt Joanne passed away this morning. She was the third-born of the nine Janes children, two before my mother in birth order, and was in the end stages of cancer. She had an inoperable abdominal mass that did not respond to conventional treatment and she participated in medical trials for her condition until it was no longer feasible for her to continue. When Joanne entered hospice care a few weeks ago, we knew the end was coming, but I didn't write about it here because I have had other things going on that were demanding my immediate attention.

In my memory, she only looks slightly older than her teenage self, in the middle of the back row in this photo of the Janes children taken in 1965:


(You can see some more childhood photos of her under her tag in my Flickr photos at http://www.flickr.com/photos/oddharmonic/tags/joanne/ )


Here are the things I want you to know about Joanne Strauch:

She was an Air Force flight nurse after joining the service right out of school.

She had two children born with hip dysplasia and kept in casts from the waist down for the first year of their lives. (My cousins are none the worse for wear and interesting, kind people now.)

She introduced me to cross-stitch when I was a little burrito, which I didn't know at the time would become a lifelong hobby for me. When I was 10, she stitched a monarch butterfly design for me on a sweatshirt that I still have today. (It is really amazing, people ask if they can touch it when I wear it. It's so detailed that it's hard to believe it's stitched.)

She was a tough broad (and I mean that with love and admiration) who always had a ready ear and an open heart.

I'll miss her but it is a relief to know she's not suffering now.

After I have burned my thumb (nothing serious, mostly the nerve endings all yelling "WHUT?" at me) because you decided to duck and bob as I was trying to get your freaking breakfast onto the table around you, please do not dawdle getting dressed and make "ehh" whining noises when I tell you what today's weather will be like so you can dress appropriately. I am going to put Solarcaine on my thumb now and if I come out to you still wearing your pajamas and reading instead of getting ready first, I will not be amused.

Sincerely,
The Management


P.S. Cat, I do not need you to be up my butt while I am hurrying around. You have 22 hours every day in which to to that. NOT NOW.

Facebook is finally getting strange. First normal people from high school (as opposed to the numerous fundies) show up, including a good friend I fell out of touch with years ago, then today I found Robert Hayden and Chuck. And they both say nice things about me, which only confuses me further.

If Jolly Green or Steve-the-only-Mexican-I've-sort-of-dated show up, I am going to be really, really confused.

...

In other news, the Ravenshire catch-all accounts get a lot of Russian dating spam messages. If I thought I could find a woman as lovely as baronessvarla's Alex, I would start answering them. Bowls!

I didn't write about Monday's EEG because I don't know what to say about it. The only thing that really stuck out in my memory is that during the photic stimulation he tensed up from lying relaxed with his hands crossed on his abdomen to rigidly holding onto the sides of the bed. He said after each round of strobe flashing that it made him feel nauseous and like he was falling. No results to discuss yet, we see the neuro again on the 22nd.

Another interesting symptom since the seizure: noises that remind him of the MRI, as some TV show did this evening, or flashing lights really trip him out. He wasn't really a fan of flashing lights before, but now he's clearly averse to them to the point of turning off the TV (which he hardly ever does).

Later in the evening he was talking to himself while lying on the couch and he mentioned that it was entirely possible he'd been having petite mal seizures for years because they're just disorienting enough that they'd bother him but probably not anyone with him. (We know I've gotten to the point where I tune out certain tangents he'll carry on about with no apparent prompt.) After attempting and failing to explain how seizures are classified now, I've added simple partial seizures to the list of things to ask the neuro about.

The rules (nom nom copypasta):
1. Reply to this post, and I will pick six of your icons.
2. Make a post (including the meme info) and talk about the icons I chose.
3. Other people can then comment to you and make their own posts.

These six were picked by eilonwy:
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Last week's little fuzzballs are now looking more feathered, and were amusingly sitting one head out, one rump out when I checked up on them this afternoon.

( 135 kb .jpg image )

I have a Google alert set for pages that link to my Flickr photostream so I can see when people use my Creative Commons-licensed photos to illustrate articles. I found today's a particularly clever use of my nephew shoveling snow:

25 things vanishing in America, part 2: Kids to do odd jobs by Tom Barlow at WalletPop