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Oh oh oh oh!! One other thing!!!
I HAVE A ROSE BLOOMING!!!
One of the Altissimo climbing roses has a beautiful red bloom, way out of reach. I meant to go back out with the telephoto lens on the camera to get a pic, but completely forgot about it with a phone call.
A rose blooming! Already!! April 12th!!
Maybe it's just that I was tired, but the MRI this morning was just like a warm (albeit loud) cocoon. Almost went to sleep in it, except they wanted to breathe regularly and deeply for one segment of it - for like 10 minutes, and I was sleepy, and etc etc etc. But seriously... I was snug as a bug in a rug. I can see, though, how some folks go bananas in the tube. It's a tight fit.
They showed me some of the MRI slices when asked (how cool it is to see your insides!!) but wouldn't tell me what any of the (multiple) very white spots on the slices meant. I also have a *lot* of liver! Dang! Didn't realize human livers take up so much space in the abdomen. Hope that's normal... Will find out Monday; the radiologist was in the next room reading the results as I left. :::nail biting::: Which means the results are completed now and on the doc's fax machine at the office, just waiting for him to come in Monday morning. I hope things move quickly from that point forward... I really don't want to wait until late Monday night to get some answers. If it gets toward noon and I haven't heard anything I am calling the gastroenterologist myself.
Came home and snuggled with Crash for a little while, then curled up for a long winter's nap while he took off and went to Jackson for the day and evening... thank goodness for the lortab - I can finally sleep deeply for the first time in weeks, and it is making a world of difference in how I feel about myself. Just wish it didn't come at the expense of my homework.
Went to the History Deptartment Honors Gala - some of my very good friends won some prestigious prizes, and I am so proud of them! Came home early - just plumb worn out. Nap before studying?
I'm off... will catch up on things later... non-health-related things, this time. I want to just chuck the health stuff and riff on something completely different for a change. ::smile:: Am reading the Carl Bernstein book on Hillary Clinton for class (A Woman in Charge) and am mixed on it (I'm really leaning toward Obama in a big way)... that might make up a big part of my next post. We'll see. Maybe I'll even do it wearing my Obama '08 tee-shirt. ::grin:: See, I still have some orneriness in me today!
POST SCRIPT: Crash is playing The Platters tonight with the Jackson (TN) Symphony - what fun!
As many of you know, I have been fighting an ongoing issue with my digestive tract - ongoing as in a year and a month now.
The past month has been particularly trying - I've had some unusual new symptoms ever since my colonoscopy. While some problems have cleared up, some have gotten substantially worse, and I have been in the GI doc's office every two weeks since then - and twice this week.
I was feeling so utterly miserable on Monday that the ANP (Adult Nurse Practitioner) took a couple more vials of blood and sent them off ... got the results back on Wednesday or Thursday (I can't remember which) and promptly scheduled me for a series of MRIs on Saturday. Yeah, Saturday. My lipase and pancreatic numbers are out of whack enough to raise eyebrows, and the pain in my belly is increasing after meals - substantially - to the point that I have been avoiding food this week and have lost 6 pounds over it.
So, I was back in the office the morning... nauseous and in pain... and crying because I have had so little sleep and food because of the pain and have this constant hunger headache. My ANP sent me home with antibiotics (something we *haven't* tried) and pain meds... and after a short run to campus and a run to the pharmacy, I came home and slept solidly for four hours. I hope to do that again in a few minutes.
I asked Ms B - through my tears - what the possible outcomes of Saturday's MRIs might be... and she said anything from a week or so of bedrest and to-be-determined meds, to a stay in the hospital... it is very much up in the air, and we are going to play it by ear. She just wants me sticking close to the phone on Monday since she is going to call as soon as the results are in and she and the doc have a plan of action.
Meantime, I am falling behind on my school work and am trying to simply tread water. I am taking at least one incomplete for this term, and hope to finish the other two classes on time, but that is looking as though it is in jeopardy. ::sigh::
Please think some kind thoughts. Please. I don't know what's going on.
Just having an off couple of days. Will check in when I am back in the saddle again.
1ST HALF:
Where've I been? Holding my breath through the first part of this game with my laptop in my lap, just coiled in a knot. I'll live blog this, though I'm not much help. Remember me? Out of touch since the invention of the three point line??!
To go:
5:00: OMG... 28 all... and I am in a knot
3:50: TO... still tied at 28. Maybe I shouldn't have had that last cappuccino... I am shaking. Terrifying game... so hard-fought. Nobody is willing to give a millimeter. THIS is a game.
Random comment: Every time Memphis scores you can hear cheering throughout the neighborhood... it's really eerie.
2:31: KS up by 2, now three (31-28)
1:02: Memphis down by five... with a TO or a foul, Memphis possession now? Couldn't quite tell... CBS went to break and we have the sound off. I've switched to water, straight up.
Random comment: Where's the FedEx sponsorship of this game? UPS is all over it...
AT THE HALF: Damn. Down by five. Helluva game, though. 33-28, I think. I dunno... I was just holding my breath on the buzzer shot. It almost made it. Almost.
Commercial: VW: What's Bobby Knight doing these days? No pension or something??
Ugh. I just turned on the sound. The paid commentators are worse than I imagined. Off with the sound again.
::chuckle:: Folks are outside doing makeshift cheers, hooting and hollering.
That's terrific!!
But if I hear Eye of the Tiger one more time tonight I may just start throwing things. While I was at school today, the music alternated between blaring sounds of that, and the carillon on the clock tower playing the fight song every hour, on the hour. By 5:15 I was ready to pull my hair out.
OK... the guys are back on the court, warming up for the 2nd half. :::rubbing hands together::: C'mon TIGERS!!!
2ND HALF:
19:29: NICE!!! DUNK! And another possession!
18:51: 3pointer! We're tied!
18:14: 36-35 Memphis UP!
16:30: 38-37 Memphis UP!!
SCRAPPY-ASS game!!
15:15: We're down by one (39-38), but dang... this is a tremendous effort on both sides - I am really enjoying watching this play out.
13:59: Dang... steal and TO after steal and TO...
13:59: HOW DO YOU MISS TWO FREE THROWS IN A ROW? (not that I could do any better)
13:11: Two points... we're down by one.. crap... down by three... my mad typing skilz ain't so great.
11:35: Ooof. 43-42 in favor of KS and another damn commercial.
10:28: 45-44 KS
We've been fighting this three point deficit all night. This is just really infuriating!
8:06: 49-46 WE'RE UP!! It's going to have to be a hard fought THREE POINT game for Memphis. Cool, calculated shots... we can't fight them in the paint like we usually do - these guys are too tall, too aggressive - but from the three point line, as long as we take our time and sink them, we can do it. We've got a much better scoring record in this game from the outside. C'mon Coach Cal - get them to take cool advantage of it! Yeah, we've got to fight for the rebounds, and how, but those three pointers... dang!
:::nibbling nails:::
7:52 to go and we are in a TO... man... all that caffeine earlier has me just WIRED. Nah. Couldn't be THE GAME!
7:02: 51-47 Memphis
5:10: 53-47 Memphis
Odds and Ends: I can hear cheering on campus from here. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE LET IT BE GOOD
4:11: 56-49 Memphis
3:36: 56-51 Memphis
2:13: 58-51 Memphis
2:12: 60-51 Memphis
1:54: TO ... 60-53 Memphis... things are at a dull roar, and I have just given the dog a benadryl so she will doze through the fireworks if we win... it's going to be noisy in about 10 minutes if things go our way.
1:39: 62-56 Memphis
1:23: WTF Dorsey???? Fouled out???
1:23: God.. they're going to take this down to the VERY LAST MOMENT
1:15: 62-58 Memphis
44 seconds and a time out... 62-60 Memphis... my heart is racing. Holy moley. There is a hush over the city... :::holding breath:::
16.8 seconds .... Rose with two free throws coming to him after the TO...
10.8 seconds... ROSE... DO IT!! PLEASE...
GOING INTO OVERTIME!!!!!!!! HOLY CRAP!!!!! 63-63
OVERTIME:
4:21: 65-63 Kansas, TO Memphis
I am absolutely breathless.
3:37: 67-63 Kansas
2:35: 69-63 Kansas
SHIT!
2:24: 69-65 Kansas
56 seconds... 71-68 Kansas ... :::panting::: We need one more three point (what did I say earlier??), then another OT.
45 seconds ... 73-68 Kansas
29.9 seconds... Kansas possession... I think we've had it.
28 seconds... Memphis possession.
18.2 seconds... it's over for Memphis. Great game, though! Really, really great game. Best I have *ever* seen.
Final score: 75-68 Kansas ::smile:: Great game, y'all!
You have simply got to read this article by John Walters of NBC Sports. He says it better than I can why I am rooting for this team, for these guys, at this time.
Every one of you players has your own Cinderella story, and I am so very proud of you for making it this far!
Cinderella DO do Tats!
Go Tigers!!! RAWR!!!
OK, so I'm a little jot and tiddle late with the news and wanderings:
Men's basketball at the U of M advanced to the finals last night!!! We're playing Kansas on Monday night. Oh my! GO TIGERS! RAWR! The neighborhood burst into absolute lunacy when the final buzzer went off, and there was a strong police presence around the University District, including MOUNTED POLICE! They were so cool! AND, I am not certain about this, but at least I haven't heard of any reports of outbreaks of violence in the area following either Final Four game. Now it's wait-and-see until Monday. ::biting nails:: I just never expected to turn into a hoops fan. ADDENDUM: The undergrad class for which I am grading has just been canceled for tomorrow - the prof is wise, knowing that NOBODY will be there - at all - and we are scheduled to be covering the run up to the Civil War - crucial material. YAY, though!!! Means I only have two commitments tomorrow - spread out by one at 8:45 in the morning and one at 2:30 in the afternoon.
Charlton Heston has died. All I am wondering is: can we pry his guns from his cold, dead hands and turn them in to the police for destruction now?? And, as one of my dearest friends said, his best ever line was "MOSES! There's a man among the sheep!"
Another friend and lovely, sweet, dear person (all our friends are that way! Love it!) M stopped by midway through the game yesterday and watched the second half of the game with us. She may be moving into the n-hood - we are so excited and hopeful. It would be a WONDERFUL thing. Anyway, we went out to dinner (yeah, we found someplace quiet, with minimal tv and lunatic fan interruption - a favorite Chinese/Japanese restaurant), and had a terrific time. I had the best egg drop soup *evah* - this is the kind of chicken-broth-egg-drop-and-corn-soup that I crave when I am sick... it's even better than my own homemade chicken noodle stuff, and I am blatantly and hopelessly and egotistically biased toward my homemade soups. Too bad we didn't have much of a cold winter - I would have made so many more.
See GI doc in the morning. Maybe we can move forward with all this nuisance tummy stuff. I have written a LONG one-page single-spaced summary of the past two weeks in 11-point font for them - something I hope will help more than just the usual Q&A. (Heh. It just dawned on me that as a historian I can't manage to write something in less than a two-page double spaced paper. LOL) We've also been cutting out all lactose-bearing products we can think of, too, so Crash is buying me soy milk - the Costco brand - and it actually tastes great on my cereal... yay!
Reading a wonderful book right now - expressively written and extremely well researched - called No Place for a Woman: A Life of Senator Margaret Chase Smith written by dear mentor and friend, Dr. Janann Sherman. I never expected to love an academic book so much - but I do, and if you ever want to know more about the first woman to run for president on a major party ticket, you simply must read this (not to mention that she was the person who stood down McCarthy in the Senate, and she was the primary force lobbying for women's rights in the military in the 1940s-1970s, etc, etc, etc... really remarkable person). The book is academic, yes, but it reads like a really good novel... just carries you. I keep forgetting to take notes, I am THAT engrossed in the reading. Serious thumbs up, y'all. I think it's in its third printing now.
Don't know much else. There is plenty on Google News and Beacon Broadside to rant about, but I have too much to do today to sit here and rant at the moment... though I promise to get back to that in the next month or so - school's out at the end of this month. I love school, but *cannot wait* to breathe a little more.
Windows are wide open and I am enjoying the cool breeze while still in my sexy white cotton jammies. Yeah... sexy white cotton - those words *can* go together. ::giggle:: At least Crash thinks so!! Speaking of white cotton jammies: I slept like a log last night - 1:00 a.m. to 1:00 pm today and was *very* confused when Crash woke me up after church - I thought he had not yet left and was gobsmacked when he told me it was 1 pm. LOL I don't think I moved once from about 4 in the morning until I got up this afternoon... I needed the sleep, I guess!
Back to this book. I may finish it in my second sitting today - I read in bed until - literally - I couldn't keep my eyes open anymore. You can only fight a sleeping pill so long when you're snuggled in comfortably. ::looking forward to THIS!::
Have a great afternoon! I may see you again after Crash's choir performance tonight (I'm expecting good stuff!) but if not, I'll catch you sometime tomorrow... quite likely after the game if not before as well.
ADDENDUM!: I FORGOT!!! I judged the finals for TN State History Day yesterday, and MY were they terrific!!! So proud of all the participants, and it was really hard judging first round - and the runoff judges really struggled over their choices. That's a *good* thing, y'all. GO, YOU BUDDING YOUNG HISTORIANS! YOU JUST GO!!!
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