Next Surgery

Is scheduled for Wednesday afternoon. Megan is looking less swollen today, but still bruised.

Fear and Loathing In Atlanta

Megan had a change in medication today, going from the pump to a solid oral dosage. It takes about a half an hour for the drugs to kick in, then she's channeling Hunter S. Thompson. There are bugs on the wall, whippet-sized alligators in her bed, and I'm wearing a penguin suit. The doctor is in.

Be Careful Out There

Megan is looking better tonight. Still no word on the knee surgery.

If you go to visit, be very, very careful on Boulevard. The street was repaved this week, so it is a good, dark black, and it has no lane markings. I do not know how many lanes are supposed to be there, and I'm not the only one. I see the remains of a crash every time I'm there. Coming from the east, I drive on Highland, and that's OK.

Room With a View

Megan is out of ICU, and is now in room 545. Visiting hours are 9am to 9pm.

She has a great view of the Atlanta skyline and the helicopter landing pad.

Surgery Update

I just returned home. Megan returned from surgery about 6pm. I saw her briefly, then they put her back in ICU. While I was in the waiting room I chatted with my co-waiter. His wife was in a car crash Wednesday, and expected to go home Monday, which was good for them. The guys in the Porche that hit her were not so good, they are at Grady and really messed up. It could be worse. Then he told me how he was carjacked ten years ago and shot twice in the back. It can be even worse.

So Megan is in a world of pain today following hip surgery. Her blood pressure was too low to get a full dose of pain meds, but once she gets rehydrated she'll be back on the horse. I think tomorrow she'll be doing better. No news on the knee though.

The SAAB is back with a new fuel pump. Staci, thanks for the ride! Clark, thanks for the offer!

Guest Blogger

Hey there, Len here. I hacked this site so I can post updates on Megan's hospital stay, and to create a forum where you can discuss visiting Megan while she is in the hospital. She will not be able to read this until she gets out of the hospital.

First, thanks to everyone who has called or visited. We appreciate it.

We all ask, what happened? Megan does not remember anything but the grill of an SUV. She was on her scooter traveling west on DeKalb Avenue Monday about 5pm, where four lanes are funneled to three including a reversible lane in the middle. She was stuck in the middle and collided with the truck. She is very lucky to be alive, and with only broken bones as her injuries. Yes, they are serious breaks, her hip and her knee, but it could have been much worse. Her helmet took a beating, but that's why you wear one.

I'm not going to post much more about her injuries because she wants to blog about it when she gets out. And with pictures, so be aware.

Megan is at the Atlanta Medical Center, which seems to be a pretty good trauma hospital. She will probably be there two weeks, and I'll bet she is out of ICU this weekend. Visiting hours are frequent but short, at 10:30, 12:30, 2:30, 5:00, and 8:30, and last only 15 minutes.

She's having surgery right now on her hip. She may even have it on her knee. Her knee has been too swollen to cut open.

I'm doing OK and except for one thing have home and the dogs under control. The Uber-generous Staci loaned me her brand new (and beautiful) Honda Civic last night after our SAAB broke down again. I'm going to need a ride to SAAB to pick up my car. And don't tell Megan about the car problem, she does not need to know.

Marketing My Birthday

It pays to tell people weeks and months in advance that your birthday is coming up. Nobody forgets! This has been a fabulous week for me! My friends took me out on Tuesday evening for fun and libations. Cards from old friends, new friends, and family have been streaming in all week. Little gifts have been left on my desk in my office. Folks have been taking me to lunch. Today is the big day, and I'm the queen!

I'm forty and fabulous!

Famous people who share their birth date with me include:
William Shatner
Reese Witherspoon
Andrew Lloyd Webber
Stephen Sondheim
Karl Malden
Louis L'Amour
Chico Marx

My horoscope for today is:
Aries, born on March 22
The months ahead are likely to begin with a wonderfully unexpected surprise. This is most likely to be of a romantic nature, but may also relate to your very close family. Towards the end of the summer you will need to make sure that you have plenty of free time, as somebody close to you is going to suggest some kind of major trip that will be an adventure you won’t want to miss. The end of the year will be a time for relaxing with relatives and you will find that you make contact with members of the family who have been absent from your life for some time. This will all lead up to a celebration that you will remember for many months in the future.


Today's Chinese Proverb:
"Patience is wisdom in waiting."

Cuter than a Puppy

This is my niece, Emily, after just having caught a fish in the pond behind her house. She's the cutest thing on the planet. She'll probably be trouble later on because she'll figure out that she can away with anything if she bats her eyes just right. Her big sister, Laura, is a soon-to-be-15-year-old knockout. My brother certainly has good genes... why'd he get 'em all?

Getting old...Or not!

I have less than a week left of my 30s.
Yep, this time next week, I'll be in my fifth decade of life.
How did this happen? I blinked, and suddenly I can't stay up past midnight.

After my first Saturday at Knitch, I really thought I'd made a mistake because I felt SOOO tired. Not in the normal "boy, it'd be nice to go to bed" sort of tired, but the falling-asleep-while-pouring-a-beer kinda tired.

But, since then, I've had two more days at Knitch, and my second Saturday is tomorrow. I'm kinda energized now about the job. I love working retail and would do it exclusively if I didn't have a mortgage. And cable. And four doggles...

It has been great fun, because I get to see the new yarns as they come in and be the first to touch the yarns and imagine what can be made from the yarns. The yarns... the yarns... the yarns...

Anyway, once I realized I'm not too old for the job, that I can handle the standing and climbing stairs and sitting on the floor, etc. (even though my manager is half my age), I feel a lot better about leaving my thirties for a new decade.

Look out 40, here I come!

Moonlighting

I finally took the plunge this week, and started working at Knitch, the best yarn store in the South. Monday was my first day, and I straightened piles of yarn and put labels on balls of Patagonia chunky cotton, all the while imagining what I'd buy with my earnings! I haven't spent a lot at Knitch, mostly because my budget is too small. But now I'll have mad money for the yarns of my dreams.

Habu is a Japanese yarn company that produces some truly unusual stuff, like stainless steel wrapped in silk and paper yarns that are actually washable and yarns made of pineapple leaves. Knitch is one of the few stores in the Southeast that carries the brand. I'm really interested in the paper stuff, so I have to come up with a suitable project.

I'll work Mondays, Thursdays and Saturdays. Thursday, I get to learn to run the register! Woohoo!

Media Gone Wild

I don't normally post things like this, but a friend in Augusta, Georgia, sent a link to me to a U-Tube video of the Augusta TV news that was priceless. Apparently, they did a story on the new low-cal Krispy Kreme donuts and used a graphic off the internet. No one noticed the graphic was, well, graphic, before airing the picture. Now, I know this could be a hoax, but I checked on Snopes and it wasn't there. It's really funny and, if true, an excellent example of why we need editors (me!) in this world.

Lunch and Learn: Knitting and Crochet

Now, even though I'm an avid (rabid?) knitter, I rarely write about my favorite pasttime in these pages. But, I recently began teaching a group of people in my office how to knit during lunch hour on Tuesdays, and it has been a great experience for me. After teaching them the basic knit and purl stitch, each person in the group knitted up a square and my crocheting co-worker joined the squares together and crocheted a lovely edging that integrated grosgrain ribbon along the edge. The purpose? We gave the masterpiece to yet another co-worker when he adopted his new son. The result? A group of fiber-inspired people who are now wishing they could quit their jobs and knit all day!

Last week, the crochet master Linda D. taught us all how to crochet. Our first project will be a beret! I jumped ahead a bit and I've been making granny squares for a blanket for myself. I'm a wild woman!

Don't miss out

In Memorium
On old college friend of mine died of cancer last week. He was only 36 years old. Jeff Tarkington was a TV producer for the History Channel and CMT and others, and by all accounts was very successful, he even won an Emmy. I found all this out because the other day I decided to say hello to an old friend from those days, and he told me about Jeff. Timing is everything, I guess. Anyway, Jeff was funny as hell, handsome, and smart. He was also a slutty homosexual man who used to tell me I was a gay man trapped in a woman's body. I never really understood what he meant by that, but it was funny at the time. His friend, Beverly Keel, wrote a column about him (just past the part about Keith Urban) if you are interested in reading more.

There but for the grace...

My company CEO lives in Kentucky on a lovely horse farm. He spends his weekdays in a company-rented apartment in a building right across the street from our downtown Atlanta offices. As a result of his time spent there, he began noticing the large number of homeless people in downtown Atlanta. He's a very nice man, in spite of being the boss, and the problem really bothered him. So, he asked our staff to form a group to help combat the homelessness problem in the area. The fact that he's been less-than-supportive of the efforts since starting the group is another story that I don't care to get into. In any case, I joined the group.

We've done some pretty wonderful things in the four months as a "task force." For Thanksgiving, the office sponsored two underprivileged families and donated food and grocery store gift cards so that they could enjoy a special meal for the holiday. We sponsored the same two families for Christmas, and delivered an abundance of gifts for the kids that included a small television and coats and other needed clothing items as well as toys and cleaning supplies for the grandmothers who are caring for the kids.

A few weeks ago, we brought in a couple representatives from the Atlanta Homelessness Task Force to present a "lunch and learn" session to the staff so that we all can better understand what is happening in our city. That was truly eye-opening. According to HUD, a family must have a household income of $30,000/year to be able to afford the average two-bedroom apartment in Atlanta. The fact is, though, that 48 percent of Atlanta's children live in homes with less than $15,000 annual income. It makes it pretty difficult to "rise up" from your condition when you are spending all your income on housing.

One of the representatives from that Task Force was actually a man in the program. He told us his story of how he became homeless a little over a year ago and what the group is doing to help him get back on his feet. He said he never dreamed he'd be homeless. He had a job, but it paid week-to-week, and when the company when out of business suddenly, he was left with nothing. And, in Georgia, a landlord has the right to kick you out just seven days after rent is due. (I worked for a law firm in Michigan several years ago that dealt with landlord/tenant issues and there it took 90 days to evict someone.) He found the Task Force through his church. When asked about his experience, he said the biggest surprise was that more than half the residents of his shelter had jobs.

There is so much more to this story that I won't go into now. But, suffice to say, homelessness is a very different problem than most people think it is.

One cause of homelessness is drug and alcohol addiction. I don't want to go into whether or not it is someone's fault that they are addicted, because we all know someone with addiction problems. Food, nicotine, booze, whatever. The point is that for some people the addiction causes them to lose everything: money, job, family, dignity.

Some of those people have made it to a place in Atlanta called Samaritan House. This group helps people with addictions, anger issues, etc. deal with their problems while they try to get back into the world. One off-shoot of the group is a cafe that serves homeless men and women lunch through the week and is open to the general public on weekends for brunch.

A few days ago, several of us from my office volunteered at the cafe. We prepared the food, waited on the folks who came in, and bused our tables and cleaned up after lunch was over. It was a great experience. And really strange. Some of the people looked the part: They were a bit disheveled and generally looked in need of assistance in life. Others looked like they could be my neighbors. It was sobering, to be sure.

I know how fortunate I am in this life. I have a wonderful family and am able to make a decent living, and I have time for hobbies and reading and blogging. But, sometimes I think of how stupid people are when they are young and how easily I could have made a devastating decision early on. My life would be a lot different than it is today. I doubt I'd be homeless, but so did the man who came to speak from the Atlanta Homelessness Task Force. Scary stuff.

Anti-climax

Another Christmas has come and gone and I'm now mentally gearing up to return to work at the office. Blech.

Actually, I am very fortunate in my work situation. I have a lot of flexibility and tons of responsibility. When I do well, everyone thinks to say so and when I do not so well, they keep their mouths shut. It's a pleasant place to be, mostly. But, I'm just not into it right now. I want a few weeks off. Then maybe a few more. Ah, the post-holidays doldrums.

I'm tearing down the Greymas tree, as Len likes to call it, today. By nightfall, there will be no more reminders of the Christmas that was in this house. At least I'll have a little more room to move around. Decorations take up a lot of space, and I had to move big pieces of furniture around to make room for the tree and its accoutrement.

Len is on a bike ride to Rockmart today. One hundred miles on a December day: The joys of living in Georgia, where the sun shines bright and the high for today is expected to be 61 degrees.

Yesterday, Scully killed a squirrel in our back yard: A gift, I believe, for our guests, Betsy, Doug, and their hounds. She almost brought the writhing creature into the house, but I stopped her in time. The poor thing kicked upside down for a bit on the back deck before coming to its final rest. To add insult to injury, Len placed the little thing carefully into the poop bag just before the garbage guys picked up the week's load. Nice.

This weekend, we're heading back to Helen to enjoy another family holiday at Clark and Suzy's cabin. I look forward to it, but I also don't want the lazy days to end, and New Year's definitely marks the end of my days of sleeping until 9:30 a.m. Such is life.

Clean Dogs and Broken Bones

I try to bathe my hounds at least once a month -- more often if they encounter something stinky. Today was bath day for the greyhounds, since we'll be visiting family next weekend and we want everyone to be shiny clean. Maggie can get pretty darned stinky, but now she bathed and brushed and is the definition of gorgeousness. I know that at her next meal she'll get gunk all over the fur around her mouth again, but we'll try to keep that to a minimum this week. Right, Maggie?

Len broke his left pinky toe this week. How? By walking through the house. He stubbed the toe and broke it in three places. Poor guy. Not much they do except push it in the right direction and tape it there so it heals straight. This is his first broken bone. I have never officially broken a bone. I may have broken my big toe about twenty five years ago, when my dad slammed a door on my foot. The toe swelled up, turned blue and it was pretty painful, but I never had it x-rayed. It seems that -- other than our toes -- Len and I have pretty strong bones.

Holiday Cheer Begins Early

Every year when I put up my Christmas tree I cry. I cry for all the loved ones I've lost and for all the wonderful people and animals still in my life. I cry for happiness and sadness, but mostly for all my good fortune.

In a way, my tree is a reflection of my life. I never forget the friend or family member who gave me an ornament or the person or animal or life event that is represented by an ornament. When I travel, I try to buy one from any new place I've been. My many dogs are represented by them. This is why I cry.

Every year, I have a tangible reminder of my life.

The tricycle ornament my brother Pat gave me a few years before he died: I cry both because I love him and because he's gone. The glass dog playing the drums that I found in Maine reminds me of the best vacation I've ever taken. The snowflakes made by Len's Grandma, Anna, mean so much more now that she's gone. Long forgotten former co-workers who gave me ornaments as gifts are remembered again.

I'm having some girl friends over tomorrow and thought I'd put up my decorations -- if only because it's December and I'm entertaining. I rarely do this so early in the season, but after last Christmas was so blue for me, I'm glad to start the happy season this year. So, I'm feeling a little sappy today.

I think it's going to be a nice holiday.

SAFF: The Anticipation Is Killing Me!

I leave for the Southeast Animal Fiber Fair on Thursday this week. This will be my first visit to Asheville, NC, and my first time at the fair. I cannot wait! I'll be hanging out with sheep and llamas and alpacas for three days, learning new-to-me techniques like spindling and needle felting, and trying to limit myself to just a few new hand spun, hand dyed luscious yarns. I'm about to bust!

My friend Linda and her friend (I haven't met her) Ruth and I will be staying at some funky log cabin hotel and we are each responsible for a breakfast. I've seen what they are planning and let me just say I'll be eating breakfast this weekend. Blueberry pancakes with apple sausages and fresh juices and that sort of goodness. Me? My breakfast will be homemade muffins, probably whole wheat banana walnut, because I like muffins, and I really don't want to spend too much time at the cabin cooking when I could be at the fair!

It's also leaf season in Asheville, so I suspect we will be enjoying the fall color extravaganza!

I'll take some pics of my new alpaca friends to post on my return.

I'm getting old...

Did I ever mention the time when a man on MARTA asked if the project I was knitting was for my granddaughter? That was a shocker. I know it's true there are SOME 39-year-old women who have grandchildren. But, I vainly thought that no one would think that of me just to look at me. Clearly I was wrong.

I told him no, that the sweater was for me and kicked him in the nuts -- then I boarded the northbound train. The nerve of some people.

I knit every day, but lately I find myself thinking about knitting more. I was at a wedding last weekend in Centennial Park downtown and a woman I know wore a very cool kimono-inspired dress. My first thought was, "I need to make that kimono-inspired sweater pattern I have." First, though, I have to finish Len's college-boy sweater, my crazy lace shawl, the dog sweater for Devon with only one sleeve left, the fabulous alpaca arrows and cables sweater for me, and about 6 socks to complete 6 pair. Oh, and finish finishing the 4 almost-there sweaters I found when I finally cleared the guest room of the moving boxes. Then, there's the felting projects I have half done. Too much to do!

We have another wedding to attend next week. This one will be a very traditional Catholic affair with all the trappings. Stand up, sit down, stand up again... at least there will be an open bar.

I'm crankier every day. Where did this come from?

Visiting Hours Are Open!

After six months as a storage closet, our guest bedroom is now a comfortable haven for weary travelers. At last!

I've been putting that project off for months, because I was a little overwhelmed with the floor-to-ceiling boxes we had stacked in that room. Where would they go? I bought curtains and rods and paint months ago. so everything was set. Except me.

Saturday morning, I played computer games until I was bored in an effort to put off the inevitable. Finally, I relented and asked Len to help me move the boxes into the living room. Emptying the room turned out to be pretty quick and painless. Then, I realized I had no roller -- so, without benefit of a shower and in my painting clothes I trucked off to Home Depot with a list of needs. I even had them cut 1x8 boards to lay under the box spring in the guest bed. That bed is an old iron jobby that is slightly wider than today's mattress sets. Without any support, the box was beginning to sag.

When I finally arrived home and got started, it was nearly 2 p.m. I really, really didn't want to paint. I started with that iron bed and spray painted it in the back yard with a flat black paint, covering the white with gold trim from previous decor. It looks really cool. I let it dry while I painted that darned room.

It had been so long, I'd forgotten what color paint I'd bought, so by process of elimination, I figured out which can hadn't yet been opened and used that paint. It's an old-fashioned green, like old Jadite glass. After painting, I ripped up the carpet and took it outside, where Len will deal with it while I'm traveling this week. The floor is pretty disappointing, just like the floor in our bedroom. A previous resident of this house glued carpet straight onto the hardwoods in those two rooms. Maybe we'll get the floors taken care of during Len's Christmas vacation.

I brought in the new bed and found the boxes of bedding and installed the new curtain rods and curtains. and viola! we have accommodations! Just in time, too. Suzy and Clark are coming next weekend to ride 6-gap with Len. Whew!

The best news is that I eliminated 4 of the biggest boxes with the bedding. Len just has to figure out a place for his hundreds of record albums and bike parts and everything will have a place!

Tomorrow morning at 6 a.m., I'll for NYC for two days. Hopefully I'll come home to a nice neat living room! Len, are you reading this?