November 2003
Nov 30 — Lay around, made french toast for breakfast for a change and discovered that I don’t actually LIKE french toast. Ooooo got a new game for my iBook — Age of Mythology. Lots of fun so far, very very fun. Henry’s home!
Nov 29 — We’ve got this old wool blanket, not sure how old it is but it’s been in the family as long as I can remember. It’s sort of reddish-brownish and very scratchy — but it’s VERY warm. Dan calls it the Elven Blanket. My feet were as cold as ice a little while ago, so I filled up the hot water bottle, rested my feet on it, and draped the Elven Blanket over them. Dan’s got the rest of it on his legs, with his feet pressed up against me. Very cozy :) Henry phoned me tonight and told me all about the movies he saw this weekend and how he cleaned his room, and he told me to be sure to floss my teeth and keep my feet warm :)
Nov 28 — Still feeling a tiny bit better! Felt well enough to make a nice breakfast, and then we lay on the couch all day long. Let’s see, we watched “That Thing You Do” and “Galaxy Quest” yesterday, and finished up the movie marathon today with “Waiting for Guffman”. “That Thing You Do” was dull and uninteresting, but the other three movies were fun! “Guffman” is my least-favorite of Christopher Guest’s mockumentaries. It seems a shade more cruel than the others, but still it’s entertaining and has plenty of funny moments. Eugene Levy is wonderful, and Fred Willard makes you want to beat his character with a bat, as usual. “Galaxy Quest” is wonderful, very funny, especially if you’re a Star Trek fan.
. Nov 27 — Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I love my family so much — the best family in the world. Everyone is smart and funny and different! I love you Dan, Henry, Sally, Bob, Jean, Kirsten, Marcos, Ken, Eiko, Kathy, Scott, John, Daniel, Chris, Jesse, Susan, Chloe, Jack, Jon, Rosie, Scott, Jennifer, Daniel, Mark, Luke, Ashley, Caleb, Mike, and Carol! Yesterday I woke up feeling a little better and we had fun making cranberry sauce (1 cup water, 1 cup sugar, 1 bag cranberries, cook til done) reading The Four-Story Mistake, and playing Wind-Waker. Taught my Wednesday students and it wasn’t as exhausting as the last few weeks. Henry went off with Matthew for the holiday — he’ll have a nice noisy time, I think. :) We rented 4 movies on the way home — “The Good Girl”, “Waiting for Guffman”, “Galaxy Quest”, and “That Thing You Do”. Watched “The Good Girl” last night and it was pretty good. Today I’m still feeling just a little better! They say I have pulmonary hypertension, too, so next week I have to go in for MORE tests and specialists and stuff… Ugh. But I’m not too worried because apparently it can be caused by graves disease, and if so can just go away again when the graves gets better. So lets hope that’s the case for me. Today we slept til noon and have been sitting around eating and watching bad tv :) Nice relaxing day!
Nov 25 — Henry’s off with Sal all day again, having fun. She says he did very well in karate tonight and that the Sensei complimented his focus! This was a long and difficult day. I went to bed at 9 last night, stopped reading well before 10, even, but I woke up ridiculously early and felt 100% miserable. Spent a couple hours just crying on the couch and then Henry woke up (nice and late, lucky boy) and cheered me up. Felt horribly depressed, sad, hopeless — comes with the Graves Disease territory, they say. Ugh. Just pretty much lay around until we went to the hospital at 2 for my echocardiogram. Don’t know results, they’ll tell me when they get around to it. Afterwards Dan bought me bagels at the new bagel place down the street, for a reward :) Right now I feel better than this morning, not so depressed and weepy. Early to bed again and this time with a big fat benadryl to knock me out.
Nov 24 — Every light is too bright, every noise is too loud. None of my friends ever update their blogs. I feel ill from looking at my computer screen all day but I don’t feel well enough to do anything else. Just now I spent a while just lying on the couch doing nothing, and then I made a simple-but-delicious sandwich. Henry spent the day with Sal — he’s not even home yet. They went biking and skating and I don’t know what all. It’s so wonderful that they like to play together, and so helpful for me right now. I feel bad because I can’t do anything fun with him, lately. Even reading to him wears me out. Anyway he had a good day I’m sure :)
Nov 22 — Slept 12.5 hours last night, yay. I wish I could sleep that much every night but usually Henry is here and I like to get up at a reasonable time to make his breakfast and spend the morning with him. I spent the _entire_ day on the couch. There was some entertainingly bad tv on for a while — saw the E! True Hollywood Story 2-hour special about Michael jackson, and then an hour of some show called, um, “True Spin” where they revealed facts about pop songs. I learned many life-enhancing facts. Did you know that “Jenny” (867-5309) was a real girl? Wooo!! Next I watched “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” on bravo. Really enjoyed that, great movie. Then several episodes of Seinfeld. I also spent a LOT of time at lileks.com. I think I’ve finally read everything there. Add some more, Mr. Lileks, please :)
Nov 21 — Yay it’s Friday and that means I don’t have to go anywhere or do anything. Last night I read the first chapter of The Four-Story Mistake to Henry. Great book. We read two more chapters today.
Nov 19 — The mom of one of my dear piano students brought me a Jamba Juice smoothie tonight :) She’s a nurse and says my doctor is very good, which is nice to hear. All my students did well today. We watched the rest of the first disk of TTT this afternoon, and then Dan drove me to work, cleaned the apartment, took care of Henry, and then picked me up from work again. Henry helped him clean up, brought me juice in the morning, and was an angel-child all day. Everyone is SO GOOD to me. There is no family better than mine. Oh since I’ve been pretty much lying around all the time I’ve had time to talk to Chloe a lot on the instant messenger. Wonderful Chloe :)
Nov 18 — On the way home from students and karate, Dan suggested renting The Two Towers Extended Edition (or whatever it’s called) which was released today. I had a $.99 coupon in my wallet, so we went to Blockbuster first. They had only two copies, and both were already taken. It wasn’t surprising — I can remember only one time when they actually had what we wanted. Then we went to Hollywood Video, who almost always has what we want. But they didn’t have it for rental, only for sale. So Dan bought it, heheh. We watched about an hour of it before Henry’s bedtime and it was great! So much extra stuff that really improves the movie.
Nov 17 — Another doctor visit today. Did I mention that what I have is called Graves’ Disease? Well I get to choose between drugs that MIGHT work and radioactive iodine that will most likely destroy my entire thyroid. So it’s drug time, let’s hope they work. I feel extremely horrible.
Nov 15 — Tab made blueberry muffins for me :) I lay on the couch all day. Sounds familiar, huh. I entertained myself with the backfence, (turn off cookies before you go there or they’ll make you register after reading one column) lileks.com, literary maps , and other internetty places. Also a few episodes of Seinfeld and most of Streetcar Named Desire.
Nov 13 — Got up at 7:30 again for the last part of that test. Was that really today? Man it seems like so long ago. I lay on the couch most of the day and read “Animal Dreams” from start to finish. NOW what will I read… Oh, more Pern will do. Dan drove us to Henry’s Gymnastics class and then to Sal’s so I could teach. I’m sooo tired. Tomorrow I don’t have to go anywhere, thank goodness. It’s exhausting to leave the house — we’re on the second floor. Too many stairs.
Nov 12 — Hello all you regular readers — sorry I haven’t been updating daily. But here I am, so don’t give up on me. I’m watching another Ken Burns documentary — the one about building the transcontinental railroad, part of the series about the West. I’ve seen every episode. It’s so good! I like how it doesn’t have any goofy re-enactments, just photos with interesting narration, and lots of contemporary letters and documents etc. Good stuff. In other news, I still feel rotten, yes indeed. I had a Thyroid Uptake Scan today. Dan drove me there early in the morning and again in the afternoon and we have to go again tomorrow morning. It has confirmed that, yep, I have hyperactive thyroid, like, five times more active than it should be. Ugh. Ah well. They say I’ll feel better someday. Henry and I have been playing Wario World and we really like it! It’s not insanely hard — Henry can do pretty well on his own with just a little help occasionally, and it’s fun for me too. Hmm, what else… I finished Sense and Sensibility, and now I’m reading the first Pern book, which I think is called Dragonflight but I’m not sure ’cause I’m reading it in my palm so I never see the title :) I have read the Dragonsong trilogy many times. Dragonflight is a lot… stiffer, shall we say, but still enjoyable.
Nov 09 — Today I slept until noon and woke up with the desire to make soup! So maybe I’m a little better, hard to say. Spent the rest of the day on the couch, alternately playing with my iBook and reading “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil” which I’m enjoying. Tabatha not only cleaned the kitchen but also made fabulous banana-oat muffins! Oh also I tested my dvd drive with one of the new Zeppelin DVDs — cool :)
Nov 07 — Tabatha came to visit — she’ll be here for about a week! Sal took Henry out to run errands with her this morning, so I spent the first part of the day playing with Flash MX (got a neat tutorial). Then Dan dropped H and me off at Sal’s house so I could teach a student while he went to his guitar lesson, and then he came back and we hung around a while and then drove to the airport to get Tab. Traffic was HIDEOUS, but at least we’re home now. I still feel relatively rotten, bleah. Almost done with S&S, darn it. What will I read next… I don’t feel well enough to go to the library so I’ll have to make do with what I’ve got (and what #bookz has ;)
Nov 05 — Well finally I’m getting around to writing. I’ve been feeling pretty bad, but yesterday Mom took me to the doctor again and this morning I’m feeling a little better, maybe. Definitely mentally better. Hmm, what’s been going on… Dan surprised me with a new 12″ iBook G4 laptop last weekend, so I’ve been figuring out the Apple way of doing things. It’s a nice machine! It’s taking me a LONG time to get used to the touchpad, though. I’ve been reading “Sense and Sensibility” which I’ve read only once before, a long time ago, and I’m really enjoying it. Well, what else can you do with a Jane Austen novel? :)