Oct 31 -- I slept extremely badly last night, don't know why. Ugh. Felt tired and weepy all day. Henry (I mean Frodo) is down at Matthew's house for Halloween.

Oct 29 -- Fires still burning. Cuyamaca, near where we camp, is entirely gone. I was more hungry today and actually ate three meals. Henry went to the Karate Halloween Party and won a dojo t-shirt for "Most Original Costume" (Frodo Baggins)

Oct 28 -- Mom drove me up to Irvine to see her homeopathic doctor, Dr. George, and he seemed really good. He said if I do his homepathic program, I'll feel better in a month! Which would be SO good. And I don't have to let the MDs destroy my thyroid. There was a new Antiques Roadshow on the TiVo tonight. My goodness, I sure do love that show. Tonight it was in Hot Springs, Arkansas. Every single person was pleasant. I especially like the woman with the Connecticut Ladder-Back Chair, the one with the little groove in the arm where she kept running her finger. She was so sweet and cheerful! I remember one Roadshow in which many of the people seemed grumpy and argumentative, but I don't remember which city it was! (ought to avoid going there) I remember that the NYC episode was also filled with especially friendly, cheerful people.

Oct 27 -- The fires are still burning, but the wind has died down a bit and they're not spreading so fast. Yipes.

Wow I just found out that Leigh and Leslie Keno (the wonderful twin furniture guys from the Antiques Roadshow) have their OWN SHOW. It's called "Find!" Yay Keno brothers!

Oct 26 -- Huge out-of-control brush fires in SD county today -- not near us thank goodness but still prett scary. Freeways closed, hundreds of houses burned up. Ugh. Watched the news a lot, read my book. Reading "The Saturdays" to Henry and he likes it :)

Oct 25 -- Well. Dan drove me to the doctor yesterday, and after doing an EKG he said he thought it was either a funny heart problem, I forget which, or a thyroid problem, but he wasn't sure and said I should go to the hospital ER to get blood tests and stuff done that very day. Ugh. So Dan took me over to Tri-City and I did the emergency room thing, what fun. They stuck an IV in me (ouch) and took blood and hooked me up to all kinds of monitor-things. Dan stayed right with me the whole time which is good because otherwise I would absolutely have fallen apart. And eventually the very nice doctor decided it was Hyperthyroidism. Which explains my racing heart (up to 145), shaky knees, absolute exhaustion, weight loss (I'm down to 102 -- eek), and loss of appetite. If you have these symptoms, go get tested. So now I have beta-blockers to take to slow my heart down (it's around 100 now) until I can see a thyroid specialist next week. Wonderful Sally cancelled her piano students and took care of Henry for us, so Dan could stay with me in the hospital (we were there for hours and hours). And then after we got OUT we went to the bookstore and Dan bought me a book I've been longing for (The Sweet Potato Queens' Book Of Love) and the new Junie B. Jones book for Henry, and also Jamba Juice Smoothies, and then when we got home Henry and I finished his Batmobile and I read him his new book, and Dan went out AGAIN to get my prescription and rent a movie for us, which we watched after I put Henry to bed -- "About Schmidt", which was pretty good!

Today is Saturday. I still feel peculiar but at least I know what's wrong with me and I don't have to worry about that. I took Henry to Sal's house this morning and they went to Legoland (Wonderful Sal!) and I came home and spent the whole day lying on the couch, reading my new book, which I finished already, darn it, tinkering with my z71(trying out zlauncher, took a long time to get it configured to my satisfaction and find a theme that wasn't revolting; ended up with Jack Swinden's "Blue Theme"), and talking to friends on IRC. I sent off two more rolls of flim last week and got them back today -- photos from more than a year ago, including Henry's 7th birthday party :) Got some really cute ones!

Oct 22 -- Henry and I have been working on his little pine-car Batmobile a little every day. Yesterday we glued on the fancy fenders, and today we gave it another coat of paint! It looks so cool. I think next we give it another coat of paint, and then the gloss finish, and then the decals, and then more gloss, and then glue the axles on! It was quite a day.

Oct 21 -- Still feeling extremely peculiar. Doctor on Friday, ugh. Dan was an angel and drove me everywhere today -- piano student, Henry's Karate class, two grocery stores, and the water store. He and Henry helped with the shopping and carried everything up all the stairs into the house too.

Oct 19 -- I finished my latest audiobook -- "The Sweet Potato Queens' Big-Ass Cookbook" by Jill Conner Browne. I don't know when I've laughed so much! Gotta get to the library for some more of her books soon, although I don't know if I'll enjoy them as much in print as I did on cd; part of what made the book so much fun was the author's lovely thick Mississippi accent.

Oct 18 -- We ate Chinese food and then saw Kill Bill, the new Quentin Tarantino movie. My opinion of it is mixed, though I definitely enjoyed seeing it. On the plus side, Uma Thurman is wonderful. The dialogue is well-written. It was a visually interesting movie, lots of beautiful sets and colors and neat camera angles. The plot is good and unpredictable. It's got that chronologically-mixed-up Tarantino thing, which is fun. However... I'm not that fond of watching lengthy fight scenes. I"m not fond of outrageous goriness. And I don't care about swords :) I didn't care for the anime section, and he could have left out maybe 30 minutes of fighting. The first fight was fun, but it was relatively short. During the long ones, which most of the time I'm watching through squinty eyes ANYWAY because of the icky gore, my mind wanders and I wish we could get back to the plot. Tarantino is good at cool plots and clever dialogue, but I wish he'd quit chopping body parts off. Oh also -- as some kind of anti-piracy measure, there are ORANGE DOTS which flash on the screen from time to time. Apparantly this is to screw up illegal copies -- I doubt if they intended them to be visible to the paying customers. Well guess what, folks, they ARE visible! Cut it out, please.

Oct 16 -- Henry and I took every single thing out of his room so we could give it a good cleaning. We even took the brick-and-board shelves out of his closet, took the closet doors off, and leaned them up against the back of the closet. Now that his shelves are back in, he can see his toys and clothes and those big dumb sliding doors don't get in the way all the time! We piled all his stuff in the kitchen, and then after his room was all clean and vacuumed we sorted though his stuff. He threw away about four paper bags full of junk and came up with two bags full of nice stuff to give away! I was very proud :) It took hours and hours. His room was a real disaster area when we started but now it is clean and lovely and he has room to play :)

Oct 15 -- The Innopocket aluminum hard case for my Zire 71 arrived yesterday! It's really spiffy :) Now my little Zire has a lovely protective case and doesn't have to live in my ancient bedraggled neoprene Palmvelope case. I stuck velcro on the back of my iiic so I could use a nice leather zip-up wallet case, but I couldn't bear to stick nasty velco on my Zire. I woke up with a headache but it faded away after a while and I actually feel good today for a change! Beat a couple more levels in LotR, finished reading TTT to Henry and started RotK, did laundry, paid bills, helped Henry with his pine car (we got it shaped and sanded!) taught students, made my wonderful soup for dinner, etc. Good productive day. Oh, I forgot to mention that we watched the most recent SNL last night (thanks, TiVo). The guest was Justin Timberlake, who appears to be some kind of pop star. He had actual acting ability and good comic timing, and the episode was much more enjoyable than the last one, the one with Jack Black. That one was just awful, and we ended up FF'ing most of it. We only skipped two of the sketches last night -- everything else was either funny or bearable. The Omeletville sketch had me rolling on the floor :)

Oct 13 -- We rented the Lord of the Rings (The Two Towers) game for my gamecube and it's lots of fun! Henry has beaten the Watcher in the Water, and I've gotten a bit further, even -- beat the Watcher, and the Cave Troll, and about a thousand orcs and a boss Uruk-Hai guy in the Amon-Something level! I'm ready for the Fangorn Forest section.

Oct 12 -- Felt like crap again, watched movies all day. Uh, "Now, Voyager" -- soapy melodramatic thing starring wonderful Bette Davis, and "Baby Doll" -- tedious thing about miserable southerners. I only watched it because they pre-empted a Fred Astaire movie for it, and I figured it BETTER be good. It wasn't, really.

Oct 11 -- I finally updated palmstuff. Yay me :) Today we went out to Fry's to look at stuff, eat, and buy blank CDs. Very pleasant. Dan bought me a pack of replacement styli for my z71, and we got 2 packs of cds and some special cd-labeling markers. And lots and lots of candy :) On the way home we rented A Mighty Wind and will watch it soon! I can hardly wait. Oh I got a package of photos back from Clark Color Labs, where I mail my film. I didn't even know what was on the roll of film that I sent in, and I wasn't sure they'd even develop it, since it was B&W. (Real B&W, not that fake kind that Kodak makes) But they did, and the pictures turned out great! I just sorted them, and 20 of them turned out well enough to put in a photo album, if I had one, or to make copies for people. Twenty out of twenty-four is pretty good, I'd say. I got some great photos of Henry and Daniel swimming together when the Thiles were visiting!

Oct 10 -- Henry and I watched the Ken Burns documentary "Horatio's Drive" about the first man to drive coast-to-coast across the US, in 1903. It was an absolutely fascinating story and an extremely well-made documantary. Highly recommended!

Oct 09 -- I finished Luigi's Mansion today! It was quite fun, but I'm glad we rented it (for free) instead of buying. It took me about 3 months to beat Wind Waker and 5 days to beat Luigi's Mansion, heheh. Henry's so extremely helpful -- it was he who noticed that I had to shoot the spikey balls at the Bowser Robot Dinosaur thing when it was stooping down! Yesterday I finished the work I was doing for Julie, and she paid me this morning. Dan made me promise to buy myself a treat, so I ordered the Innopocket Aluminum Hardcase for my Zire 71! Ooooooo I can hardly wait 'til it gets here :)

Oct 08 -- Well, despite our best efforts, the recall went through and Schwarzenegger is Governor. Ugh.

Oct 07 -- Henry passed his Blue Belt test last week, and today he was awarded his Blue Belt! We're all so proud of him :)

Oct 05 -- Ahh, a much needed lazy weekend... Played Luigi's Mansion for hours and hours today... Henry loves watching and it turned out to be a pretty fun game! I think I'll be able to beat it before we have to return it. Read two Dick Francis novels this weekend... "Reflex" yesterday and most of "Twice Shy" today. I happen to own the paperbacks and have read them a few times over the years. Those are a couple of my favorites, plus "In The Frame". I haven't read any Francis in ages. I seriously need a trip to the library. Henry made me a burrito for lunch today! Sweet dear little boy.

Oct 04 -- Rented "Luigi's Mansion" for Henry... he thought he'd played it at McDonalds but it turned out he really hadn't, heh. Poor boy. It's too hard for him and not very fun. But I played for a while and he enjoyed watching. Also we finished watching "My Favorite Wife" together which was fun. Not a great movie, but enjoyable. Irene Dunne is cool, Cary Grant is obnoxious. I'm so tired.

Oct 03 -- Happy birthday wonderful Kathy!

Oct 02 -- Feeling a bit better. Henry helped me with the grocery shopping and then I lay around and rested and read "The Long Winter" out loud for hours! Wonderful book. Henry's doing so well in gymnastics!