Anniversary.....

If today is December 30th, and I think it is, then that means it is our 1st wedding anniverary. One year of mostly all fun and joy with Julie...and Jack. We've all had some rough lessons to learn about each other, but love does overcome and so today we are all closer than we have ever been, genuinely close.

But what a let down once again this week for a major holiday. The happy couple's [plus one] big day of the year felled by my recovery from the major surgery. And unfortunately I didn't even feel as good today as I did yesterday. Not hurting, so much, as just feeling rather ill and perhaps with a touch of fever. I finally even had to ask Julie to go and purchase my Christmas gift to her, the romantic Dyson Vacuum cleaner. One happy spot of the day though....I can tell she really loves it, she put it together and is now vacuuming each room in the house, stopping by the office to show the amazing amount of dirt and dog hair it has picked up in excess of our old Hoover. Glad to she likes it, but sad that our big day is so dull. We'll let loose on our second anniversary.

Home again.....!

Never did one piece of real estate look so good as did 1207 Bedford when we pulled up to the house before noon today....my weeklong ordeal at the hospital complete.

Considering that my chest was ripped open and my heart rearranged with pieces hewn from 5 large slits cut deep into my left leg......I feel remarkably good. I do need to rest though so I just wanted to stop by and thank all those friends who supported us in this unexpected time of trouble. Friends from the Army, from high school, from college, from AA, from the business world and those close friends of the digital world, who, in fact, I have never really met in person at all. Julie printed each and every comment and email and brought them in a large stack to me in the hospital. I read them all several times. Thank you so much.

And, of course, the largest thank you is to Julie for keeping all my/our friends abreast of my situation. I guarantee you that she had more than enough to do in running the house, looking after Jack and two dogs and then trying to spend hours with me. I will write more on the experience however now Julie is giving me the "Quit what you're doing and rest" look, so I'm out of here

DRAINAGE, THE LACK THEREOF...

Unfortunately, the big needle was brought out today. About a quart or so of liquid was drained from the casing on the left side of W's chest, not the lung, via the big needle and even though it was a bit stressful, Wallace is feeling better. I'm continually amazed at his resiliance (I'd be in a massive heap under the covers with the shades drawn). The human body is amazing, it truly is. He's convinced he will come home tomorrow and he may be right this time. As of Wednesday, he will have been in the hospital a week. For someone who won't even take an aspirin, a week in the hospital is a life time. There's only so much History Channel to watch, you know? Keep your fingers crossed that the next post you read will be from the Blogmaster himself.

THERE'S NO PLACE LIKE HOME...

Our Big Guy is ready to come home. He's up and walking the fourth floor of Midland Memorial, threatening to stroll over to the Walgreen's across the street. He wants a bowl of chili (not from Walgreen's) and is bored. Dr. Brown, the cardiologist took an x-ray of his lungs today as one of them still sounds like it isn't getting a lot of oxygen, but as of 9:30 tonight, we didn't know what the result was of that x-ray. He thinks he might come home tomorrow. That's his professional opinion though, not the doctor's. We'll see. His color is good, his left leg is healing well. If he can just get those last few bags of anti-biotics finished and walk more, I think he'll be able to head home in the next few days. Am I ready for that? I kept the arm restraints Nurse Helen used on him last Thursday night. Let's hope I don't have to use them any time soon.

SITTIN' PRETTY...

When I got to the hospital today, Wallace was sitting in a chair! That's progress folks. He stayed there a while and was helped back to the bed and tucked in all snuggly by saucy Shelia, who's warmed up a bit, it being Christmas and all. He's trying his hardest to do the breathing exercises, they're tough right now, but he's being very obedient. If his breathing levels get too low, Shelia bursts through the door and puts a big oxygen mask on him and makes him "take a treatment", so he has plenty of incentive to breathe and cough, even if it is rather unpleasant.

The shift changed this evening and Helen is at the helm again. She is Wallace's favorite nurse. She dotes on him and he loves it. He feels comfortable telling her his troubles and letting her tend to all those unfortunate things that come up when you're unable to go to the bathroom on your own. I draw the line at the bodily function stuff. I didn't even like changing diapers, so, I'm grateful Helen will handle all that for him.

He'll be moved to a real room tomorrow...One that has a telephone, so everyone be prepared. He's got a big story brewing and since he hasn't been able to post here at Streams, he could get windy.

He's doing just fine, really.

SHOW'S OVER...

Nurse Helen had to restrain Wallace last night. I knew if he figured out what had happened he'd be mad. She had to use the arm restraints. She said it was minor. Yeah, right. Oh, and...he did figure it out.

The real surgery began at 6:30 this morning. Upon opening the chest, one of the arteries blocked off completely, so Dr. Patel got right to work. The blood clot is believed to be by-passed now...thank goodness. I'm happy to report all three grafts were successful. The vein used for the grafting was taken from his left leg. There's a big I.V. in his neck and a monstrous chest tube I haven't had the courage to look at yet. I haven't seen the incision either. I'll be looking at that for a while, no need to get up close and personal just yet. His breathing tube was removed around 4 this afternoon and not 60 seconds ticked off the clock when Mr. Impatient Patient started giving Shelia the business...Shelia being the CCU recovery nurse. She looks tough. I think she smiled once today, at least I think that was a smile. I'm scared shitless of her, so I haven't made much eye contact. When I left, Wallace had a temperature of 101 and Shelia was about to get even with His Royal Highness. In her left hand she held an injection of sleep...in her right hand was a suppository. I thought it best to vacate room 109 for a couple of hours.

This isn't how we wanted to spend Christmas, but I'll take it. Thank you all for your calls, e-mail, visits and mostly, your prayers. I'm forever grateful for your friendships and Wallace will be extremely touched when I let him know you've been thinking of him. Merry Christmas!

Keep reading for updates.

GROUNDHOG DAY, PART 2...

Where do I begin?

Surgery at noon got bumped to surgery at 2 because Wallace's bag of platelets that were ready to go to the OR at 12 had to be given to someone else today. A new bag was ordered from Lubbock. The platelets couldn't be delivered by noon due to bad weather up north, so Dr. Patel had to rearrange his schedule, which meant he worked on someone else at 2. We were told the the surgery would begin at 4. At 4:30 we went to the OR. I kissed Wallace good-bye and went to the waiting room. At 5:10 the assistant surgeon (for lack of better word) came to the door and informed me Dr. Patel couldn't get to Midland because he was involved in a life-threatening surgery in Odessa. Wallace is on the table, unconscious, betadyne painted and catheterized with a breathing tube in place. An incision had not been made. What to do?

As I type this, my husband is in the CCU still under anesthesia. Surgery will take place in the morning at 6 or shortly thereafter. He's not going to wake up until after that's over. The tube stays, the catheter stays, they will have to re-paint him. I'm told he won't remember anything about this situation. I asked the staff to re-set the clocks and don't change the calendars. I don't want to be present when he figures it all out.

Stay tuned...

ALMOST, BUT NOT QUITE...

The Mrs. here, reporting on the health and well-being of the owner of this blog.

There will be a triple by-pass performed at noon (or thereabouts) which should last 3-5 hours, Thursday the 23rd.

Wallace felt awful this morning - not with chest pain, but shoulder and neck pain and some shortness of breath. He was also extremely grumpy. We got to the hospital around 9. He had bloodwork done along with 2 EKG's. After looking at the results of the first EKG, a cardiologist was alerted and W had an angiogram at 4.

WOW...when Dr. Brown flipped on the screen to show us the results of the angiogram, it was easy to see the blockage in three different places, plus a dangerous blood clot, I believe the doctor referred to it as a "time bomb". We're very fortunate we got to the hospital this morning. Wallace did not have a heart attack. He was on the verge. Left unattended, the result would've been a situation that would not have included survival.

We'll be celebrating Christmas at the hospital. I'll update you as soon as I can, please keep us in your thoughts and prayers.

Fa La La....

It's getting to seem a lot like Christmas. Which means I better get stated with my gift selections. For at least the last 10 years I have made an, apparently, not to solemn vow to start purchasing Christmas gifts at least by October. I have failed miserably in this vow. Why I make the vow is beyond me, knowing full well that I'll be stuck in the same frantic shopping spree come the last days preceeding Christmas. As many know, I have been a proud member of Alcoholics Anonymous for well over a decade and one key concept we have is this. "Acceptance is the key to my serenity". Acceptance of the way the world is and the way people are. This is coupled with the serenity prayer, a pearl of wisdom, that also states that you should try and change the things you can.

Apparently I will never change my last minute Christmas gift buying so I might as well accept this fact, lose the stress and just get used to buying gifts for the family in a mad dash. Maybe it has something to do with living on the edge..the challenge of getting it all done in two days. More likely it's just plain sloth.

Gratitude is another key concept I have learned in AA. I'm grateful that Christmas this year is on a Saturday giving me five full days to get it all done. But what I'm really grateful for this year is a bride who really does, I think, like to shop and knowing me well has already started buying gifts for some of my family. Two nieces done today and she always seems to know what little Jack wants and gets it for me, leaving me free to get him a little something extra.

And this year she spoke right up telling me what she really would like. A romantic and memorable gift from me that says......"I love you". A vacuum cleaner. We have two already, but what she wants is one of the new high tech Dyson's with root cyclone technology. The ones that generate 100,000 G's of suction, or so they say. Coincidentally, we read an article about them in the Southwest Airlines magazine on the way to Houston last week and they did sound very intersting. Anything that can generate a 100,000 G's of suction is interesting to me and it should suck the dog smell right out of the carpet and frankly will be good for my allergies. This kind of gift, though, takes me back to my childhood when I used to give my Mother pots and pans for Christmas, useful but somehow not to giftlike. I'll probably be getting her some other little token of my affection also.

KOFI.COM .......

While over at Roger Simon's place I picked up this tidbit of cheery news. Seems that Kofi Annan wants the U.N. to start taking a more active role in controlling the Internet by forming a heady little International body known as the World Summit on the Information Society.

Kofi has appointed a 40 member panel selected from countries with a history of free thought like Cuba, China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Zimbabwe and Tunisia. At a meeting of the WSIS last month the members outlined their goals to include "Internet governance". If the thought of the U.N. having any form of governance over the Internet doesn't scare you then probably you also believe that the "Iraqi oil for food" program was an outstanding work of benevolence. My personal thought is that before the U.N. jumps right into actually governing the Internet perhaps they just ought to get their feet wet with a Blog and see how they like it. Read the whole article at the FrontPage Magazine

And if you haven't read Roger Simons work often you should. An interesting panoply of thought on a variety of topics and Roger is a nice and proactive Blog owner. I received a nice email from him last week concerning several comments I've left on his website.

Back from the big city...

We're back from the perils of the big city of Houston. The main peril being driving anywhere. Although we had a rental car from the airport, luckily we had friends, family and a hotel limo to negotiate most of the driving dangers for us. Houston is an interesting place, but we're glad we live in Midland, smallish town, Texas. That said, we had a good time, got to see family and friends from both the husband

and wifes side and accomplished our mission of taking Jack to a major sporting event for his birthday as depicted above. And no..that's not photoshopped [although it looks like it to me too]. We were in the shade at Reliant Stadium with bright lights behind, I had to use a low level flash to get Jack and his friend Mackey's faces to be more visible.

We stayed at the very nice Omni Hotel Riverway, which very coincidentally is in the same parklike office complex with the bank where one of my old friends and fraternity brothers is the president. Being rerouted due to traffic on our trip from the airport, we were not sure of our approach into the complex from the maze of freeways and so I called "Mac" on my cellphone to confirm that we were on the correct route to the hotel. I told him where we were and he told us to take the next left and look for a surprise. We took a left and the surprise was "Mac" standing out in front of his bank building pointing the way to the hotel. Nice in a megalopolis to see a friendly face to give directions. And...we were invited to come to the banks Christmas party the next morning being held at our hotel. I did go and had a nice visit with him and his wife.

The trip was full of coincidences for me. Since Julie was off to The Woodlands on Saturday yet another fraternity brother who lives in the West University area, fairly close to the hotel, came out to escort me around for the day. This fraternity brother, an engineer with the Bechtel Corp., was good friends and workmates with the contact that I am presently negotiating our large gas/electrical project with. The frat brother, John, and my contact Ken, used to race their sports cars around the Bechtel parking lot several decades ago.

John and I toured around areas of Houston I have not visited since the '80's and I got to see John's home which houses the sports car that use to race with Ken. A 1973 Maserati that John bought from Dr. Michael DeBakey. Knowing that John would want to meet my brother the NASA engineer we then drove to his house, which coincidentally is only about a mile away. When we arrived and introductions were made both my brother, Mark, and John each said that the other looked very familiar. John is working on a project out of Pasadena Ca. and lives at the Marriott Hotel there for much of the month. My brother, a Deputy Director of NASA, is at the Jet Propulsion Labratory in Pasadena several times a month and also stays at the Marriott. And you guessed it, they were sure that they had seen each other there very recently. Strange how small the world is.

With all the elegant living, seeing my family and friend as well as Julies old Midland friends and her brother and his family, the main purpose of the trip was a day at the Texan's football game with Jack. We would have paid to get in, of course, but if the old friends from Midland have season tickets with a close in parking pass all the better. And we had a great time, just the guys, Me, Jack and his long time friend Mackey and Mackey's dad Robert, a great guy who has been battling cancer for years but hasn't let this setback stop him one bit from living a full and active life. And thank God, the prognosis is very good for him now. A lesson in a positive attitude overcoming a deadly disease. Even though the Texans lost, I was impressed with the engineering wonders of Reliant Stadium and we got to see Peyton Manning in action. His arm and instincts are amazing. The stadium is one jumbo gigantic colossal piece of work but from where we were the field was very close and so the feeling is of a smaller place. Until, that is, you look up at the small specks that are the poor schmucks setting in the upper tiers. Small dots of humanity seemingly resting miles above the firmament. An impressive place. I was most impressed with how easily we got in and out by car, having endured the parking misery of the old days at Texas Stadium in Dallas.

All in all we had a great trip, enjoyed seeing friends and family, living the life of luxury at the hotel and eating beau cuisine in the big city. But, Toto, there is no place like home. Especially a home where you can drive down the uncrowded streets without feeling like every turn of the steering wheel just might be your last.

Gone....

The family will be on a short hiatus over the weekend....gone to Houston. It's young Jack's 11th birthday next week and he wanted to see a Houston Oilers Texans game. So off we go. We'll be visiting with friends of Julies and some of mine. Old friends of Julies from Midland and a fraternity brother or two and my actual brother.

While we're gone catch up on the latest edition of The Coober Pedy News hot off the digital press.

The Grinch steals Christmas....

Last evening I watched a small portion of the ABC news while catching a snack before going to Jack's fifth grade Christmas play. The segment was one of a multi-part series that they are apparently running to explain to us peons the difference between the "Blue" and the "Red" states. Last night's topic was religion in public places and how this affected Christmas. We were told that some people are offended by the mention of God and/or Christ in public displays of the Christmas season. We were shown a high school band in Indiana that could not play standard Christmas carols, even an instrumental version, as part of their holiday concert because Christ or God was mentioned in the songs. Another elementary school choir somewhere in the Northeast had to substitute "Happy Holidays" into each and every song that should have a reference to Merry Christmas. We were taken to malls and other public buildings where heated debate was ongoing concerning the installation of Merry Christmas signs and banners. Peter Jennings was good enough to tell us that many people disagree and think that it's OK to mention Christmas during the Christmas season.

Thanks Peter, but here's the take from Bedford Drive, Midland Texas. Christmas is a Christian holiday, always has been. If you don't like the mention of Christmas or if Christ or God offends you.....we'll then don't celebrate Christmas. Don't put up a Christmas tree which symbolizes the renewal of life and don't give presents which reminds us of the gifts of the Magi. Or better yet, get your own stinkin' holiday to celebrate the way you like. The majority, the vast majority, of Americans are Christians or at least come from the Christian ethic. The majority rules and we celebrate Christmas, not "happy holidays".

And by the way, Jack was stunning in his acting debut starring as the TV anchor who was reporting the story of the birth of Christ. And you know at the St. Ann's School we get to say Merry Christmas, we get to sing the standard carols completely unedited and the play got to actually mention God!

So Merry Christmas....or Happy Kwanza.

An optimist soured....

Concerning my year end leaf cleaning chores yesterday I wrote..."The, hopefully, last cleanup of leafy debris from the yard". What a sucker I am to have had so much hope. At approximately 10 o'clock this morning a thin wisp of a line of thunderstorms accompanied by 45 mph winds rolled through the estate tearing every dangling participle of a remaining leaf and twig loose from it's arboreal connection and depositing them on the lawn. Not to mention the accumulated pile of leaves and pine needles from the roof that was added to the melee.

The situation makes me pine for the good old days of my youth. The days in Missouri when we used to push all the leaves and debris into the street, wait for a damp wet day and just set fire to the whole mess. There was something rather charming about this method of leaf disposal and often times now when I smell fireplace smoke on a cold damp day I remember back to those years when the whole town of Cape Girardeau smelled somewhat like the fragrance of pinon pine smoke. I suppose it's against the law now to burn big piles of flammable organic material in the streets. Sure was fun though.

Leave it at that......

We are blessed here on Bedford Drive, Midland Texas, the desert, to have an overabundance of large trees. If you've ever lived in West Texas you'll know that gratitude. We have 3 large pecan trees, 4 big live oaks and a mimosa tree near the house. Lining the fence in the rear we have a line of tall and stately cypress trees and beneath these on all sides of the yard probably 20 cherry laurels. The centerpiece of the rear fenceline is a 35 foot tall mulberry. The highlight of the grounds is a very large pine tree of a species peculiar to our neighborhood that stands at the corner of the front of the estate. The circumferance of the trunk is probably 9-10 feet around while the tree stands a good 35 feet tall.

I love all these trees but to be honest they are a royal pain in the ass. Except the cherry laurels and perhaps the mulberry. The oaks and the pecans are not happy unless they are dropping some sort of debris 12 months of the year. Green acorns or pecans, ripe acorns or pecans, dead leaves and twigs. The oaks don't shed their leaves in the Fall, but they make up for it in April when I should be relaxing from yard work. About the same time of year, the pecans are dropping "lint"...little green streamers of fluff that disintergrate into green dust when the dogs track them into the house on their fur. Sometimes the pecan tree next to the patio drops it's green fruit unripe in the early summer. Sometimes it waits until fall when the nuts are ripe. All the pecan debris on the patio emits a dark brown stain when it gets wet, the stain readily absorbed by the Mexican tile. The pine tree, God love it, deposits a constant stream of dry needles in the flower beds, the front yard and on the rooftop.

The cherry laurels are very considerate trees.... and prolific. They drop virtually nothing on the ground but do have a tendency to be short lived trees, but more arise to replace them so they are considerate trees even in death. The mulberry does it's best to be a good neighbor of a tree. It's very broad leaves provide some great shade, they are beautiful fall color and the tree waits until the first hard freeze when quite amazingly it drops all of it's foliage in almost one day.

Which brings me to my afternoon's work. The, hopefully, last cleanup of leafy debris from the yard. The pecans have been shedding now for a month, slow death cleanup, and now with a hard freeze last week, the mulberry has finally dumped it's full load over the weekend. The first year I lived at the estate I carefully raked all the leaves and pine needles into piles and carted them to the alley. I am a quick learner. Since that first years raking torture I have purchased a lawnmower with mulching abilities. What took me a whole day 4 years ago now takes less than an hour and I'm making a contribution to being an environmentally conscious estate owner. The dead leaves are great fertilizer and help keep moisture in the soil over the winter. The pine needles I mulch separately and they make a great and attractive ground cover in the flower beds.

Additionally I've learned that picking up poop after two dogs is a full time job, one that we had primed young Jack for...but he quit. So now in an eco friendly manner I just get the high pressure hose and simply squirt the poop into the soil....again great fertilizer. I've also learned that, while mulching, dark brown dog poop is awfuly hard to detect when scattered among dark brown dead leaves. I have an environmentally friendly solution for that too. I squirt it off my shoes with the high pressure hose.

Techno Talk....

May I direct your attention to the right column of the page. Perhaps you've noticed that I now have a news feed link in place. I've been meaning to look into this technology for some time now but was slothful in my efforts. The reason that it's there now is that I was shamed into it. Shame ranks right after fear as a very powerful motivator.

Cross town blogger and techno buddy Eric at The FireAnt Gazette had made a complimentary mention of the fact that I had changed my Streams format. He also added a comment about installing an RSS feed. I could tell by the tone of his font exactly what he meant. That without a news feed I was becoming a second rate technorati, a disgrace to Blogging. Everyone who is anyone in the Blog O'Sphere has a news feed. If I wanted to maintain my social position I'd better get with it.

And so the very moment I read his post I did get with it. I enabled my "feed" on Blogger and then started researching the best systems to make it all work. Within an hour I had discovered and installed FeedBurner© an interface which allows browsers to read feeds seamlessly whether they are coming from .rdf or .xml files. Got it hooked up and it ran like a champ right out of the bag. Then to keep track of all my fellow Bloggers I signed up with the newsreader service NewsGator© and I was ready to go. Living in shame no more.

So now hopefully I can look my fellow Bloggers right in the monitor and stand tall and proud. One of the few, the proud, the news readable! Syndicate Me!!

And stop by the bride's site, The Yellow Bug News where we have her news feed hooked up too.

And an update: while working with Gary in the Outback at The Coober Pedy News he decided that as a learning experience he would like to set up his own new blog template for his Coober Pedy News Blog. He's learned quickly and has it up and running. I'm proud to be the subject of his first post, well actually my car is proud to be the subject of his first post. Hope you check in with him at The Coober Pedy Blog

It was a Grand Jury...!

The truth can finally be revealed. For the last six months I have been serving on the Grand Jury of the 142nd District Court of Texas. While actively serving we are sworn to a vow of secrecy to protect the innocent...namely us the jurors. My term expired yesterday with our final meeting so now I am free to speak of my judicial journey. If you ever are nominated to serve on a Grand Jury do so, it's an enlightening experience not to mention pretty damn entertaining at times. The ultimate reality show.

The Grand Jury is an important part of the legal process as it serves as the first buffer between a, possibly, overzealous police force or district attorney and the always pure naive citizenry. Twelve average citizens of good repute [well, eleven in our case] who hear the evidence in all felony cases and decide if there is enough merit to indict the recalcitrants and send them forward to a full blown trial. We saw it all, vehicular manslaughter, child abuse, assault with a deadly weapon, retaliation, armed robbery, organized criminal activity, drug possession and the ever popular DWI and "forgery by passing" i.e. hot checks. The last two categories making up the majority of the cases. We saw DWI movies, heard from expert witnesses, questioned suspects and had the power to subpoena anyone we saw fit. That was the best part...."Uncle Festus was there when the crime was allegedly commited? Bring him in we want to talk him.....!!"

I learned several things from my time on the Grand Jury. First, even in a mild mannered medium sized town such as ours, there is a lot of stuff going down, stuff that never makes the papers or is known by the average citizen. Secondly a large portion of the petty criminal activity is perpetrated by morons. We heard it all but here are some highlights.

The Case of the Pizza Pirate, a young man who while at a friend's party stole his VisaCard. Having gotten away with the act and gone unnoticed the Perp decided to start using his newly borrowed card. What does any good criminal do with a stolen card.....we'll he starts ordering pizza every night from the same Pizza Hut and having it delivered to his home. Not once, but at least 12 times. When the charges hit, the local sleuths had very little trouble tracking this criminal mastermind down.

The Case of The Discount Daddy, another young man who took a purse and it's contents from a parked car owned by an elderly woman, "Mrs. Smith". Within 20 minutes this Perp was on a shopping spree at one of the trendy hipster clothing stores at The Mall. The young criminal buys several hundred dollars worth of 20-ish style clothing with "Mrs. Smiths" MasterCard. In fact the clerk thinks that he's such a good customer she asks him if he wants to join their "Preferred Shopper" program to receive a bonus discount. Only a heartbeat from walking out the door scott free, The Perp can't miss a bargain so he signs up.....using his real name and address. The alert clerk notices that his name is not related to "Mrs. Smith" and calls the cops, who are at the Perps address before he gets home.

The Case of the Range Rustlers, two young men who broke into a local OffRoad Vehicle dealer on the edge of town late one night and stole two rather expensive Honda ATV's. Instead of driving down the asphalt road to freedom, they thought they would deter detection by going out the back through the adjoining ranchland. As you might know, the range land here is generally rather sandy. The cops had no problem at all when they brought their own ATV out and simply followed the trail several miles to the young criminals luxurious mobile home with two brand new ATV's out back.

I could could go on about the folks who steal checks and then write them to themselves using their real names and showing their real drivers licenses with addresses but you get my drift.