Friday, November 23, 2007

P.S. to Thanksgiving Post

The mail just arrived, containing a freshly minted Employment Authorization Card with my mug shot and name on it. Once again, thanksgiving abounds for Big Loud Nasty Immigration Guy. This isn't the green card yet, but it does clean up one piece of the documentation trail that could have proven very sticky had it not been resolved. So, now we wait again, but at least we are waiting without confusion about wonky interim decisions that just didn't make sense.

And one note of clarification: the thanksgiving item for competent brain surgeons in my last post has apparently caused a ripple of distress throughout the ranks of my loyal readers. To be clear: no brains have been surged in this household as yet. My comment was intended to reflect our gratitude at finding my dear hubby in two of the most skilled hands in the medical world. If you simply must grow an acoustic neuroma, being this close to Stanford Medical Center is a darned handy place to discover you did! We have some more research and decisions to make in the next few weeks regarding radiation versus surgery, but no matter which way we go, we're in the right place to make them.

Grateful to be here, grateful for options, and grateful for peace.

Thursday, November 22, 2007

And While I'm On The Subject, Here's a Random Top Ten List of Other Stuff That I'm Thankful For...

  1. Big Loud Nasty Immigration Guy. (They re-opened my Employment Authorization Document application case this week. A heart-felt thank you from Doofus Applicant, BLNIG.)
  2. Blogging, and the discovery that you really can just write from the gut, release your words to the webber-net wind, and your worlds don't collide and the moon doesn't fall from the sky.
  3. My dear family: close and/or close by, north, right of north, left of anywhere on this planet, fodder for a Fox reality show, and all possible quirky positions in-between.
  4. The moon.
  5. Apple Computers, for giving me a new computing device (although we are still in the "circling each other warily and sniffing for signs of malevolent intent" stage) and for giving my mildly work-ethically challenged yet brilliant and soulful son a job.
  6. My friends... the whole obscenely-faithful, creative, encouraging and long-suffering lot of them.
  7. The amazing (in each and every sense of the word) people I work with, for, around, under and in spite of.
  8. Doctors who aren't afraid of using new machines on skittish-while-gowned ablation patients. Also, those who can stomach gently shoving aside a stark naked cerebellum during surgery to deal firmly with a little intracanalicular acoustic neuroma message from God, who seems to be asking, "So, do you really trust Me or is that just Sunday morning feel-good-to-heavy-drum-beatin' social conformity?"
  9. Cameras and the basic intellect with which to operate them, AND get them off the camera on to my new iMac. I take neither of these for granted.
  10. People who subscribe to PFIFB.

God bless them, every one.

Wednesday, November 21, 2007

Happy Thanksgiving, Rachel!

As vile foreigners from the Great White North, Rachel and her family of Mikey, Beth and the B Man were the first 'Marican family we were really thankful for. Hola, Rachel! We'll be thinking of you from Walbrook Dr. on Thursday, November 22.
Nicky says hi.

love, k

Thursday, November 8, 2007

Never Mind The CEO For Whom You Want To Consult: What Keeps ME Awake At Night?

Often (okay, twice) people have said something like "Boy, it must be interesting to live inside your brain." Yeah? I wonder how many people would find the following, delivered by said brain at approximately 2-4 a.m. today in rapid-fire order, interesting. Don't even ask what woke me up in the first place.
  1. What if I was in a mine cave-in and I really had to pee? Would it be better to just hold it and hope that my bladder was somehow fearfully and wonderfully enough made that it would know that after a certain time span, it should quietly re-absorb the precious pure H20 from itself and send it back in to my blood stream, leaving the poor old kidneys and liver to work double time on the concentrated toxins left behind? Does Emily Blue ever think about this? How is Emily Blue anyway, and why does it take the Canadian Border Security Office "a few MONTHS" to arrange follow up interviews? Are they performing remarkably thorough bladder security checks? I suppose it Depends on who they're checking.
  2. Gail made a good point this week: never patronize a restaurant with "Factory" in its name or a clothing store called the something "Barn." And I'll bet in the Great Cosmos those two concepts are related. I should spread the word.
  3. God of the Great Cosmos, I need Your Angels. What will I find out at the immigration field office next week? I should have my own soap opera: Days Of Our I-485s.
  4. Why does the quasi-slutty women's wear "evening and resort-wear" catalog I received today list a "tummy-control thong" on its discreetly middle-tucked page of "all the hike 'em up/plump 'em out/tuck 'em in" accouterments without which their apparel is impossible for mortal women to even consider appearing in public? For the love of all things dimpled, if you're old enough to pay $48 for a tummy control device, what the hell are you doing leaving your cellulite-enhanced tuchas waiving freely under some poor slice of unreinforced jersey evening wear? In the words of Dolly Parton in Steel Magnolias, it would be "... like watchin' two pigs wrestlin' under a blanket." I'll just bet the surprisingly under-priced (made in China) evening wear pieces turn out to be loss-leaders for all the obscenely expensive (made in America) goo-gaas you need in order to be decent in them. Entrepreneurs... can't live with 'em, can't shoot 'em.
  5. Why can't I be Pioneer Woman? She shoots stuff all the time, and then makes it abso-frickin-lutey gorgeous in PhotoShop, and shows with screen shots how she did it, and why, with REALLY funny self-deprecating comments and "what do you think?" questions, thereby overtly soliciting the only thing that makes blogging seem worth the while: comments. Meanwhile, she's simu-baking some ridiculously yummy apple-turn-over-easy-bake-oven-cleaner-lite pot pie for Marlboro Man that you just HAVE to know the recipe for because her wacko sister also ate some and is now speaking to her again and it healed their family. I hate Pioneer Woman.
  6. How come nobody makes stuff out of bakelite anymore? What is bakelite, anyway? Does Third Child even know bakelite exists? Maybe he can make some nifty iWhatever appliance out of it and become a member of the Apple Super Orchard Achievers! And he will stand in the spotlight on Awards Night, eyes filling with tears as he struggles to overcome the lump in his throat to say, "... and I stand on the shoulders of the giants, especially my Mum, [letting his Canadian roots slip] without whom I would never have even heard of bakelite...." And then Steve Jobs will phone, a little drunk from the after party, to personally thank me for producing such an amazing progeny and invite me to the party, but I'll say, "Oh, gosh, thanks, but I'm just a quiet, behind-the-scenes kind of cheerleader for my family...." But what will I wear when I make my surprise splash entry to the party? Wait... I do have a few decent evening jersey outfits (and that fabu necklace I bought with J. in Paris but never have had a chance to wear) but no real good body-contorting under-goo-gaas... If only I had a holocaust cloak, or a good women's wear catalog featuring controlling devices specific to where you really need control.
  7. I should write my "Gripper" story in a blog posting someday...
  8. ....zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz...................