It's important to be warm

This blog is way too sad lately. Let’s liven things up.

This cute bomb provided in part by Jess Hutch who is awesome in many ways, not the least of which is that she posts her patterns online.

Lens cap provided for scale purposes, of course.

This is my first patterned 3D project. I made my little chapstick-holding(puking) whale as a keychain, and sadly lost it and my keys (!) before proper documentation took place. So, thus, this is the first surviving 3D knitted project, and a very happy one at that.

Now let the cute bomb knock you over and cuddle you right and proper. If you’ve been reading my posts, you probably need it.

(edit: Jess has already elevated her awesomeness-status to at least an Ernie if not an Elmo with her latest post that she’s putting together a pattern book. SuperDelicious!)

Filed by joy at 6:26 pm under crafty, visuals
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A week ago today, Héctor called me while Ian and I were in Boston. He’d just been informed that the pain in his gut he’d be dealing with for months is cancer. He finally had health insurance, and finally actually got the appointment to see a doctor, then this. The horrible emotional wave of fear, tears, and mortality spiraled. We are all too young for this.

Luckily, his star is as blessed as it is crossed.

As it happens, his sister recently painted a portrait for a couple, one of whom is a cancer survivor. As a successful survivor, he has made it part of his life’s mission to help others who might not otherwise manage to survive. It just so happens that this survivor’s brother is a honcho at the Mayo Clinic. Héctor’s sister Tali made some calls and arrangements, and the whole family was in Minnesota by Sunday.

Yesterday, Héctor came out of surgery. Today, Renée and I finally managed to match schedules and I got the low down. His large intestine had a tumor the approximate size of an overlong, swollen Twinkie. As nasty as that is, the good news is that despite that fact that the tumor had grown roots through the walls of the intestine, nothing outside of the tumor itself has been determined to be cancerous. The surgeons removed a length of the colon with the 50+ lymph nodes connected to it, and none of those nodes tested positive for cancer, nor did the tumor itself show any genetic predisposition to cancer.

Héctor is never alone, between his Momsy, his sister, and Renée all taking shifts at his bedside, not to mention the excellent people of the Mayo Clinic, he’s in good hands. He’s pretty souped up on morphine, as it was quite a cut he took, though Renée was adamant that it’s the most beautiful scar she’s ever seen and has more than full confidence that they got everything out of him, and didn’t miss a thing.

If all goes well in the healing process, they could be home within two weeks. Of course, there will be six week followups, and then 3 month, then 6, etc. There may also be some Chemo Light, depending upon various circumstances, just in case any ittybittyinvisible bits of nasty managed to hide in the system somewhere.

He won’t even have any diet restrictions, once he can eat solid foods again.

This is the best possible news anyone could possibly get, considering the situation.

Filed by joy at 7:48 pm under life
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We’re back, had a great time. More on that soon.

While we were away, dad made the local news in an anti-military recruitment protest that got itself overly policed. And by “got itself”, I mean to imply a certain nastiness on the part of the police.

He and his scooter were toppled, and both are fine. The casualty for him personally was his beloved Palm Pilot, which I’m sure is a far greater loss than the supposed damage to the camera of the “journalist” who, from what I hear, was poking it into people’s faces a little too insistently and got the camera pushed aside for his troubles.

Ugh. I love my mostly very liberal city, but this just adds to the ever growing pile of why I shouldn’t bother coming back from NZ, where even the advertising campaigns are more up my political alley.

(Edit: further reporting on this story.)

Filed by joy at 12:44 am under politics
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Yesterday seemed to be local Over-sharing Day. Ian got stuck in a conversation with a very nice person who insisted to him that it was far too dangerous to go to the Middle East because if you went to Turkey, you’d just end up in a Turkish Prison. (um…) Then she went on to tell him how everyone in New Zealand is really open about their bodies because they all run around naked all the time. (um…um…err…)

Last night, I went (by direct personal email invitation, mind you) to PghBlogfest. Awhile back, I was feeling social and posted my RSS feed to a local blog roll. I don’t know what had gotten into me. Maybe it was during an election and I was feeling that my opinions on things needed to reach a wider audience. I’m over that, by the way.

I alternate between being vaguely flattered when strangers read this thing, and being creeped out. It’s a personal blog, and I try to keep it very separate from the rest of my lives. Not that I’m at any risk of being dooced, but hey, I don’t want a client to happen upon this randomly. Mostly though, I don’t think too much about it because there are far more important things to think about. Warmth, for one. Truth be told, I’m too warm lately. Over to hot. It’s not important to be hot. That’s unpleasant and uncomfortable. August, your work is done here.

Right, so back to the point at hand. I feel more like a blobber than a blogger as it stands, though there are a few locals I’d like to meet, and the organizers of this event seemed safe enough to seek out. I walked in, and found them immediately and accidentally, not because I recognized them of course, but because two of them were knitting. Ah, my people! I came prepared, knowing full well I’d feel completely tongue-tied and awkward saying anything to anyone. Take note: there is no better ice-breaker than a hand-knitted bunny, casually popped out of one’s bag. Everyone worth talking to is leveled by the Cute Bomb. Once applied, there is a certain ease in the conversation.

Then I got into talking to someone else, and while that was just starting out, a young kid brought over a disc and info about his dad, who is running for office. I couldn’t help myself and had to open it up to see who it was and what he was running for because it didn’t directly tell me (!!) so I was unimpressed. I didn’t really want to talk about it, just read it quickly. Sadly, just the presence of politics affected the conversation I was already in, and we danced around saying anything real. From my well-honed instincts, I had a instant feeling we wouldn’t agree on deep matters, and I’ve got no more reason to preach to someone who doesn’t want to change than they have to preach to me. I was trying to avoid politics as bloggers are a preachy crowd and I really hate those sorts of ranting endless non-debates from any side of any fence you happen to stand on. So we skirted politics while talking about it, which just feels dumb. (Later of course, I checked the blog she posts to, and found that those instincts were correct.) I’m sure she’s a good person, but it was clear that direct honesty would most likely lead to disagreements, and perhaps even bad feelings. I didn’t come out for bad feelings. I brought an innocent bunny with me!

We finally managed to untangle ourselves, and I considered trying to meet a few others, but in the end, chickened out for the door. In truth, I had to go home and pack for our driving adventure. We leave tonight and by tomorrow evening, I will have no phone and no internet as I will be in a tent on the beach.

I cannot wait.

Obligatory and relevant link.

Filed by joy at 6:31 am under politics, ubergeek
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Hope nobody cares, but I’ve just turned on comment log-in as I got an anonymous comment and fear the spam-beast. Please comment away. The login is totally basic, but should keep out the T3xasH0ld3mP3n1s types.

Filed by joy at 9:38 am under ubergeek
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Once upon a very brief time, the word trifling had some resonance in slang parlance. I remember the roll of a black classmate’s neck as she deemed a particular thing triflin’. Oh if there were only a way to add the tone into the ascii. Just lopping off the g for an apostrophe doesn’t quite say it.

Every time I don’t post in awhile, I feel I must come back with something important, something real, maybe even meaningful. This is far too self-conscious of me, not to mention self-indulgent and all the rest of the negative related words attached by a hyphen to the word self.

So as to completely ignore my own inane rule, I’m gonna tell you about my lunch. Which was great, thank you. I went for a free mercury test held by the Sierra Club. I’m at about the lowest risk category since I don’t work with the stuff, nor do I eat any fish, but it’s one more thing I can simply know is not a problem. Next door to the salon hosting the test is a little Mexican Taqueria and on a whim, I went in. Very authentic! And in Pittsburgh! I’m so pleased. I carted off my little quarry of horchata, a taquito and a queso taco and inhaled it once back at home. It made me so pleased that I will have to take Ian there as a reward if he finally ever learns to pronounce quesadillas without the Ls.

Filed by joy at 1:10 pm under life, random
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