Archive for March, 2013

Canadian bandstand

Wednesday, March 20th, 2013

bandstand

Here’s LRN4 in front of a really cool two-story bandstand we found in Canada.  The band sits in the top story and fish and beavers live in the bottom store.  Or whatever lives in a fountain.  Plankton?  Great Art courtesy of the exclusive iPhone-cam, taken during our 2012 cruise to Maine and Canada, and part of my famous Cruise, Vacation, and Statue series.  Isn’t that a statue there in the middle of the fountain?

Lots going on around here.  LRN4’s still in the hospital.  Sadly, her first round of chemotherapy didn’t result in remission.  Her blast cells were reduced from 100% down to 7-14%, but that’s still not good enough.  Even more sadly, she has what’s know as the FLT3 mutation.  That’s just about the worst thing you can have, so she definitely needs a bone marrow transplant.  They’ve made all the arrangements for her transfer to City of Hope in Duarte, California and we expect to go sometime in the next couple of days.  We’re pretty much in a holding pattern here at this point – they don’t want to start the next round of chemo until after the transfer, since that would stick us here for a month, so LRN4’s just getting pumped full of antibiotics, platelets, and hemoglobin and we’re spending our time keeping our strength and spirits up.  I imagine we’ll get very busy when we get to California.

LRN2 started his job on Monday.  He reports that he’s spending most of his time learning company policies and a little bit of technical information about the job.  He discovered to his horror today that they’re not allowed to bring computers, cell phones, or other electronics to work, and that their work computers are locked down pretty tight.  We gave him the bad news that locked down computers are the rule in the workplace these days.  You have to mess around with your own machine on your own time.  Hopefully, he’ll get used to that real soon now.

LRN2 also bought a car a few days ago, so he can actually get to work!  He got a 2002 Ford Escort ZX2.  He wanted a small, reliable car; this one is definitely small and hopefully reliable.  Time will tell!

That’s about it.  LRN4 consumes my life right now.  We’re in a fight for her life and we intend to win.

I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this combination shocking food violence news and exciting Morrowlife employment agency job opportunity: garlic-bread-stealing, mugging fox!

See you tomorrow.

New yard

Tuesday, March 12th, 2013

backyard

Here’s our newly-installed back yard.  We’re really happy with the way it turned out – practically zero maintenance and it’s going to be a beautiful place to spend time and entertain.  Great Art courtesy of the exclusive iPhone-cam and part of my famous Statue and Las Vegas series.  Note the cool turtle statue LRN5 gave us a few years back.  He fits right in here!

Been at the hospital with LRN4 every day.  She’s doing exceptionally well, getting lots of exercise, looking and feeling better just about every day, and generally wishing this whole mess were over and she could go home.  We’re likely to actually go home in about 10 days, which isn’t way too much.  It’s just too much.

LRN1 and LRN2 were here for the weekend.  We had a great visit, they enjoyed their visit with LRN4, as did she, and we sent them back to Provo with a 5×8 U-Haul trailer full of LRN2’s worldly belongings.  I really enjoyed their visit and was very sorry to see them go.  But at least I now have an empty exercise room, into which I’ve been transferring LRN4’s numerous exercise gadgets and gizmos.  When we have visitors in the future, they’ll have to make do with our one guest room and a blow-up mattress in that room.  But at least LRN2 has a place to sleep in his new apartment!

That’s right, LRN2 has moved into his new place.  Both he and LRN1 report that it’s very nice.  It’s a two-bedroom place with a single roommate.  I think he’s just subleasing the room to LRN2, in fact.  His roommate is an older guy who has been through a divorce and will have his three kids over to visit occasionally, so LRN2 will have some youthful company from time to time.  He ought to enjoy that.  He starts his new job in six days now.  He’s frantically searching for a car so he can get back and forth to the job.  Hopefully, that search will bear fruit in the next day or so.  Happy hunting, LRN2!

My latest [amazon asin=B001FA1NK0&text=Apple TV] has been acting very strangely lately – it’s playing video just fine, but reboots every two minutes when it’s not playing anything.  Very annoying.  It’s being retired to my office for further testing and evaluation, and I’ve ordered a new [amazon asin=B00BGGDVOO&text=Roku 3] to take its place.  It was a bit of a stretch not to buy another [amazon asin=B007I5JT4S&text=Apple TV], since I’m such a fanboy, but I’ve read excellent reviews on the new Roku and I’m excited to try it out.  I used the gift card my colleagues gave me at my retirement luncheon in California a few weeks ago, so it cost me nothing!  Well, nothing but 27+ years of hard labor, but I was also compensated for that in other ways.

And that’s about it for tonight.  I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this exciting Morrowlife Employment Agency job opportunity: crime-fighting staring goat!

See you tomorrow.

Jack

Monday, March 4th, 2013

jack

Here’s LRN4 with her friend Jack.  That’s LRN4 over there on the right.  Great Art courtesy of the exclusive iPhone-cam, taken at Dorney Park last October, and part of my famous Event and Machinery series.

Update on LRN4: she’s doing great, responding perfectly to treatment, and feeling very good.  There’s still a lot of water to pass under the bridge, but she’s right on schedule and things are going great.

LRN4’s predicament is pretty much the only thing I’ve been concentrating on, so there’s not much else to talk about tonight.

Oh, there is one other thing going on.  The backyard project is going great!  They reported this morning that there were two days of construction remaining, so it ought to be done tomorrow!  Pictures will be provided.  It looks beautiful so far!  It’s going to be a great place to hang out.

And I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this shocking food violence news: meatball embezzlement!

See you tomorrow.