morrowlife

Here’s the main hall for immigrants on Ellis Island.  This is one the second story of the building.  They brought people in on the ground level, had them drop off their luggage and walk up the stairs and get in line.  They’d eventually make their way to the other end of the hall to those desks way down there, give their names, and – assuming they appeared healthy and sane – become Americans.  It’s a little more complex these days.  At least it’s a little more complex to become a legal American, anyway.  Great Art courtesy of the exclusive iPhone-cam, taken at Ellis Island, and part of my famous Architecture series.

Not much new to report tonight, since I used the Wonders of WordPress in the early afternoon today to write yesterday’s post.  So I’ll keep this one brief too.

LRN4’s doing fine.

I’ve finally started making progress on the iOS app again today.  I’m slowly coming to understand Core Data and NSXMLParser, but it’s been a long road.  I’m feeling a whole lot better about my status tonight than I was this morning.  So there’s that.

Spoke with both my mom and dad yesterday.  It was good to talk with both of them, and they’re both apparently doing very well.  Also spoke with LRN23 this evening, which I always enjoy.  Along with several other family members, he’s been great about keeping in touch throughout LRN4’s illness.  I can’t tell you how much those phone calls mean to me, Loyal Readers.

We just finished watching [amazon asin=B000EHQU08&text=The Long, Long Trailer], a movie from 1954, starring Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz.  It’s silly and corny, but we’ve loved that movie for years.  We got it from Netflix yesterday.  It’ll go back tomorrow, sadly.  Highly recommended, even for us Lucille Ball anti-fans.  She’s actually pretty good in it and she practically never whines.  And their car is beautiful!  I want one.  My birthday is less than 11 months away, Loyal Readers!

Time to flush PIC lines.  I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this exciting Morrowlife Employment Agency job opportunity: glow-in-the-dark sheep!

See you tomorrow.

Here’s the apartment across the way from us, as photographed last night. Slightly fuzzy Great Art courtesy of the exclusive iPhone cam, taken from our porch during an evening phone conversation with my mother, and part of my famous Architecture and Garden series.

Wonders of WordPress today.  No post on Monday either.  I have excuses, though.  Someday I’ll tell you about them.

Kind of a tough weekend for LRN4.  She got her lumbar puncture, as previously discussed, and immediately started feeling quite sick, with a massive headache, dizziness, weakness, exhaustion, and general malaise.  Spent the entire weekend that way.  At our regular Monday appointment with our doctor, she told him what was going on.  He poked and prodded a little bit, made some phone calls to the Radiology department, and got us an appointment immediately for a procedure they call a blood patch.  That’s where they take a little bit of blood and poke it into your back so it heals up the puncture in the spinal membrane.  It worked essentially immediately and she’s feeling very good again.

Unfortunately, my takeaway from the weekend’s events is that I’m probably going to be nervous about relapses for LRN4 for a good long time.  As she felt worse and worse and her symptoms were similar to what was going on when this mess long, strange trip started, I found myself being very worried about whether LRN4 was having a relapse.  Subsequent discussion has revealed that she was feeling pretty much the same way.  Sigh.  I guess a lot of water needs to pass under that bridge before we feel really comfortable again.

And that’s about it for today.  More on Wednesday evening.  I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this shocking food violence news: hamburger heist!

See you tomorrow.

Here’s LRN3 standing in front of one of the treehouses at Longwood Gardens.  That place was even beautiful and fun in the middle of winter.  Also, cool hat, LRN3!  Great Art courtesy of the exclusive iPhone-cam, taken in March of 2012, and part of my famous Garden and Architecture series.

Do treehouses count as architecture?  In this case, mes oui!  (Did I get that right, LRN5?)

I just spent a few moments looking at that picture up there.  How I love my children!  I’m so proud of each one for the wonderful people they are.  They all face incredible challenges every day with patience and courage.  They’re all kind, gentle, loving people.  They were all such fun little children and they’re now such wonderful adults.  If I could live my life over again, I would have each one of them be the exact people they are now.  The only thing I would change is myself.  Why, oh why wasn’t I kinder, more generous and open with my love, more accepting, and more available to them?  Learn from me, Loyal Readers.  If you do nothing else, love your children while you can.

And thank you, LRN4, for dedicating your life to them and me.  It was worth it.  Still is.  You’re a great success.

Pretty long day today.  LRN4 had her third lumbar puncture and chemo treatment today.  She needed two units of platelets ahead of it, so we spent a lot of time at the clinic.  We started at 8:45 for her blood draw.  That one only took a few minutes.  We were supposed to go back at 10:30 for the results of the blood test, but they called us about an hour early.  That’s when we found out about the platelets, of course.  The way they do it is to infuse the first unit, draw blood, send it to the lab for testing, and have you wait for the results.  When the number is still too low, they infuse you again, draw blood again, and send it to the lab again for testing.  In our case, the lab people weren’t happy with second round of blood (it was clotted or some silly thing), so they drew it again and we waited again.

The lumbar puncture was scheduled for 2:00 and we still didn’t have the final results.  As happened last time, though, they told us we could go over to radiology and the blood test results would follow.  We did and they did.  It took about half an hour to get things set up and then a few more minutes to get the job done.  Then they couldn’t find a room for her to wait in.  They finally found one and wheeled her over there.

Incidentally, when we got to the room with the beds, it was completely empty.  Why couldn’t they find her a bed?  Always something to complain about, huh?

She stayed flat in bed for a total of three hours, as ordered.  It keeps the headaches at bay, for some reason I don’t completely understand.  We got out of the clinic at 6:30 this evening.  So it was a long day.  As I mentioned before.

LRN4’s not feeling 100% tonight, sadly.  I don’t know whether it was the drugs they gave her to prepare for the infusions, the drugs they gave her to numb her back for the procedure, the chemo drugs they gave her, or just that it was a tough day.  In any case, I’m hoping she’s back up to snuff tomorrow.  In fact, let’s all hope she’s back up to snuff tomorrow.

Let’s see, what else is new?  Slow but steady progress on the app.  Very slow and not particularly steady, now that I think about it.  I’m really doubting I’ll be ready to release on August 1, which is regrettable.  Maybe things will suddenly pick up very soon, but that’s not something we should count on.  I don’t even have the basic functionality working yet and there are a ton of features I still need to add.  I need to improve both my productivity and my patience.  Neither one is looking very good right now.

Also, I’m eating way too much.  And it’s showing.  Sigh.

On the good news front, our doctor asked yesterday how many days it had been since LRN4’s transplant.  I conferred briefly with my friend Siri and discovered that yesterday was day 70!  How the time has flown by.  We’re supposed to go home at the 100 day point, assuming all goes well, of course, which it pretty much is so far, so we’re in our last month as Village People.  I’m really ready to go home.  But not until LRN4 is good and ready.  Also not until her doctor is ready for us to go.  But it better be in a month or less.

Oh, regarding yesterday’s question on the opening song of Art Good’s wonderful old Lites Out San Diego radio show.  Mr. Good has a website promoting his current syndicated show called JazzTrax.  It’s very similar to Lites Out, but aimed at a national audience.  The website also promotes a couple of annual jazz festivals he hosts in Big Bear in June and on Catalina Island in October, and there’s a contact email.  I decided to take a chance and send my question to that address.  I didn’t know who would read it, but I figured they might be able to find me an answer.  Art Good himself emailed me back with the info this morning.  What a nice thing to do for an old fan!  It turned out to be Grover Washington Jr.’s title track to 1980’s Winelight.  I bought it and have already enjoyed listening to it.

Nice poster, by the way.

And that’s about it for this week.  It’s been a pretty good one.  I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this shocking food violence news: Nutella heist!

See you on Monday.

Here’s the famous green wall in the Conservatory at Longwood Gardens.  Looks pretty impressive, huh?  All those doors are bathrooms.  Hence, it’s pretty much the most popular room in the place.  Those two old guys there both look a little unhappy to be in my Great Art.  Fortunately, they’re not Loyal Readers.  Also, it was a public place.  Great Art courtesy of the exclusive iPhone-cam and part of my famous Garden and Architecture series.

Aah, the Conservatory.  That wonderful place where architecture meets gardening.  I love that place.

Fine day.  We had our Thursday medical appointment a couple hours early.  And LRN4 still didn’t need any blood product transfusions!  In fact, her platelet count was up.  Maybe her white cell count too.  We don’t remember and we forgot to get the paperwork.  So it will remain a mystery.  In any case, LRN4 will undoubtedly be getting platelets tomorrow as they prepare her for lumbar puncture/chemo number three.  No problem, man.  That’s why we’re here.

My app continues to frustrate me.  I made essentially no progress today.  Spent a lot of time today not doing anything useful.  I’m so far out of my capability zone right now, I’m just barely doing anything.  Must . . . stay . . . focused.  Must . . . figure . . . it . . . out.  This sort of thing has happened before, of course, and it has always been due to . . . human error.  I’ll get there.  I just have no idea how right now.  Ommm, ommm.

The nice people at [amazon asin=B00BGGDVOO&text=Roku] sent me an email today that included a $2 gift certificate for MP3s from Amazon.  I probably shouldn’t have accepted it, as I’m pretty sure they’ll use it to track my internet movements or attack me in some other way.  But I did it anyway.  I’m still trying to decide what to download.  I’d really like to figure out the song Art Good used to play at the beginning of his Lites Out San Diego show on KIFM back in the 80s and 90s, but I’m completely stymied.  Can’t remember either the who or the what.  So are there any other download suggestions, Loyal Readers?

And it’s bedtime again, so I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this shocking food violence news: interstate cheese theft!

See you tomorrow.

Here are some red roses, some yellow roses, and one beautiful red-yellow rose.  They’re all on the same rose bush.  I’m not sure how they do that.  Magic, maybe.  Great Art courtesy of the exclusive iPhone-cam, taken in the rose garden at the City of Hope, and part of my exclusive Garden series.

Extreme short shrift today.  It’s quite late yet again and we need to get up early tomorrow for an 8:00 blood test.  Such is life.  So I need to get to sleep Real Soon Now.

Great day.  LRN4 and I just kind of hung around.  We both worked, we both relaxed, and LRN4 even took a brief nap in the afternoon.  And we even took a nice, long walk right around sunset.  I’m not entirely clear on what LRN4 accomplished, but I’m sure it was very important.  I, on the other hand, am entirely clear on what I accomplished.

Got some good progress made on the iOS app.  It feels like I keep running over the same ground time after time, but I guess it’s all for the best.  The app is running pretty well, and I’ve even started implementing the next phase.  Good progress indeed.  I’m hoping to get the updated input from LRN2 tomorrow – or at least half of it – and start folding it in.

And I’ll stop there for the night.  Time for bed.  I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this shocking food violence news: birthday cookie cake battery!

See you tomorrow.