morrowlife

Here’s Shannon posing by an archway of orchids. This picture is significant because it’s the last one I can find of Shannon before she got sick. We were one month and a day away from the event that would change our lives forever – her cancer diagnosis. And everything was perfectly fine. Great Art courtesy of the exclusive iPhone-cam, taken at Longwood Gardens in Pennsylvania during the Orchid Festival just about a week before we came to Las Vegas, and part of my famous Shannon, Architecture, Event, and Garden series.

I’m posting later than usual tonight because I sat outside from about 11:00 to midnight watching the lunar eclipse. It was beautiful! I sat in my comfortable chair on the back patio with the moon centered directly above me. The night was cool but pretty comfortable – temperatures in the mid-sixties. The skies were perfectly clear. It was beautiful. I tried to get pictures with the exclusive iPad-cam, but its automatic brightness adjustment made it quite difficult. This is the best I could get:

That was taken when the eclipse was at just about 100%, so you can see the iPad was trying its best to see some light there. Anyway, it was spectacular. I’m glad I stayed up to watch it.

Didn’t accomplish a whole lot else today. I bought groceries at Costco and Winco. I did some reading. Talked with a few people on the phone, including Tony, who just returned from a Caribbean and Mexican cruise. He saw Chichen Itza. That’s someplace I’d love to go someday.

Had a bit of a sick day yesterday. The wind was blowing pretty hard, and I had stuffed up sinuses and a massive headache most of the day. At bedtime, I took my temperature. It was at about 99.5. A little later, I got up and checked it again. It was 100. Even later, I checked it again. It was 101. When I got up in the morning, it had gone back down to 99 and it’s normal by now. I don’t know if the fever is caused by my allergies or if I got a bit of the flu again. It was around a couple of sick relatives on Saturday, but I don’t think I was really exposed to anything. Another mystery.

And that’s about it for today. I didn’t work, although I should have. That’s the beauty of my life right now. But tomorrow I plan to get a bunch of stuff done. Yeah, that’s it. Tomorrow.

I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this rare combination food violence news and exciting Morrowlife Employment Agency job opportunity: customer tries to buy beer with live alligator as currency!

See you tomorrow.

Here are Shannon and me posing last November in front of our front door here in Las Vegas. As you can see, her hair was coming back in nicely. As you can also see, her protracted serious illness hadn’t diminished her beauty. What a cute couple! Oh, how I miss being a part of that couple. Great Art courtesy of Shannon’s wonderful Canon EOS Rebel T3 camera, taken in front of our house, and part of my famous Shannon, Las Vegas, and Architecture series.

No post yesterday. I forgot until it was too late. Mark and I hung out in the jacuzzi from about 10:00 until 12:30. By then, I was tired and it was too late to write. So I didn’t. I can’t tell you how bad I feel about that, Loyal Readers.

Another thing I didn’t do: acknowledge the two-month anniversary of Shannon’s death on Wednesday. I did remember it on the day, thought of Shannon, and quietly grieved. But I wasn’t as desperate as a month ago. I strangely feel kind of guilty to be doing as well as I am (functional and relatively happy, although terribly lonely) so soon. But I’m not interested in being any more miserable and I’m also not interested in feeling guilty about recovering. So many mixed emotions.

Mark and I went with our friend Mark to First Friday Las Vegas tonight. We had dinner and a smoothie from a food truck, walked around, listened to the music, and looked at the Great Art. We spent roughly three hours or so and had a very nice time. It was a bit outside of my comfort zone (I’m a notorious crowd and noise hater), but it was fun. I might even do it again. Or maybe not.

No work today, unfortunately. I spent a bunch of time on the phone getting Shannon’s credit cards canceled. I still haven’t been to the Social Security office and I have no idea whether I’m supposed to get her driver’s license and/or passport canceled. Maybe Google knows. Hold on a minute.

Okay, I’m back. It looks like the passport people will cancel her passport if I want them to, but I don’t have to. The driver’s license people are pretty much the same. So we’ll have to see what happens. No promises.

And I need to go to sleep. I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this exciting Morrowlife Employment Agency job opportunity: communicating, cooperating chimpanzee!

See you on Monday.

Here are a bunch of us at Fonthill Castle, in Doylestown, Pennsylvania, shortly before we moved to California. From left to right, there are Sandy, Mark, Shannon, Andy, me, Kris, and Annie. Great Art courtesy of Scott’s old Kodak camera, taken by Scott, and part of my famous Shannon and Architecture series.

Here’s a closeup of the group:

I think that’s a pretty good picture of all involved. Fonthill Castle was an fascinating place. But it’s late and I don’t really have the time to tell much about it, other than that it was Henry Mercer’s place, it was all made out of cement and they kind of made it up as they went. Read about it here.

No post yesterday. I forgot. I think it may actually be a good sign that I keep forgetting to post all of a sudden. Maybe I just have less grief to put down in words every day. Not that there isn’t still grief there, and plenty of it. There’s just less. I’m happy about that. I’m not trying to rush it and I’ll never be done with it, but it doesn’t need to remain front and center in my life at all moments.

Still not feeling able to really put my nose to the old grindstone, work-wise. I’ll get there. Going to try again tomorrow.

Had a nice quiet weekend. I went to my niece Laura’s son Jarren’s fifth birthday party on Sunday afternoon. I think that makes Jarren my grandnephew. Anyway, they had it at one of those bouncy house places called Pump It Up. The kids had a great time and I enjoyed chatting with Ken, Melanie, and their son-in-law Diego. It was nice to get out and see people.

Mark and I started going to the gym again on Monday. It was his idea, chiefly. Our therapist suggested exercise to him, so we’re working on getting some. We’re going a little later in the morning than we used to do when we first moved here, which is okay by me. I’m a bit sore tonight, but it feels good to be back there.

And it’s extremely late, so I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this exciting Morrowlife Employment Agency job opportunity: pet bison!

See you tomorrow.

Here’s the giant Christmas tree at the hospital where LRN4 is currently staying, as viewed from the third floor. Great Art courtesy of the exclusive iPhone-cam, taken during LRN4’s hospital stay here in Las Vegas earlier this month, and part of my famous Architecture, Las Vegas, and Medical series.

Not that I wouldn’t have another opportunity to take pictures of that tree. As predicted yesterday, LRN4 is in the hospital again. She’s been determined to have Influenza A and pneumonia and they’re treating her accordingly. She reports that she’s already starting to feel better.

I’m feeling a bit better also, but I’ve been really, really sick for a few days. I didn’t go to the hospital today because of it, which I truly regret, but which was unfortunately essential. We spoke this evening via FaceTime, but it wasn’t the same as being there. I’m fervently hoping to be well enough to go over there tomorrow, at least for a while. It’s our thirty-fifth anniversary and I really want to be together.

If it’s not wise for me to be there, we’ll be together later, of course. I’ve missed our anniversary once, when I spent the entire Christmas week in Baikonur, and we lived to tell the tale. But I really want to be together anyway.

We had plans to go out tomorrow evening. Canceled, but will be rescheduled.

LRN1 and his girlfriend were supposed to arrive today and go home on the 31st. Canceled. Will hopefully be rescheduled in 2014. So sad.

LRN5 and her family go home tomorrow. Also so sad. Their visit has been a really good one, in spite of the fact we all felt terrible most of the time. Come back again soon, Loyal Readers!

Nothing else going on right now, so I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this exciting Morrowlife Employment Agency job opportunity: psychic crocodile!

See you on Monday.

Here’s a rocket emerging from the assembly building at Baikonur. It’s on its way to the launch pad.  Great Art courtesy of . . . umm . . . some old low-res digital camera, taken by me in June 2001 at Baikonur, Kazakhstan, and part of my famous Architecture and Machinery series.

Yeah, there’s some architecture in this picture. Pretty rickety-looking architecture at that. There were some terrible buildings there. But the clean rooms were very, very clean. Really.

Very good several days since my last post. Sadly, most of the Loyal Readers have now gone home. LRN5 and family left on Saturday afternoon and LRN1 and girlfriend left this afternoon. LRN3 is out tomorrow night. Boo hoo! I miss everybody already. We had a great time.

Didn’t do too much this weekend. Had a great Thanksgiving with just the ten of us here at the house. We went to LRN31’s house on Friday evening for family bingo and snacks. Had fun there. The kids went out on the town a couple times, we jacuzzified a time or two, we ate a ton of great food, the kids all played about a million video games, and we generally enjoyed being together.

LRN4 is doing pretty well. She got a bunch of blood on Sunday, so her counts were really good today. Her white cell count is down to 0.2, which is very good. And she’s been feeling pretty good. She did a ton of work all week and lived to tell the tale. So there’s that. We’re getting very serious about a clinical trial at MD Anderson Medical Center in Houston. We plan to go there for a consultation later this month, if everything works out. Full of hope over this.

We got a couple of new games and some DVDs from LRN8 a few days ago. What a nice Thanksgiving present! And we never receive Thanksgiving presents. Of course, we never give them either. She sent us four [amazon text=Disney dog movies&asin=B008H6GHLU], a game called [amazon text=5 Second Rule&asin=B003BLQG6M], and one more game called [amazon text=Spot It&asin=B0039S7NO6]. Thanks, LRN8! They’re all a ton of fun.

Didn’t do any Black Friday shopping this year. I really didn’t want to face those crowds. A few of our guests went but nobody seemed to find any really great deals anyway. And I don’t care. I’m sick of Black Friday. It’s stupid and it has turned violent at Walmarts all over the country. Time to put it out of its misery, thus ending our misery.

And that’s about it for today. I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this exciting Morrowlife Employment Agency job opportunity: lion-impersonating dog!

See you tomorrow.