morrowlife

Here’s Shannon hosting Paul and Melissa’s wedding in our house in Virginia. What a great day that was. And doesn’t Shannon look beautiful? The bride was also beautiful, incidentally. Also talented, capable, and kind. Paul married very well. But for my money, the real star is right here in this picture. Slightly fuzzy Great Art courtesy of my good old Minolta camera, taken by Mark, and part of my famous Shannon and Event series.

As predicted this morning yesterday, we had blackened tilapia, steamed vegetables, and tossed salad for dinner tonight. It was delicious! Even Mark loved it. Blackened tilapia is really easy to make, as it turns out. I have no plans for tomorrow yet, but I’m leaning towards either something that will use a large chicken breast I have in the freezer or spaghetti. Decisions, decisions.

No dinner plans need to be made for Saturday. Cruise time!

Of course, I’ll need to get to the store right after I get home because I don’t think we’ll have all that much left to eat by then. I really need to figure out what food we actually have around here and then figure out how to cook it. So much to think of and to figure out.

I really missed Shannon this evening. I was so excited about making an actual good meal that I was dying to tell her about it. She would have been so proud of me and my little minor accomplishment. She would have lavished praise on me, and she would have meant it. She was the only person I’ve ever had that I could talk to. She was my only friend, really. She was the only person welcome into my personal space, both physically and emotionally. I love the kids and I love my brothers and sisters and I can talk to any of them, of course, but Shannon was my confidant. I miss her. I want her back. I just don’t know how to live without her.

But I will live without her. I won’t get her back, but I will go on. My new life is underway. It’s okay to keep missing her. But I won’t get her back.

Okay, that’s it for that subject for now. Cruise preparations continue at a leisurely pace. I did a bit of thinking about weather this morning. It’s supposed to be beautiful in Mexico the whole time we’re there, but Los Angeles is predicted to have some pretty strong rain with high surf warnings on Saturday. So I ran over to Walgreen’s and got some Dramamine. Just in case the going gets a bit rough that first day or so. Don’t want to have to miss my evening chocolate melting cake that first night.

Shannon’s death certificates arrived today. I got 12 copies. That was probably way more than I needed, but I was advised to get several. Everybody seems to need one. I’ve already sent one off to my former employer in order to get my retirement income raised to the “no survivor benefit” level. I also sent one to our life insurance company. I’ll also need another one for the Social Security people. I think our bank will need one too. That leaves me with eight spares. Yeah, I think I got more than I needed.

And I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this exciting Morrowlife Employment Agency job opportunity: drug-addled pigeon!

See you tomorrow.

Here are Shannon, Katie, and Belle striking an incredibly cute pose on my 46th birthday. Looks like Shannon was taking her usual birthday photos as they lavished gifts on me. Great Art courtesy of my old Minolta camera, taken in our family room in Virginia, and part of my famous Shannon and Event series.

Today was my mom’s last day here. We take her to the airport at about noon tomorrow. I’ve really enjoyed her visit, but she needs to get home so she can get ready to visit Tony in Florida in another week.

We went and visited downtown Boulder City and downtown Henderson this afternoon. Had lunch at a place in Boulder City that Guy Fieri had featured in his TV show. The food was good. The downtowns weren’t all that much.

Not a lot of other news. I haven’t forgotten about Shannon, of course. I think about her constantly. I still have frequent moments thinking “I can’t wait to show/tell this to Shannon!” Then, immediately: “Crap.” That’s my old life. I miss my old life. I miss my wife. I miss my love. I miss my happiness. But that life, that wife, that love, and that happiness are in the past. My new happiness is in the future.

I keep telling myself that. But it’s really hard to turn and face the future and start to move forward. I want to keep looking back and remembering and feeling, even if just for a brief moment, how I felt before. So much is unchanged – my surroundings, my possessions, my work, my feelings, my emotions, myself. But those things need to be the building blocks of my new life. I want my new life. I do. But I still want my old life even more, I think. That can’t be, so I must learn to let that go. How, Loyal Readers? How?

Shannon was in my dreams last night. It wasn’t anything unusual or significant – we were just living life. She was getting a new car and I was trying to decide whether to keep her old one for myself. It was nice. I suspect those dreams will fade with time. I don’t want them to.

And I need to quit for tonight. I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this shocking food violence news: diner chainsaw attack!

See you tomorrow.

Here’s a bit of Great Art from Shannon and Mia. Originally, it had a beard made out of paper loops – 24 of them, to be exact. It was a really cute little advent calendar. Now, it’s garbage. Great Art courtesy of Shannon, Mia, and the exclusive iPhone-cam, taken on our kitchen countertop, and part of my famous Event and Vacation series.

The event was Christmas, of course.

Notice anything different, Loyal Readers? That’s right, I’m no longer calling Loyal Readers by their Loyal Reader number. I’m tired of it, so it’s time for a change. It was fun while it lasted, wasn’t it? Wasn’t it? Hello? Anybody?

Pretty good weekend. Shannon’s doing quite well pneumonia-wise. She’s feeling good, although they’ve had to pump up her oxygen just a little bit. She’ll get off of it sooner or later. She was able to take a shower today for the first time since she went into the hospital, which made her feel great. She’s breathing better, looking better, eating better, and in every way greatly improved.

Now for the less-good news. Even though today was day four of chemo, her white count continues to go up and the percentage of blasts in the white cells is also increasing. It’ll get into the danger zone pretty soon. Fortunately, we’ve been in this situation before – last August to be exact. The chemo she’s getting is pretty slow to act, so it’s not unexpected. But her numbers need to start lowering pretty soon. Keeping fingers crossed for that to happen right away.

Made a little progress on the work front. I’ve been working on the documentation for PhotoDoc. There is a TON more work to do, but it’s moving forward again. I’ve also been working on PhotoDoc’s logo. I’ll show it to you as soon as it’s finalized. Many thanks to non-Loyal-Reader Matt for working on it for me. Also many thanks to non-Loyal-Reader Clifford for working on the videos my non-Loyal-Reader partner John has made. All that delegation is starting to pay off.

Got my new business cards in the mail today. They look very professional, as far as I’m concerned. Behold:

The phone number and email address have been obscured to keep the spammers at bay. If any of my Loyal Readers want to get in touch with me, you already know where I am.

Although that information was also in the post from a few days ago. But nobody will notice that one, will they? This one looks just like the artist’s conception, doesn’t it?

And that’s about it for today. I’m trying to get to bed earlier and now’s the time. I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this exciting Morrowlife Employment Agency job opportunity: Cookie Monster of the sea!

See you tomorrow.

Here’s our table full of Santas. All ready for Christmas. Great Art courtesy of the exclusive iPad-cam, taken on December 7, 2013 at home in Las Vegas, and part of my famous Event and Las Vegas series.

Christmas is an event, right?

Well, LRN4 is in the hospital, as predicted. We called our doctor on Wednesday morning and told him what was going on. He told us to go to the emergency room. So we did. The hospital was really busy – they had to keep her in the emergency room for about 12 hours before they could find her a room – and the nurses were quite busy, but they always give nice service there. They started the antibiotics flowing right away.

She had another feverish night last night. We’ve been concerned that the antibiotics might not be working. It appears that things are starting to improve by now, though. She was running a bit of a fever this afternoon again, so they gave her some Tylenol and it went away quickly. As of 10:00 this evening when I left the hospital, it wasn’t back. The rash continues to spread, but it seems to be fading where it first appeared. So what does that mean? I don’t know, But they still tell us they think we’ll be out of there by Sunday at the latest.

We were delighted to see Dr. Lipman, our old infectious disease specialist. He’s a really nice guy and an excellent doctor. We feel very confident that he’ll get LRN4 fixed up and do it in time for our Houston trip if it can be done.

Made some additional arrangements this evening with the airline for next week’s trip. We’re going on Spirit, which appeared to be cheaper than Southwest when LRN4 made the reservations. However, the price just went up by $200 when we prepaid for our carryon luggage and seat assignments. Next time, we’ll go on Southwest, I suspect. They don’t charge extra for everything under the sun and their planes are a bit more comfortable to boot.

Little work yesterday and today. I’m waiting for LRN23 to define some test cases for the app I wrote for him, after which we’ll finish testing and submit. I’m trying to get that done before Apple’s Christmas shutdown. I got a bunch of information on my booth at the February conference today and LRN4 and I spent some time brainstorming how we want to set it up. So there’s a bit of progress there.  We’re planning to do some layouts and finalize our plans very soon. I still have a ton of testing and documentation to get done. The deadline for a working app and a draft user’s manual is still the end of this month.  Busy, busy, busy!

Lots of other things to do while LRN4 is in the clink. We got our Christmas cards all addressed (I printed labels today), return addressed (used labels we already had), stuffed, stamped, and licked. Actually, LRN4 did all the work except printing the labels and carrying them back and forth to the hospital. And I hepped! Tomorrow, LRN2 and I are wrapping all the out-of-town presents and sending them out. While I’m at it, I think I’ll wrap the gifts I have for LRN4 too. Might as well have something under the tree, huh?

And I’ll head for bed and leave my Loyal Readers with this shocking food violence news: jaw-dislocating hamburger! This time, it was the food that committed the violence.

See you tomorrow.

Here’s a band that no longer exists.  Clifford informed me a couple days ago that The Brewing Company ceased to exist about three weeks ago. The world is a poorer place for it. Fortunately, The Clifford Brown Trio has stepped in to take its place. So there’s that. Great Art courtesy of the exclusive iPhone-cam (the old version), taken right after a performance in April, 2011, and part of my famous Event series.

Happy Thanksgiving tomorrow! I’m looking forward to the day.

LRN4 spent the day at the hospital and the doctor’s office today – a total of about 15 hours, in fact. She started out at the hospital getting a couple units of red cells. Then she went to her doctor’s office for today’s chemo treatment. While she was there, they checked her blood and decided she needed some platelets, which had originally been scheduled for Sunday (and I suspect she’ll need more on Sunday too). Unfortunately, the transfusion people at the hospital were going home early today, so she had to go to the emergency room for the platelets. That ended up taking about eight hours. Very unfortunate.

On a positive note, LRN5 spent the day with her. So they had a nice time together. A nice, long time together. No chemo tomorrow, Friday, Saturday, or Sunday. Should be very pleasant.

I went over to the LBIL’s house late this afternoon to help him start setting up his little Christmas village. We barely made a dent into it, but we had a nice time. I’ll be back over there again during the next couple of days to continue the work.

LRN3 and I went to Costco and bought some new non-prescription drugs for LRN4 this morning. We were going to buy some rolls and sour cream there, but the store was so crowded and the checkout line was so long that we decided to take our business to Walmart. They were fairly crowded too, but we were able to quickly grab the couple of things we needed and check out at the self-service checkout stand. Much better situation.

I miss our old Costco’s self-checkout. It was a lot faster. I also miss the option to buy snack bar items at the checkout. I have no idea why they won’t do that here. I mentioned it to a checker once, and she got really nasty with me over it. Very strange. Also very, very bad customer service. Unbelievably bad, in fact. She was exceptionally rude and nasty about the whole thing.

LRN3 and I dropped in on the upholstery shop that’s scheduled to fix my beloved pickup’s torn seat. They had ordered the upholstery fabric several weeks ago and had never called me to tell me it was in. It turns out he was waiting for me to drop by, I guess. We’re scheduled to have it done next Wednesday. I’m looking forward to the seat looking right again.

Several of our group spent time cooking stuff for tomorrow late this evening after LRN4 and LRN5 got back. There’s still a whole lot to get done tomorrow morning. Hopefully, everything will get done on time. If not, I guess it won’t get done.

LRN23 should be in Las Vegas by now. He’ll be dropping by for dinner tomorrow. Looking forward to seeing him. Thanks for coming all the way out here, LRN23!

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

See you tomorrow.