june 24, 1999 Last night, we had a bunch of cats out front. And one of them couldn't have been older that 3 or 4 months. A little black kitten. *sigh* S/he ran when s/he saw me look out the door, but sat just outside of the gate. This is the first time I've seen this one. Our resident cats are so curious about these other kitties. I leave the front door open for them to look out and they can also see these other cats from the window in the bedroom. Last night, Mickey was digging at the pillow, trying to get the cat below. It was so funny.

I also noticed this morning that some red cat is sleeping under the juniper on our bank. I think it's OC.

We don't have any fleas. The dogs or the cats. Brian washed Buddy and Junior last night and there wasn't a flea to be found on them. And I've been noticing that when I comb the cats, there is no flea dirt. Nor any fleas. The only pesticide we've used in years is Advantage. Finally, all gone. One thing I've read in the past is that fleas like dirt, not grass. Too damp for them. Good.

The dogs reacted to their baths differently. When finished, Junior got all excited and raced around the yard. He felt good and he was happy. Buddy dropped his head and his tail and went into the doghouse, pouting. It didn't last long, though. He was out and happy within ten minutes.

I finally learned how to use the deformation tool on my Paint Shop Pro program. Cool. Now, I can put graphics in perspective. And to think, I almost downloaded another program to do it. I'm glad I didn't. Saved some money there. Yay. I'm always happy when I figure this stuff out. Of course, the online manuals that people have taken the time and effort to write don't hurt.

june 26, 1999 It's been pretty quiet around here. Yesterday, I vacuumed and the machine wasn't picking stuff up. When the bag's full, a little thing on the front is supposed to have a red mark on it, but there was none. I opened it up, the bag was way full. I was picking packed fur and dirt out of the hose after changing the bag. Started it up. Still didn't work. *sigh* I had only done the dining room and most of the living room. Still had the tv room, bedroom and office to go. I got out the manual and started reading the troubleshooting page. Oh, man. The page numbers were messed up, so I had to start looking through it. I found a part about cleaning a filter, so I got to the filter, rinsed it out and hung it outside to dry. You can't use the machine without the filter and you can't use the filter wet.

I called the vet to find out about Georgie's food. They still hadn't called me. Shari said that she would call a different company to see if she could get it and put me on hold. A couple of minutes later, she came back on the line. The food was in already. Nobody called. Oh. I went down to pick it up ($53 for twenty pounds), then figured what the heck, I'm hungry and went to Foster's, got a burger, fries and Dr. Pepper. When I got home, Brian's truck was in the driveway. Crap.

It's not that I fast food it very often. But it always seems when I do, he shows up. Why couldn't I have just had a piece of cheese, like I normally do for lunch? I felt bad cause I didn't have anything for him, I offered him my fries. He said no. One of the first things he said when I walked in was "where's Ciara?" She wasn't in the office? "No." How long have you been home? "About five minutes." I start calling her. She was outside. She walked up to the door. I guess she ran out when I took the filter out to dry. Luckily, she was still in the yard. I went outside and brought her in.

After I finished eating, I checked the filter and it was dry. I put it back on the machine and it started right up, no problem. Yay. When Brian left, I finished the vacuuming. Picked up an awful lot of cat fur.

Last week, we got a postcard in the mail, telling us to watch a certain C-band channel on certain days (it started on Tuesday), between certain hours for important information about the loss of our networks on June 30, 1999. I did. I found out that only 2% of the viewing public have C-band systems. And that access to satellite affiliates for these viewers really didn't cost the local network affiliates (ABC, CBS, and NBC) all that much money in revenue loss. The program said that we should call our senators and to be nice. Because the problem wasn't with the senators, the problem was with the networks and their affiliates. They are the ones trying to deny us access to programming. They said to ask for a "grandfather" clause in the bill. A clause that would allow those of us that currently have access to the satellite affiliates, to keep that access. A point was made that the original bill did have this clause in it, but things are so messed up now, that it's almost impossible to tell who had service at a certain time. They also had two phone numbers. And 800 number and a long distance number. They said that using the long distance number would most likely get you put through to your senator's office more quickly. I did this yesterday morning. Yesterday afternoon, I called Netlink because they had a little flier in with their latest HBO guide that stated the new TV Guide had 4DTV programming. I sure couldn't find it, all I could find was a list of stations. I mentioned to the gentleman that I spoke with that I had called my congresswoman. He said that all the calls made must have done something, because there's a month extension on the cutoff. yay!! Hopefully, this will work.

Maggie went after Lisa yesterday. She actually chased Lisa up onto my desk, Lisa was on the scanner and Maggie had her cornered. Of course, I yelled at Maggie, who jumped down and ran to the screen door to be let out. I went over, picked her up, asked her what her problem was, she just blinked at me, then I put her back down and let her out. Lisa seems to be okay, I was afraid that Maggie got her across the eye, but she's not favoring it this morning.

And I noticed that Benny is walking around with a claw sheath above one of his eyes, just stuck in his fur. I wonder who he was fighting with.

I've been really good at cleaning the litter boxes. I'm trying to get it done twice a day now, in the morning and in the evening. Last night, three of the litter boxes had nothing new in them. That was nice. I bet the cats like clean toilets, too.

june 27, 1999 I get jokes in my email and I don't always read them as they arrive. I have quite an accumulation of unread jokes in my mailbox, so I decided to go through them. I just had to share this one:

There was an old married couple that had lived happily together for nearly forty years. The only friction in their marriage was caused by the husband's habit of breaking wind nearly every morning as he awoke. The noise would always wake up his wife and the smell would cause her eyes to water as she would choke and gasp for air.

Nearly every morning he told her that he couldn't help it. She begged him to see a doctor to see if anything could be done but the husband wouldn't hear of it. He told her that it was just a natural bodily function and then he would laugh in her face as she tried to wave the fumes away with her hands.

She told him that there was nothing natural about it and if he didn't stop, he would "fart out his guts" one day. Each day, she told him this same thing.

The years went by and the wife continued to suffer and the husband continued to ignore her warnings about "farting his guts out" until one Thanksgiving morning, before dawn, the wife went downstairs to prepare the family feast. She fixed pumpkin pie, mashed potatoes, gravy and of course, the turkey. While she was taking out the turkey's innards, a thought occurred to the wife as to how she might solve her husband's problem. With a devilish grin on her face, she placed the turkey guts into a bowl and quietly walked upstairs hours before her husband would awake. While he was still soundly asleep, she pulled back the covers and then gently pulled back her husband's jockey shorts. She then placed all the turkey guts into her husband's underwear, pulled them up and replaced the covers and tiptoed down-stairs to finish preparing the family meal.

Several hours later she heard her husband awake with his normal loud butt-trumpeting. This was soon followed by a blood curdling scream and the sound of frantic footsteps as her husband ran to the bathroom. The wife could not control herself and her eyes began to tear up as she rolled on the floor laughing. After years of putting up with him she had finally gotten even.

About twenty minutes later, her husband came downstairs in his blood stained underpants with a look of horror in his eyes. She bit her lip to keep from laughing and she asked him what was the matter. He said "Honey, you were right--all those years you warned me and I didn't listen to you." "What do you mean?" asked his wife. "Well, you always did tell me that I would end up farting my guts out one of these days and today it finally happened. But with God's help and these two fingers, I think I got 'em all back in!!"

Well, I shut down the computer early yesterday and we went for a ride in the mountains, up to Julian, in the Mustang, with the top down. I should have brought a jacket because it got kind of nippy. Brian turned on the heater and we rolled the windows up. We went a different way than usual, which was nice. You know how I feel about the other way, because that's the way to Ranchita. We drove past campgrounds and could smell the campfires. I could almost taste the burnt marshmallows. I told Brian that we should go camping some day and he said we don't have anything to camp in. I said yes, we have my going away present from the guy I lived with in my early twenties, a little dome tent. He said that there's no place for me to get up in the middle of the night and pee. I said there are restrooms at the campgrounds. Oh. Yeah. Then he said that it would be too hard with all of the animals and I said we don't have to bring them, we would leave them at home. He said ha ha. Anyway, when we got to Julian, we put the top up on the car and then we had dinner at the Rong Branch in Julian (won't do that again, we'll stick with their luncheon menu) and during dinner, Brian mentioned driving back and going through Ranchita. "Why?" I asked him. It's dark, there's nothing to see there. He just said that he would like to see it at night. Now, let me tell you, Mayberry is New York City compared to Ranchita. All Ranchita has is a little store and a realty office on a dirt lot. Nothing else. And I'm not exaggerating one little bit. I wasn't too worried about it, because on our last trip out, he promised not to go out there until we heard something positive about his offer on the property.

We left the top up on the ride home. It was after 9:30 and too cool for what we were wearing. We did have the windows down, though, and the smell of the cool, summer mountain night sent feelings from my childhood flooding through me. I love this smell, this summer smell. I told Brian I remembered it from Texas.
He said "you lived in Texas?"
"Yes, Wichita Falls."
"Gee, I never thought of Wichita Falls as being in Texas."
I started singing a little jingle from the am radio station so long ago, KNIN.
"Well, let me tell ya bout my home town in the middle of the Lone Star state. I'll have to brag a little bit, but I really won't exaggerate."
"Gee, it's been so long ago, it was thirty seven years ago, at least." Then I told him about the song that was playing when I won a radio contest. "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance" was playing when I was calling in. I won a case of Coke and a watch. I was so excited (remember, I was only seven or eight years old) that I made my mom and dad dinner. Scrambled eggs were on the stove when they got home from work. I didn't have much culinary skill at that age. (Brian and I talked about how different things were way back then, we both had working parents and came home to empty houses, when there were lots of latchkey kids without the problems they have nowadays.) We went and picked up my prizes and I took the watch to show it to one of my girlfriends. The back said "shockproof" on it. She didn't believe it. She said to throw it on the ground to see if it was. I did. It wasn't. Not *that* shockproof anyway. Easy come, easy go, I guess. I still had the case of sodapop, as we called it back then. All of this stuff because of the night air.

Anyway, we're still discussing childhood and how things have changed when I started to feel my bladder getting full. No matter, I could hold it until we got home. Then, he made the right hand turn onto the road that leads to Ranchita. No. He can't do this to me. I'm starting to get irritated. We argued about it. He kept saying "I've never seen Ranchita at night, I always wanted to see what it looks like at night." Why? There's nothing to see at night. And my bladder is getting fuller by the mile. Bumpy miles. I'm getting crankier. He says "Well, I'd like to see how the area is, what if people have floodlights like our neighbors?" (The house to the east of us, the one that's on the other side of our trees, has a big light on all night long, next to our bedroom. It's not really a problem, because there's a wall there, where our bed is.) So, I come back with "okay, so people have floodlights. Does that mean you won't want to move out there anymore?" No, it's just that he's obsessed with Ranchita. Some people gamble, some people drink, some people spend every waking minute online (I wonder who does that? *grins*), and he loves Ranchita. I can't tell you why. Maybe because that's his dream, his way out of the life he has now, it's what he's always wanted, to own his own land, to work his own land. He is, after all, a Taurus. He just kind of snorted at that comment. The car got silent. Then he said "Okay, this is it. I won't mention Ranchita and I won't come out here again until I hear something from the realtor." I told him that he had said that the last time we went out there. And that there was a chance that I wouldn't go for anymore rides with him because I didn't trust him. I'm tired of the drive to Ranchita, I'm just fed up with it and he's so damned sneaky about it. Taking me to dinner, knowing full well he wanted to go to Ranchita and trying to be sly about it by taking a different route up to begin with. I should have known. Anyway, we get out to Ranchita, we turn around and come back. I ask "well, what did you see? Anything surprise you?" No. Hmmph. I didn't think so. Meanwhile, the bladder is getting about ready to burst.

I tell him "I have to pee." I'm watching the odometer. It seems that the total mileage from the turnoff, to the place we turned around was about 22 miles. This makes it a 44 mile detour. I asked him how far is it from our house to Julian. He says about 50 miles. So, if we hadn't gone to Ranchita, I'd be real close to my toilet right now. We got back to the main road, the road that leads to home. He's not light on the gas pedal. I'm not worried, he's a good driver and it's a good little car. I'm still not talking much. Neither is he. Then, we got behind this little car. The driver was obviously not comfortable driving at night. Every time a car was coming from the other direction, this guy slowed down. Every time there was a sign saying "school bus stop, 400 feet" he almost stopped. Come on, buddy, it's ten thirty on a Saturday night, you don't have to worry about school buses. The road became winding, the caution signs said "30 MPH". The regular speed limit is 55. This guy would have to speed up to go 30 miles per hour. We were stuck behind him for a good eight miles, until we came to a passing lane. Then away we went. We finally got to a place where I could relieve myself. There was no line and I sounded like Tom Hanks in the movie "A League of Their Own". I must have lost five pounds. I felt so much better. I got back into the car and we were once again on our way home. Brian said "there's that car we were behind, ahead of us again". Nah, it can't be. This guy would have had to find his gas pedal to have caught up with us. Brian gets closer. The man had a vanity plate. Yep. It was him. I told Brian "don't you let him stay in front of us, don't you let him, I don't want to be stuck behind him again." Brian told me not to worry about it, he would cross a double yellow line to get in front of him (no, he wouldn't). So, we're in the left lane, Mr. Pokey is in the right lane. The right lane merged into the left lane. He was ahead of us on a two lane road. "Ffffffff....." I say the word. Brian laughed. Luckily, the guy pulled into a left turn lane and we were rid of him.

Talking once again, I asked Brian what the purpose of all of those headlights on some of the oncoming vehicles. I considered putting on sunglasses, they were so bright. Brian said it makes it easier for the drivers' of those vehicles to see at night. I thought about it and said that I guessed it would be nice to see the face of the driver who's been blinded by your lights as he runs head on into you.

The rest of the trip was uneventful. We got home, the cats were happy to see us. Ciara was wound up and racing through the house. We watched the last hour of "Absolute Power" then went to bed at 12:30. I woke up at 6, tired, but not sleepy. Maybe I'll take a nap later.

june 28, 1999 Today's entry is late, because I didn't want to talk about it earlier. Yesterday afternoon, Brian said that Bobby had pooped blood, then pooped a normal poop. He had cleaned it up before I had a chance to see it and I looked at where he usually sleeps. Blood. I looked for Bobby and he was under the coffee table, sitting back with his bottom up. I looked closely. Blood was spurting from his penis. Spurt....spurt.....spurt..... Scared me. Scared me bad. I called the vet's and the answering service came on. I argued with the woman on the other end. She's saying "well, you should take him to emergency if he's that bad" and I said "the doctor doesn't want me going to emergency, he wants me to call you and you call him". I swear if she would have been standing in front of me I would have kicked her in the shin. I told her about the last time I had an emergency and they didn't call his home, but left the message at his office. This was a Friday night and on Monday, the vet's office returned my call. And I had taken Kirby in on Saturday. Remember that? *sigh* That woman was glad when we were done with the phone call. Anyway, I saw Jennifer's card with her phone number on it for pet sitting. I called her. Apologized, but told her how scared I was (this looked like pure blood coming from Bob, nothing diluted with urine) and how I didn't trust the answering service to get the message through. She called the doctor and then called me back, letting me know that he hadn't answered. Jennifer asked how Bobby was acting and I told her that he was acting fine. Eating and drinking okay. She said that he would be okay until this morning, to call the office first thing if I didn't hear back from the doctor. Which I did, twenty minutes later. While I was waiting, things just kept going through my mind. One of them was I wondered if maybe he bit his penis off. I mean, this was blood, not urine. I said something to Brian about it. He said no way, that it would have hurt. I just couldn't imagine what else could be so darn bloody. And to keep pumping out, a little at a time. Anyway, the doctor said that he would be at his office in an hour, that I could meet him there, then.

At 5:30, I went to his office and waited for him to show up. I sat on the front steps, the carrier open, petting Bobby, for about ten minutes. He was in sensory overload, I think. So many things to see, so many things to smell. I looked in the office and I guess the doc was already in. I shut the carrier and went inside. He had to look at some x-rays, then he came in to check Bobby out. He expressed Bob's bladder and a lot of stuff came out. And it was gross, but it wasn't pure blood, like it had been. He did a test of it and found no crystals. He said that we could go ahead and treat this as a normal bladder infection, but that he felt we should do a little more to make sure, because of Bobby's age. He said that it could possibly be bladder cancer, but that it was very rare to find this in cats. I asked him about it and he explained that if it was a small tumor, that he could perform surgery to remove it, after making sure that Bobby would be up to surgery. If it was a bigger tumor then...... and he just left the thought hanging. He advised that I bring Bobby in today to have a bladder contrast done, where they x-ray the bladder as normal, then with air, then with dye. Anything bad would show up on the x-rays. I said okay, thanked him for seeing us on a Sunday.

Last night, I cradled Bobby in my arms like a baby. I talked gently to him, telling him that we would do what was best for him. We wouldn't make him hang on just to keep ourselves happy. My tears fell softly on his coat. I noserubbed him repeatedly, kissing his eyes and nose. I said my goodbyes to him. I never really got to say goodbye to Sandy or Blackie and I didn't want that to happen with Bobby. He fell asleep in my arms. I placed him tenderly back onto his heating pad, where he rested.

Last night, I heard him crying and I got out of bed. He wanted back up in his condo, which meant that he had most likely pottied in the garage. I went to check it out and I saw the puddle of urine, which was clear. No blood. This was good. Then a few hours later, he had gone again. This time, there was a small clot of blood in it. Later still, while I was placing him in the carrier, I noticed more blood on the heating pad cover. He was bleeding again, but urine diluted. I took him to the vet's and dropped him off. It was ten am. They said they would call.

Knowing that they start taking clients again a little after three, I called at three. Was he done? I was told that the doctor was just now looking at the x-rays that he had taken. I was on hold for about five minutes when the doctor came on the line. My hands were shaking. My stomach was in knots. I braced myself for the bad news. Bobby is fine. The x-rays showed nothing. I let out a sigh of relief. The doctor said it was probably hemorragic cystitis. He said that we would treat it with amoxicillan and a half a tab of prednisone a day for a week. I could come get Bobby.

I paid bills this morning and I didn't get them finished before the mail came. And I had to put some money in the bank to cover the checks. I went to the post office, dropped off the envelopes (twenty one of them) and then to the bank. Then to pick up Bobby. The doctor wanted me to see Bobby's x-rays before I left. He showed me each one and explained what we were looking at. How tumors would have shown up, if there had been any. And said that he was glad that Bobby was okay. I think he was a little scared, too.

Bobby's home now, in his normal spot. He drank an awful lot of water. He's sure one tough kitty, a real fighter. I'm glad.

june 29, 1999 Bobby's doing better this morning. He seems to have somewhat lost control of his bladder, but I have a steam cleaner that will take care of that. Fortunately, he doesn't lay on the couch. Just his condo or the floor. The good thing is that there isn't much blood. He has had an occasional spot, but nothing like he had on Sunday. He didn't pee in the garage at all, which makes it kind of hard to keep an eye on what his urine looks like. But he's pooping fine. And there's nothing wrong with his appetite. He had lost .03 of a pound since his visit last November. He did weigh 7.14 lbs, and yesterday he weighed 7.11. So, that's not too bad.

I'm getting a new computer. Remember the Real Jukebox I mentioned a couple of months ago? Well, it kept freezing my system and I didn't understand why. I emailed the provider of the service and was told that one of the system minimums was a speed of at least 200. My system has 166. I called my computer guy to get a ballpark price for getting a faster processor and more RAM, before I mentioned anything to Brian. Sean said that it would be best to just start with a new system, then do add-ons. Get a new CD Rom drive for one thing. He said that he is a dealer for Gateway. I went over and checked out the Gateway website after I had hung up talking with him. I talked to Brian about upgrading and he was kind of iffy on it. Then, of course, the wheels start turning in my brain. This thing runs so smoothly, I swear, you can't hear a thing going on in there. I realized that the new system comes with a sound card, a CD Rom, a parallel port, a keyboard.....enough so that my current computer would still be complete. We would have two complete systems. My old monitor is still in the shop, in a box, in storage. Ah....I have it. I wait for Brian to come home. I tell him my idea. "Honey, you know, we will have two complete systems, once I get my new computer set up. How about we give the old one to your brother?" See, Mark has been talking about buying a new computer for a couple of years now. Why buy one, when he can have a pretty good entry level system for free? He went for it.

This was Friday. So, yesterday, I call up my computer guy. We talk. He asks if I can get online while on the phone. Well, sure, what do you think we are, in the stone age? *grins* So, I go to the Gateway sight. And I find out from Sean that he isn't a dealer *yet*. He's in the process of becoming one. So, we read through the options available. We go for the 13gig system. The speed is 433. No, don't need the monitor, subtract $215.00 from the price. Then, it has a printer that comes with the system. I have two Epson color printers, a Hewlett Packard laser printer and my old Brother typewriter/printer. I don't need the one that comes with the system. Scroll down the menu bar to see how much not getting the printer will save us. Nothing. What? This makes no sense. You get rid of a piece of equipment, you should save money. Sean says "do you have another phone line?" Yeah. He says, "well call 1-800-GATEWAY." "Oh, hey," I sez to him, "do you want me to try to make it a conference call, so you can be on the phone at the same time?" He thought that was a good idea. Modern technology is amazing, isn't it? We've had these phones for years and this is the first time I've done this. I put him on hold, dial Gateway. They answer and I push conference call. I can hear Sean. We are transferred to sales. We talk to Hayes. We go through what I want in my system. He says the mid sized tower is a $50 addition. We say the website has $40. I get it for $40. We ask about the printer. It's a promotional thing right now. It's free with the system. Oh, great, now my brother-in-law won't need to purchase a printer. I ask about the internal modem. He says it's standard, you can't not get it. Fine, I'll give my current external modem to my brother-in-law (his system is looking better and better). We talked about the processing speed for a little bit. Sean had another phone call and then it was just Hayes and me talking. He asked what I was using my system for. I said a little bookkeeping and a lot of graphics. He mentions that for an additional $65 I can upgrade the chip to a pentium III, 450 megaherz speed, with 512K cache. This also would give me a three year warranty instead of the normal one year. The system we were looking at had 433 speed and 128K cache. Hmmm.....no more messages about no more system resources....that sounds nice. I say "Pentium III? I don't want people to know about me, what I do online." (Not that I do anything, it's kind of like, I don't have a very exciting life, but I still don't want people sticking their noses where they don't belong.) He told me that they disable that function. Well, okay, I say reluctantly, thinking 512K cache.... We do the deed. Sean came back on the line and I told him about the upgrade. He's excited. After getting my address and method of payment (credit card) Hayes says the system arrival date should be Friday. He gives me the price. I don't cough into the phone. (Brian's going to kill me, Brian's going to kill me, he's gonna be so mad. I just won't give him the total price, that's it, I just won't tell him. I'll skirt that issue. Oh, he's gonna kill me, I just know it.) Hayes hangs up and I go back to a single line with Sean.

He's a happy camper. He's looking forward to this. I told him that it was supposed to be here Friday. He says "call me when it gets here and we can schedule a time for me to be out there." I remind him of the three day weekend. "A three day weekend? What for?" Fourth of July. "What day is that on?" Sunday. "Oh, kewl," he says. So, hopefully, by the end of next week, I'll have a brand new system. Sean charges $59 an hour and he thinks it should take about two hours to do what he has to do. Transfer my scsi card for the scanner, transfer one of my parallel ports for the webcam. And transfer my files over to the new system. He's looking forward to it.

So, Brian gets home and I tell him I've done it. I've ordered the system. It's supposed to be here Friday. He gets quiet. Quiet isn't always good with Brian. It means he's thinking. (Brian's going to kill me, Brian's going to kill me. I just know it.) He said "I just wish you would have checked around more." For what? I ask. Gateway is one of the best systems available. We talk about it over dinner. McDonald's. With all of my worrying and running around today, I didn't even think about dinner. I don't understand what he doesn't understand. He finds an analogy, a way to phrase his question. "Okay, you want to buy a new car, right? You go to the dealership, there's the car you want for $10,000. Or, you can go to the parts department and buy all of the parts and build it yourself for twice as much." Ah!!! The light in my head goes on. I see what he's having a problem with. "Okay, honey, same analogy. A new car. You buy the bottom of the line vehicle, then you add a camper shell to it. You add a new stereo system to it. You add the Ernie Banks [I always get this wrong, it's GAIL Banks] thing on the engine, to help gas mileage. You have add ons that aren't available when the vehicle is manufactured. In my case, Gateway won't install an additional parallel port. And since there's nothing wrong with my scanner and the card that came with it, why buy new ones when I've got ones here that work? Yes, I can get those with the new system, but at an additional cost. Why pay for something I already have?" He finally gets it. He relaxes. He just doesn't want me crying for something new next year. I tell him that it should be a while before I need anything else. He thinks I'm a computer geek.

Well, I'm disappointed in my garden. I really thought it got more sun than it does. The stuff just isn't growing well. The plants that get the most sun are doing great, like the zucchini, lettuce and the tomatoes. I told Brian I'm not going to plant stuff next year, not vegetables. I'll just plant catnip. There's enough light for catnip. I can grow a lot of catnip in that little area. And that will just grow and grow and grow. Maybe I'll have enough to include with lisaviolet clothing.

june 30, 1999 Well, it's done. The doctor's appointment is over. I'm home eating a l'eggo waffle with peanut butter and jelly. I was really hungry. This morning I told Brian that I was glad I wasn't constipated or anything like that. I told him "yeah, the doctor's gonna put his finger up my butt and then put this other thing up me and scrape skin off for the pap smear." Brian, always the queasy one said "you didn't have to tell me that" and I say, "well, sure I did, you're my husband and I want to share my life with you!!" *BEG*

I take my shower, get dressed and off I go. I walk up the flight of stairs to the second floor, find his office and go up to the receptionist. I give her my name, she looks at my chart. Let's see, you were last here in 87 or 97? "87," I tell her, "I'm here for my decadely visit." I have to fill out another form. When I handed it to her I told her that I'm going to be good and get all of my checkups as I'm supposed to. I said I've been good at going to the dentist. I also say that I'm not even nervous. Somehow, we talk about dentists and gynecologists and being nervous. I said, well, the dentist is right there in your face. You don't see the other doctor. Besides, they're both working on holes. *snicker*

Anyway, the visit went well. They didn't weigh me. The nurse took my blood pressure (high-not good) and told me to undress completely, put on the top part of the gown and just lay the sheet over me. She had told me how to put on the top part (opening front) but I didn't remember and put in on the other way. As I sat there waiting for the doctor to come in, I realized that if he's gonna feel for lumps in my breasts, that the opening should be in the front. Only logical, big duh here. So, I'm turning the damn thing around and in he walks. I'm all twisted up in this flimsy sheet of paper, my arms all twisted and I started laughing. "I had it on wrong," I said. He turns his back. I laugh more. "Hey, I doubt that I have anything you've never seen before." He chuckled, said "it's been a long time since I've seen what you've got." I said "well, I'm not shy."

He asked me questions about how things have been, when my last period was, have I been on any medications (I almost forgot about the Keflex for my bad tooth) and I kept wanting to ask him my questions. I kept interrupting him and he finally pretended he was going to strangle me. I just grinned and told him I'd let him finish then ask my questions. I asked him about the basal temperature of women in menopause. Since they never ovulate, does their temperature stay lower? He didn't know. Nobody has ever asked him that question. Well, hey, not everybody has an enquiring mind like me. I asked him about the pain in my side. He said that if it doesn't happen constantly, it's not a problem to worry about. If there was something wrong, it would hurt all of the time (whew!!). I mentioned the previous Aunt Flo visitation and how I just knew I was dying and he said that it was most likely stress.

I had told the nurse about what I said to Brian this morning and she said "I hope it wasn't during breakfast". Then I told the doctor, too. He said the same thing she did. And I said "well, he did have to change his shirt" which he did do because he had gotten peanut butter on it. LOL!! He did his scraping and then put his fingers inside and started pushing from the outside as well as the inside, feeling for growths that didn't belong. He said everything felt fine. He gave me a number to call for a mammogram and told me that he would see me in a year.

Yay!!

lisaviolet is fifty something, married with no kids, takes care of lots of cats, likes taking photographs, loves Southern California weather and spends altogether too much time avoiding her responsibilities.

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