eric135

Recycling computer monitors and TVs...

We watched another episode of Hoarders, which led to another burst of cleaning and purging.

We finally got rid of two broken televisions (a 33" and a 27") and two broken computer monitors. None of these were the new sleek light models, they were heavy behemoths. Once again, I used my luggage cart to wheel them all down to the car.

We decided to take them to a recyling company downtown. If you are in Phoenix, the company is called Westech Recyclers, and is located in downtown Phoenix near the corner of Madison St. and 10th Ave.

I finally dismantled two of those black torchiere lamps that had been broken and gathering dust for a decade in my office.

That still leaves a flat screen computer monitor (broken), three old computer CPUs (once we wrench the hard drives out of them), and yet another TV.

Amazingly, even after this purge of broken TV sets, that still leaves us with four TV sets, one in each room.

An unexpected day off

Census at the hospital has been low, and I got canceled for my shift last night.

It's funny when nurses get canceled to work. Lower census happens periodically, but my philosophy is that the patients that don't come in tonight will just come tomorrow, and then it will be busy as hell. I always chuckle when employees worry about layoffs just because we have a few days of lower census. Without fail, the following week, everyone is on overtime and the staffing office is calling folks to work extra.

So tonight, we decided to make an evening of it.

We did a little bit of shopping.

We both got our hair cut.

We went to our favorite restaurant for dinner (The Golden Wok, near Cactus and Tatum). When we go out, this is where we usually go, and we pretty much get the same things every time.

We went to Target and bought an over-the-top star for our Christmas tree. It actually took us trips to two Targets to find one to our liking.

We went to Borders Books, where I bought some magazines, a book on drawing/sketching, and a fresh new Moleskine notebook (I like the small ones with the gridlines). Whilie we were there, we saw this for sale, sitting among the Science Fiction paperbacks:

 It's Pon Farr, the fragrance. We made spectacles of ourselves giggling geekily while reading the boxes.

OK off to bed... Doubt I'll get canceled two nights in a row...

Food Inc; Certified Humane Raised and Handled Food

We have been unusually sensitive about the humane treatment of animals, after the loss of two of our kitties (sadly, both passed within a month of each other). My room mate rented Food Inc. It was quite an eye opener, but we had always known that, as meat eaters, we would have to reluctantly turn a blind eye about where our meat comes from. The movie did mention that there are farmers out there who also believe in the humane treatment of food animals -- that they have space to engage in "normal behaviors," get nutritious food, aren't pumped full of steroids or antibiotics, and are slaughtered humanely. We just didn't know how to find any of these products.

So I did some work on Google and found the website of Humane Farm Animal Care, which puts a label on foods that have been humanely raised. Looks like we may be spending more of our meat dollars at Whole Foods and/or Wild Oats.

Humane Farm Animal Care from Nathan Friedkin on Vimeo.

A list of Arizona stores that carry humanely produced meats.

The Pompitous of Love

  Our dear Boykitty has died. It's been more than two weeks since he passed. We had brought him to the veterinarian because he was limping and had an infection in his paws. When we did bloodwork, it turned out he was diabetic, was in renal failure, and xrays showed an enlarged heart and possibly lung cancer.

We took him home, giving him subcutaneous fluids (just like Ladykitty), but now also an antibiotic (Augmentin) and 2 units of insulin twice a day. It was too much for him; I think the fluids (which he needed for the renal failure) probably put him in heart failure, and the insulin put his blood sugar too low. After a couple of days keeping him close to us, with all of us camped out in the living room, with some sort of treatment every few hours, we woke up to Boykitty having seizures and unresponsive.

We took Boykitty to the vet, where the slight tremors became really big ones, and they did a STAT blood sugar too low for the meter to read. They gave him some sort of IV glucose solution, but after a few minutes of watching the seizures, we made the decision to let our dear friend and companion die in peace. We held him in the end.

It's been a tough couple of weeks since he left us on October 22nd. We decided to have him cremated, which took a week, and now he is back with us again. They placed his ashes in a brown paper bag, which was then placed in a brown plastic box, which is presently sitting on a shelf in our living room. At some point, we'll put him in something nicer, possibly a wood-carved box, or a marble urn.

At times, we find ourselves holding the box in our arms. I've taken the bag out and held him in my hands. I marvel at how light Boykitty's ashes are, considering what a big cat he was in life. Sixteen pounds of loving kitty concentrated down to about 3/4 of a cup of light ash, probably 1/3 of a pound in weight.  We talk about how much love Boykitty always had to offer. How he'd sleep curled up on our chests as we watched TV -- and how much we miss his heaviness and warmth. He was an endless source of love and companionship -- oceanic and bottomless. The Pompitous of Love, as the Steve Miller song goes.

We will miss you, Boykitty.

  
 
 

In no particular order...

• We're getting closer and closer to the Go Live date for our upgrade to the computer program that handles employee scheduling. It has meant a lot of meetings, in the middle of the day (which for those of us on night shift means the middle of the night). I'm one of two nurses that will spearhead the upgrade throughout two hospital campuses.
• I was off today, and with the meetings scheduled, I had been sleeping during the night so I could be awake during the day. We went out for pizza at Streets of New York Pizza, and then we went on an odd and rare shopping spree, where I bought Dan Brown's latest book, Lost Symbol, and a new router.
•   One of our other kitties, BoyKitty, has been sick. He's got some sort of infection in one of his hind paws, so we're giving him a 14-day run of antibiotics (Augmentin) and we're washing his paw with betadine every day. Between BoyKitty and LadyKitty, it's just like a vet clinic around here.
• Roomie's computer done up and died, and we're going through a re-format of his hard drive. I've seen labor for breech human twins go smoother.
• The Dow hit 10,000 for the first time in a year. It hit me that it has been a long time since I've checked my 401k balance, and a statement came in the mail today, and it is up 50% year to date.  Thank the Lord.
• I'm working for the next three days, and I ain't looking forward to it.
• I've been putting off getting my flu shot. As a nurse, they are provided to me free of charge, but it amazes me how much I absolutely hate shots, considering what I do.

Hoarders, getting rid of junk, and clearing a clogged drain...

We've been watching Hoarders on TV. The show is about folks that are not able to get rid of their belongings. It reminds me a lot of the BBC show, How Clean Is Your House, but the folks on Hoarders are really quite ill. All of the folks on How Clean Is Your House really want to get rid of their stuff and just don't know how to do it. The folks on Hoarders literally can't stand to throw anything out.

It's gotten me started on some serious decluttering in our apartment. My office was filled with old books and junk, and I've been taking all of that out to the dumpster. I still have an old TV set and some large speakers that I guess I'm going to have to drive down to the dump, but I've pitched most of that stuff.

One tool that has helped a lot is one of these luggage carts. I've been keeping a good-size box on it, which I fill with miscellaneous junk, and I can easily roll it out to the dumpster. In the past, it's been sturdy enough to roll heavy TV sets and furniture.

I also did some major shredding today. I had let it pile up for the past six months so it took a couple of hours to put it all through our heavy duty shredder.

I also had the unpleasant task of clearing up a clogged kitchen sink. I had decided to send a lot of leftovers down the disposal, and I guess the big wad of spaghetti noodles was just too much for it. I usually use one of those harsh chemical drain cleaners, but I did some research online and decided to use the plunger. Folks online were suggesting, instead of trying to push the clog down, to create great suction up. After doing it the wrong way for an hour, three really hard pulls cleared the drain pretty easily. Amazing, what you can find on the internets.

Coy pond

  

5" x 7"
Watercolor
Davinci paints

A watercolor of my parents' coy pond (well, a piece of it anyway). Their coy and catfish are huge. They easily are as heavy if not heavier than our obese kitties, and have names like Cher, Serina, Meg, Zorro, Whitey, and others. And they recognize my mother, and come to the surface whenever she is near (especially at feeding time). The catfish could be 30 inches long, with their mouths possibly 4-5 inches across. I read online that they can possibly live as long as 90 years.

LadyKitty

  We've made it through another tough spell with our kitty, LadyKitty. While I was gone on vacation, she stopped eating and drinking and seemed to be losing a lot of weight, so roomie took her to the vet, and the prognosis was very poor. There was even talk of possibly having to put her to sleep.

When I first got home, she looked really terrible -- could hardly stand, wanted to stay away from us and the other cats, and roomie had a hard time force feeding her food through a syringe or giving her her meds.

But after three days of round-the-clock feeding and medications, she seems to have made another miraculous turnaround. She's starting to eat (so much so that I had to run out and get more food from the vet this morning) and she's doing her business in the litterbox, and she seems to be out and about a lot more than before.

She's starting to look a lot more like her usual self.

Roomie found this excellent website, felinecrf.com, which has been a great resource. It mentions not only care for the kitty, but also has a good deal of information about the roller coaster of emotions that we suffer as caregivers.

JFK airport, Goldberg Variations, Bach-Busoni Chaconne...

I'm back home from vacation. I had to change my flights at the last minute, and instead of flying through Atlanta, I had to connect through New York JFK. God what a madhouse. Getting to my next gate was was easy enough, but getting food was a 20 minute wait in line. 

The other problem is that, of course, the place is packed all the time, and there just seemed to be a lot more running folks trying to meet their connections. There was one group, two women and a young boy, that had missed their flight to Nice. They ran up to the gate, was told they missed their flight, a very passionate argument broke out, I believe there was some serious cussing in French, they were told they might make a different flight in another terminal, and they ran (more like sprinted) across the airport. But then they found that the plane was able to return to the gate, so they had to send a notably non-athletic gate attendant to sprint/wobble after them. The group ran back, sweating like farm animals, and got on their flight. A few minutes later, the non-athletic gate attendant stumbled back into the gate with a broken shoe.

Later, I was standing in front of one of those big airport maps. While standing there trying to find some sort of observation deck or quiet corner, I was approached by two Asian women (I believe they were speaking Vietnamese), an Italian couple (I am pretty sure it was Italian), and an Arab. I tried my best to help them, but eventually the only thing they understood were my shrugged shoulders.

The flight from JFK to PHX was very nice. I found out that the on board entertainment system had quite a selection of music tracks, and I spent two of the four hours listening to music.
This version of the Goldberg Variations, played on string instruments, was excellent. I like artists that perform the speedy variations... well... speedy, which this ensemble certainly did.
Helen Grimaud Plays Bach was another excellent CD. Her version of Bach's Chaconne almost knocked me out of my seat, and her performarnce of the Prelude and Fugue in A minor BMV 543 was also excellent.

Here's a youtube video of one of Grimaud's recitals, where she plays the Chaconne:

On Vacation in Virginia...

I've finally started my vacation, and have been in Virginia with family for two days. I really do need to go on vacation more often, but have been saving up my leave time for emergencies (I have this irrational fear that I will break a leg or hip or hurt my knees again). I'll be taking two weeks off, and one of them will be our annual beach trip to Nags Head, North Carolina.

As usual, it amazes me how many plane crashes happen in the few weeks prior to my vacation. It is just plain weird. Thankfully, my own flights were uneventful and smooth, even though there was a huge thunderstorm in Phoenix the morning I left. I flew Delta Airlines for the first time that I can recall, and the experience was good. Not only were the planes pretty big, they even had free TV, WiFi access (not free), and a GPS thing where you can watch your plane's position throughout the flight.

Friday, we watched my youngest nephew for the day, and then had dinner at my sister and Brother-in-Law's new house (they do the whole DIY thing and they are living through a season of This Old House (not that the house is old, but more about all of the construction and wiring -- the first order of business was moving a freakin wall.

Hell, I've got a blown light bulb in my closet that I haven't changed in 4 years. They amaze me.

Today (Saturday) will be spent lounging around with my parents, and then we're packing this evening for the beach (and I will try not to need 5 bags of luggage for 7 days at the beach).

I took my watercolor stuff along too. I might spend some non-getting-unwound-for-bed time and paint scenes from my parents' house. This is of the shed in our back yard:

 9 x 13" on 140 lb paper, DaVinci and Windsor Newton paints.