Kingfisher Cove

Good Riddance, July

All in all, July was absolutely sucky.  (I've actually had a number of sucky Julys in my life.  Three men dumped me during this month, over the years...)  I've spent two weeks sick as a dog; nearly two weeks in agony with that pinched nerve (it's better, just naggy); crappy weather when it shouldn't have been; two visits to the doctor; three visits to the radiologist; facing the trauma of the biopsy; at least three stressful work deadlines and working weekends to meet them; and I learned today that I'll very likely have to move back to the main office from this branch-office-that-I-love to make room for a billable person (and have to spend five days a week contending with my coworker-who-drives-me-batty).  Yeah, I know it could have been worse.  I wouldn't dare jinx anything by saying otherwise.  However, I'm putting in a request:  Could August be MUCH BETTER, please?  Starting with tomorrow when I learn the results of this biopsy?  'K?  And have the Harstine variance approved?  (And maybe the billable person doesn't pan out?)  Those would be good things. 

Da Kitteh loves crab:

So Very Glad THAT'S Over...

First, I'm (so!) happy to report that my shoulder/arm pain has diminished significantly!  I didn't even have to get up during the night.  Sure hope this lasts.  I did wake up awfully early though and couldn't get back to sleep...I'm sure because of the anxiety of the imminent biopsy.

The procedure was somewhat traumatic, but it was totally painless, and I was so relieved and thankful about that.  (That was my biggest worry -- I just didn't need more pain!)  Both the radiologist and her assistant were dynamite!  Very kind and gentle, to the point where it made me pretty emotional!  The assistant kept massaging my sore shoulder and it felt sooooo good!  It was all very high-tech, and it was nice to be able to divert my eyes and not take notice of all that was happening!  (The radiologist said that a number of patients were very interested in watching.  Not me!)  There's just something about the idea of Needle + Boob that doesn't sit well.

I'll go back in Wednesday afternoon to learn the results.  I suppose that's something else to worry about, but my gut tells me that it's probably OK.  Breast cancer does not run in my family and my "sense" is that it's nothing.  And if it is something, it would be very very early, at the most "pre-cancerous". 

I'd been torn about heading into work at some point today (killer deadline!), but the radiologist was quite insistent that I not.  I did accomplish quite a lot when I worked (through the pain) yesterday morning, and I've communicated all my progress to the parties involved.  My boss can move things forward as necessary.  The next few days will be absolutely nuts, though, getting this thing wrapped up by Thursday.

[Update:  I ended up working all afternoon from home!  Jeesh!  I did accomplish quite a lot, though, and I know my boss and the project manager were relieved.  Plus, it means I won't have to take today as Sick Leave!]

[Uhm, also?  I've got a sore boob].

Frantic

I was up in the night four times in frantic-mode, trying to find relief from this godawful pain.  It's so cruel, because during the day I had some relief, but the Mac Truck hit me during the evening hours.  Here I thought that maybe I was on the mend!  That this pain was going to diminish!  But no. Joke's on me.

Today has been a haze of red-filtered nothing-but-pain.  I am utterly miserable.  I'm not myself.  I have no sense of humor, I have no desire to be NICE, I keep looking at the walls thinking that climbing them might help me escape from this.  NOTHING helps.  It's frustrating to me that society can put a robot on Mars, harness nuclear energy, invent jets that fly 10 times faster than the speed of sound, predict a lunar eclipse 100 years from now to the minute; BUT they can't make pain go away. 

You know what "brain freeze" feels like?  When you've eaten ice cream too fast or taken too big of a bite of a popsicle?  Pretty awful, huh?  Makes you shudder to think about it, but at least that pain goes away in a minute or so.  This feels like "brain freeze" multiplied by 100 from my neck down my arm, and it never subsides.  It's constant.  How can people be expected to endure this? 

I worked at home through a red haze for several hours this morning in my jammies (which I've never changed out of all day) with a heating pad and pain medication.  (What's the big deal about hydrocodone, anyway?  People covet this stuff and for why?  I feel I may as well be taking a placebo).  Sitting at my computer became unbearable so I took the heating pad and laid down on the couch with it and slept for almost four hours.  I was so grateful to be able to sleep -- being unconscious is the only relief from this.

I guess "next" on the conservative treatment list (because that's how health care treats this kind of pain) is to seek a massage therapist, and if that doesn't do the trick, a chiropractor (and ignore their dire insistence that I come in several times a week for the rest of my life).  Physical therapy was also suggested, but in the past it has never done anything beneficial for me.

And then I have the breast biopsy to contend with tomorrow morning.  I'm really dreading it, and with that on top of this awful pain, I'm pretty much a basket case.  

I'd really like to cry, but I'm beyond that.      

My Brother Caught Us Some Crab!

JDub had to work this weekend, so I grabbed the dogs and we ventured up to Camano Island for the day.  It turned out to be a gorgeous day once the clouds burned off.  Dungeness crab season is open and it's been a year since I've had any!  (It's generally previously frozen in the grocery stores and it's just not the same.  There's nothing like ultra-fresh crab right from the bay!  And it costs a whole lot less than the grocery stores!  It's a lot of work though -- just ask my brother...)  My shoulder/arm pain pretty much stayed in the background most of the day, until late afternoon and it started to really bug me.  Tonight it's bad.  Nothing I do seems to help.  I'm so sick of this.

But until the pain started to get to me, it sure was pleasant up there.  My brother, Dave, and his daughter and their Pug (Milo) came up, and Dave and my niece made multiple crab pot checks.  He ended up getting enough for us to each take home a nice amount.  (JDub was thrilled!)  Soon after I got there, we all sat down and ate a bunch of chilled cracked crab that my dad had caught yesterday.  I was in heaven!  I swear I swooned!

How to Catch and Cook Dungeness Crab

1. Get a shellfish license
2. Clams (cockles, horse clams) make the best bait (so digging and freezing them is part of the work involved). 
3. Crack the shells so the meat is exposed and place in the crab pot bait trap
4. Outfit the crab pot with secured and weighted line (that's more than long enough for the depth of the water) and a buoy (red & white is required in Washington waters) and write name and address on it with waterproof ink
5. Row or motor out quite a ways -- into the deeper waters -- then drop the pot
6. Check the pots rather frequently because the pots do allow the crab to escape
7. Once the crab have been caught (legal size and no females), hatchet them in half (yes, while alive, eeww) and remove the backs, shake out the innards, and hose them out well
8. Boil a big pot of water on an outdoor propane crab cooker with four large handfuls of rock salt.  Once the pot is a rolling boil, add all the crab halves and boil solidly for 22 minutes
9. Place the cooked crab halves in a utility sink with some cold water to cool down, but not for long so that the salt doesn't dillute.  Then place the crab in large containers and refrigerate
10. Once chilled, grab some paper towels, seafood or nut crackers, and a couple of buckets for the shells -- plus a beer!  (Beer is nummy with crab!)  
11. Time to swoon!

~~~~~~~~~~

It was nice to see my dad and his lady friend, Cathy.  Dad is very very tan.  We discovered why!  He naps a lot on the deck in his LaFuma!  (And there really have been a number of sunny days -- just mostly during the work-week which doesn't matter to retirees!) 

Here are a few scenes from the pretty day.  (Click all these pictures for enlargements).  Oh!  And an interesting note:  It's 77 miles from our house to our Harstine property (south), and it's 77 miles to Dad's place on Camano Island (north)!  Isn't that weird?

In Spite Of It All, Today Was Pretty Good

I think an infusion of endorphins kept my shoulder/arm pain from this pinched nerve at bay today.  Well, not totally at bay -- it was more "nagging" than "screaming", which means it was still there, but at least I could function.  I'll take nagging over screaming, although I'd much prefer totally GONE.  (It's actually worse tonight than it was all day today).

So, why the infusion of endorphins, you ask?

It's actually kind of bizarre and ironic.  I completed the office newsletter that I've been whining about (enjoy doing it, bad timing because of proposal deadlines, therefore lots of stress).  Today I sent it out via email as a PDF -- we try to be as paperless as possible -- and so after going over it for the millionth time to make sure I'd caught any errors or typos, I hit the button and out it went, to 150 people.  This newsletter used to be handled by the office principal who was recently fired (that shocked the hell out of me).  I was often asked to contribute articles, but she oversaw the thing and I don't know who actually put it together but it always made me cringe.  It looked like something that might have been done when I was in the 6th grade on a mimeograph (sp?) machine and we all know that was eons ago.  It sucked big time.  So when the responsibility became mine, I knew that I couldn't allow it to look like that, or BE like that.  I've spent a lot of hours, including time at Harstine Island, creating a template for it in InDesign to make it fun but professional.  I've done interviews for articles and written them, I've run around with a digital camera and taken pictures, and I've put a lot of pride into this thing, even though it's caused me some grief with proposal managers being irritated with me for taking time away from their proposals.  So hitting that "send" button was a little nerve-wracking. 

Well.  All day long I kept receiving email after email after email from people complimenting me!  And they'd cc my boss and the big-wigs!  I even received kudos from the big-wigs!  People I didn't even KNOW!  (I wasn't all that aware that many people were aware that I'd taken it over).  My boss even called me a rock star.  How about them apples? 

The ironic part is that I never get compliments on the proposals I slave over.  I mean, it's to the point where I often feel a little insecure about where I stand.  The proposals take so damned much out of me (or any marketing coordinator) and we never receive a thank-you for our efforts, even after winning a multi-million-dollar contract!  But an in-house newsletter warrants this many kudos?  Jeeze.  I have to tell you that it made me feel really good, though.   

Hence, those endorphins.

I Really Don't Need This

I sat in a four-hour mandatory meeting today, writhing in my chair and swimming in a nauseous fog of muscle relaxers and Vicodin -- but still feeling the !&%$!*#+! pain radiating from my neck down my arm.  There was no way to be comfortable.  And since much of the meeting was a PowerPoint presentation on marketing Dilbertisms ("Business Development Stewardship"..."Strategic Marketing Initiatives"), there was no way to be interested, either.  I guess we're supposed to be excited about this stuff, but sorry, I'm too busy trying to please unpleasable people and get the proposals out the door on time.  I resented being there because I have deadlines coming due and this took away critical time from doing my job.  And of course the project manager I'm working with is NOT PLEASED WITH ME since I wasn't available to work on her proposal.  Jeeze.

Shortly before the meeting ended, I had to leave for my repeat mammogram appointment. (It was almost a relief to have a reason to leave!  Except that I didn't know why they were calling me back in, so that had me rather worried). They took more pictures of my left side, with a different machine that takes digital zoom shots, AND IT HURT LIKE HELL.  Turns out I have some calcification in that breast and the radiologist came in and talked to me about it.  It's most likely not worrisome -- calcification is quite common -- but apparently the size or arrangement of the calcium deposits calls for a closer look.  Guess what that means?  A biopsy.  I have THAT to look forward to at the butt-crack of dawn Monday morning. 

I have no idea how I'll feel afterward, and those deadlines loom.  I'm feeling quite overwhelmed. 

Cried Like a Baby

Just closed the back cover on the final Harry Potter book.  Wow.  Loved it.  Cried.  (For many reasons).

One of those reasons being...(no, I wouldn't be cruel with spoilers) is that I'm in so much pain that I'd like to just be unconscious for a while.  I apparently have a pinched nerve in my neck.  It started about a week ago and it's become steadily worse.  It's very similar to the beastly, relentless sciatica pain I had in my leg prior to my surgery for a ruptured disk, except this pain radiates from the neck and shoulder all the way down my arm to my fingers.  In the midst of this extremely stressful work-week with multiple concurrent deadlines, it's hard to think, to focus, to function, to care -- and to sleep, because there is NO position, NO fleeting moment that this pain isn't screaming.  What a dreadful week it's been.  800 mg. of ibuprofen every 2 or 3 hours (!) wasn't doin' diddly, so I saw the doctor today (like I could afford to take the time off from work) and she wrote me prescriptions for some supposedly more "powerful" medication (including a strong anti-inflammatory and a muscle-relaxer, plus Vicodin).  I'm still waiting for them to kick in several hours later.  I remember the total lack of relief from any pain medications when I had the ruptured disk (and had to wait weeks and weeks in such godawful pain before the doctor determined that I should have surgery.  The only thing that helped then was a shot in the butt of Demarol in the emergency room when I was totally losing it and JDub hauled me there in the middle of the night, and that only lasted a (very wonderful) two hours).  I know it's difficult to understand the extent of others' pain.  I know it's tiresome to hear about it.  I also know it's really hard to get the point across to a doctor, or anybody, how intense your pain is.  I think there's this sense that "if it ain't spurtin', it must not really be hurtin'."  I think some of the very worst pain is invisible.  I know that was the case for my mother.

Don't get me started.

Poor Mojo had his second set of kitten shots today, and he's been sleeping for hours.  That's after being a stark-raving-mad wildebeest this morning, climbing the ficus tree and tipping the whole thing over. 

JDub feels that the variance hearing for our Harstine property went well, but we won't know the findings for another week or two.  We both thought we'd know the outcome immediately, so that was a bummer.   

Weird Evening...But I Have HP7!

I started reading it almost the moment we came in the door last night.  I've already had several laugh-out-loud moments.  Boy, the story takes off immediately and doesn't mess around.  (I really wish I'd re-read the previous book beforehand, though, because there are some references to it that I'm not remembering.  Eventually I will read ALL of them over again, which is something I'm not normally inclined to do with the exception of "The Lord of the Rings", and also "The Prince of Tides"). 

Tomorrow is the hearing for determining where we can/can't eventually build on our property at Harstine Island (due to stringent environmental and shoreline laws).  We've been working with an architect and a private-practice environmental specialist to apply for the variance and advocate for us, and so this morning was a strategy meeting with them to prepare for tomorrow's hearing.  They're all in the vicinity of Harstine so I just wasn't able to get the time off from work due to my multiple deadlines.  JDub took off these two days and attended today's meeting and he's spending the night at Harstine so he won't have to travel far to the hearing tomorrow.  So...he's down there tonight all by his lonesome!  I talked to him briefly after the meeting -- he'd just arrived at Harstine -- and he said it was very strange to be there without the dogs (or kitty) (or ME!)  I'll bet it's extremely quiet.  Which can be nice.  But lonesome if you're alone.  He was going to barbecue himself a steak!  No dingable for him tonight!

After Nate finishes washing his car, he's going down to our great little sushi place in town to pick up some to bring home and share.  Yum!

I received an odd phone call today from the imaging center where I had my mammogram last week.  I need to go back in Thursday and have additional pictures taken.  They wouldn't say why.

As for me...it's been a very stressful day, I have a sore neck and shoulder (from stress?), and so I'm going to spend my evening enjoying my sushi and hanging out with Harry!  (The dogs are all fretful that "Dad" isn't here).  

Taking a Gamble

I'm actually (!) sitting out on the deck at the little cafe table with my laptop.  The rain let up a while ago, but I didn't trust it until now -- not that I do 100%because there are still a bunch of clouds overhead that could well be filled with even more moisture, as mind-blowing as that seems.  (Hence, the gamble!)  But it's pretty pleasant out here.  It's warm (muggy) and calm with a fair amount of bird activity at the feeders.  (Plus the sound of seagulls on the beach).  Maybe fish are running down there.  Mojo has been such a trooper about being cooped up inside the trailer through all of this (more so than us humans), so it's a relief for him to finally have a grand ol' time out here, running across the deck and diving under the trailer, and of course watching those birds.  There is quite an assortment:  Lots of goldfinches, doves, towhees, grosbeaks, stellar's jays, house/purple finches, and hummingbirds.  Feels like being in an aviary.

OMG!  We just saw a Western Tanager!  We saw a couple of them here two summers ago.  They're pretty elusive -- they eat bugs in the treetops and don't visit the feeders -- so you notice them because of the blinding yellow/orange against the trees.  They're kind of like a goldfinch on steroids with an orange head. They're just beautiful!  Oooh, I'm so tickled we saw one.  JDub saw one taking a drink from the bird bath last weekend (I missed it). 

OMG!  Mojo just climbed a tree!

I Prefer Sunshine Polka Dots Over Raindrop Polka Dots

What a difference.  It sure is easy to get spoiled complacent about summer weather after a spurt of real summer weather.  Gah!  I need to hang on to the memory of this morning's window of opportunity when we had a (very smokey) fire on the deck and a relatively pleasant interlude between weather systems (aside from the smoke in the eyes -- because the wood was soaked and the fire thingy had been full of water from the week's heavy rains, plus the breeze didn't know which way to blow so it pretty much took turns aiming at US).  We sat out there with our coffee and watched the birds and had to (gently) hose the kitty a couple of times, due to his intense interest in those birds -- he'd scamper across to the where the bird feeders are and lay in wait, so it was HOSE-TIME.  It even bothers me when he crouches on the deck and just watches them with his little tail swishing, and the birds are totally oblivious that a pair of eyes are wishing them harm.  And then you look into the adorable face of this lil' kitty and wonder how he can have such evil thoughts.  (Yes, I know it's hard-wired, but it still seems evil).  Anyway, then the breeze kicked up a few notches (you could call it "wind") and the rain drops began followed by torrents and it's been pretty much a wash-out the rest of the day, due to continue throughout tonight and tomorrow.   We're in for another rainfall record and there is worry about river flooding.

I took a long nap, and I've been cussing and spitting at my lack of internet signal on the T-Mobile card.  Pretty much ONE BAR.  Which means I just can't get anywhere.  Posting this will be a challenge.  (At least with the Windows Live Writer program, I don't have to worry about my post disappearing into the abyss while saving a draft).

So, I've also been reading.  I keep picturing all these people across the country buried in their Harry Potter books today, and the fact that mine is sitting on the (covered!) porch at home (having been delivered by Amazon) makes me sick to my stomach.  Crap!  But...I've begun "The Shadow of the Wind" by Carlos Ruiz Zafon and it's pretty intriguing.  (It'll likely go by the temporary wayside once I get home tomorrow night, though).  And THEN I'll want to stay home from work!  Take an extra-long LUNCH HOUR!  Come home and read and NOT COOK!  Not want to GO TO BED!!  How will I manage the balance of responsibility and dire desire?

We are dealing with leaks here, including in the bedroom area. (Soooo not good).   Mojo ventured outside for a bit in this pouring rain and came back in soaked and not a bit happy about it, so he's since been licking and lounging.  Soon he's going to need to let off some steam and the dogs are fair game. Actually, everything is.

Those raindrop polka dots? They're gone.  It's all solid now, all meshed together from the hours of torrents.