Angie & Jim

So… you know how sometimes when you’re playing party games or doing “get-to-know-you” type exercises with co-workers someone often asks what your most embarassing experience was?  Well, I don’t know if this makes number 1, but today I certainly had a contender:  A bad case of the hiccups in the temple.  It was absolutely rediculous!  Sweet sisters gave me advice on foolproof remedies (not that I HAD any peanut butter or sugar around), but the problem went on for about half an hour.  It was close to the end of my shift anyway, so I decided to head out early.  Walking down those oh-so-quiet halls made me feel completely obnoxious.  Ironically, they left as suddenly as they came, and were gone as I was walking out the front door.  At least it’s gratifying to know that Someone upstairs has a sense of humor.

Today I got to drive a hydrogen fuel-cell powered car. Justin and I went to downtown Livermore to the event and got to test-drive a hydrogen Nissan. We only got to drive it half-way around the block, but it was still really cool. All of the hydrogen cars are actually hybrids; they are part fuel-cell, part electric. When the engine needs a little more oomph, there is a lithium ion battery that kicks in. Also, you get regenerative braking that charges the battery. Very cool.

For the geeks out there, it was a PEM hydrogen fuel cell. (That’s Proton Exchange Membrane, just in case you didn’t know that.) Check out the Wikipedia article for more cool stuff.

We spent a wonderful Memorial Day with the Bradleys, visiting several orchards up in Brentwood where you can pick your own produce (with free tasting as you work!), then pay by the pound as you leave.  It was wonderful!  It was especially fun to have little Emily and Maddie with us, because they were so excited to help!  They didn’t love the in-and-out-and-in the car game, but they were troopers anyway.  We picked cherries, nectarines, peaches, apricots, and strawberries.  It’s pretty early in the season, so not everything was fully ripe, but we found plenty of good fruit to bring home.  Jim used up the so-ripe-that-it-won’t-last-another-day fruit in a delicious batch of apricot-strawberry jam.

This is definitely something we want to do again.  There were some things we did right - bringing water bottles, wearing good shoes, bringing a map of the different orchards and which fruits they have - but we still learned a lot for next time:  for instance, reserve space in the car (preferably in a box or cooler) for the fruit - if you just leave it in the bags, it will be stepped on and squashed!

Last week, while my in-laws were in town, we all took a trip out to Emmeryville for the “Friends & Family Screening” of Pixar’s newest film, “UP.”  We met up with Jon first at a fantastic pizza place called “Nathaniel’s” in Berkley.  After dinner, we drove over to the campus, received our special guest badges, and headed into the main building.  There wasn’t much of a line forming yet, so we went upstairs to the gallery to spend some time looking at the concept art for the film.  When it was finally time to go in, we sat together in the center near the front and center of the theatre.  After “Ooohing” and “Ahhing” at the shooting stars and watching a silly little short, we finally got to watch “UP.”

It was so fantastic!  I simply can’t express how hilarious and darling it was, and how much I enjoyed it.  I couldn’t do it justice if I tried to summarize it, so I will just emphatically encourage everyone I know to go and see it as soon as you can!

p.s.  All you Californian Fenton fans - keep your eyes and ears open! 

Hi, everyone - I’m alive!  Recovery is kind of lame, but going well.  Kathy has spent the week with us, and has done her best to wait on me hand and foot.  Jim has been wonderfully attentive, too.  I feel like a very lazy princess.  My most enthusiastic exercise comes from a couple of trips up and down the stairs each day.

Jaquie is enjoying the relaxed atmosphere, and has been very affectionate, as usual.  We were a little worried, before the surgery, about what to do with her at night - she usually lies on Jim as we are falling asleep, then migrates to some part of me during the night, but it is pretty uncomfortable to have a cat sprawled on your stomach or legs when you have an incision to worry about.  Surprisingly enough, she must have been listening to our conversation about it, or else noticed a difference in my sleeping habits:  she now lies on Jim for a while but, of her own accord, she now often spends the rest of the night on the end of the bed or the floor.  We have such a smart, sweet cat!

I have a post-op appointment next Monday, where they will check me out and make sure everything looks good.  No steri-strips for them to examine - just stitches on the inside and super glue on the outside, this time!  Things look good to me, so far, so I’m sure we’ll have good news next week.  We’ll keep you posted.

I’d like to take this moment to reflect upon the wise words of a small green puppet:

Do or do not: there is no try.

I am happy to say I have the pleasure of writing the post from the comfort of my own home.  I was quite surprised this afternoon when the volunteer told me it was okay if I brought the car around.  I had to ask him to repeat himself because I was sure he had gotten something wrong.  I was expecting to be told that I could go and see Angie; the doctor had even said he thought she’d be spending the night.  Turns out, the nurses just asked Angie what she wanted to do and Angie said she wanted to go home, so we did.

Angie looked quite pale when she came out to the car, but once we got home and she could sit comfortably, things were better.  I’m sorry I didn’t post earlier, but I was busy taking care of my sweet wife.

I nearly had a fiasco at the pharmacy with her pain meds.   I went to Rite-Aid at 8:30, just 30 minutes before they close.  The pharmacist told me that they were out of Percoset and that I would have to hurry to the other Rite-Aid in town to get there on time.  He was very apologetic and wanted to make sure I made it before they closed, so he called ahead to give them the heads-up.  He gave me the phone number and sent me on my way.  Angie was due for her next dose and I didn’t want to risk having to go all night without any.  I briskly walked to my car and was pulling out of the parking lot with my cell phone to my ear when I saw a man in a white coat running towards the car.  It was the pharmacist chasing me down to tell me that they had a generic brand he had forgotten to check for.  We went back in and he filled the prescription while I waited.  I was very grateful; I wasn’t sure where the other Rite-Aid was and I would have felt terrible if I had gotten lost trying to find it and had to go home without any meds for Angie.  I realized that the pharmacist could have easily let it slide and let me drive away.  There would have been no way for me to find out that he had something he could have given me.  It is behavior like that that makes me want to frequent a store.  Perhaps we should switch back from our mail-order prescriptions and get them at Rite-Aid.  They certainly deserve it.