34721 Spring Valley

That's going to be my new address. Rita says they are making all sorts of moving out motions. First of all all the window dressings came down and she could see a ladder in the living room. A few days later, the window dressings went back up and we think that means they had them cleaned and they are painting the interior. This would be very good news to me since I don't want to have to do any of that, but I will if I have to.

The drill is that they will probably file a petition to vacate in October, Those have to be filed during the first 5 days of the month. They would then have 60 days to actually vacate while the resale goes through, but I am assuming that since they are doing all the preliminary work now, they will want the resale to go through as soon as possible. Then they (the corporation) notify me that the unit is for sale and I make arrangements to buy it. In turn I file my petition to vacate (this would probably be November) and I will have 60 days to actually move.

So most likely case scenario I won't be actually moving until Christmastime. Hopefully there will be a several week period where I will have possession of both units and the move can take place in small pieces until its time to bring in all the big pieces, for which I will get a couple of bids ahead of time.

Its exciting and intimidating.

Ambition

I think planning to blog once a week is an admirable ambition for Adam. Its not as easy as Erika makes it look. She, of course has excellent subject matter and it will be hard not to hold Ris to those standards.

Even when I think of something I should blog about, by the time I'm sitting at the computer, I've forgotten what it is. Sometimes I type a whole posting and then it sounds so dumb that I don't even publish it. Then when I remember that I would rather read something than nothing I wonder why I did that.

I have taken Stephi's blog game idea and sent an email to all my siblings suggesting that we "do" each other for our reunion in October. I tweaked the game a little leaving off the wrestling part and the animal part. I have been working on my own responses to each brother and sister and I am mostly stumped on the "What I have always wondered about you" one. I'm afraid I haven't spent much time wondering.

I like the family AR very much. As the show started to climax about who was going to be eliminated I found that I didn't want any of them to be eliminated. Usually there are a few teams that you can't wait to get rid of.

Ummm, Steak

Stephanie said that Texas Roadhouse was Jeff's favorite steak house. Since he was the one I wanted to please, (those birthdays were just an afterthought) that's where we went. What a good choice. The food was great (I just had Erika's leftovers for lunch today), the service was good and the company was delightful.

We stopped by Stephanie's place on the way home and her appartment looked very nice. Turns out Stephanie got her cleaning genes from Dana. I think we should all go out and buy Clorox stock.

All of the younger people went to Motor City except poor Erika who had to take her old mother home. Old mother and Erika had already spent more than 6 hours at Motor City that morning. This was Erika's baby-free, birthday-dinner weekend and she had to spend a lot of it doing my laundry and collecting and carrying my buckets of nickle tokens.

Have I mentioned how much I love my family?

Dr. Hall

She's my new favorite doctor.

She had a plastic spine and showed me in person what was depicted on the mri films. She showed me where the hermiation of my discs were (she described the discs as the soft tissue between the bones of the spinal column - I always thought that the bones themselves were the discs) and how that was causing the narrowed openings for the nerves of the spinal cord.

Since I described my situation as being back to what I have come to consider as normal she doesn't recommend any course of treatment right now. For any future incidents of spasm or pinched nerves I would go directly to her and she would treat with therapy (since I told her that really helped me)and steroid injections before resorting to surgery.

I asked her about the Laser Spine Institute and she said she just didn't know enough about the laser surgery to recommend or discourage it. But she agreed that surgery of any kind should be a remedy of last resort.

shopping

I just finished my xmas/birthday shopping for the 2005/2006 season. The Savings Bonds list has really dwindled even after adding Jackson. Stephanie is fast approaching her last scheduled gift (21st birthday) and the over-18 crowd will now be getting checks instead of bonds until their 21sts.

I am not planning to add the next generation to my list. I will be lucky to remember the ones I already know. In a few years Adam is the only one I will have to remember because Megan and Jackson chose really good dates to be born.

Tennis everyone

These late night matches are hard. I went to bed after Venus won the first set figuring she was going to win the match and I was wrong. Last night I went to bed after Blake won the first two sets. Lucky for me, I had my tv on cbs and woke up about 1:00 am to the cheering crowd. Evidently USA couldn't keep the game on and they threw it back to the cbs network. I couldn't believe they were still playing. I woke up enough to see the tiebreaker. When I went to bed I was happy that Blake was going to win, but when Agasi actually won, I was happier.

Old games, new tricks

Did you know that while you are playing Diamond Mine, hitting any key on the keyboard will pause the game. Well, I can't vouch for any key but certainly any of many keys. Hitting the same or any other key will resume the game.

If you touch the key and hold it down, the poor game will undulate back and forth and you can actually keep playing while this is going on.

Jackson taught me that while I was playing with him on my lap. Such an inventive boy.

Let's Call it a Brace

Here's the thing. When the ailment first started I couldn't clutch anything. I couldn't change gears or steer the car out of the parking space without both hands and great difficulty.

As I followed the doctor's orders by taking tylenol every 6 hours for two weeks the sharp pains got more dull, I could work the gear shift and steering wheel with one hand although painful. I got to a sort of pain plateau and not better. So I got the brace.

It seemed like a magic thing. I could do everything within the limits of the bulk of the brace. I am being careful not to get it wet or get food on it. So this morning after my shower, I forgot to put it back on. I went shopping. I was back to square one in the car. I could hardly turn the key.

So is this backward move worth the comfort of using the brace? Good question for a doctor whom I am about to call.

Our Big East connection

You may remember that Guy, the son of John Robert lives in New Orleans. News is that he and his family successfully evacuated before the storm, all are safe, house has damage but they expect to return by early next week.

I bought some golden ballet shoes. They are very cute and will go well with that gold tank top and over blouse that I have for formal night on the cruise. I got them from a catalogue and when they got here I tried one on and it fit. When I was telling gretchen about them I said "They fit, but I don't know if they will be comfortable". So here's the golden part about travelling with daughters. I continued "I will have Adrienne with me, if they hurt she will go back to the cabin and get the comfortable ones".