Read this, but don't do it while drinking as you'll either choke or do a spit take.

The whole god-damned country is fucking corrupt and I now officially hate everybody.

Fuck the supreme court. Fuck Big Oil. Fuck George Bush and Dick Cheney. Fuck Saudi Arabia. Fuck "previously unforeseen levels of profitability".

Cause you know what? They just FUCKED EVERYBODY. The 32,000 fishermen who get these punitive damages, well, 20% less than they SHOULD have gotten. (yeah, from $75,000 each to a WHOPPING $15,000.) They fucked the animals they killed, the environment they raped. I hope the Supreme Court lives to rue this day and decision.

SCUM!

Just read the extremely sad news that comedy giant George Carlin died last night of heart failure at age 71. To honor him, I offer you his most famous work, "Seven Words You Can't Say On Television"

I love words. I thank you for hearing my words.
I want to tell you something about words that I think is important.
They're my work, they're my play, they're my passion.
Words are all we have, really. We have thoughts but thoughts are fluid.
then we assign a word to a thought and we're stuck with that word for
that thought, so be careful with words. I like to think that the same
words that hurt can heal, it is a matter of how you pick them.
There are some people that are not into all the words.
There are some that would have you not use certain words.
There are 400,000 words in the English language and there are 7
of them you can't say on television. What a ratio that is.
399,993 to 7. They must really be bad. They'd have to be outrageous
to be separated from a group that large. All of you over here,you 7,
Bad Words. That's what they told us they were, remember?
"That's a bad word!" No bad words, bad thoughts, bad intentions,
and words. You know the 7, don't you, that you can't say on television?
"Shit, Piss, Fuck, Cunt, Cocksucker, Motherfucker, and Tits"
Those are the heavy seven. Those are the ones that'll infect your soul,
curve your spine, and keep the country from winning the war.
"Shit, Piss, Fuck, Cunt, Cocksucker, Motherfucker, and Tits"
Wow! ...and Tits doesn't even belong on the list. That is such a friendly
sounding word. It sounds like a nickname, right? "Hey, Tits, come here,
man. Hey Tits, meet Toots. Toots, Tits. Tits, Toots." It sounds like a
snack, doesn't it? Yes, I know, it is a snack. I don't mean your sexist
snack. I mean New Nabisco Tits!, and new Cheese Tits, Corn Tits,
Pizza Tits, Sesame Tits, Onion Tits, Tater Tits. "Betcha Can't Eat Just
One." That's true. I usually switch off. But I mean, that word does
not belong on the list. Actually none of the words belong on the list,
but you can understand why some of them are there. I'm not
completely insensitive to people's feelings. I can understand why
some of those words got on the list, like Cocksucker and
Motherfucker. Those are heavyweight words. There is a lot going on
there. Besides the literal translation and the emotional feeling.
I mean, they're just busy words. There's a lot of syllables to contend
with. And those Ks, those are aggressive sounds. They just jump out at
you like "cocksucker, motherfucker. cocksucker, motherfucker."
It's like an assault on you. We mentioned Shit earlier, and 2 of the
other 4-letter Anglo-Saxon words are Piss and Cunt, which go
together of course. A little accidental humor there. The reason that
Piss and Cunt are on the list is because a long time ago, there were
certain ladies that said "Those are the 2 I am not going to say. I
don't mind Fuck and Shit but 'P' and 'C' are out.", which led to such
stupid sentences as "Okay you fuckers, I'm going to tinkle now."
And, of course, the word Fuck. I don't really, well that's more
accidental humor, I don't wanna get into that now because I think
it takes to long. But I do mean that. I think the word Fuck is a very
important word. It is the beginning of life, yet it is a word we use to
hurt one another quite often. People much wiser than I am said,
"I'd rather have my son watch a film with 2 people making love
than 2 people trying to kill one another. I, of course, can agree. It is
a great sentence. I wish I knew who said it first. I agree with that but
I like to take it a step further. I'd like to substitute the word Fuck for
the word Kill in all of those movie cliches we grew up with. "Okay,
Sheriff, we're gonna Fuck you now, but we're gonna Fuck you slow."
So maybe next year I'll have a whole fuckin' ramp on the N word.
I hope so. Those are the 7 you can never say on television, under any
circumstances. You just cannot say them ever ever ever. Not even
clinically. You cannot weave them in on the panel with Doc, and Ed,
and Johnny. I mean, it is just impossible. Forget those 7. They're out.
But there are some 2-way words, those double-meaning words.
Remember the ones you giggled at in sixth grade? "...And the cock
CROWED 3 times" "Hey, the cock CROWED 3 times. ha ha ha ha. Hey, it's in
the bible. ha ha ha ha. There are some 2-way words, like it is okay for
Curt Gowdy to say "Roberto Clamente has 2 balls on him.", but he can't
say "I think he hurt his balls on that play, Tony. Don't you? He's holding
them. He must've hurt them, by God." and the other 2-way word that
goes with that one is Prick. It's okay if it happens to your finger. You
can prik your finger but don't finger your prick. No,no.



George you fucking ROCKED. There must have been one serious celebration up in heaven last night. All the greatest comedians are now basically gone, save for Cosby and some younger guys (Chris Rock, Seinfeld, Carrot Top... Kidding on the last one.). Carlin, Pryor, Hicks, Hedberg, Bruce, Redd Foxx.

George, been a fan my whole life basically. I wish I had taken the opportunity to see you, but it was always "Ahhh, I'll catch him next year." My bad. Atleast I'll always have your cds and comedy specials. Rest easy man.

Saw this on jeryk's LJ, I had to share...


If that isn't total PROOF of  not only "Far & Balanced" but "We Report, You Decide", I just don't know what is...

Incidentally, the lady in the picture on the left is one Michelle Malkin, who wrote a book called "In Defense of Internment: The Case for Racial Profiling in World War II and the War on Terror". What you might not be able to tell by the picture, is Ms. Malkin is (and this will SO piss off rob_matsushita) ASIAN/AMERICAN.

Yes, an Asian/American arguing FOR Japanese Internment camps in WWII.

She also wrote this article, which my mom was sent by e-mail, and decided to send to everyone in her mailbox, which then started a war of words between my mom and my cousin Carrie and myself and my cousin Angelo.

Needless to say, I'm a bit disappointed in some family members for spewing this Neo-Con propaganda.

Just thought I'd share

I HATE dirt.

But there I was, in the 100 degree weather all weekend (whilst our AC died) working on the yard. Digging up plants to move them, digging holes to plant new ones, digging a trench to put a stone border around the other side of our deck. (Oddly enough, the previous homeowner did a border, but only around half the deck)

At one point, in the heat, sweat oozing out of me, covered in mud, on my hands and knees in the dirt, I screamed out "I HATE FUCKING DIRT!!!!"

Folks, I am a city boy.

I like the plants and trees as much as anyone. I like them even better when God or someone ELSE has done all the work on them.

That said, I now have in my possession a power washer (courtesy of my sister-in-law Sue) which can blow the asshole off a gopher at twenty feet.

I know this because I tried.

Kidding.

Or am I?

If A. Bartlett Giamatti (you know Oscar nominated Paul Giamatti's daddy) hadn't died twenty years ago, would the owners have eventually ousted HIM instead of Fay Vincent and would baseball be in it's current sorry shape?

Discuss if you like.,

Potch is home right now. The HVAC guy came at about 3:30, snipped a few pipes to my old AC (Which after they took it out I discovered was a Ruud.) and hauled that fucker away.

They left to get the new one, my 2nd floor got as high as 89 degrees, Downstairs? 86.

They brought a nice new BIG AC unit (A Goodman I believe) and had it hooked up and running by 5:30.

There was an issue with the price from the invoice I signed yesterday and the one they handed me today. Yesterdays was $250 cheaper. They had to give it to me at the lower price to yay us!

Well, not really YAY per se, but it was a little cheaper than we thought.

It is now 9:00 PM.

It is 76 degrees upstairs. It's still 80 downstairs, but we have no ducts running to the first floor. Essentially, while cold air usually does fall, and hot raises, in this case, the cold air is still working on the upstairs, so downstairs may be hot until tomorrow.

Any way you look at it, I shouldn't be sticking to the bed tonight!

YAY!

I am home right now.

Why?

I am waiting on the HVAC guy to come and replace my Central Air System, which died, oh, Saturday.

Ask me how hot it is in my house, go ahead, ask me...

83 FUCKING degrees.

I hope he shows up soon, I may have to sit in the car with the AC to wait for him. I haven't done a thing since my cold shower last night and I've sweat so much I can SMELL myself.

You KNOW that's bad.

So I'm just here waiting on my relief.

In light of all the downer posts of late, I have something nice to throw at y'all..

I just got this from my mom. (And to answer your inevitable question, no I didn't know.)

I was just wondering if you realized (or ever even knew, for that matter) that today was the 40th anniversary of my first date with your father?

We rode down the shore to Seaside (where else?) in the Bonneville with the roof down and all the way down and back all the radio stations kept playing "Ode To Billy Joe" because of the opening line: "It was the third of June, another sleepy, dusty, delta day..." 

I just realized what today's date is and, of course, I then realized the year and started calculating years... 40 years! I can't believe it! It seems like yesterday to me.

Just thought I'd share that with the only other person still on the face of this earth who might give a damn...

Love Ya,

Mom

Rock and Roll's first real badass and one of it's founders, the great Bo Diddley, has passed away.

Rest in peace. Go and jam with Muddy.

Across the street from my house is Our Lady of Mount Virgin church.

Yes yes, I get it. MOUNT Virgin. (You can stop laughing barkeyhead.)

They are having their annual carnival this week.

For which, barkeyhead and his family are coming over and we're all going to the carny tonight!

Hey, I just found this! I love the interweb!

The lyrics to Pink Floyd's classic from Ummagumma, "Several Species Of Small Furry Animals Gathered Together In A Cave And Grooving With A Pict"

Aye an' a bit of Mackeral settler rack and ruin
ran it doon by the haim, 'ma place
well I slapped me and I slapped it doon in the side
and I cried, cried, cried.

The fear a fallen down taken never back the raize and then Craig Marion,
get out wi' ye Claymore out mi pocket a' ran doon, doon the middin stain
picking the fiery horde that was fallen around ma feet.
Never he cried, never shall it ye get me alive
ye rotten hound of the burnie crew. Well I snatched fer the blade O my
Claymore cut and thrust and I fell doon before him round his feet.

Aye! A roar he cried frae the bottom of his heart that I would nay fall
but as dead, dead as 'a can be by his feet; de ya ken?

...and the wind cried Mary.

Thank you.

Just wanted to thank you all for the condolences and good thoughts, hugs and mojo and well wishes. I've read them all, and even passed your sentiments on to Sheila.

I keep looking for her around the house. Sheila's having trouble watching tv and sleeping. Why? Bandit always sat on her lap or laid on her hip.

Just taking some time to get used to it.

Sadly, our other two cats are not really lap cats. One (Bootsy) wants the attention and the love, but hates being held. Dude, he sleeps next to me, but is way too big to be a lap cat. He keeps tipping to one side or the other.

I'm thinking somewhere down the line, we'll get another kitten just to have a lap cat.

Or maybe a dog.

Still want another dog.

Took this picture two weeks ago tomorrow on my new camera phone. This was the day we suspected there was something wrong with Bandit. It's the last picture of her.



I had to bring her to the vet today to set up private cremation. Because it was 80 degrees yesterday, we had to put her in the spare fridge, still wrapped in the chenille blanket she died in.

These are two of the harder things I have ever had to do.

Oddly enough, my cat, Stimpy, died in a chenille blanket as well, and both were gifts to us. I am refusing any more chenille blankets, as I am Italian, and therefore superstitious.

The chenille blankets kill cats! (Yes, I think my sense of humor is back...)

Funny guy, he will be missed.

**************

Side note... It's odd to look at Sheila asleep in the bedroom and Bandit is not on top of her...

Sad.

Yesterday, Sheila woke me by crying. I was in bed upstairs, she was downstairs on the couch with Bandit. (Who had the day before taken another turn for the worse.

I ran downstairs, Bandit was still alive, but had peed all over herself on the couch.

The vet, of course, was closed. A 24 hour emergency clinic would want to hook her up to an IV and keep her for observation until Tuesday. We weren't about to let that happen to her.

So we sat with her and petted her all day long, gave her a subcutaneous IV, fed her (I had liquefied her cat food with her medicines a few days ago and was feeding her with a syringe.), gave her water (also syringe) and she just laid there, occasionally looking up and responding when petted.

I went to bed last night upstairs, Sheila again downstairs to be with her.

About 1 AM, Bandit got up and walked over to Sheila. Sheila helped her onto her lap and they went to sleep together.

About 6:30 this morning, Sheila called me downstairs. Bandit had started convulsing and was not breathing. I held her in my arms and she died.

She was a damned great cat. She loved people, but hated all other pets (just ask Bootsy and Dude), she thought she WAS a person. She always slept on either Sheila or my (or years ago, Sheila's mothers) hip at night. She has 20 damned good, very healthy years. She had a very bad, sickly last ten days. It was a shame to watch  this happen to a cat so full of life, but I understand that as George Harrison once so aptly put it: "All things must pass, all things must pass away."

Thank you Bandit for being a wonderful pet, friend, companion to me for the last 12.5 years.

Sheila's mom left us her cat when she died, now, Bandit's gone home to be with the fine lady who called her, "Mama".

Rest in peace, my little girl.

Had a lovely thought last night, brought on by one of my co-workers wondering why when we attacked Afghanistan and Iraq, we didn't just continue on and take over the whole Middle East.

Money is the reason why.

So the thought: If in fact the Arab/oil controlling countries (read as Saudi Arabia) have enough money in every stock market in the world to sink the global economy if they pulled out...

When the oil runs out, what is their impetus to stay "nice" to us? Right now, you could argue, they tolerate us for our money. But when the oil runs out and they have no more money to make from us, and don't need to be our "friends" anymore...

Then what?

If they have that kind of clout over the global economy, what's to say they don't just... Take over? They'll be able to buy literally anything.

I know, conspiracy theory abounding... But seriously, what if it shakes out that way, THEN what?

Yesterday, Sheila came home from work and Bandit wasn't moving, clearly dehydrated. Brought her to the vet, and she thought it was over. He did the subcutaneous IV and she rallied. Came home ate a few times and slept well.

The vet had us bring her back in this morning. She spent the day there on an IV.

She came home, ate a lot, drank a lot and curled up on Sheila's lap and slept. When we tried to feed her at 11m she could barely move again. It also looks like she may have peed on the couch while sleeping. She's again very lifeless, weak.

It could (again) be the time at the vet taking a toll on her. Or, it could be the end coming.

Hard to say, this is not the fourth time in five days I was afraid she wasn't going to make it. Sheila's scared too, she went into a cleaning frenzy after we tried to feed her at 11. This is what she does when she's REALLY upset.

So as always, I turned to music to help me process my emotions.

I came up with:

"These tears I've cried.
I've cried a thousand oceans.
And if it seems I'm floating in the darkness
Well, I can't believe that I would keep,
Keep you from flying;
And I would cry a thousand more
If that's what it takes to sail you home,
Sail you home.
Sail you home."

Tori Amos. "!000 Oceans"

Kinda sums it up well. I can't believe I would keep her from moving on just for my own needs. And I'll cry with all my heart in mourning if that's what's best for her. I love her too much not to.

As The Quiet Beatle said, "All things must pass, none of life's strings can last."

I just can't stand the suffering. If she could get better, have a decent life for a while, great. But this? This is just breaking my heart.

Hit random on my music player just now. "Seasons Of Love" came on.

Measure your life in love?

I SO needed to hear that.

I'm a damned rich man.

'Nuff said.

As you may know, the Broadway musical Mamma Mia! is coming to the big screen this year. Meryl Streep, the oldest daughter from "Big Love", Pierce Brosnan, Colin Firth.

I just saw a post on a thread at the IMDB page where a lady (I think it was a lady) theorizes that it will beat "Titanic" as the all time biggest movie in sales, based purely on having an ABBA soundtrack.

I humbly disagree and will explain why later, but your thoughts?

Sometimes it just seems like nothing goes your way.

My mom getting sick so much in the last six months. Bandit. Didn't get the raise I asked for. Yankees sucking. I took the Rockies in my tabletop baseball league and they suck in real life. I washed my cell phone last week in the laundry.

Today was that league's monthly meeting. I played 6 games, I won one. Every other game, I was beaten by more than 5 runs. The one I won, I hit a walkoff 3 run homer in a tie game in the 10th.

Then, I get home and I had to play an online baseball series.

I got swept. At home.

Sometimes you're the windshield, sometimes you're the bug.

I wanna know when its my turn to be the windshield again, dammit.

(On a good note, we finally had our fence done. It looks great. With my luck, it will have fallen down by tomorrow...)

Time to throw on that old Warren Zevon classic "Poor, Poor Pitiful Me"

Vet just called, blood-work is in.

Bandit has Chronic Renal Failure. It's not terminal, but can be if untreated. It also is not going away.

For information, this site seemed to be quite knowledgeable. It's a rough road, but she doesn't seem to be in immediate danger. She has been sleeping a lot today.

Also, the doctor said that most likely her reaction yesterday to the vitamins when she got all lethargic and we thought she was dying, was due to being sick and having had a lot of blood drawn for the tests. HE said the sleeping is probably good for her right now. We pick up the special food on Monday, but for now continue on with the Hills Science diet.

Thought I'd include a picture.

Our female cat, Bandit, is 20 this year.

She has not been well for a few days. She's not eating much and had stopped drinking for a while. We gave her wet food (which we never did) and she ate that. I bought a vitamin paste and gave her that.

She's not moving much but seems relatively aware.

Today Sheila brought her to the vet. He couldn't believe she was 20, thought he was a kitten. She's had remarkably good health.

They did blood work and gave us a special cat diet food to give her, as well as liquid vitamin drops.

So when I got home from work, we tried to give her the drops.

I'm shaking writing this, because it was BAD. VERY BAD.

I had to hold her head and inject the liquid into her mouth. (Nothing new to me, as I had to do this with my cat Stimpy for months when she had Fatty Liver Disease... Twice) She struggled, but I finished. She sat down on the side and things went VERY wrong.

She drooled out everything, then tried to go hide on a chair. Sheila puller her out and then she lapsed into a state of lethargy that had Sheila in tears as she wasn't moving AT ALL, was not responding and barely breathing. Sheila started bawling her eyes out. I made her stay with Bandit as we thought it was the end.

Slowly she started snapping out of it. She eventually got up and got some water. (She's drinking a lot, but I haven't noticed her pee...)

Now she's sleeping on Sheila's hip like she normally does. (This happened around 7 PM, it's now 2:15 AM).

I swear to you all, God as my witness, I thought I had (somehow) killed her and she was dying right there and then. My nerves are frayed, Sheila's going out of her mind. This has been her cat since she was 18. Mine since I was 25.

I hope there's just something wrong treatable with antibiotics or something. I can't take seeing her (or Sheila) like this. Most of all, we don't want her in pain. The vet said she seemed very healthy, if not thin. He felt no tumors or blockages. But he did suggest that it is possible her kidneys or liver could be failing given her age. I just hope if it's her time, she goes quietly and at peace, knowing we love her very very much.

But I am praying she gets better. I'm not ready to say goodbye to my little girl.

Shania Twain is BACK ON THE MARKET!

They should not call Wednesdays this season "Results Night".

It should be called the "Forgone Conclusion Night" as the final two was picked before they even got to the top 10.

BO-RING.

I'm from New Jersey and of Italian descent.

Therefore I too worship at the temple of St. Francis Albert Sinatra.

Ten years gone, but a legacy that doesn't fade.

But I wonder, how the HELL did even HE get away with this lyric: "A lady doesn't wander all over the room / And blow on some other guys dice"

I mean, COME ON...

8^)

I found this meme on njvinnie's journal and, as a fellow "book nerd", thought it was cool. Pass it on!
-------------------------------
What we have here is the top 106 books most often marked as "unread" by LibraryThing’s users. As in, they sit on the shelf to make you look smart or well-rounded.

Bold the ones you've read, underline the ones you read for school, italicize the ones you started but didn't finish.

Here's the twist: add (*) beside the ones you liked and would (or did) read again or recommend. Even if you read 'em for school in the first place. Add a (+) if you own it, but haven't read it yet.

To two of my longtime LJ friends, bramey and kendokamel!

You ladies both rock!

Big fan of FireJoeMorgan.com. They take columns written about baseball and tear them to shreds with sarcasm and snarkiness and good old stats and facts.

This was there today, I had to comment.

Dude, Calm Down. It's a Mailbag.
Reader Bruce sent us this beauty from Richard Griffin's latest mailbag.

Let's start with the letter to Richard, sent by Casey in Vancouver:

I found the outpouring of support for Reed Johnson in last week's mailbag to be somewhat laughable. Fans seem to think that Johnson is the superior player simply because he has a superior throwing arm...I am more interested in another stat, runs. According to baseball-reference.com the 162 game average for Reed Johnson is 85 runs scored. For Shannon Stewart the number is 102...if history tells us anything Stewart would almost certainly get 10-20 more runs in a season than Johnson would. Do you seriously think that Johnson's arm would save the Jays more than 10-20 runs in year?

We're all thinking roughly the same thing, right? Casey kind of cherry-picked his stats, and using runs alone as an offensive stat really doesn't do much for his case. The whole math of the situation doesn't really work; there's like 400 other variables that he's ignoring in this equation. And, of course, why does someone in Vancouver care about the Blue Jays?

Oh, Canada. You motherfuckers.

I'm hoping we can all at least agree at this point that Casey's use of stats leaves something to be desired. Maybe we should all pitch in and get him a subscription to BP? No? How about an Icelandic Buckless Belt?

Anyway, let's see how Richard Griffin responds to Casey's question.

I find the general attitude of seamheads and stat geeks like yourself towards real, human, flesh and blood players that don’t measure up to your computer-generated ideals to be sad.

Holy dick!

Seamheads and stat geeks like Casey? The guy who...wait -- say that again?

I find the general attitude of seamheads and stat geeks like yourself towards real, human, flesh and blood players that don’t measure up to your computer-generated ideals to be sad.

That's what I thought you said! Yay! Richard Griffin's crazy!

Do yourselves a favor: go back and re-read Griffin's opening remark, but in your mind, pretend that it's being read by Col. Nathan Jessup from "A Few Good Men." I think you'll be happy with the results.

The so-called outpouring of love towards Reed Johnson from fans and from this mailbag last week has nothing to do with Reed’s throwing arm or the fact that some statistical proof can be generated from a website that shows Shannon Stewart capable of producing 17 more runs than Johnson in a 162-game season. It has to do with the fact of dealing with a decent human being that has not been treated with the same respect he has shown the game he has chosen as his profession.

A truly staggering amount of crazy, packed into one sentence. I like "generated from a website," as if baseball-reference.com is just making stuff up.

And, again: "It has to do with the fact of dealing with a decent human being..."

Interesting piece of trivia: Richard Griffin composes his mailbag responses by painstakingly writing tiny words on the sides of strands of fettuccine, using the the tip of a guitar string dipped in ink. He then boils the fettuccine, throws it against the wall, and lets the pieces fall to the floor. The order of the words in his responses is determined by the order in which the strings of pasta fall. "fact...of...dealing...with...a...decent...mmm!"

Griffin follows this up with some weird anecdotal shit that's supposed to make us think that Reed Johnson somehow got dicked over by the Blue Jays, which is totally possible but sort of boring. And then, more pasta!

I don’t blame you for your immaturity. It’s easy for someone on the outside looking in to disregard the humanity of players. But it’s difficult for someone that has been in the major-league game for 35 years to do the same.

Casey gets attacked for being immature? Man alive. Disregarding the humanity of players?

Just to sum up, this is apparently where we're at in the year 2008. It doesn't really matter where you fall on the Joe Morgan / Bill James spectrum. If you so much as use any numbers to defend your argument, then it's safe to say that you have a total disregard for the humanity of players.

Just making sure we all understand the ground rules.

There will never be any apologies from my part for caring about players as human beings, no matter how flawed their skills may seem when run through a computer.

I need like four cups of alfredo sauce.

To which comes my response...

So...

If he's all about the players humanity, I assume he's never written a negative word about ANY player. EVER. Cause they're all, like, HUMAN.

And in that case, no one should EVER get traded or released, as these are HUMANS we're talking about, and doing that would mess up their lives for a while and disorient them.

So they need to up the 25 man roster to infinity so it includes every person who ever played on the team, as well as all the minor leaguers (they're human, and should get to play in the majors too, why stifle their dreams?)

This guys sounds like the kind of guy who would demand you play Morgan Ensberg in game seven of the World Series over A-Rod because he has feelings too and wants to play.

Sounds almost... Communist?

The story is as follows...

A couple of weeks ago, mom got pneumonia for the second time in four months (last time she also had congestive heart failure). When she got over that she went to a Pulmonary specialist who told her that all this time while she thought she had asthma, it could likely have been enphysema. The next day, her doctor calls to tell her he got results from a blood test they did while she had pneumonia and she has diabetes.

Not long after this, she starts having disjointed vision (she explains it as she sees fine, but everything kind of flickers) and (unbeknownst to me) headaches.

Wednesday, she calls me at work (about 4 PM) to tell me she's going to the ER on doctors orders, he thinks she's having mini-strokes or Transient Ischemic Attacks (TIAs) I call Sheila and take off for the bus. On the way I call Aunt Mela, as she can get around the easiest and to let SOMEONE in the family know. She goes to Overlook and meets mom there. Sheila and I arrive about an hour later (about 5:15).

Mom was having terrible headaches in her left temple, and she was having trouble having conversations (mixing up words). She also would just say out of nowhere "I can't do that" for no reason. (Not just at random, she would have a... Spell? Is that a good word?)

Her doctor (Dr. Rizzo) had them run a CAT scan, take blood and test her sugar level. A Nurologist (Dr. Sachs) came by and tested her a bit. (Name, year, president, repeating things.) She got everything about her family history right, all her personal questions right, but couldn't repeat things he said to her. He told us the CAT scan came back normal. They wanted to do an MRI the next day and would admit her.

Her sugar that might was 425, extremely high, so they gave her an insulin shot. So we waited in the ER until about midnight when they got her a room upstairs. (Overlook Hospital, Room 702-2, 908-522-6174) Upstairs they put her on Heparin to thin her blood to help with the mini-strokes. They gave her a Percocet about 2:30 AM for the pain. About 3:30 she was finally drifting off and we went home.

Thursday, Dr. Sachs explained he felt the headaches, localized to her left temple, might be Temporal Arteritis. He immediately started her on a corticosteroid, Prednazone to lessen the inflammation. To verify this diagnosis, they needed to do a temporal artery biopsy, this is scheduled for Friday. Thursday, after giving her a Xanax to calm her down, they bring mom down to the MRI room, but she can't get into the tube (fear plus machine too small) so they send her back upstairs. The Xanax and the Percocet both kick in about seven PM and she conks out for her first good night sleep in two days.

Yesterday, they bring her down for surgery. Her anesthesiologist is the same one I had in October for an Endoscopy, which comforts me at least. (I lived.) The biopsy goes well and quickly, and she is in recovery in under an hour, wide awake and hungry. (She hadn't eaten since six the night before, and it was then about five. We go back up to her room, she eats, she's pain free (off the Percocet) and doing okay. She was still having the occasional disjointed vision and still having these periods of losing cognizance. What happens is she's talking, and then suddenly stops and says something like "No." or "I can't do this" or "Wait", then she stares off in the distance for about two minutes, blinks her eyes a few times and comes back.

Today, we had to take care of a bunch of stuff at home (taxes, laundry, SLEEP) and went up about 5:30. She said she had a good day, but she was starting to get headaches again. And while we were there she got maybe seven of them in five hours, only now they're in different places. (Behind her left ear, one in the temple again, in her neck, the other side of her head.) They gave her a percocet and it seemed to be helping. She's still having the moments of "spacing out" and they're frustrating her.

Dr. Sachs has scheduled a EEG for Monday, and we get the results of the biopsy on Monday as well. Mom's generally okay for most of the time, but several times an hour, she'll either have the disjointed vision, a headache, or space out. She's worse today than yesterday, but still better than Wednesday. (Those initial headaches were ROCKING her badly) They are keeping her until they figure out what exactly is wrong and how to handle it. Currently they believe it is Temporal Arteritis and TIA's, but the TIA's could actually be Eplilepsy.

It's all fun and games up here. Tomorrow we pick up some stuff from her place and head back up to spend time with her. Being Sunday, I don't expect many answers. We don't know when she's headed home yet. We were hoping for Saturday, then Sunday, then Monday, but now it appears to be Tuesday at best. Which would be about a week...

Crappiest. Vacation. EVER!