Becky, Jamie, Jamie's Mom and Me 

It's been awhile. 9 days I think. At work, they took the internet away and that was when I would update this blog. I am missing the internet greatly at work. The branch I am at now is so slow and there is not much to do. But I was not setting a very good example as the teller supervisor and being on the internet all the time! So I will probably not being leaving a blog a day here any longer. Unless...I could write my blogs down on paper and then that one time a week that I actually make it online at home I could post all of them at once. Well, it is an idea. Because I am pleased with how long I kept this going. I am not sure if it is doing exactly what I intended it to do but it is not a bad thing either, putting my thoughts down all in one place. And occasionally my friends would stop by, which was always nice.
So I shall update and not write blogs for the days I have missed. This whole month of August has really been quite crazy. Heck, really I bet it has been the whole summer. I know Pete and Shawn are wondering where the hell I have been. Still some pain from the tooth pulling. Not as bad as last fall but uncomfortable nonetheless. Oh wait. Crap. I am only supposed to be writing about good things! Damnit! Let's start this over.
Jamie's wedding was Saturday and it was lovely. No problems at all. The flowers were gorgeous, Jamie was beautiful, my hair-if I do say so myself-was amazing. Of course the hairstylist did it in some crazy up-do, I really had nothing to do with it except supplying the hair! The cake was quite tasty. The best man, Erik, was very nice to me and good looking too. Everyone, really, was very nice to me and did their best to help me feel welcome since the only people I knew were Jamie, Andy, Jamie's dad and stepmom and some bank people that were invited. I did my best to be sociable and talk to people and smile. But it was such a mental and physical relief to leave at the end of the evening. To get out of that dress, hose, and heels, wipe off the lipstick, and relax into the quiet of my car. There were a couple of issues for me that day but I am not supposed to talk about the unpleasant stuff, right? I guess the good part about my issues is I don't think Jamie noticed I was having any issues. At one point her uncle did, though, and he asked me dance and that was very sweet. Ah shit, it wasn't my day, so what the hell does it matter anyway? Jamie and Andy had a great time and now they are off in Hawaii. Lucky bastards. Even luckier-we added up the money they got that evening-$5000! Holy shit! If I don't get married, can I have a party where everyone gives me money for living on my own? For surviving as a single woman in today's world? I think that deserves some presents, god damnit!
Alright, so that was the big event of the last week or so. Plus today I finally got my hair cut. For Jamie, I didn't cut my hair all year because I know she likes it better long and that she wanted us all to wear our hair up. So I let it grow and grow and I was so uncomfortable all summer but I did it for her and now the wedding is over and my hair is gone! And that makes me so happy and I feel so free now! Yay! And my happy topic for the last few weeks is still on my mind-vacation is just 2 weeks away! 2 weeks!

Hey Mary! You out there today? I can't stop thinking about this trip! I can't wait to see you guys and hang out! couple of questions. Anything in particular you guys want to do with us? Like rocky mountains or garden of gods? Anything else to do that we have overlooked? And, oh yeah, do you think the foliage will be changing up in the mountains while we are there? I would love to see some of the golden aspens!

Very good day today. Got up early and went to the buddhist temple with Willow and Greg. We missed morning meditation but made it in time for class. It was interesting. A taped lecture from the Jetsunma mostly about buddhism in general and how important it is. Not to be afraid, as a Westerner, to be different. That being buddhist is not like being christian. It is a lifestyle, not about how frequently you go to church, or temple. The lecture was titled the stakes are high. I enjoyed it. One part that really stuck with me was she was talking about self and other. When we individualize our selves, separate our selves, consider our selves to be independent then we automatically create "other". And the first time we see an "other", be it a person or an object, because it is separate from ourselves we judge it. Do we need it or not need it? Will it hurt us or not hurt us? Help us or not? Buddhism teaches that that belief in indepence is false. And that until we realize that we are not separate from everything else, we will only continue to hurt each other.
But the other interesting part of my day was at class tonight we started Hindu metaphysics. And a lot of the terms I heard in the Jetsunma lecture, I heard again in class tonight! Like samsara. I made a point to highlight all the terms I heard in both places. Pretty cool.
Also at the temple I got a small singing bowl. I love it! Took it to class of course I opened and closed with it. I told everyone at show and tell about quitting smoking and finally got the support I had been wanting about it. Everybody cheered and gave me hugs. That was really good and supportive. Oh yeah and at the temple I got a cd of chants and mantras to White Tara and a picture of her. That goes back to a dream that I had almost a year ago about Her. After the dream I had promised to come to KPC but I didn't. So I owed Her.

I have had enough of these mother fucking snakes on this mother fucking plane! yay for 110 minutes of sillyness and snakes at 35000 feet. I had a good time. So did Pete and Shawn I think. Still pain. Woke up with it. Then had chinese for dinner-lo mein-and it started hurting again. Sigh. Slept in today like I have been wanting to all week. I love saturdays off so that I can sleep, sleep, sleep!

Hey, do I need to have Samuel L. Jackson call you losers again or are we gonna go see mother fuckin snakes on the mother fuckin plane!! Hells yes! When? Saturday? Let's go!

Friday was a decent day. Got out of work early, always a good thing! Then the 200th episode of Sg-1 which was freaking hilarious! The best was either the star trek spoof or the farscape spoof. lovely, I love when shows make fun of themselves! Otherwise, still had some pain and still really tired. Another bad night sleeping too!

I slept through the night! No waking up to take pain medicine, no massaging the jaw, no going to the bathroom. It was glorious! Nothing refreshes and recharges quite like a good nights sleep. Especially after terrible sleeping for the past week or so. And I am so excited for this trip to Denver! We keep talking and planning and I just can't wait!

Ok Pete, Willow and Mary. I have been looking on the web for cool stuff for us to do on our trip. How do we feel about going to a gold mine? Panning for gold? I tried to find a place where we could pan for gemstones but no luck. Hot mineral springs? A neat sounding state park called Roxborough. You know the Celestial Seasonings Tea? They have a factory with a tour and a cafe in Boulder. I really want to go there, I love their tea. There is a Peak to Peak highway that starts in Nederland ( Mary you can tell us if that is relatively doable, it says it is 35 miles west of Denver) and finishes in Estes Park. Any other suggestions or stuff people want to do? Pete, I have found lots of state parks where you can rock climb if you are interested. I would love to have some suggestions on what people want to do. I still want to go to Garden of the Gods and horseback ride. What about Red Rocks Mary? Is that open like a park? Anybody playing there while we are in town? I am so excited for a vacation!

By the way, one week! One week with only 2 cigarettes! I went to the store and I got 2 nice shirts for on sale for 20 bucks! That was good. I also found the shoes I need for the wedding, I just have to buy them tomorrow. My dad got moved to rehab today! Finally! Now if he can just stay there and heal and not go back to the hospital. And his rehab is really close to my work which is super cool, I can stop by after work or even on my lunch if I wanted to! I probably won't do that. I like my lunch breaks for reading.

Tuesday was a quiet day. Quiet and slow at work. My dad is still doped up on the morphine so he was quiet too. He didn't even open his eyes while I was there, which I really don't mind. He needs the rest and it is quite a change to see him lying in bed peacefully. Quiet evening at home, me reading, my mom napping on the sofa, tv on quietly in the background. Only issue I am having right now is pain from the pulled tooth. Almost the same as last year. Pain in the jaw and dry socket. Taking vicodin at work and percocet at home. Everyday. And it seems to be getting worse, not better. This is crap.
Good news: still haven't smoked. It is hard but not as hard as I thought it would be. I am too distracted by the pain, I think.

Okay everybody! Just found out the bank is sponsoring a hershey park day! Not as good as many years ago but cheaper than normal price. $18.00 admission includes food, sort of picnic style like last time for those of you that went. October 1st, it's a Sunday. Who is coming with me? I definitely want to go! Yay rollercoasters!

Shhuuueeeyyy! I am tired! I just made up my own word. I like it. Very long day today. My mom called at 7:30am to let me know that my dad was going in for surgery at 9:30am. I slept for another 45 minutes then headed down to the hospital where I hung out with my mom and dad until surgery. We even got to stay with him down in the pre-op area. Then they took him in and amputated his toes on both of his feet. I came home and slept for about an hour while my friend Anya went in and opened the Turning Wheel for me. I went into work an hour late at 1pm but I really needed that nap! Worked all afternoon then back to the hospital to hang with my dad. My mom and my sister were there then my aunt showed up. My dad was pretty much out of it on morphine. But it was nice us girls hanging out. Came home, ate dinner, read my book and finally, after taking 2 percocet, I went to sleep!

Jamie's bachelorette party was tonight! Nothing too crazy or outrageous happened, Jamie just wanted to hang out with her friends. So we got some wine, and some food. Ordered pizza and wings. Played cards and watched Wedding Crashers. Then we got ice cream from Baskin Robbins. All in all a good relaxing time was had by all. There was only 5 of us and it was perfect. I was supposed to spend the night, we were going to do a whole slumber party thing. But I knew I would have to be at the hospital early the next morning and my tooth is killing me. I think it is dry socket. : ( So I didn't spend the night.

Hey Pete! Are you out there today? I am at work today. I called out yesterday. Still in lots of pain but I took the vicodin and now I feel ok. Comment back, I am bored!

Yeah, so I worked today. And it was boring for the most part. The afternoon just dragged on and on. I didn't realize Pete responded to my blog because he did it so late, by then I had stopped checking. So, day number two with no cigarette. And that boring long afternoon was a test, I was jones-ing for a smoke so bad! I haven't decided if this will be the big quit yet. It should be. Why should I go through this again? Unfortunately I haven't been able to take the ziban, you can't take ziban with percocet or vicodin. So I will start taking that once I stop the narcotics. Pete picked me up last night and brought me to his house to watch sg-1. Thanks Pete! Then Shawn brought me home after sg-1. Thanks Shawn! Then straight to bed, I was so tired!

Called out from work today. Yippee! I don't hurt too terribly bad, but it is getting worse as the evening progresses. It was a pretty relaxing day, I watched Shrek with my nephews. Vegetated on percocet mostly. That's the only good part about having a tooth pulled.

Dentist day. I survived. I didn't cry. Just minor panic attacks but my dental assistant, she is so sweet, she held my hand and talked me through it. I always thought it was funny that in aerobics class the instructors remind you to breathe. When I go to the dentist and he is working on me, I have to remind myself to breathe. I just sit there and hold my breath. Not good. What was good was that while I was waiting to be called-one of my most nervous times-I was able to calm down and almost meditate. I used a couple different mudras and they really seemed to help. The rest of the time was awful, one of the worst dentist experiences. Not the dentists' fault though, just one of those things. I don't want to talk about it though, this is supposed to be good stuff. Here's some good stuff-percocet!

Did anyone else feel the glorious cool air that arrived with the setting of the sun? What a beautiful evening! I opened up the windows and turned off the air and just revelled in it. It was a tease of the autumn ahead. Oh wonderful fall, so close! I tasted the first hint of you on the air tonight and I can't wait until you arrive!

One of my co-workers found the funniest thing on the web while at work today. If you go to www.snakesonaplane.com you can have Samuel L. Jackson call on the phone and leave a message about going to see the movie! It is hilarious! You can customize it a little bit, he will say the person's name that you are calling and your name and other little things. It was great! So I had Mr. Jackson call Pete, Mary and Shawn. And if I do say so myself, I think I made their days! And that made me feel good, too!

Sunday too

Sunday

Sunday was spent entirely in the dealer room at Otakon. Pete and I got airsoft guns! BB guns! They are going to be so much fun! I got a couple more dvds and a voo doo baby Mr. Pumpkin that is just the cutest thing you ever did see! Actually before Otakon, I had to go to the hospital for my dad. We had a big family meeting with the surgeon. All of us were there, even my sister and the boys. My sister has been up since friday and it has been good. We got some bad news about my dad last week-see the blogs about jinxing myself-and my mom called my sister and asked her to come up again. Looks like my dads toes have gone gangrene and they will have to be amputated. So the surgeon who is going to do it wanted to talk to us all about it. It was nice to be included.

Saturday too

Saturday

Saturday at Otakon! Big costume day and there certainly were very excellent costumes everywhere. Today was a little frustrating at times but I always get like that at Otakon at least at some point. I think it has to do with all the people crowding me. I got to see Voltron! Yes my friends, Defender of the Universe Voltron! I knew it was going to be cheesy and not hold up to the pedestal that I put it on when I was a kid but this is the cartoon that got me into anime in the first place. Robotech came later. The played the first 4 episodes of voltron and they were just glorious. I felt like a little kid again. And so did the whole audience around me-everyone cheered and clapped at the opening titles. It was great. I got to talking with this nice guy sitting behind me and now I wish I had exchanged emails or something with him. I have got to keep myself open when those situations happen! Then afterwards I hung out with Willow and Greg and that was great! How cool to have them there too. Then off to the saturday night fan parodies which are the high point of every Otakon weekend. Can you imagine-"Brokeback Evangelion"? It was hilarious! Plus other movie trailers made from anime and everybody's favorites Evangelion ReDeath and Nescaflowne. Yay fan parodies!

Friday

Wow, what a kind of crazy first day of Otakon. First of all, we didn't get up at the crack of dawn to get there early. Sleeping in is good! Shawn had to work all day and didn't arrive until almost 6pm. We ran into Angie on one of our trips to the car, Angie works in the city for those who don't know. Ang, I know you read this sometimes, but let's be honest. It blew me away that Jess talked to Angie. And not just casual conversation, Jess pulled Angie aside and it looked like they had a good talk about everything. Holy crap! That was crazy! We went to the dealer room and I bought stuff on the first day. I never buy stuff on the first day! But they were too good of deals to pass up. Witchhunter Robin complete series box set-$35! What the hell! That is nuts! I was afraid they would sell out, so I had to get it then. Samurai Deeper Kyo complete series box set-$30! Same story here, had to get it. Then the awesome costumes. People have a tendency to bring out the non-anime costumes on Friday. A few Jedi were cool. But Pyramid head from Silent Hill was the best-he scared the shit out of Jess. Of course I kept refering to him as Triangle Man which lead me to singing They Might Be Giants all day in my head!

Air conditioning! Thank god! Yes, a second day where the best thing is a/c. Had a really good talk to with my mom tonight. And someone please remind me not to say anything about stuff getting better or worse. I hate when I jinx myself.

August 1st. The dog days of summer. Today I am grateful that I have air conditioning. I am not sure what the final temperature was with the heat index and all that. But I am so glad that I work indoors and have a/c at home and work and car. I went to the mall after work and went for a walk. Of course I negated the walk by drinking a starbucks green tea frappichino. Hell yes! But that filled me up. Then a vicodin when I got home, which upsets my stomach a little so I only ate some goldfish for dinner. I am also grateful that I have health insurance. I just wish I could add my mom to my policy. What a mess everything has become since my dad has gone in the hospital! It will get better. It has to.