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She was on vacation with her family, and started limping and complaining of pain in her left foot. After x-rays and tests, it was found that she didn't have any broken bones. She ended up at the Children's hospital nearby, and they found a staph infection in her left foot and calf. In the process of treating the staph infection, they found that it was the kind of infection that created blood clots. They found one in her left thigh, and it moved to her lung. They did some exploratory surgery to see how much her bone and muscle had been affected by the infection, and pulled nasty stuff from her heel to make sure that the antibiotics were able to make it to the appropriate places.
Her lungs were congested, and her heart wasn't working properly, either, so they had to give her a breathing tube and a feeding tube in order to make it easier for her to breathe and slow down her heart a little. She's not too pleased about it, so she had to be mildly sedated.
The doctors say her prognosis is good, because she's not recovering too quickly. Apparently, if you recover too quickly, it can be a sign that something else is wrong.
Anyway, she's a sweet little girl, and she's being so strong, along with her little sister, and her mother, who is so strong and upbeat I wonder where she gets it. If you have a few spare moments, throw a thought her way, okay?
It was only a little pain in her foot.
Take care of yourselves, people.
By the way, if you know Jadee, or are just curious, you can keep updated on her status by going here.
- Mood:
worried
So when they actually do get me on the phone, and I don't either pretend that I have other things going on, or pretend I'm someone else, I have a tendency to listen to them nicely, even chit chat with them if they're in the mood, and then agree to give the lowest amount possible. Inevitably, I get transferred from the person I'd been talking to, in order to talk to the person who's going to take my information. They ALWAYS ask me which credit card I'd like to put the donation on. I ALWAYS tell them that I would prefer to pay by check.
And each and every one of them have said that it's better to do it by credit card as the money is put to use immediately. I tell them I understand that, but that checks are better for me. Usually they acqueise, get my address, and ask me to send in the check as soon as possible. And that's that.
But this last one just seriously pissed me off. I said that I would rather pay by check. He gave me the spiel about how it's used immediately. I said that I understand, but that I'd rather pay by check. He said that he understands, but that he's the one that's responsible for the whole thing, that the line is secure, that the numbers get deleted as soon as the thing is processed, and that it's okay to pay by credit card. I told him I'd rather pay by check because it's easier for me to keep track of what's going on. He said that he'd send me a reciept and all the information I need to make sure my donation is tax deductible. I said, again, that I'd like to pay by check. He said, "So you can't use a card?" I said no, and then he curtly asked me for my address, said something along the lines of "We hope to have your donation as soon as you receive the information," and hung up on me.
If you can't take the money in the version I'm willing to give it, then don't freaking ask me for money. It's ridiculous to 'require' all money that comes into your charitable organization be of a certain form. I understand that they'd rather have credit cards because plastic is the wave of the future. But if you can't be considerate enough to accept that I'm not comfortable with giving you my credit card number and that funky little ID number on the back of my card over a landline digital phone without giving me curt, terse, disrespectful responses, then you don't need my money.
That is all.
- Mood:
annoyed
On the plus side, I am learning how to use SQL. It's for a project that I'm working on. On the negative side, I'm putting work into creating all these tables, and my boss comes, looks at them, suggests I add another table, and then says that all of this work may not even be necessary because the people that write the utility to analyze what we need may just create the database themselves. So then what the hell am I doing?
I think that due to that, and the fact that I ate lunch at my desk while the rest of my coworkers went out for lunch (they invited me right before they left, assuming that I'd go with them even though I had a meeting at 1 and had brought my lunch, but I declined, saying that if they had told me about it the day before I would have planned for it, meaning I wouldn't have brough my lunch, and I would have had cash), I think I'm going to leave here to go home in about 20 minutes.
That's the plan, anyway. Who knows if I'll actually be able to do that.
Yeah, I'm low. I'm sorry. Last weekend didn't really go well, so I'm hoping that this weekend will go better. At least the Super Bowl, and hopefully funny commercials are at the end of the weekend to look forward to! Oh, and I'm getting my hair cut, too. I need to actually remember that I have that scheduled for tomorrow... :)
- Mood:
listless
When you see this, post in your own journal with your favorite quote from The Princess Bride.
Preferably not "As you wish" or the Inigo Montoya speech.
Vizzini: HE DIDN'T FALL? INCONCEIVABLE.
Inigo Montoya: You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
Crack me up.
And when AIM Started, the typical webpage started right along with it - I haven't turned it off, because normally I ignore the page and just go straight to my email page. But there it was. A small blurb on the page containing the words "Rachel Ray" and "terrorist." Intrigued, I clicked on the link.
And was taken to a news site that explained that a Dunkin' Donuts commercial featured Rachel Ray wearing a white scarf with a paisley print, and that some political pundit, Michelle Melkin, had gotten her nose out of joint, because it was remniscent of a scarf muslim "terrorists" have worn on their heads. She made enough of an issue about it that the commercial got pulled.
Thinking that this Michelle Melkin was an Ann Coulter wannabe, I looked her up. Nope, not so much. Apparently, she's a pundit for Fox, and she's sat in for Bill O'Reilly on his show, calling one of his "guests" a whore.
I find this whole thing ridiculous. Quite frankly, it's pissed me off. Isn't that a similar scarf to the bandanas, or western scarves or shawls that people wear? Since when is paisley a symbol for terrorism? I admit that I've never liked paisley, but I didn't know that that pattern causes terrorist to jump up and say, "Hey, let's go kill us some infidels!"
I find it sad that we've become such a fear driven society. Do everything in our power to be PC, make sure that no one is mad at us... Grr.
- Mood: annoyed
But they left this morning and were followed somewhat quickly by DH, as he's on a business trip 2 hours away until late Wednesday night. So I'll be going home to an empty house. It feels weird, knowing that when I get home, I'll be alone except for the cats. Something to get used to after a full house for three days.
But it was a whole lot of fun for them to be up, and I think they had a good time, too. Kind of different to not have the rest of the family around as well. Oh well. Time to get back to work. I have a meeting at 1 to get ready for... If it keeps snowing like this, I might just totally skip chorus... :)
- Mood:
happy
But I finally turned off the TV, but away a couple decorations, and then headed upstairs to put a couple things away. Now I'll be getting the songs together to email, and i'll call myself productive for the day.
Tomorrow will be a different story. :)
I may just throw a movie in my computer to make myself feel better. Into the Woods is playing in my iTunes right now....
- Location:Home
- Mood:
cynical
I ended up staying home yesterday, partly because of my dentist appointment, and partly because I just needed a break. I was online and available to the people at work, and did, in fact, get some work done. But I desperately needed to get away for a while. And it worked. I'm in a better mood now than I have been for the past few days.
I went to the dentist to get one of a few fillings replaced (I have 2 more appointments for the same thing next month), and found out that I"m going to have to get a crown on that tooth sometime within the next 4 months. I'm not really looking forward to that, but there's not much I can do about it.
A lesson to those who do not take care of their teeth and who don't go to the dentist for 5 years. That won't happen again.
Anyway, I got that done, and I've realized that I really like the dentist I'm going to, and have to thank my quartet member for referring them to us. Very happy.
And I finished my decorating. Oh, sure, the house is in a general mess, the stove needs to be wiped down, as do the counters, and the bathroom is just shy of me going crazy. But the house is decorated, and it makes me smile every time I look at my tree. DH even put up lights outside on the garage! Very happy about that!
So here's to coming back from a funk in the best possible way!
Can't you not like either one?
- Mood:
thoughtful
( Day 8, Part 2 )
- Mood:
ecstatic
( Day 8, Part 1 )
- Mood:
excited
- Mood:
hopeful
But I'll get back on it soon, I promise! I'd like to get the lab manuals done by the end of the week, so I'll definitely try to get moving on the Russia stuff this weekend at the latest.
Meanwhile, my quartet auditioned for the chorus for the first time with a new baritone, B. She's fantastic, and did so well. We're so proud of her! We have another rehearsal tomorrow night, and then our first real singout about an hour north of here on Thursday! Wish us luck!
- Location:Home
- Mood:
exhausted
( Day 6 is fun! )
- Mood: happy
( Saving Space! )
- Mood:
content
( To save space :) )
- Mood:
mischievous
Day 3 – Saturday, August 18, 2007: Okay, who was in charge of reminding me to check my batteries before any outing? Or at least to bring extras? Apparently you people aren’t doing your job!
The morning came a little too early. Missy and I woke up around 7, enough time to get up and get ready so that we could get down for breakfast before our first rehearsal at 9 with the men’s chorus and Greg. What’s breakfast, you ask? Same cold buffet as dinner – cucumbers, tomatoes, peppers, weird salads, lunchmeat type items… Just add some weird cereal to it, what we all think was cow’s milk, some fruit and yogurt at the end. Oh, and bread for toast. And then the hot buffet contained the same type of potatoes as dinner, warm hard-boiled eggs, fried eggs (over easy and over hard, nothing between), some kind of weird potato cake with cream cheese in it, sausages that looked like hot dogs, and a couple other weird things. Oh, and the weirdest thing (you thought it was weird before? Ha!) was the fact that the entire dessert spread from the night before was there!
After breakfast, we were all asked to go to the first floor restaurant (the buffet thing is on the 2nd floor) for rehearsal. The 35 women and 22 men shoved onto what could be called the dance floor, and curved around so that we were all facing Greg, who would take us through combined numbers. He talked for a while about what an experience this would be for us, and how happy he was for us. He told us about how they would shove each other to get into the theaters, how they love us, etc. I don’t think we really believed him. At least, I didn’t. I know the response we get in the states – anytime I mention an upcoming concert to anyone other than family, and sometimes even them, I get the glazed over look – oh, that’s nice; wonder how I can get out of this.
We went through the ballad with relative ease. Greg had to go over a couple things with the guys, but not big deal. The uptune took a little more work, as the women couldn’t start the song without flatting it really quickly. We ended up having to raise the song a half step in order to keep it in tune by the time the guys came in. Something the tenors weren’t all that happy about.
Once rehearsal was over, we got our stuff together and hopped on our buses to be taken to the Hermitage, the first site for us to visit. When we got there, we realized the line to get in was absolutely huge! I took a picture of the outside of the Winter Palace, which is part of the Hermitage, paid 100 Rubles for a picture permit, and then my camera ran out of juice. Four dollars gone. I asked to get the pictures from Kenlee, as I knew that she’d be taking quite a few. Man, I felt stupid. Should have seen that one coming!
Oh! Slava, our guide, got yelled at by another tour guide, because our three buses didn’t arrive at all the same time – which meant when the others did arrive, they joined us in line, which basically cut in front of the people that arrived after our first bus. It was kind of interesting to see the polite irritation in both of them.
Our group was broken up into more manageable groups of 35 and we started our tour. It’s gorgeous, and reminds me of the Louvre. Tons of things to see, all beautiful. Especially the Da Vinci’s, Rafael’s, and the El Greco (reminded me of the ones I saw in Spain way back when). But after about 45 minutes, I started getting irritated and claustrophobic. There were so many people and it was so warm in all the rooms. Shoving was going on, loud guides, etc.
However, one thing that I got out of the trip was my $40 Faberge egg that I bought from the gift shop. It’s glass (or crystal, not sure), with etchings of a horse drawn carriage in fields. There’s a clear concave circle in the front of it, that when you look through, you can see the horses and carriage in miniature. It’s so cool.
While we were waiting for the rest of the groups to be done, I purchased a really small set of nesting dolls and a small box with a hand painted (they say) picture of a fairytale on it. I thought they were pretty cool.
Lunch was next – a Greek restaurant. I’m not really sure what was Greek about it, as we had chicken in a weird sauce and rice. Dessert was a weird moist cake that we think had been sitting in lemon juice. Let’s just not talk about the salad.
Then it was back to the hotel to “rest” and rehearse with Russian Sizzle!, my quartet for the trip. Our original baritone ended up not going on the trip at all, so in order to sing in Russia, a bass (whose quartet wasn’t going, either) decided to learn a few of our songs in baritone. For those of you who don’t know exactly what kind of feat that is, it’s incredible to go from any part to baritone. You have to really, really want it. And she did, cause she did fabulously! Oh, and the reason why rest was in quotes – they gave us about an hour and a half to rest, but they didn’t realize that we’d have to use that time to get dressed in our costumes and apply the theater-esque makeup. That takes forever.
We left late from the hotel because one of our girls fell asleep and the alarm clock didn’t work correctly. Not such a good way to start the evening.
The theater we were to perform in is right across from the Ballet theater whose name I can’t remember now. That building is a mint green color, while the St. Petersburg Conservatory across from it (ours) is gray. We found out that Tchaikovsky learned and performed at the conservatory, so there are paintings of him in the theater, and signed sheet music under glass – just in little display cases. Not protected in any way that we could see. It was crazy.
I’m hoping someone else will have gotten pictures of the gorgeous theater, as I forgot, once again, to change the batteries out in my camera. We rehearsed quickly with the men, did about as well as we did earlier this morning, which meant that we had to raise the key of the song by half a step. This really irritated the Tenors, but we couldn’t do anything about it at that point.
The women opened the performance (songs: This Joint is Jumpin’, then Sizzle!, Night and Day, followed by a bunch of Russian performers, as well as a couple men’s quartets, then the women opened the second half (songs: Just Another Rhumba, and Swing Medley), some more Russian groups, then the men’s chorus, then Real Time, the international champion quartet, and then the combined chorus again. Sizzle! performed during the women’s chorus at the beginning. We sang Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy, and during that, I noticed a guy in the audience nodding his head to the beat, with a slight smile on his face (odd expression, given what we had seen the rest of the day). He was the only one that I noticed getting into it, so I kept looking back at him throughout the song to make sure I was keeping him entertained. Linda said that she noticed someone on that side as well mouthing the words to our song. It was great. The whole show went really, really well.
We had dinner at the Tchaikovsky restaurant, which in my opinion was better than lunch, as I enjoy stroganoff much more than Greek food. Even though the salad was weird again – what’s with putting mayonnaise in all of their salads? Yick. The building used to be the headquarters of the Russian equivalent to the Barr Association back in Tchaikovsy’s time – he was a lawyer by education and trade. Who knew?
Some of the girls decided to stay downstairs and have some celebratory drinks, and I’m up here writing before I forget, and before I’ve taken off my makeup. Which means every time I look up from writing and catch myself in the mirror, I freak out thinking that there’s some weird hooker in my room. Maybe it’s time to take it off…
- Mood: excited
Day 2 – Friday, August 17, 2007: We arrived around 3:30 PM Russia time today. And here’s what we did:
We were crammed onto a bus from the plane to the airport, where we caught up with the others that were supposed to arrive about an hour after us; Went though the passport check point; picked up luggage. Most people went through the point of no return, leaving some of us behind, and then realized they couldn’t go back to see what was going on; Barb Burnett’s luggage, and that of at least one of the guys was lost; Learned the bus has no A/C; learned there are very few stoplights.
We learned that I am scared of Russia!!
Once we got to the hotel, we found out that there was only one key (metal) for each room. They told us that to make things easier, we could just leave the key at the front desk each time we left the room so that our roommate would be able to get in the room if they aren’t with us. For about half a second I thought this was a good idea, until I realized that the front desk has all of our passports, so how in the world are they going to make sure that we’re the ones attached to the rooms.
The rooms look like dorm rooms. There are two beds, thank goodness, but they’re twin mattresses. There’s one desk, two night stands, no dresser, and a small closet. The bathroom looks modern, than goodness, but the toilet paper looks (and feels) like paper towels. There were two windows, that had no screens, and a “balcony” door, which wouldn’t open. Thankfully, the two windows did, so they were immediately used. The room was so hot and stuffy.
We had been told that the water wasn’t the best to drink (other than to brush our teeth with), so Missy (my roommate), Linda, Frank, Kenlee and I walked across the street on the prowl for water, as we didn’t know any other way to do it.
This was after we all tried to exchange money. Linda and Kenlee got through, Tam as well. Frank was a little further behind in the line, and he was kind enough to take my money to exchange as well. But as soon as he walked up to the window, the woman behind it pulled the blinds down. Apparently she was on a break. Not a word was spoken. Rude woman. So neither of us had any Rubles. Annoying, since we needed to purchase water, and had to rely on our good friends to help us out with that.
Across the street, we found a little shop, which apparently didn’t have any A/C, either, and was crammed with others from our group that had figured out there was a store. We found huge jugs of water, as well as some bottles, and Kenlee basically bought for most of us. Little did we know when we got back, that half the stuff we bought was sparkling.
I hate sparkling water. Luckily, the jug that Missy and I got wasn’t sparkling, so we were good to go. :)
After unpacking for a little while, and resting as well, we went downstairs for dinner. The hotel has a buffet that we took advantage of, as most of us were starving. It had random veggies (cucumbers, tomatoes, peppers), salami and ham, and what looked like bologna, weird looking salads, chicken wings, and other weird things. As you can guess, my meal was limited to the tomatoes and cucumbers, chicken wings and potatoes. Oh, and I purchased a bottle of water for about 3 dollars. Irritating, but necessary.
After dinner, I exchanged money, and then went to get more water. Don’t worry, I didn’t go alone. Linda and Kenlee also dislike sparkling water, so they went with me. Kenlee came really close to buying yet another bottle of sparkling, until I noticed that her bottle looked slightly different than mine. We fixed it, and went along our way.
We got back to the hotel and found Dr. Greg Lyne, the master director of the festival, Mark, Linda’s son, Everly, Mark’s girlfriend and Frank chitchatting for a while. Gred ended up having a meeting to decide what the choruses were singing the next night for the opening concert, so the rest of us talked for a little while longer. Basically as long as we could. Frank told me that I should go to bed about 30 times, as I was almost falling asleep sitting up, but I refused until later. Then Kenlee and I split because we couldn’t take it anymore.
Upstairs, I sent a text message to hubby, and then went to bed, which my roommate had already done. It was 10:30 PM Russia time. I’m surprised I made it that long. :)
- Mood: exhausted
Day 1 – Thursday, August 16, 2007: I’m on my way to St. Petersburg by way of Vienna on Austrian Airlines. I’m somewhere over Canada in a big plane – 767, which has a seating arrangement of 2–3-2. I was supposed to be in a window seat, but I gave it up to one of the chorus members I’m traveling, as she has issues with flying.
By the way, this plane feels like I’m inside a circus tent. Picture this:
You walk onto an airplane, and notice that everyone greeting you is in bright red. They’re tan skinned, but they’re dressed in bright red. Primary color red. Everything is red. Shirts, jackets, skirts, pants, tights (for those wearing skirts) shoes. The only thin that isn’t red in their attire is the requisite sky blue accessory. One. Neck scarf or a pin. That’s it. You’re almost blinded and wondering how in the world you’ll be able to sleep during the flight ask they’re going up and down the aisles. Just when you think that you’ll somehow be able to manage, you are directed to your aisle, and continue on your way to find the cacophony of colors that you’ll be enveloped in throughout the rest of the flight. The seats are teal. The headrest covers alternate between red (same shade as the dress code) and yellow. The pillows are dress code red. The blanket is lime green with dress code red trim.
AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!
Stop imagining it! You need to be able to sleep tonight!
Okay. Moving on.
My flight only has 13 of the chorus on it, as the rest of the ladies and guests are traveling with Air France. Why the difference? Because the others are planning on taking the extension trip to Moscow for 3 days following St. Petersburg. We’ll all arrive around 3 PM tomorrow, and we start rehearsing the next morning at 9 AM. I don’t know who made that decision, but I can tell you right now that he or she is no friend of mine (more than likely a he. Should have known).
(Later) I find that I can’t sleep. It’s odd, cause the last time I went to Europe, I was able to get in at least a couple hours during the flight. This time my eyes are just tired, but they’re not staying closed too long. This has caused me to get my journal out, along with one of the two pens I brought along, and start waxing poetic on my lack of success with past journals. Really it will only require a couple sentences. Many of my past journals have never been written in more than fifteen times, some not more than five. I believe when I was unpacking once, I found on that said it was supposed to be my travel journal for my trip to France and Spain freshman year of high school. It had one entry. To summarize: This will be my travel journal.
Yeah. I suck at journals.
But given the fact that I’ve been designated to keep track of things for the quartet this trip, I’m hoping I do a better job of it.
One of my fears for this particular traveling part of the journal is not being able to write the names of the places we visit correctly. With the language being Cyrillic, I’m sure I’ll find things I won’t be able to pronounce, let alone write. Scary thought when you don’t have a computer to back you up.
One more thought before I stop: What is it about the morning that makes you sit up straight? And what the heck was I thinking when I forgot to bring eye drops???
- Location:Airborn Circus Tent
- Mood:
drained
2) I also still haven't gotten the pictures up here, either. That's because I realized I have over 300 that I need to get through and name, and then decide what I'm going to put up here. I'm almost done naming them, mostly so that I can put them on a CD for the quartet. Once I finish that (hopefully before rehearsal tonight), I'll be more likely to get them put up... Let's hope.
3) My boss has decided to move on from the group, and will end up moving to Cleveland after the school year. We pretty much figured that something like that was going on, as he's had a rough time ever since he took the job that he's in now. It's a stressful job, beat him down. I'm happy for him, glad that the position that he's taking is such a good one. However, I will miss the boss I've grown to like a lot, and the friend I've had since I began working at this company. Oh, I know I won't be losing a friend, but given how keeping in touch has gone with the others that have left this group, I'm not holding out hope here. The question then becomes what I'm going to do, as I have told one of my work friends (also not with the group) and my husband that if my boss leaves, I'll be looking for something else. I'm not sure that I will right away. I always hesitate to leave my comfort zone. So I think for now, I'll see who they fill the vacant position with, give the person a chance, and then go from there.
Wish me luck!
Hope all of you are well...
- Location:clocktower, with one foot out the door
- Mood:
contrite
