03-18-2008

So much to update, so little time.

The snow is mostly gone, but still not completely, even after raining a bunch today. Tom had run his car into the gutter that hangs out a bit into the driveway, trying to drive out in the snow, and two windows had been destroyed. That's already all fixed, thankfully; we're probably going to need both cars soon! Our new snowblower arrived today, so that probably means there won't be more than an inch or two on the ground at a time in Cleveland for the next 4 winters. Remember this prediction.

We took the cats to the vet last Thursday, and discovered that the cat who's been peeing inappropriately (just making more laundry for me, but still really annoying) had a UTI. Poor girl. She's now getting antibiotics and hasn't had any accidents in days. The cat who was pooping right outside the boxes (on tile floors, so not a huge deal, again just really annoying) apparently has a problem with the DRY food we've been feeding them. When we ran out of dry food and fed them nothing but wet food for a few days, the little piles disappeared...and they came back when we got more dry food...and are going away again now that we're back on wet food only (testing out whether the first time was a fluke). Which is really weird, but hey. Whatever works. I'm just glad we figured it out before Tom's parents come to visit this weekend!

Speaking of which, we are so not ready for them to be here. The "guest room" (read: the finished half of the basement) has piles of boxes we have yet to unpack, and a stack of framed art we haven't found places for on the walls in it, the whole house needs a going-over, badly, and Tom's super busy with last-week-before-break stuff. Guess it's a good thing they probably won't be here till noonish on Saturday. That should give us enough time to get things in order.

Speaking of parents, I've been talking to my parents more frequently (by which I mean 1-2 times a week) - dad tells me that they're part of a sleep study at the University of Washington - someone came and asked a bunch of questions and left then wrist sleep monitors and forms to fill out every day with how well mom slept, when she slept, etc. A couple times, now, he's mentioned that the study is about sleep in Alzheimer's patients. I've...been too chicken to ask him if that means she's actually gotten an official diagnosis (though, they can't actually be *sure* about that till post-mortem, right?). It is starting to seem like they *are* going to doctors and doing what they can, and mom also seems to be less in denial. She mentioned the other day that "she can't play cards any more" (they went to my aunt's house for my dad's birthday last weekend). So she went to Ikea, which is right nearby, while the rest of the family played cards. It's amazing how much the lack of denial has helped me with my attitude toward her. It's a lot easier to be sympathetic when she's not being adamant that nothing is wrong, and it's all our fault. That was really driving my poor dad nuts.

My work has also been kinda nuts. My coworker found out on Sunday afternoon that her 23yo son died in a car wreck. Our boss sent us email after she called and told him this, and his email said that she'd be working from home this week. I did get to talk to her a bit yesterday...she was logged in and doing some work. She said she was still kinda in shock, and mostly working just to keep herself busy until they had to go (they're going to have to travel to the funeral; I'm not sure where he lived, but it wasn't in Alaska, where they are). What do you even say in a situation like that? I expressed my condolences, and I sent them a card today (which they probably won't get till they get back), but she never talked about her kids much (she's only in her early 40's, and they're all grown and gone; I'm not even sure how many there are), so I'm just at a complete loss. It's just so unfair to them.

She didn't log in today, I don't think. Which is probably good, because today one of our main development servers was taken down so they could add some memory to it (it really needed the new memory). Turns out they needed two new sticks instead of the one they had (the dell website had bad info on it), AND, when they tried to bring it back up with the old memory, it bluescreened. When I gave up on working for the night at 2pm Alaska time (this started at 9am Alaska time), it still wasn't back up. This is a server that pretty much has to be up for me to do the bulk of my work. Quite frustrating.

And...this is already way too long. And it's way past my bedtime. G'night!