My stitches are out. She said I'm a fast healer. The skin had grown over severl of my stiches making them hard to remove.

I got this email from Woofer...

Vic has been having endless pain since Christmas. There is some kind of obstruction/tumor on his spinal cord. It became apparent after a Chiropractor visit.

The pain medication has not really helped, and he is having trouble sleeping, etc.

2-days ago, it got so bad that BF took him to the hospital, and they gave him a shot that helped, unfortunately it would only work for a few hours, and the pain would flair up again.

Last night he had another attack. This time it put him on the floor convulsing, like he was having a seizure. He was having trouble breathing, and BF said his pulse and blood pressure was at a very dangerous level. He said Vic is very frightened, as things seem to be getting worse.

Vic is now in emergency at the hospital, and they are giving him round the clock attention.

The neurosurgeon will be doing more assessments and tests, and I suspect he will not be released until he has surgery to correct this situation.

I'm very scared because it is getting worse over the last few days.

Also the neurosurgeon told him and BF that this is a very complicated situation.

Just thought I would update you.

The Valerian/melatonin combo seams to work. It didn't work as well on the second and third nights, but it still worked. RO has had a lot of back pain lately. He'll wake up and take some ibuprofen at 3am in the morning. with the Valerian & melatonin he'll quickly fall back asleep instead of staying away for hours.

Valerian.

For a while now I've been looking into and trying out various herbal sleep aids. Chamomile has zero effect on RO and I. Melatonine makes us drowsy, but the effect doesn't last all night. RO frequently wakes up at three or four in the morning even if he's on melatonine.

Last night RO and I took melatonine and valerian. The combination didn't have much effect on me, but RO slept like a baby. He slept so well that I thought he took a regular sleeping pill behind my back. RO denied doing so and said that he only took the valerian. He also said that for the first time in a long time he had a great sleep and that he felt normal.

I hope that last night wasn't a fluke. At least we have a plan.

Buy the way, valerian smells bad. When I first opened the bottle I thought it had spoiled. But, after googling it I learned the truth.; valerian literally smells like poop.

RO just called. He reiterated how great he feels today; that he slept for a full night and woke up feeling energetic. He is also hopes that the last night was not a fluke. That it was caused by the valerian and melatonine.

I guess we will find out tomorrow morning.

Last night was our the store's belated holiday open house and Christmas party. The bad weather in December forced us to move it to January.

It was an odd event. More customers showed up than friends, this meant RO had to 'on' all evening. People hung around till late then we had to clean up. RO and I didn't get to bed till 3:30am.

Then, when I wolk up at 7:30am, RO was already awake. He said he couldn't sleep. He's too stressed out.

RO has been suffering from insomnia for a long time. I'm almost angry with him, because accepts it, rather than deals with it. And the result makes his insomnia worse. For example, he doesn't worry about drinking coffee in the afternoon because he has insomnia and is going to be up for much of the night anyways.

Layoffs hit my day job today. I and my team are OK. For now we will stay together. But, the scent of blood is in the air.

The attitudes of my boss and his boss are distictly more agressive. Normally they push their managers to keep head count, even the maginal types, because the cost of getting a new employee is so high. But now it's a buyers market for employees and I hear things like "If so and so attrited, it wouldn't be held against you."

Pretty! Now that I see the slice without the bandage, I feel very lucky that nothing worse happened. The cut could have easily been more deep.

I slipped off a ladder and slashed my arm on a hook. The cut is 25cm long. There are 11 stitches at the deepest part of the cut.

Oddly enough, the gash didn't hurt that much. I've had paper cuts that felt much worse. There also wasn't much blood. I was very lucky that the hook didn't go more deep, or open up any major veins.

Yesterday was busy.

The new neighbors had an open house. RO and I spend about an hour there and got to know them. They are very nice people.

After that it was off to the premier of RC's documentary. In 2006 RC was part of the crew for a team of cyclists who cycled across the U.S.A in just under 8 days. In the little spare time that he had, he filmed the team.

The documentary is very good. I don't know what his plans are for it. Maybe he'll publish it. Maybe he'll just sit on it.

Many necessay choices can be cruel, depending on which side of the fence you are on.

We have laid off people at the store. We didn't want to. We had to. It was either that or we would start bouncing checks.

At my day job, they (we? as I am in manangment) are also reacting to the recession. It's a buyers market for talent. Quietly, we are encouraged to push out the weak performers and replace them with fresh, new blood. If someone quits, the manager looses that position. If someone is fired, then he can hire a replacement. The message is unspoken but clear.

RO and I worked the store this weekend. With less staff, I have to help out on the floor. Fortunately it was steady on both days.

Saturday night RO and I went to Steven's going away celebration. Afterwards, we ate at a fast food restaurant.

Some restaurants in WA are now required to publish the calorie counts on their menus. RO and I got into an huge argument about this. I'm fine with the calorie counts on the menus. RO is very angry about this. He views it as it's excessive government involvement in business. He also said that knowing the calorie counts ruined his experience at the restaurant.

He called me a Communist for tolerating this. I called him weak letting this information ruin his experience.

I kind of happy about the outcome of the argument as we managed to finish it off with neither of us storming off in a huff. We still don't agree with each other, but such is life.

We had dinner with Steven last night. He's leaving for Dallas, his new home, on Thursday. His townhouse is empty, except for some stuff he's leaving behind. He's ready to go.

I'm not sure all will end up happily. Things aren't going well with the guy in Dallas that he's dating. The job he was supposed to have hasn't panned out. I don't think Steven will return to Seattle as a result of either, but I hope it forces him to deal with his mid-life crisis.

Much of our talk was a bit new-agey and philosphical. How each of us have our own life journies. How each of us must walk our own path. As much as we'd like we can't really change other people. This is as close as Steven is to dealing with his divorce from Vic. Steven would take Vic back in an instant, but Vic is too hurt to even contemplate that. Steven admits he made a bad. choice. That leaving Vic for a hot young thing was the stupidest thing he's done in his life. Steven regrets his actions. But, Vic can't forgive and forget.

Years ago I gave Vic and Steven a framed picture of the two holding hands on a moon lit beach. Steven doesn't want to bring it to Dallas. He also doesn't want to throw it out or give it to Vic. As far as Steven can tell, Vic has gotten rid of all pictures of the two of them. Steven asked me to take the picture back, to keep it safe.

It's all grand, like, where have you been? I still check your blog from time to time.

I was hoping to make a joke about the nice weather in Greece, but it appears to be cool and rainy in your neck of the woods.

It's been flooding here. We've had heavy rain for days and it's brought about mud slides and over flowing levies.

So far I've been lucky. My house is half way up a gently sloaping, well treed hill, so it should be ok.

I know a few people (Earin and some of RO's relatives) whose houses are now flooded.

Several of my co-workers are trapped at home because all available roads are washed out.

Last night RO and I went to see the great classical guitarist, Sharon Isbin. Clem got some tickets to the event, so he gave us two.

She is very talented. But, for me, classical guitar is background music. Sitting there quietly, listening to guitar for two hours, is not something I'd ordinarily do.

The audience was very quiet. There were at least a thousand people there ye scarcely a peep was heard. You could hear it when someone shifted in their seat, or scratched themselves.

RO and I got another cat last night. It's a pound cat... a big, fat, female, declawed pound cat.

RO wanted to get a second cat as company for our existing cat. The old cat can be neurotic when left alone.

We went to a couple of animal shelters and interviewed(!) a half dozen cats before shettling on the big fat female. The big fat female is actually fairly active. I think her weight will come down since she will have much of opportunity for exercise at our house and we will watch her diet.

So far I am very happy with the big fat female. She is well trained. We only had to show her the litter box once for her to start using it. No messes. No accidents.

Last night as I lay on the sofa and listened to music, I said to RO, "We have two cats and are listening to jazz. How gay is that?"

RO said "What would we be doing if we were lesbians?"

"We'd be listening to Sarah Mclaughlan."

"With dogs."

More random memories....

While I was waiting for dinner with my brother and sister-in-law, I started doodling. The restaurant covered the tables with paper and provided crayons for just that purpose.

My sister-in-law, who has a degree in psychology, remarked that my doodles were all enclosed, geometric and very structured. I said "Well, what if I draw a wave around it all?" and I proceeded to do so.

She looked at the wave. It looped around the whole doodle. The end of the wave met with the beginning. She remarked "Your wave loops back and encloses everything. The troughs touch the boxes in a very specific pattern. Even your waves are geometric and structured."

Fortunately, I don't believe in doodle psychology.

I'm back from Toronto. Some random disconnected thoughts from the trip...

I saw many of my old college friends. They are all married with kids-- three or four kids in most cases. It's interesting how it has shaped their lives. Having kids makes you conservative and frugal. Not Conservative in the American polical sense, but conservative in the frugal, pragmatic, considered sense.

My friend Jeanette has a niece who is very similar to her in both looks and personality. The niece's mother, Jeanette's sister, now turns to Jeanette for answers. If the sister needs to know what kind of clothing the niece will like, what kind of tasks, or trips she will enjoy, or why the niece reacted so negativly to something, then the sister will call Jeanette and Jeanette will answer with scarey accuracy.

I am worried about my brother. He plays way too many video games and watches too much television. As a result, he is very fat-- well over three hundred pounds.

My friend Liam is doing well. His adopted son is almost old enough to leave alone with out a baby sitter.

Toronto is still booming. Huge condo complexes are going up everywhere. I miss it a bit, but I'm not ready to leave Seattle just yet.