Thu Jun 05 2003 11:54: I'm home now and slowly feeling up to doing more. Don't know when I'll get to my Scrabble turns though. The surgeon inserted the catheter on the right side, right below my collarbone. It's still pretty hard to move my arm. The tube goes straight into an artery, and I'm on the IV 24 hours a day. The pump and IV bag are in a backpack that has to go everywhere with me. I can tell it's helping, because when they disconnect to change it and draw blood I start feeling faint and terrible.

This is going to look soooooooo glamorous with my tablecloth mother of the bride dress!

Marlene is here staying with me to make sure I behave. It's a strange situation because usually she's my partner in crime; she's havng to be the mom around here! Everyone in the ward and from work is being so good to me. The RS Pres. offered to have meals sent in, but I passed on them. Don't need any Mormon Mystery Meals.

The hospital's dietician came to see me and brought recipes for cooking with Ensure. Oh yummy. Tuna Noodle Casserole made with vanilla Ensure.

Hillary decided I was not going to teach the summer school class. This is sort of a relief, but I don't know what I'm going to do about money. It's a big problem. I have no idea what the co pay on this TPN is going to be but I imagine it is horrendous.

Thu Jun 05 2003 16:31: Received a phone call from my stepmother, Annetta Whitney, and had a nice long conversation with her.

Fri Jun 06 2003 16:40: Dr. Amin is happy with my progress. He says perhaps three months on full time TPN.

After Dr. Amin, Marlene and I went to Rosemary's. Brian Leary was there working. I had a petite bananna split and ate almost the whole thing. Tonight we might go to a movie.

Sun Jun 08 2003 12:51: Leonard and Sumana are here taking care of me. It's been nice to have them. Not nice for them, unfortunately. The air conditioner has died! Just one thing after another. I'll have to call tomorrow and get the miracle workers out. Fortunately this week is predicted to be only in the 90s. Karen Nations lent me a stand fan; how very kind of her.

Tue Jun 10 2003 12:32: Sewing sewing. Also reading trashy scififan novels that Jeannette brought me. Leonard took one of them home with him. Marlene has gone home and Gretel and I are holding the fort alone, with the cats. I need to seriously find something real to eat.

Tue Jun 10 2003 18:55: Gretel dug up the eggplant. I'm going to SWAT that puppy!

I'm reading the first Xanth novel by Piers Anthony. Don't know what all the excitement is about. I find it offends the reader's intelligence by defining within the text all the standard magical words: manticore, pentagram, etc. I guess that's okay for a 7th grade level book. Bleah. Give me Phillip Pullman any day, even for kid books.

Wed Jun 11 2003 21:44: Finished Xanth, began another of Anthony's. Don't know if I'll finish it. Don't know if it's worth finishing. I cut out the skirt and lining of the dress and sewed some.

Tonight, out to dinner for Hillary's birthday. In attendance were David and Erik, Marlene, Debbie, Jean and Susan. Oh yes of course, me and Hillary. We went to Sorello's; I had the shrimp scampi. I really ate a lot of it. The service was waaaaayyyyy slow. Everyone had fun looking at my tube.

Fri Jun 13 2003 19:35: I read Katherine Anne Porter's Ship of Fools. I think I probably have read it before. This time, her examination of the nature of evil (generally) and the Nazi philosophy (specifically) is even more chilling.

Sat Jun 14 2003 11:30: Oh happy day! The air conditioning repair guy FINALLY came, and it was only a burned out fuse. As I suspected. If I'd been able to get up there and do it myself, I would have saved a hundred bucks on a service call. Why not just wish turnips were watches?

Sat Jun 14 2003 13:48: Your Correspondant drove shakily off to Beverlys to buy seam binding for the wedding gown. And sewing machine needles. They were OUT of white seam binding, can you believe? I bought some gathered poly lace, and will painstakingly pick out the gathering stitches and iron it flat. I should have just gone to another store, but I don't have what it takes.

After Beverlys I drove through Carls Jr. and got Gretel a happy meal and me a famous star. During all this my IV bag ran out, so I had to change it and am now ready for a little nap, but logged on to complete the Carls Jr. survey and get $2 off my next visit.

Sun Jun 15 2003 17:35: Happy Father's Day. Dad wasn't all that involved in my life in a lot of the usual ways, like dancing with me a Primary Daddy/Daughter dates, but we had a lot in common and always had interestig conversations. He taught me a lot of things, mapmaking, fence building, gardening, carpentry. When I grew up and started remodeling hopeless old houses he helped me work. He used to take me fishing often. I never wanted to kill or eat trout, but it was on those trips that I learned to wander through the mountains with a camera, and he taught me scientific nomenclature for all the plants, insects, rocks, animals we would see. It was a wonderful mystery to me to learn from him how to look at a topographic map and deduce the pattern of the invisible layers of rock that lay under the ground

Mon Jun 16 2003 19:22: I almost have the wedding gown finished. There are 36 buttons down the back. I have to sew them on and then join the skirt to the bodice. At that time it will be ready to mark the hem.

The yard is a huge disaster. Full of weeds.

Wed Jun 18 2003 07:52: House. Getting cleaned. Within an inch of its life. Never be messy again. Yeah. Right.

Sun Jun 22 2003 21:03: Back from Utah, where I marked the hem on Susie's dress and met John's family, including a little niece and nephew who rated very high on the cuteometer.

Rachel read Harry Potter in 11 hours and she challenged me to beat her record. I'm sure I can, but I don't feel a great urgent need to read the book myself. I have other things going on in my life.

Right now I'm reading Seabiscuit. It's a fascinating glimpse into a world I have never seen.

Mon Jun 23 2003 11:07: I finished Seabiscuit. I was soooooo happy the horse didn't break his leg during a race and die.

Daydreaming. I have always claimed that I am never bored. If something unentertaining is going on, I can always think about something else. I was imagining that I was explaining to someone, "I am never bored. I can always think about the Mohorovicic Discontinuity." Immediately, a switch flipped in my mind and I found that I WAS contemplating (very seriously) the Mohorovicic Discontinuity.

Thu Jun 26 2003 21:03: Today is the day that the Heavenly Bookkeeper discovered s/he had misplaced a bunch of index cards. Suddenly, three people who had fallen through the cracks have died, and all on the same day. They are two local ladies, ages 100 and 111, and Senator Strom Thurmond, age 100. "Wait! What are we doing? These people are way overdue!" squeaked the angel. So they brought 'em in.

Sat Jun 28 2003 12:13: I think after all this I'm a girl to recognize a Big Mistake when it comes calling. There is a boy, of whom I am quite fond, who is making one of those life-altering bloopers right now. Unfortunately, there is nothing anyone can do to stop him. Rachel and I are going to the wedding reception tonight in spite of it all, and I even provided the flowers. Shasta daisies from my front yard. We are even taking a wedding gift. We bought them knives.

Sat Jun 28 2003 23:38: Harry Potter and The Order of the Phoenix. Eight hours. Beats Rachel's time; who else's?

Sun Jun 29 2003 21:42: Rachel and I took the dogs (Gretel and the little poof that belongs to the Tarjans) over to Beale Park to an outdoor concert of the Bakersfield Municipal Band. Robert Armstrong was playing in it, and also Ernie Cervantes. I taught with Ernie at EBHS and also was in the band with him during college years at DeAnza.

It was a nice concert, full of bouncy band music, and closed with Souza's "Washington Post."

Mon Jun 30 2003 17:46: Reading Middlemarch. I had never read this one in college, and I'd forgotten what a kick George Elliot is. I wish I could speak with the kind of wit and syntax employed by her characters.