I went to Sam's Club and the Jewel to pick up supplies for dinner, as I'd requested Superburger as being really, really easy to chew. And fried potatoes. Also really, really easy to chew. But we were out of onions and low on potatoes, so first to Sam's for those. I would have picked up more ground beef there too, but they were out, so I'll grab some tomorrow so we can make meatloaf. (Chorus: Really, really easy to chew!)

I also picked up several birthday presents for Katie -- a selection of Curious George stories, three Dr. Seuss books in a bundle, and the classic Disney music DVD -- as we're at T-minus seven for her third birthday. Those all remain safely hidden in my trunk for the moment.

When I called daisy_knotwise to let her know that she'd need to thaw the remaining ground beef in the freezer as I'd struck out on fresh, I asked her if there was anything else she wanted from the Jewel other than buns and Julie formula.

"Yes," she replied. "I want something wonderful, but I don't know what."

So I promised I'd look. And on the way there, I realized what the correct wonderful thing would be. So when I walked into the Jewel, I started to head toward the bakery section, except the wonderful thing was sitting on the display right as I walked in.

Pumpkin pie. I picked it up and dropped it in the cart. I made sure to pick up more pressurized whipped cream, because I didn't want to run out in mid-pie, along with the other Superburger ingredients to replenish what we were about to use up, and the Julie formula.

When I got home, I announced to Gretchen that I had found the wonderful thing and produced the pumpkin pie. Not at all to my surprise, she concurred.

So later in the evening, we cut up the pie, giving a small piece to Katie, a fair sized piece to me, and a big piece to Gretchen, as I warned her that Julie would mug her for part of her pie.

Boy, did she! Eventually, she was grabbing the remains of the pie out of Gretchen's dish and chowing down on it. And Katie also requested more pie. So Gretchen got more pie and got Katie another small piece.

And there was much pie. And it was good.

And there is still one large piece left. :)

It's been more than a week since I came home from OVFF, so numerous details are starting to fade. In some cases, that may be good. :) But let's see what I do remember.
( Con report inside... )

Fifteen years ago today, daisy_knotwise and I got married.

In some ways, it feels like it was yesterday. In other ways, it feels like we've been together forever.

I think that's a good thing. :)

daisy_knotwise had her regularly scheduled quarterly checkup with the oncologist today and all's well. If the next exam in April is also clean, she'll move to checkups every six months.

We headed off to Kenosha today, because the Casual Male stores were having a big sale and the outlet store that used to be at Gurnee Mills has moved up there. We also figured we'd stop at the indoor outlet mall across the highway, which would have been a fine plan had that mall not closed some time ago. Thinking about it, I think I remember reading about it. I wish I'd actually remembered it when I was planning.

So we ended up driving as far as Racine to make sure that I hadn't missed the place. Since I'd planned to buy gas in Wisconsin, I was just about empty by that point. When I found the gas there was $1.759, a good six cents a gallon more than at home, I bought ten dollars worth to make sure I didn't run out. Gas in Kenosha was $1.619, which was much better.

At the Casual Male store, I managed to get out for under $100 with three new shirts, a belt, and a new midweight jacket. Then we headed back to Gurnee Mills to do some more Christmas shopping, which left Katie thoroughly exhausted before we were done. But I found a number of things for Gretchen, the girls, and our friends, so it was a good run.

Sadly, gas at the Shell station outside Gurnee Mills was $1.579. Wisconsin is slipping. :)

So today was daisy_knotwise's birthday and I'd informed her last week that I was going to take her to Sweet Baby Ray's for her birthday. I got home from work and was informed that we would have to wait until a friend of ours came by to leave her car at our house while she flew out of town. Gleep!

Eventually, I asked how our friend was getting to the airport and Gretchen told me that another friend was picking her up and taking her there. At that point, I wondered to myself why she was bringing her car to our place rather than just leaving it at her place.

And a few minutes later, the phone rang. It was our friend, telling us that she was leaving her car at her place. Oh, good. Apparently, we had all thought this plan through by now.

So Gretchen and I bundled up Katie and Julie and got to the restaurant only about five minutes later than I'd intended. Once there, Gretchen was not extremely surprised to find samwinolj, Bonnie, and Jerry.

The presence of tarkrai and katyhh was something else altogether.

And a good time was had by all.

Happy birthday, Gretchen!

I don't know what I'd do without you.

I worked from home today so I could mind the kids while daisy_knotwise had a follow-up exam with her oncologist. Everything looks good so far. They did a bit of lab work just to check things out, but there's no reason to think that they'll see anything troublesome.

And that's a wonderful thing to hear.

daisy_knotwise got her birthday present from me early this year, because there was no prospect that it would still be in the store when it got close to her birthday. It's a two-foot tall audioanimatronic fake stone gargoyle. When you trip the motion sensor, its eyelids open, its wings move back and flap, its eyes glow, and its mouth moves as it tells you about the dangers lurking inside.

Naturally, Katie loves it.

The funniest thing we've seen so far is Katie standing there listening to the gargoyle mouth off to her with her stuffed Pooh bear held straight out in front of her like a talisman against evil.

Either that or it was, "Eat him! Not me!"

I'm working at home today, because daisy_knotwise had a followup appointment today with her oncologist. I stayed here with Julie while she took Katie to the appointment. This probably maximized everyone's happiness -- it certainly maximized the amount of work that I could get done.

In any case, the doctor reports that everything looks just like it should and that Gretchen should check back in September.

Yay!

Yesterday was a bit more exciting than I mentioned at the time. daisy_knotwise was hit the previous night by something that, retrospectively, looks a lot like food poisoning. I suspect the whipped cream on her sundae, as that's one of the things she consumed that Katie and I didn't. But she was up in the middle of the night with the sluices open at both ends, a thoroughly unpleasant experience.

She was sleeping ok when I left for work, but by a bit after noon, she was exhausted and in need of someone to hand Katie off to, so I packed up my work and headed home once I finally managed to get all the changes checked in. Katie and I grabbed lunch while Gretchen headed upstairs for some much needed sleep.

By evening, when Gretchen crawled back out of bed, she was feeling much better. She ate a light dinner last night without incident and will eat a similarly unchallenging dinner today.

But being better is good.

Classic Oak Designs called yesterday to let us know that the mule chest that we'd ordered for the bedroom had arrived. We headed over there after lunch today to pick it up.

We had ordered the mule chest to replace the two dressers that had been in our bedroom since 1992/3 or thereabouts. My dresser was still fine, but daisy_knotwise's was a bit wobbly. And therein hangs a tale.
( Ancient history inside... )
So we bought a mule chest to replace the pair of dressers. It's just a bit larger in terms of storage space than the two dressers, but fits in the same space.

And it turns out that they call it a mule chest because it weighs about the same as a full-grown mule. It almost fit in the back of the van -- the guys at the store tied down the hatch so we could get it home.

Then I tried to lift it out of the van. It turned out to be rather heavier than I'd anticipated, even based on its size. Apparently Baker Road builds these things out of neutronium.

One of our neighbors saw us fighting with it and offered to help us carry it in. I thanked him and told him that we'd take him up on it, just as soon as we removed the drawers. This not only lessened the weight, but provided a fine set of handholds.

In the door and up the stairs it went. The skids were removed, the glides hammered in, the chest uprighted, drawers inserted, and -- as I type -- Gretchen is finishing the transfer of her things to the new chest.

Mine are already moved. And I find, after cleaning out some things that no longer fit, that I've got an empty drawer. This turns out to be a good place to put some of the stuff that's been in my closet looking for a better home.

We win.

Here are a few pictures of Gretchen and Katie that I took around Tom and Sue's wedding at FKO, along with a picture of Katie that I just snapped here at home while waiting to use the computer...
( Photos inside... )

The dead dog filk is starting to wind down, it being nearly 2 AM here. The day has been, well, complex.

I had my workshop this morning, where it turned out that the folks there were generally at a higher technical level than I'd prepped for, so we zipped through the first 80% of the material and spent the rest of the time discussing how to construct a melody given a chord progression, which is certainly an interesting part of the problem. Then I ran over to the A&W to pick up lunch.

The problem is that daisy_knotwise appears to have picked up Katie's bug or some close relative. She'd crawled out of bed early in the AM with intestinal distress and by the time I got back with lunch, wasn't really up to eating a cup of chicken noodle soup and a plain turkey sandwich. Since I still had a number of things to do as Filk Waif, she crawled up to the room with Katie in tow, warning me that there was no way that she was going to be able to sing The Chicken Song for the Filk Hall of Fame concert at 3 PM.

Hmm. This was not exactly what either of us had hoped for. And although I could do the song myself, it plays better with two. And I needed someone who was used to working with a partner.

So I recruited Marilisa. Gretchen and I had covered her and Mich's song, Go Home, for the Pegasus Nominees concert at OVFF last year, so somehow it seemed only fair.

And then I handed Marilisa the lyric sheet and she found out exactly what she'd gotten herself into. Fortunately, she's quite good at following along, given the occasional vagaries of the song and my performance. The audience certainly suffered appropriately.

Earlier in the afternoon, we'd had the Penguin Song contest, which I missed most of while sorting things out with Gretchen; then Heather Bruton's slide show and Ju's concert, sans Katy, which she did handle quite well. (We offered to loan her our Katie, but it just wouldn't have been the same.)

When I checked in with Gretchen after Closing Ceremonies, she had napped. Katie, not so much. Katie had also found the blueberry muffin that I'd bought for Gretchen with predictably crummy results. (We'll be tipping the maid well in the morning.) I'd made arrangements to meet Tom and Sue for dinner; Gretchen told me to take Katie and go.

Dinner was quite pleasant, including second-hand quotes that I delived from Sally, the rhythm nazi, to Tom, the budding sound engineer. Katie was well-behaved until after dessert was finished, at which point she realized that Mommy had been missing for some time and she started crying. I ran out and solved the problem by taking Katie back to Mommy and turning her over while I went to the Dead Dog filk.

The Dead Dog filk was a lot of fun. I checked in on Gretchen twice, the first time borrowing antacid from Steve Savitzky in response to her nastily acid stomach, the second time around 11 PM to find both her and Katie asleep, which fell in the category of best possible outcomes. (Although it did thwart France when she asked if there were any possibility of Gretchen coming down to the filk long enough to sing Stuff, since she'd missed much of it during the concert while wrangling Katie. *sigh*)

There was a lot of good music, but I think it's time to go to bed. I've had a wonderful time, which I've thanked various members of the committee for.

And we'll all hope that Gretchen's feeling better in the morning.

It's been a while since I pulled photos off the Nikon and uploaded them. Since before Christmas, to be exact. So here are a few choice photos, cut tagged for your protection. :)
( Christmas 2007 )
( Easter 2008 )

Actually, I forgot to mention in the general confusion yesterday, but after daisy_knotwise dropped me off at the train station, she came home to discover that the furnace wasn't working. Oh, joy.

Fortunately, the furnace guy is a family friend and was available yesterday morning. It wasn't too complex apparently and is working again. Which is good, because a seriously failed furnace would have made Gretchen's day complete.

She's feeling better today after a lot of sleep.

I picked up daisy_knotwise from the hospital this morning. She is tired and absolutely delighted to be home.

She's also absolutely delighted by her oncologist's report on pathology this morning. It was a Stage 1 cancer. No further treatment should be needed.

It doesn't get much better than that.

daisy_knotwise is doing well. She's off the IV. The drain should come out tomorrow and she'll be able to come home. She won't be able to lift anything significant for at least four weeks -- including Katie! -- but we'll manage. :)

Although I occasionally have helped with the process, daisy_knotwise is the one who's always actually put Katie to bed at night. And tonight, it took about an hour-and-a-half to manage it, as every time I tried to put her down, she'd wake up and squawk at me.

At the end, she was lying with her head on my chest and, every so often, she'd pick her head up and look at the door for Mommy to come in.

Mommy should be home Thursday, darling.

daisy_knotwise's surgery took about an hour and a half, which is what the doctors expected. She's currently sleeping it off in her hospital room, having told us all to go home and let her sleep.

The early results look promising, but we won't know all until the pathologist reports in later.

Thanks for all the good wishes!

Most of you have already read this post from daisy_knotwise and thus understand how we've both been a bit distracted lately. To give you the capsule version here:

Gretchen's been diagnosed with endometrial cancer. The oncologist tells us there's a 90-95% chance of survival, which is not as good as not having cancer, but far better than many of the alternatives. It will require major abdominal surgery to remove the uterus and ovaries, but -- as Dr. Bob so trenchantly put it -- it's not like she's was using them. The surgery's scheduled for August 6th.

She won't be allowed to lift anything heavy for four weeks or so. Heavy includes Katie, which is likely to frustrate her greatly. Both "hers", actually. But fortunately, jeff_duntemann and Carol, and later sueposter, sexybass, and decadentdave will be along to help out, which means that I'll be able to avoid a substantial block of time off from work, which is helpful as that's about the time that we're going to be moving to our new office, finishing up releases and all that. The latter group may even get some recording done. :)

In the mixed blessings department, it was while sitting in the oncologist's waiting room that the nurse there told me that I had cellulitis and should proceed immediately to see Dr. Bob. I'd like to think I would have figured that out within the next two hours, but, you know, sometimes we're just stupid about our own health.

The whole thing is scary, of course. At least, it hasn't yet advanced to being terrifying.

And I'm hoping to keep it that way.

So we're sitting at dinner and daisy_knotwise says to me, "What if we get some silly ribbons printed for Capricon?"

And I respond, "Well, the theme this year is fantasy. How about some ribbons that say 'The Cubs Win the Pennant!'?"

I don't think this deserved having food thrown at me.

daisy_knotwise has asked me to note for posterity that cleavage appears to be a place conveniently (or is that "intelligently"?) designed to store baby spit up.

Just a note for those of you who read daisy_knotwise's LJ and have seen that she's given notice at her job.

I told her a while back that she could quit her job any time. However, she needed to wait at least one day after deciding to quit before giving notice, just so that she was sure.

She waited a good bit longer than that. And, boy, was she sure.

Despite some pretty spectacular rain between London and Sarnia, we made it home in just under 10 hours time, including two stops for gas, one rest stop, and two reasonably relaxed meal breaks. But, boy, are we tired!

Tired, of course, is in proportion to the amount of good time that daisy_knotwise and I had. There wasn't nearly enough time to do all of the things that I might have wanted to do, but that's just life. And e-mail is my friend...

Good filking, good (but long) Interfilk auction, good conversation, good food. No sleep, but what do you want for your dime?

For those still wondering, I found tarkrai in the lobby Saturday morning and let him know that his filkbook was safely in my room. He picked it up when he came up to practice Request with catalana and me for the Filk Hall of Fame concert on Sunday. And the reason that we needed to practice it was because Gretchen had picked it for the concert on the occasion of her induction into the Filk Hall of Fame.

I don't say this often enough, but this is a fine time to do so: I am so proud of her.