Month: September 2016

Hummingbird

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Last Saturday (9/10) I was sitting at the dining room table staring outside when I spotted what I thought at first was a large dragonfly zipping around the flowers we had planted. I quickly realized, however, that it was a hummingbird. I instantly became excited because in all the years we’ve lived here I haven’t seen a hummingbird even once with the exception of the botanic garden last year. I caught Joe’s attention and he got to see it too before it flew away. It was a very brief visit but it got me hopeful. I immediately mixed 1 part sugar with 4 parts water, boiled it, and once it cooled put it in the hummingbird feeder we had purchased last year.

Fast forward to Sunday afternoon and Joe was watching the Bears game while I was rifling through the pantry for a snack. I was standing behind the couch munching on some cheese puffcorn (a recent discovery thanks to my brother; now I can’t stop eating them!) when I spotted a hummingbird and called Joe over. We were both very excited to see one again and I quickly grabbed my phone and took a video of it since I knew a photo would never come out very good.

We didn’t see one on Monday but Joe saw one twice yesterday when I was at work so either the same one keeps coming back or he’s told his friends about the feeder. I need to dump the mixture I made and make some new stuff. The only thing I hate is that the feeder quickly fills up with ants which is gross. Right now there’s a ton of bees all over it as well, and we haven’t seen a hummingbird in days so we might just take it down for the season and try again next year.

The Cure @ Bestival & My (Sorta) Podcast EP

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Now that The Cure’s tour has headed overseas I figured I wouldn’t be able to tune into any shows since the time difference means they’d be playing while I was at work. I forgot about Bestival, however, which was this weekend.

A couple of hours before The Cure was due to go on stage I learned that they were live streaming the show thanks to Red Bull. Not only that, but there was an app for that. And even better? There was a Smart TV app for that! I turned on our TV, went into apps, and for whatever reason it was literally the first app to show up in the list. I installed it and tested the stream (they were streaming Bestival performances all day) and it was full HD. Woo!

Just after 3 pm our time The Cure’s performance began. They played for a little over two hours and it looked fantastic.

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I didn’t think they sounded all that great at first but the sound seemed to improve as their performance went on. They primarily played their hits, although they surprised everyone with a new song for this tour – The Baby Screams. I checked my tracking list and I’ve never seen them perform that song live before so that was a treat even though it didn’t sound quite as good as the album version.

It’s really awesome that we have the technology to watch a live concert another continent away. I ended up telling a new Cure friend of mine, Gavin, who hosts an all-Cure podcast called The Holy Hour about it when they announced the replay later the same evening. He was very grateful for the tip and said I made his night. Which reminds me – I totally forgot to mention that my Cure story is featured in Episode #29 – The Drowning Fans – Post 2016 Tour Blues. How cool is that? You can listen to it below.


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Boob Smash Day

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Friday I had an appointment for a routine mammogram which our insurance will cover 100%. I’ve had two previously but always at the hospital, however with the new insurance I had to go to a radiology place instead. I actually preferred this new place because you just partially undressed in the exam room and then they did the scans and you could leave. At the hospital you had to undress, put your belongs in a locker, sit in a room full of other women with gowns on, and then wait your turn. It ended up being a two hour process whereas at this place it was a half hour.

We also discovered a locally famous bakery (called Jarosch Bakery) was next door to this place so after my scan we went to take a look and ended up buying a cupcake, a loaf of cinnamon bread, and a Bears sugar cookie. The prices are rather high and I wasn’t terribly impressed with anything. I prefer Pepperidge Farm’s cinnamon bread, actually. I remember hearing they have really delicious cakes, though, and that’s when I remembered that people would bring them in at my old job for special events. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s where our bridal cake came from.

After the bakery we went to our favorite Thai place, Happy Elephant, where we shared an order of potstickers and happy wraps.

Gizmo

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Gizmo isn’t doing well. Monday night I noticed he was breathing heavily so Tuesday morning Joe called our vet to make an appointment. Unfortunately the exotic vet isn’t on staff every day at our normal clinic so the earliest they could see him was Wednesday afternoon. Typically when rats start breathing heavily they need medicine quickly or they’ll die, so waiting was not an option. Joe called an exotic vet that our friends use for their ferrets which they highly recommend but they were rather shitty towards Joe. Since we already have a normal vet they wouldn’t see us until Thursday. I quickly Googled exotic vet and found one not terribly far away. Joe called them and was able to make an appointment that same afternoon. I told my boss something came up at home and ended up leaving an hour early so we could make it there on time for the appointment.

As soon as we walked in we were greeted by the receptionist and a vet tech. They took Gizmo into another room and put him on oxygen to help his breathing. Another vet tech took his full health history and relayed it back to the vet who was examining Gizmo in the other room while he was on oxygen. She then came in to explain what she thought might be going on and presented us with our options which also included a quote if we wanted them to do an x-ray to get to the bottom of his issues. It was $110 which wasn’t quite as expensive as I had expected so we opted for them to do it. He has fluid in his lungs due to heart issues and a huge mass in his belly that is causing all his internal organs to shift to one side. Since he’s over two years of age, coupled with the heart issue, surgery is not an option. For now he’s on three different medications for his breathing/heart with the option to add an herbal supplement that has been known to slow the growth of tumors. We didn’t put him on that medication yet since I wanted to get his breathing under control first. Plus I saw no point in the other medication if he’s going to possibly die anyway.

His breathing is still labored, although not as bad as before, so I’m not sure what we’re going to do. He definitely has more energy and is acting more like himself, and he’s eating, although he won’t eat his regular rat food. He’ll eat everything else, though, so I’ve been giving him oats, carrots, and a few treats here and there. I have a bad feeling that the $200 (visit, x-ray, and medications) merely bought him a few more weeks, if that, and we’re going to have to euthanize him. He doesn’t seem too uncomfortable right now, but that mass is going to continue to grow, plus he can’t be getting all the nutrients he needs when he refuses to eat the rat food. Ugh, I hate this! He has a follow-up appointment on Friday and I’m trying to mentally prepare for the worst possible outcome.

Saturday Shenanigans

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Saturday was the only day this weekend we really did anything. We went to Septemberfest in Schaumburg to check out the craft tents where the idiots over at the local Lexus dealer almost hit me with their car (more on that in a bit), we visited Spring Valley Nature Center (also in Schaumburg) for a little while which was nice since we hadn’t been there in years, and later in the evening we went to my parents house for dinner. That should say dinner and games but we never got around to playing any which stinks because we bought Left Center Right from Target the day before specifically for our visit.

So about almost getting hit. We were sitting at the end of one of the tables outside which was against a raised curb. Well this guy was backing one of the cars the dealership was raffling off onto the grass at an angle. I first noticed it out of the corner of my eye but then I really noticed it when I felt hot exhaust on my arm. I jumped out of my chair as the back end of the car got within inches of me. Even the people two tables away were shocked what happened. The worst part was when the driver got out and Joe told him he almost hit me the guy just laughed. When my husband asked him what was so funny he tried to play it off and said he saw me in the backup camera (I don’t know if that’s even true since someone outside the vehicle was directing the guy (not very well, obviously)). The dumbest thing is five minutes later they moved both cars so they weren’t so close to the edge of the grass anyway. Idiots!

The visit to the nature center was nice and relaxing. We saw a bunch of frogs by the lake area which was cool.

My brother, B, and his girlfriend also came to my parents for dinner and I was talking to them about their October trip to Florida. They go on a lot of little trips but this will be only the second time my brother has flown (the first being when he was five and our grandparents took us to Disney World). I was really only talking to his g/f about the trip but she was saying he’s not nervous about flying and she in fact loves it (especially the takeoffs which are the part I hate the most). I envy her for not being afraid, I truly do. Anyway, they are visiting Universal Studios and she said they want to visit Magic Kingdom (she kept calling it United Kingdom which was cute and I didn’t have the heart to correct her) and Hollywood Studios. They both love Halloween and haunted houses so the Universal thing is the main draw from them since they really do it up for the holiday. Disney’s Halloween stuff is rather lame, but since they are going to be so close they can’t pass up a chance to visit Disney, and who can blame them?

I invited my cousin over too and she brought a laundry basket of CDs she no longer wants so I went through it and took a decent stack. Even though we got there around 6 and didn’t leave until midnight absolutely no games were played. Brother B and my cousin took off sometime around 9 which kinda sucked. I didn’t care for how B was talking to my mom but I stayed out of it. He can just be so rude and self-serving. Not that this is a new complaint of mine. I have literally not talked to him in months (I texted him twice and got no acknowledgement) and he spent most of his time talking to Joe and not me. I really don’t understand him – he will go from calling me every other day and coming over and staying the night to not talking to me at all for months. We don’t have any kind of fallout, either, he just swings from one extreme to the next. I would prefer it if we were in low-level contact more frequently, but it doesn’t matter what I want, B does what serves him and doesn’t consider other people’s feelings. I think he thinks he does but he really doesn’t.