Purls O' Wisconsin

Because Kev's sister is now on there, I'll have to share here. I may have to buy this.

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So many people have Thanksgivings that are full of laughter and love and family. Mine was filled with stories of the care center, feces and chemo treatments.

Let's back up, shall we? Two weeks ago, we went to Twin to visit friendbrian , Kev's sister (she whose daughters had the redneck weddings in Jan-Feb of '08- one we attended that auctioned the bride, remember?) told us that her husband was on death's door. He has diabetes, a brain tumor and myriad other problems. He was in the hospital and they moved him to a care center because he had maybe a week to live. We arranged with Mom to come down and cook T-Day for her and us. Because BIL was still alive, Sis wanted to join us. And when you get Sis, you get the weird daughter who is never far from her mother's side. So, two more-that's ok.

I think I found out about them last week, perhaps. Then this week, Mom calls and mentions that Sis is bringing grandchildren too and wanted to know if she had told us. Ummm, no. Now, Sis's kids and grandkids are the reason that I hate to be around children. They scream constantly, whine a lot, run through the house like their asses are on fire and basically act like monkeys on crack. They are the reason we don't go to her house for T-Day. So now two of them are coming to dinner, fan-fucking-tastic. But it's the younger girls and supposedly they aren't too bad.

Then on Wednesday, Kev gets a cryptic e-mail from Sis saying that she's trying to convince BIL to come to dinner. Excuse me? It was my understanding that he's dying and we are making funeral arrangements and she's bringing him to dinner? Kevin tries to tell her this isn't a good idea, apparently BIL doesn't want to come but she does.

We tell her dinner is at 3 and go about our business. I get up at 10:30 to start cooking and at 11:14, Sis shows up. With BIL. And another carload of family-one of her daughters, SIL and their kids-I believe there's four. Kevin about blows a gasket and I am just pissed. How fucking inconsiderate. We didn't buy food for an army. But turns out they were just passing through and they took one of the grandkids that was supposed to stay, so that was good.

I continue cooking, send Kev to the store for a few things since we have more people and one is a small child. Meanwhile, Sis decides to 'help' me. Now, understand, my MIL's kitchen is tiny. The floor space is maybe 5x5 with counters and cupboards along three sides and the fourth open to the dining area. Getting two people in the kitchen is about all that can be there without it being totally full and when one of them is not paying attention to what the cook is doing...it gets a little cramped. I did tell her she could do the dishes...this becomes important.

The rest of the day amounted to Sis continually asking me what she could do to help, listening to BIL ramble on about his care at the care center and how awful they were to him and me grinding my teeth. While I was still making the dessert, Sis decided now would be the time to start doing up the dishes. Remember the working space. She picks up everything and plops it into the water. I have to ask for my spatula, the knives and pretty much everything I was using back. But at least it was really clean. At one point, I rinsed my pumpkin soaked rag in her rinsewater with the clean dishes. She gave me hell about this for the rest of the day until I finally growled at her, "Well, if you hadn't been doing dishes while I was trying to cook, that wouldn't have happened." She finally let it go.

At 1, I realized that somehow, the crockpot of yams had become unplugged and the yams hadn't cooked a bit, and I was upset. I tried flipping the buttons and turned it to off, moved outlets and about this time, Sis comes in to 'help' and wants to know what the problem is. She helpfully tells me, "It's set to Off." I hiss NO SHIT! and work on getting it going again. It heated up earlier but something must be wrong with the plug-in that it was using. I got it going, but that totally messed up everything's cooking time and I realized that dinner was going to be a little later than 3.

I told Sis this and she immediately freaked saying she had to have BIL back by four before it got dark. I told her, "It doesn't get dark until 5:30." In Twin you are never more than 15 minutes away from anything. Then she dithered at me for the rest of the afternoon about when it was going to be done, how she needed to feed him by 4 etc etc etc, until my stress level was so high, I was begging for the knife to slip and slit my wrists. Or give me something for an ER trip, anything would have been preferable. She brought salad. She started asking me at 1 if she could make her salad. It's fucking lettuce with some broccoli and cauliflower cut up, do you really need to prep it two to three hours before dinner?

I couldn't get her out of the kitchen and finally at 3 I told her to fix her salad through gritted teeth. At one point in the prep, I was trying to get to the oven and she, Kevin, myself, creepy daughter and Kev's older brother (whom I like a lot) were all in the kitchen. I said, "That's it! There needs to be about 4 fewer people in this kitchen."

She wheeled BIL up to the table at 3:30, so we had to stumble over his wheelchair to get out of the kitchen. Creepy daughter hovered in the one walkway between kitchen and the rest of the house. I told her to go light somewhere out of the way. She didn't, I might add.

By four, we were ready to eat and sat down, BIL being served first before we even got all the food on the table. We said the blessing and started to eat. BIL wheeled himself away from the table (death's door my fat, white ass) and then sat in the living room, 5 feet from us and proceeded to bitch to Sis about how he needed to go. He sat there while we were trying to eat and talked about how he was going to make a mess, and how she shouldn't have brought him and how he couldn't use the bathroom and if she didn't hurry, it was going to be a big smell. This made dinner so appetizing. I am so glad I spent 5 fucking hours on this. It was like sitting, trying to eat with a living shit time bomb five feet away.

So, I got to be serenaded with the sounds of feces for Thanksgiving. How was your T-Day?

I dunno. I've got a whole day stretching in front of me and no concrete plans. Seems to be the story of my life.
I put up my tiny green tinsel tree here in the doll room. Lena Booger Boogs Boogs ain't gonna let us have a big tree this year. I can just see her flying at it now....eating lights...crunching on glass ornaments...shredding the tree and knocking it down.

Yeah, we'll just stick with the little one this year.

I've been reading through the pager data posted at Wiki Leaks from 9/11. As expected, some info is irrelevant, some is funny, but most is tragic and heartbreaking. I happened to see this pointed out on a webboard. It gives me chills for some reason knowing that computer systems at Cantor Fitzgerald were sending out alarms was like a cold eulogy for the people who died in those offices.

At 8:46:26 the first plane slammed into 1 World Trade Center.

•08:46:46 Arch [1612975] D ALPHA PAGE FROM lifeline: alert 8933585 ETS appl nbetpsd27.fi.gs.com ETS RTCE: - Market data inconsistent...Cantor API problem Trading system offline on nbetpsd27.fi.gs.com, run by etsuser on nbetpsd27, pid = 24277

•08:46:48 Arch [1612975] D ALPHA PAGE FROM lifeline: alert 8933585 ETS appl nbetpsd27.fi.gs.com ETS RTCE: - Market data inconsistent...Cantor API problem Trading system offline on nbetpsd27.fi.gs.com, run by etsuser on nbetpsd27, pid = 24277

•08:47:48 Arch [0902592] A ALPHA regularlist 09/11/01 08:47 BFH-2-FHS :> 4002 LINE DOWN ('CANTORSPEED: 09/11/01 08:47:09: LINEDOWN: stop the DQA heartbeat now' in cantorspeed_page.log) #1

•08:47:50 Arch [0902592] A ALPHA regularlist 09/11/01 08:47 BFH-2-FHS :> 4003 Fault Tollerent Switch ('feed handler transitioning from secondary to primary' in cantorspeedpage.log) #2

•08:48:50 Arch [0162912] A ALPHA PAGE FROM lifeline: alert 8933584 ETS appl nbetpsd27.fi.gs.com ETS RTCE: - Market data inconsistent...Cantor API problem Gateway Down on nbetpsd27.fi.gs.com, run by etsuser on nbetpsd27, pid = 24277

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I'm done with the first draft of Super Secret Project 3. It came in at 48K words; it has an upper limit of 50K, so that gives me a bit to play with in revision. This was a fun test for me, a chance to try new writing techniques. Usually, I draft a chapter, revise it, revise it, and (often) revise it one more time before moving on to draft the next chapter. With this work, I drafted straight through, not allowing myself any time to revise mid-course. (I was allowed to put notes to myself at the top of previously written chapters, so that I could see what I needed to work in, upon revision.)

Despite the technique, the draft was remarkably clean. There's one motivation point I need to shift in the first chapter. There are a few angsty memories I need to visit upon my characters in middle chapters. But by and large, the work is one that I can live with, that I'll be able to send out in the near future.

That said, nothing is getting sent out for a couple of weeks.

I'm about to shift into Thanksgiving mode, enjoying visiting family (as I've done for a lot of this week, already), baking some fun desserts, heading over to a cousin's for tomorrow's feast. After company leaves my house (early next week), I'm rolling up my sleeves to dig into my vampire series. I submitted an outline a while back, which resulted in some editorial suggestions that are *fabulous*. My next order of writing business is to tweak the outline, to transform it into the full outline for that fun new series.

*Then*, I'll revise Super Secret Project 3 and send it out...

Juggle, juggle, juggle. But it's all fun!

Mindy, wishing all who celebrate a wonderful Turkey Day!

Hello, goodbye, it's been grand, but I must be going :-)

My parents are in town, and we played tourists today, visiting the National Museum of American History (massively renovated since my last visit - mostly in favorable ways) and the National Museum of the American Indian (fun cafeteria with lots of good food, lots of new permanent exhibits mounted since its opening a few years back...)

On the writing front, I'm up to 45K on Super Secret Project 3; 5K to go. I hope to finish up this week, but we'll see... Family comes first!

OK... Off to dinner!

Hope all is well with everyone in LJ-land!

Mindy, using up her stock of exclamation points!

BY RAF CASERT THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

BRUSSELS —Rom Houben, a car-crash victim, had been diagnosed as being in a vegetative state. An expert using a specialized type of brain scan that was not available in the 1980s finally realized it, and unlocked Houben’s mind again.

The 46-year-old Houben is now communicating with one finger and a special touchscreen on his wheelchair. “Powerlessness. Utter powerlessness. At first I was angry, then I learned to live with it,” he said, punching the message into the screen during an interview with the Belgian RTBF network. He has called his rescue his “renaissance.”

Over the years, Houben’s family refused to accept the word of his doctors, firmly believing their son knew what was happening around him, and gave no thought to letting him die, said his mother, Fina. She was vindicated when the breakthrough came.

“At that moment, you think, ‘Oh, my God. See, now you know.’ I was always convinced,” she told The Associated Press. The discovery of the highly unusual 23-year error took place three years ago but only recently came to light, after publication of a study on the misdiagnosis of people with consciousness disorders, led by Steven Laureys of Belgium’s Coma Science Group. The issue is fraught with difficult medical and ethical questions. Patients diagnosed as being in a vegetative state with no hope of recovery are sometimes allowed to die, as was done in 2005 with Terri Schiavo, the brain-damaged Florida woman at the center of the biggest right-to-die case in U.S. history. Her feeding tube was removed. “It makes you think. There is still a lot of work to be done” to better diagnose such disorders, said Caroline Schnakers of the Coma Science Group. Houben was injured in an auto accident in 1983 when he was 20. Doctors said he fell into a coma, then went into a vegetative state.

A coma is a state of unconsciousness in which the eyes are closed and the patient cannot be roused. A vegetative state is a condition in which the eyes are open and can move, and the patient has periods of sleep and periods of wakefulness, but remains unconscious and cannot reason or respond. During Houben’s two lost decades, his eyesight was poor, but the experts say he could hear doctors, nurses and visitors to his bedside, and feel the touch of a relative. He says that during that time, he heard his father had died, but he was unable to show any emotion.

Over the years, Houben’s skeptical mother took him to the United States five times for tests. More searching got her in touch with Laureys, who put Houben through a PET scan. “We saw his brain was almost normal,” said neuropsychologist Audrey Vanhaudenhuyse, who has worked with Houben for three years. The family and doctors then began trying to establish communication. A breakthrough came when he was able to indicate yes or no by slightly moving his foot to push a computer device placed there by Laureys’ team. Then came the spelling of words using the touchscreen. Recently he went to his father’s grave for the planting of a tree. “A letter he wrote was lowered into the grave through a tube,” his mother said. “He closed his eyes for half an hour, because he cannot cry.”


Being alert and aware and trapped. Jesus Christ what a horror show.

Ok, I set up the Etsy shop with banner. Please share any snarky comments for the bio that you think worthy.

Since juliannamkh requested photos of the collage, here they are.

So, now I need to come up with a suitable description for the Etsy shop. I am starting a special one for this.

I'm back on Heidi Betts's blog today (remember her? The romance author with the wicked sense of humor and more double entendres (and a few single ones!) than you can shake a stick at?

Heidi asked me a bunch of questions - some that I've never answered in print before. You can check out the interview here:

http://www.heidibetts.com/wipsandchains/2009/11/23/an-interview-with-mindy-klasky/

(I'll be giving away a copy of MAGIC AND THE MODERN GIRL to one commenter...)

Mindy, whose own posts might be scarce this week, as she's hosting holiday visitors

Today, we headed off to see As You Like It at the Uni. Kevin is required to do so. We tried last Saturday night and they were sold out. Kevin went to get tix yesterday for either last night or today, and they were sold out again for both performances.

So, we showed to get on the waiting list. At ten til, they start calling names and we get in. We were pretty far down the list, so it was 2:00 straight up before we got in. The place was full and we were looking for seating, there were onsies here and there, but none together. I was about to tell Kevin we were going to have to sit apart when the house manager announces to the entire audience, "You aren't going to be able to sit together and you need to sit down right now so we can start the show." I was fucking mortified. Kevin tells me there were two other people looking for seats, but he and I were the only two down on the floor in full view of the entire audience.

Then they didn't bother to start the show for another five minutes. So, they humiliated us for nothing.

I didn't enjoy the show at all. Of course part of it was that I was pissed and embarrassed but part of it was that it was flat and uninteresting. There were a couple of good performances and one really good one. But I was pretty much bored.

I want to learn how to make tamales:

Two homemade tamales filled with turkey,raisins, chopped walnuts and apples. Topped with our delicious dark mole sauce (contains Peanut oil) and sesame seeds. Served with achiote vegetables and black beans

This is how I feel about our videoconferencing unit. I actually told the Big Kahuna that I was going to "Office Space" it one of these days.



moar funny pictures

( MOAR )

The last show made this enormous collage that is just hideous and was meant to be. For some reason, the two gals who made have an unnatural draw to it and decided that rather than take it home, they'd 'donate' it to the theater's auction at Casino Night. It's truly hideous-shoes and pictures of shoes, on a teal board roughly 6 foot by 6 foot. No one is going to want this thing..evah. I am contemplating starting an Etsy account for it and seeing if I can sell it there. Maybe it will be featured on Regretsy??? That would be awesome!


Is this just plain evil?

Today, I went to my watercolor workshop and made it through the whole day-although it was touch and go around 11. But I med'ed up, was somewhat dizzy and muddle-headed but I made it through. Came home, told Kevin I didn't think I was going to make it to see Three Tall Women and went to bed. 45 minutes later I woke up feeling good, so we headed to dinner and the play. And I am glad I made it- great play, fantastic performances. Really really wonderful.

And I have some very interesting and talented people interested in Mockingbird.

And, since I was going out-I wore my new and wonderful necklace made by auronsgirl and hisgrouchyness and it is fabulous and garnered comments from friends and complete strangers.

Update on the watercolor workshop-blech. Teacher is still lame. And racist as it turns out. He was talking to one of the class members and said something about something being made by 'The Chinese'. The tone caught my attention and then he rambled for a bit and eventually said something to the effect that The Chinese make all these cunning things to frustrate and fascinate us so that we won't declare war. And then he said, "You know those DVD packages? You ever try to open one of those? The Chinese make those."

::blink blink blink::

It was so fucking random and bizarre and more than a little crazy. And completely inappropriate. On my evaluation, I mentioned that his Chinese comments were out of line. It was very strange.

I have three somewhat mediocre pics that I did. None of them are great but if anyone would like one, speak up. I plan on doing something fun and different and doing some collage to hide the fact that watercolor is not my medium. Or perhaps it is if I had a decent teacher.<input ... ></input><input ... >

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I'm trying to track now the name and author of a book - almost definitely a light romance - that has a chihuahua and handcuffs on the cover.

It likely came out approximately 3 years ago.

Any guesses?

Mindy, trying to restore a certain karmic balance