Later St Paul

I started this Thursday/Friday and unexpectedly to sleep.  I had a 5:45 flight so didn't take my ambien but actually got a couple of hours of sleep.  The trip home was a lot better than the trip there.  I got home before 11 on Friday and I am really glad I took the early flight.

Saturday night my sister and I went to see Lizzo.  Brooke was supposed to go with me, but after the whole tumor thing that wasn't possible.  I was a little apprehensive as my sister can be a lot but it was fun.  Lizzo was great.

 

That leads me back to where I left off...

St. Paul has been ok.  The sign advisory group isn't at all an outgoing crew. We did go to a brewery on Tuesday for dinner and went to another really small one after work today.  The airport is way more confusing than it needs to be.  Got my checked bag and took the tram to the rental car area.  They had signs saying what floor each company was on.  Me and another guy hop on the elevator to our prospective floor to be told we had to go back down the elevator, back to the tram to the counter.  It was packed, which I knew wasn't a good sign.  For whatever god forsaken reason there was a 2 hour wait for a car.  It was 4, my hip hurt, and I was just done.  I told them to cancel my car and if I see a charge on my account I was going to call the travel agent we are required to use and go off.  So many pissed of people.  The uber was fine, it gave me an option for a quiet ride and he delivered.  The guy at the hotel desk told me to hurry and run my bags up because happy hour was closing in 30 minutes.  I made it with time to spare.  I am trying my best to get those points!

Rewind back to Thursday of last week.  I had my normal appointment with the rheumatologist I am fairly certain I had bloodwork done when I was there in January, but he said he didn't see them on my chart.  I was supposed to get labs done that day but I hadn't eaten and that is really problematic for me.  I might go in tomorrow when I get home.  He looked at my hip ended up giving me a shot in the hip joint and said if that didn't help our next step is fluoroscope.  The pain had subsided some but walking all over the airport almost had me in tears.

We had a sweet baby Siamese cat show up in the last few weeks.  We think she is pregnant but aren't 100% sure.  We call her Frankie because of her beautiful blue eyes

 There is a male that has been stalking around behind her that we call baby daddy.  Not sure if he is or not but that is his name now.  We had yet another one show up that Dennis calls big boy.  Big boy is a neighbor's cat but the refuse to take care of it saying they can't get him to stay in their house.  On the hood facebook site they said if he created any issues just let them know.  I commented they need to come get him and crickets.  He is really matted and scratched up

Frankie doesn't like BB and smacks him around any chance she gets.  Baby Daddy is pretty feral but yesterday he actually came up to me and let me touch his ears.  We are trying to figure out a way to get them all fixed.  I would love to have Frankie but I don't think Olive would appreciate that too much.  

Brooke has surgery Friday to remove the mass from her stomach.  I sent her some adult activity books and some snarky markers with offensive color names.  I want to send her something once a week while she if recovering.  I need to figure out what I want to do this week.  I could just send flowers to the hospital I guess?  I know she is just ready to get it over with.  I plan on going to LR while she if off and let her husband have a break because she is going to make a terrible patient.  She doesn't want anyone doing stuff for her.  She live kind of out there so door dash isn't an option.  

Not much else going on.  My friend with the felon inlaws is going to be here this weekend to get the house ready to tear down.  The SIL took a plea deal with probation.  The DA said she thinks she is going to be able to stay at the garbage house when she gets out and has told her daughter as much.  She will probably be released mid June and I really hope the house is gone before then.  The ceiling is literally falling in and hey just stayed there spending so much money on god knows what.  I can't even imagine.  I am gong to use that as an excuse not to go on a 2 day work trip this week I think.  I just really don't want to go.

OK, I am getting my annual review this afternoon so I need to get some shit together.

quikish update

 It has been an interesting few weeks.  It feels like so much has happened but when I think back nothing of importance.  

My friend Linda, the one with the SIL and nephew in jail for elder abuse against the MIL came to town last week to meet with the DA.  The nephew had a bail reduction trial and they lowered it from $100K to $25K.  She said nephew called the next day when he hadn't once called since everything went down.  Her husband refused to talk to him but Linda was all about asking him what the hell he could possibly want from them now of all times.  I mean, we all know he was wanting them to pay the $2,500 bond but he wasn't going to ask her.  She has always been the bad guy in their eyes.  He ended up hanging up on her.  He is still in jail so that speaks volumes.  They did get a restraining order for the houses they were living in and destroyed so if he did get out he would have no place to go.  

She packed up a bunch of the stuff from the mom's house and still can't figure out what they did with all of the money.  Over $100K of it was taken out of the bank via in person withdrawals.  I just can't even imagine burning through that kind of money in a matter of months and having nothing at all to show for it.  The good thing is MIL is doing ok in the facility they have her in and is probably better taken care of than she has been since her stroke.  When she spoke to the DA he told her to be glad they found someone else to take the niece because she would have destroyed their family.  From the bits and pieces it sounds like he has heard some the conversations from the phone calls from jail.  He told her she is starting to create issues (not sure if it's the mom or the kid) in the cousin's home and to not feel guilty for putting her in the system when she has to find someplace else to go.  It's really sad because I know going to live with Linda would have probably been the only chance of a somewhat normal life she ever had.  

On a completely different front, Linda has been talking about getting a tattoo for years.  I told her we needed to go see if they had any walk in openings at 'my' studio.  They didn't but she has an appointment for the Sunday before memorial day.  She told her to put us down for 2 because she owes me something big for a belated 50th birthday present.  You know I'm down but no clue what I want.  I'm kind of thinking about a funky shoe from fluevog since for her birthday I flew to DFW and went shopping with her at the new store there.  I have a couple of weeks.

My other friend news (because I literally only have like 3 irl friends), Brooke is still waiting for surgery.  She went for pre-op on Monday and the cancer marker blood test was still over 400 when the max is supposed to be 0.38.  The best case scenario is the tumor is contained to the mass.  She is doing pretty good considering.  Her husband also works for the corps so I have emailed him some to find out how they are really doing.  I need to figure out a care package to send her.  My first instinct is to send her some bamboo pjs but 1) the tumor is in her stomach and so large they will have to open her up to get it as it is way too large for orthoscopic so she will probably be wearing a mumu for awhile and 2) no clue what size to get when you know someone is getting a 20+ pound mass removed.  If things go as planned she will have surgery May 26.

And to round out the depressing trifecta I attended a funeral for a cousin yesterday.  She was 2 years older than me, which is so funny to think about because her and her sisters were always the cool older kids that I could only aspire to hang out with someday.  So funny how age puts two years into perspective.  Her husband found her dead on the kitchen floor early Thursday morning.  They think she had a heart attack in the night.  The funeral was brutal but I did my ADD mental gymnastics to disassociate as best I could and made it through without being an emotional wreck.  I was talking to Brooke on the way home about it and how the music that was popular when we grew up shouldn't be allowed in the memorial videos.  I haven't been to many funerals of people around my age and when they played STP and Chris Cornell it really caught me off guard and almost knocked me out of my disassociative state.  This is when Brooke told me that she had her music picked out and that she had everything written down in a yellow notebook and if anything happens to her to make sure her husband uses it.  I 'laughed' it off and told her that he needs to put the notebook in a safety deposit box or fire safe for when he will need it.  So she told me that last weekend she felt the need to write everything out and if something happens she has it all there and that her husband has a letter she wrote to me and to not let him forget it.  Luckily we were texting - I was putting gas in my car, and I full on ugly cried so hard I thought I was going to puke.  Hell I am crying just writing about it.  I just can't go there.

Enough of that

It isn't all doom and gloom.  I bought my plane ticket for NYC in October and made hotel reservations for a hotel in Times Square.  My older sister and her husband are going.  I have never traveled with them before so that makes me a little nervous.  Our flights are the same time, I am sitting behind one of them and our hotel is at the same location but if it all goes to hell I can do my own thing.  She is supposed to buy tickets for & Juliette for us but that is the only firm plan.  I could do the entire time on Broadway but I'm not sure I will want to once I get there.  I joined a Reddit group and found out the shows that have rush tickets and can always go to more if I choose once I get there.  My biggest fear is that my bougie sister will want to eat at michellan star restaurants for every meal.  Not sure my budget can handle that.  

Tomorrow I have my normal follow up rheumatology appointment and a long overdue hair day.  I am ready to get this blue out of my hair.   

 I'm in the office today and I am about to sneak out.  There is a meeting in the conference room behind me, the person in the office next to me is on speaker phone and someone else is popping balloons.  Needless to say my concentration is shot.  I need to set up my travel for St Paul in a few weeks but I have time and I am 90% sure I would have to go back and fix something if I tried to do it now.

I took off work early on Friday and no one called and derailed my plan!!  I saw Are You There God, It's Me Margaret.  It was so good.  Very nostalgic.  It did bring up a question that I had never thought about.  What did the boys watch while we were getting the period talk?  There was a part in the movie where she was laying with her grandmother and they were talking that almost made me cry because it reminded me so much of the relationship I had with me Granny.  And this would have been one of the books I would have read at her house.  I am glad I went alone.  

Saturday was with my mom.  She called me and said my little sister sent her a text asking if we would go by her house and let the dogs out because she went OKC to visit dr. boyfriend.  I told her oh hell no.  I don't know if my mom told her I said no or what but I didn't go.  I can take petty to a completely different level.  She came up with yet another story about the physical therapist, this time she said if she did the exercises at home she didn't have to come in.  Big surprise she isn't doing them.

Sunday I went to Target and picked up a travel backpack that I absolutely love.  

  https://www.travelandleisure.com/target-made-by-design-viral-travel-backpack-6834839

My laptop bag is a backpack so I probably need to get a sleeve with a strap to use when I travel and put it in the bag.  I got the bigger one because I have a tote that I take also that I stick under the seat.  

My older sister asked me if I was ready to buy plane tickets for NYC.  I know she will get 1st class but I would rather spend that $200+ on Broadway.  I am, however trying to decide if I want to spend the extra for a refundable ticket.  I mean mid-October is iffy with hurricane season and it is my turn to go.  I don't want to turn down the fema pay if it is offered.  

While I was at Target, I got a text from Brooke that she was at the ER with what they thought was appendicitis.  They did a CT scan and found a large 15-20 lbs tumor on her stomach.  They checked her cancer markers but I guess the results take awhile.  She went in today for another scan and they said she has 5 masses with a width of 42 cm.  But they don't show typical cancer characteristics.  She will be getting them removed soon and they want to have the oncologist there just in case.  I am trying not to think about it too much.  I told her that she is only 3.5 hours away.  

For some reason I have been so tired lately.  I went down to my car and took a nap for lunch.  I did the same yesterday.  I started back on Vitamin D, I hope that helps some.