Enthusiastically Ambiverted Hopepunk
General ramblings connected to my personal life and activities.
Finally…another entry in the Vegas weekend! I just keep getting further behind…
Update: Xebeth reminded me that I’d forgotten a key part of the evening — Bite, the topless vampire show! The end of the post has been updated to correct this grievous oversight. Believe me, the erotic rock angels should not be forgotten!
Okay. Pictures are starting to work their way up to my Flickr account and will eventually be all in a Vegas Vacation set. While those go, a rundown of the trip — behind the cut as I tend to ramble. ;)
I was hoping to get one post for everything, but that’s not happening. Something about not wanting to devote my entire time to the ‘puter, and instead splitting the day between working on photos and enjoying the day off with Prairie. Imagine that!
Thursday, then….
We’re back! It was a wonderful trip — three days having a lot of fun bouncing around Vegas with Xebeth. I’m working my way through the (tons of) pictures I shot while Prairie naps (a multi-step process: import two flash cards of shots, one full 2Gb and one partial 1Gb; find any multi-shot panoramics and run them through Calico to assemble the final shots; name and tag all the photos as accurately as possible; sort through to determine which are worth uploading to Flickr and which aren’t; and finally, upload the final pics to Flickr).
I’ll get more ramblings up eventually (I’ve got a good start down already, actually, I just need to break away for little things like dinner)…for the moment, though, it’s just good to be back home.
It’s vacation time — a full five days off from work. Incredible!
Tomorrow morning, at some horrendous hour, Prairie’s sister is driving us to the airport where — after the requisite two-hour wait, mile-long back-and-forth line up to the security checkpoint, body cavity search, and so on — we’ll board a plane to fly down to Las Vegas for three days with Xebeth! She’s quite familiar with Vegas, so she’s got a full slate of entertainments lined up for us…most of which she’s determined not to tell us about until we’re there. All I know for sure is that we’re going to be staying at the Stratosphere, seeing one of the typical Vegas shows (the only criteria being “whichever one has the most breasts”), and apparently at some point parking me outside of the M&M’s store and not letting me go in until I whimper (or something like that).
We’ll be returning to Seattle late Saturday night (or early Sunday morning, technically), after which work was kind enough to give me two days off. Apparently, they’re expecting two days of recovery for every three days in Vegas. From some of the stories I’ve heard — and given that it’ll be just me with two gorgeous women — they may be right! ;)
Pictures, of course, will be posted all a-plenty after we get back. For now, I’m off to eat and pack (or, more likely, continue procrastinating until the very last moment, then pack).
As some barely-known, two-bit hack of an entertainer once said…Viva Las Vegas!
“Land Of 1000 Dances” by Wilson Pickett from the album Forrest Gump (Disc 1) (1966, 2:26).
I suppose it was only a matter of time before Seattle started getting hit by the summertime heat.
Okay, so it’s not the 100-plus that other parts of the country have been getting, but still. Ugh. Yesterday was a record-setting 97, apparently, and it felt like it. Every fan in the apartment is going strong, and we still don’t really want to move any more than we have to.
Just had to add my voice to the chorus of “it’s hot” whining. ;)
“I’m Wishing/One Song” by Various Artists from the album Disney’s Princess Collection (1996, 3:08).
Xebeth just called.
She’s okay — out of the ICU, unplugged from the various tubes, and working down the list that R made of people she had to call. She’s a little hoarse from the tube they had down her throat (though quite impressed at herself for being able to deep throat seventeen inches — I do love my friends…), and feeling a bit beat up and bruised, but she’s definitely pulled through.
So incredibly good to hear her voice.
To those of you who may have seen my first post about this and kept Xebeth in your thoughts — thank you. I know she’s in no hurry to go…but a little friendly support certainly can’t hurt. Thanks.
Word from R as of about 4pm today is that Xebeth is “okay” — out of surgery and in the ICU. From the sound of it, while she’s not out of the woods, she’s not in immediate danger at the moment. Knowing Xebeth, she’s bound and determined to keep on kicking through pure willpower if nothing else.
And I wouldn’t be surprised to see her do it.
I haven’t mentioned this before — and debated even putting this post up — but Xebeth, who I recently reconnected with and has become an extremely dear friend to both Prairie and I, has been battling malignant hyperthermia for some time now.
The disease is rare and still very much an unknown, so the above link leads to a Google search rather than one particular source of information. In brief, though, it is a hereditary muscular disease most often triggered by a reaction to anesthetics. Most often, once discovered, the disease can be managed with careful monitoring during any surgical procedures that might require anesthesia, and the patient’s life expectancy is normal.
However, more rarely, the disease starts attacking the muscles without the anesthetic trigger, essentially burning them up from the inside. In this case, eventually the disease will attack the heart. Life expectancy with this form of MH is far shorter. NOTE: I now believe that this is probably not true. See this post for details.
Xebeth was confirmed to have the rarer and more dangerous form of MH a few months ago. The initial prognosis was in the five to ten year range, but after a biopsy of some of the affected tissue was performed, she was given roughly ten months to live.
In an effort to extend her time left with her friends, family, husband and children, Xebeth agreed to undergo a treatment process that might keep her around for a few years longer, hopefully for the next decade or so. However, the treatments are not pleasant — similar to chemotherapy, they introduce a ‘poison’ that attacks and kills the affected tissue — and run the risk of triggering an attack.
Her friend R has been by her side throughout the treatment process, trading off shifts with Xebeth‘s husband Austin. R’s been doing a wonderful job of acting as an intermediary between Xebeth and Prairie and I, reading our e-mails to her and keeping us updated on Xebeth‘s status.
About half an hour ago, R sent me a note saying that Xebeth had had a bad attack and is in surgery.
I’ve been keeping quiet about this situation for some time now, but at this point…well, Prairie and I are worried and scared, and I have to go to work ’til ten in about twenty minutes, so likely won’t get any updates until late in the day. In the two visits to Seattle that Xebeth has been able to take since she and I got back in touch, she’s become very close to Prairie and I both — Prairie discovering a new friend, while I get to know the incredible woman that the first girl I ever dated has become. We both love her greatly, and would appreciate any thoughts or prayers you can contribute.
Update: We got confirmation that Xebeth had made it through surgery later in the day while I was at work, and this morning (Saturday the 22nd) got a phone call from Xebeth. She’s okay and out of immediate danger. Here’s hoping we can keep her around as long as possible.
And we’re back up and runnning. Yay!
Jim and Gordon stopped by this morning, with Gordon (the other manager and primary handyman, who’d been out of town this weekend) explaining to Jim just what had gone wrong with our power. Apparently there are two breakers on the troublesome circuit, one of which had popped — which meant that for half of our apartment, outlets that should have been getting 110v were only getting around 80v.
Gordon went down to the basement, flipped a breaker, and suddenly the kitchen lights brightened to full strength. They checked the garbage disposal to make sure it was working properly, then I went around the apartment flipping switches. Everything works!
So, we’ve got a couple hours left before we have hot water, but there should be enough for me to grab a (short) shower before I head off to work.
It’s nice not to come from a broken home. ;)
“Son Of A Preacher Man” by Dusty Springfield from the album Pulp Fiction (1968, 2:28).
Guest Post By Prairie:
So it all started at around 10:30 this morning. I was in the kitchen, innocently making breakfast, when I got butter on my fingers. I turned to the sink to wash off the butter, and to my surprise, when I turned the tap, no water came out of the faucet. It coughed and burped a couple times. Then nothing.
As I stood there staring at it, there came a sudden knock at the front door. I admit, I jumped–the timing was just a bit creepy. I opened the door to find our landlord, Jim, standing in the hall. Jim said, “I have some news for you.”
I said, “We don’t have any water.”
Jim said, “Yes, your hot water heater burst and flooded the basement. I’ve had to shut your water off.”
I said, “Oh, that would explain why we don’t have any water.”
Jim explained that they were working on the problem, and we should have water–both hot and cold–by the end of the afternoon. In the meantime, the apartment across the hall from us is currently vacant, and he was going to leave it unlocked so we could use the facilities there. After a couple more knocks on the door (needed to shut off electricity to the water heater), Jim assured us he was well on the way to fixing the problem. The new water heater would be installed, and life would continue as normal.
None of this seemed to be all that big a deal. Michael and I filled a couple buckets with water so we could continue to flush the toilet in our apartment, made sure the water pitcher in the ‘fridge was full, and went about our day. We went to the dedication ceremony at the new community library that opened a few blocks from us, then Michael headed off to work. I left the car with him, and walked home, stopping at the grocery store to pick up a few things for dinner tonight (and another bag of cherries–yum, summer fruit!). When I got home, there was still no water, but I wasn’t worried. I could hear thumping from the basement.
A short time later, there was a knock on the door. Jim grinned at me and announced that the new water heater was installed. We would have piping hot water in a matter of minutes. He said to call him in half an hour if there was no hot water. Dutifully, I returned to my book while watching the clock. In half an hour, I ran the water. Cold. Not so much as luke warm, even. Not tepid. Certainly not boiling. Cold. So I called Jim. He came back over, and shut everything off again. He fiddled with things, and I heard more thumping from the basement. He came back upstairs and told me to call him in half an hour.
In half an hour the water was still cold. Not so much as a hint of warmth was coming from our pipes. I called Jim. We repeated the routine. By this point, both of us were sure the next attempt would work. And yet, in half an hour we repeated the routine again. Finally we decided to call it a day (it was about 6:30, and we were both sick of dealing with it). We figured we’d get a fresh start in the morning.
There was cold water, so I decided to at least rinse the dishes that had stacked up over the day in the sink, and put them in the dishwasher. I rinsed the dishes, washing all the “icky” mushrooms Michael had picked out of his stir-fry the evening before down into the garbage disposal. I stacked the dishes in the dishwasher and reached to turn on the garbage disposal. And the lights went out. The garbage disposal did not roar to life. That was not normal. I flipped the garbage disposal switch back off. The lights came back on. I found this amusing, so I did it a couple more times. I noticed that the clock above the stove also went out when I flipped the garbage disposal switch. I called Jim, who dropped his dinner and came back over, declaring that he, “had to see this!”
When he arrived at our door (once again), he added a bit to the story. The wiring in our building is wonky at best. We knew this from when a transformer up the block had blown this past fall, and only parts of our apartment were without electricity. The repairman who had come to install the new water heater did NOT know this. Apparently he’d completely botched wiring in the new water heater, and (in Jim’s words) something had gotten fried. I’m not nearly technical enough to have desired any explanation more detailed than this. I nodded. They thought they’d solved the problem. I flipped the switch on the garbage disposal. The lights went out. Jim cracked up. Apparently something was still fried.
So we started flipping switches to see what else would happen. When we turned on the toaster, the lights dimmed. The microwave hums and glows slightly, but doesn’t actually go. I turned a burner on the stove onto “high.” And waited. And touched it. And waited. And touched it. And waited. After about five minutes, I decided that even though the light on the stove declared it to be on, it was not going to get warm. (On the up side, the refrigerator still seems to be working.) This problem is apparently beyond Jim’s expertise with electricity. Not wanting to see a man get electrocuted in my kitchen, I assured him we could survive for a while with things the way they are. Jim went home, and I wandered around the apartment flipping switches to see what else was effected.
I tried to boot Michael’s computer. All the lights on that side of our apartment went out. Our phone and Internet service all run through Michael’s computer. Apparently so do all the appliances on my bedside table. As of 8:00 tonight, here’s the list of things in our apartment that do not work: the hot water, the garbage disposal, the toaster, the microwave, the stove and oven, Michael’s computer, the lights in the office, the TV and stereo and DVD player in the living room, my bedside lamp, and my alarm clock. There are somethings that still work: the cold water, the refrigerator, my computer, Michael’s bedside lamp and alarm clock, and the TV and DVD player in the bedroom.
At about 8:30, after not being able to use the phone of the Internet to contact anyone to whine to about all the issues, I decided I’d walk to the mall and tell Michael. He looked surprised to see me, especially since he hadn’t seen the full effect of standing in the sun without sunscreen for an hour at the library dedication ceremony that I had supposed would be INSIDE the library, not in the park outside the library. I’m a bit of a lobster, but that’s a different story entirely. I explained the home situation to him, ending with, “And I shall require French fries and ice cream before we go home.”
Very kindly, he humored me, and when he was off work, we got lots of French fries, large greasy burgers, and the biggest chocolate milkshake I’ve ever seen in my life. Some days it’s okay to get the “king size” at Burger King. Once my junk food craving had been satisfied, I was feeling much better. I pointed out that my computer was still running, and asked if we could switch everything over so that my computer controls the phone and the Internet. Michael looked amazed that my brain would think of something like that. I pointed out that I was high on chocolate and French fry grease. He laughed at me. And hooked up the phone and Internet to my computer, so now we have both phone and Internet service again.
However, with regard to the rest of this mess: tomorrow is Sunday. No one works on Sunday. Jim told me we’d have to wait until Monday to fix this mess. I have a feeling it’s going to be a long weekend.