Monthly Archives:February 2008

While I am waiting for a video to upload over at youtube I thought I should begin this entry. Would you all like to see the video? Here you go – a pregnant moose cow munching browse in my backyard recently.


If you have your speakers on you can hear hubby moose talking in the background and a lot of road noise – the highway is just behind the trees there. We don’t notice the road noise in the winter because the windows are generally closed – and in the summer, the trees are fully leafed out so we don’t hear much then, either.

This morning as I was coming home from the pool and passing the middle school I saw a yearling calf walking down the side of the road. Not a big deal – we see it every day, but there was a lot of traffic – people dropping their (grand)kids off to school – and there are always walkers, too. I stopped one young man on my street to let him know about the moose. As I’ve said here in the past, the critters can be ornery and you do NOT want to get in the way of their hooves when they are feeling their oats.

Hmmm – I almost wrote “feeling your Cheerios” – anyone remember that tune?

Yup – disjointed entry, huh? Well, that’s sort of my life right now – so much to do – so little time and opportunity in which to do it – but it will all get done . . . eventually.

Next week I fly to Juneau for a network meeting – most of the state’s dv executive directors will be getting together to discuss (whatever – I really have no clue as this is my first one). We will also be meeting with the state legislators if we can get in to see them. I have an appointment with one Wednesday morning. They are in the process of trying to cut the grant that is our major funder, so we are, of course, trying to discourage them from that.

I went to the Legislative Information Office Saturday to take part in a teleconferenced hearing with the finance committee members – and my representative is the head of that committee, so whatever I talk with him about Wednesday is going to be a rerun. Such is life.

When I come back I will have one week at work and then 10 days vacation and then one more week at work and THEN my boss returns from her sabbatical! Whoot! I will be able to take off ONE of my hats. Yay.

In the meantime we have a board meeting tonight so I am going to work late – have to adjust for that meeting. Then one more board meeting in March and I am done with THOSE, too. 😉

Have I enjoyed it? Yes and no – the staff is great and they are (mostly) doing their jobs. I’ve had the opportunity to hire one person in this time period and she seems to be working out very well. There have been some gray areas in policy that have been a little touch to deal with and many times I have wished I could call my boss for direction – but that is not permitted. So I lean on my coworkers to come to a good solution in those areas.

We are a good team! I thank them often and try to bring them little treats from time to time to show them my appreciation.

That’s NOT to say that there haven’t been a few staff challenges. 😉 But we work through those, too.

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yes, another birthday in February . . . Happy birthday my daughter!!!

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Who loves ya, baby?

Go on over there and wish her a happy, happy, won’t you?

And, you could also go here, and here, and here. Hahahaha – who says we don’t know how to party in Alaska?
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Happy birthday, gorlie!

So, I saw the internist yesterday – first available appointment after all the heart hoo-ha. After I filled out (what seemed like) reams of paperwork to get me admitted into the inner sanctum – past all the many office workers – I sat in the examining room for quite awhile before he was able to come to see me.

I thumbed through several (very) old magazines – what IS it with doctors’ offices anyway? I mean, there were magazines from 2001!!! ANYway . . .

He came in, I put the National Geographic down and he told me to keep reading because he wanted to go through my chart to read the reports on all the tests. So I sat quietly while he read.

“Hmmm” he said. “Huh!” and then “Hmmmmm” again several more times. I finally started laughing and said “you’re reading the cath report aren’t you?” And he said that he was.

Finally he closed the file – opened it one more time to re-read a section, closed it and looked at me and smiled.

“Well! We know you HAD a heart attack, but we don’t know why!”

You see I really AM an enigma after all. The tests have all come back as good as they can – and that leaves the docs all scratching their heads and calling me “lucky.”

My friends, luck had absolutely NOTHING to do with any of this. I’m a child of the King and blessed beyond all blessings to be able to tell you so. It is only by His grace and by His mercy that I have come through both kidney cancer and a heart attack in such fine fettle. All I can do is praise Him and thank Him and try to serve Him better.

Hope you’re all having a good week. Our temps have come up a bit – it is clear up to 18 degrees ABOVE zero this morning! Whoot! That is a welcome change from the below zero stuff of the past two weeks. It’s something like a 40 degree shift in temps! Gotta love living in Alaska.

It’s time to play Separated at Birth again.

It’s always fun to me to see people who resemble each other – generally generations apart. You might remember my posts about Eric Bogosian and Elliott Gould

and then Ana Gasteyer and Katherine Hahn .

Now I give you Valerie Bertinelli of the 70’s show One Day at a Time
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and Lindsey Price of the newest show Lipstick Jungle.

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Lindsey has that whole oriental thing going (her mother is Korean), and Valerie’s face is rounder, but seen separately they bear a strong resemblance. Don’t you think?

and, now if you will excuse me . . . I think I will go and see how good the new show is.