Amanda's Blog

H1N1

This marks day 5 of lying in bed feeling terrible.  On Friday morning, my father-in-law flew back home, leaving us with the "cold" he had acquired (most likely aboard the Delta flight out here).  All weekend, we seemed to get worse and our fevers were between 102 and 103 for 48 hours, and that's with Tylenol.  We were sneezing, coughing, aching, and feeling generally miserable. First thing Monday morning, we called the doctor's office, but he was booked solid.  We were offered an appointment within the hour to see a new doctor to the practice, and we joyfully booked it.  

At the office, we donned surgical masks to protect others from our creeping crud.  In 2 minutes of talking to us, the doctor dashed out of the room and returned wearing a heavy-duty surgical mask of his own.  He thought we might have swine flu!  There's no way we had swine flu. We had none of the GI problems listed as symptoms, we only had colds...and fevers.  The doctor used a nasal swab to test for H1N1 and whisked the samples down the hall to the lab.  He excused himself, saying the test took 15 minutes to develop, and shut the door.  At which time, we jokingly took this picture because we looked dorky and that silly doctor thought we had swine flu.

 

In literally less than 2 minutes, the door opened and the doctor said the test was positive.  The quickest he'd ever seen, suggesting it was very strongly present.  Whaaat???  So we had a very hurried discussion as I think he just wanted to be anywhere but in the office with us, and we were prodded out the door, Tamiflu prescriptions in-hand.  

At the pharmacy, masks still on, people stared and took a step back.  People weren't sure if we were sick and trying not to spread our germs, or if we were germophobic and trying to avoid getting something from someone else.  Either way, wearing a mask significantly reduces your wait time, FYI.  That'll be ready in just a moment...1,2,3, DONE!!!  And home we went.  

We're still in bed and it's Wednesday.  We don't feel much better at all, except our fevers are now hovering at 100.  Our throats are on fire, and we still feel weak, but that Tamiflu, if it's doing anything, is being very stealth.  We hadn't slept well since the beginning because the cough is so persistent.  We asked the doctor to call in something for the coughing yesterday, and I popped into the Target pharmacy through the garden center to minimize exposure to others.  He gave us some narcotic cough syrup and last night, we slept almost 12 hours.  It felt great!  The vaporizer is misting us with warm, camphor-scented air, and we are hoping to feel better soon.

Wash your hands often, and hide from anyone who has a cough.  They're out of the Tamiflu for children, and the elderly seem to be immune which is very good. The doctor hypothesized that my father-in-law had a very mild case, but because of his age, was not as susceptible to symptoms as younger people are.  He's feeling much better now.

Busy Week, Busier Weekend

Our project for the week involved finding a new cooktop!  Our old one was hideous, improperly installed, impossible to keep clean, and ancient.  Did I mention hideous?  I took some pictures (as I tend to do with everything), so get ready...here's the cooktop remodel as it happened!

Here's the old one.  The ring of sludge is 23 years of meals stuck under the lip, 21 years of which were not ours.  This is after we loosened it, of course.  All that was just hiding. GROSS!!!

 

Here's our countertop once we hauled the antique out to the street.

Here's the new duct and the old duct.  Also a disgusting, greasy experience.

New hood installed, so far so good.

 

New duct.  Finally, using duct tape for the purpose intended.

 

Inspecting the new cooktop while putting gas tape on all the pipe threading.

And finally, the finished product:

Needless to say, we're thrilled about the vast improvement!

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This weekend, we've been entertaining a family friend of S's from Turkey, and a friend of his who is traveling with him.  Yesterday, the four of us went to the Heart concert at the Greek Theatre in Los Angeles, and The Bangles opened for them. Great concert, though I only knew a few songs. Afterward, we had tea and Turkish desserts at our house until around 1am.  Today, we went ballet shoe shopping for the friend's daughter, then to UCLA, Rodeo Dr., BelAir, Beverly Hills, Third St. Promenade, Santa Monica Pier, and to The Grove for dinner at Cheesecake Factory.  They were both snoring 5 minutes into the ride home, so I'm guessing they haven't quite acclimated to the 10 hour time change yet!  That and we wore them out!

What Do You DO All Day? A Pictorial Blog

Last weekend, we went to a fall-themed party at our friend Kjerstin's house.  It was a potluck, so everyone brought something fallish and delicious!!  Since I have entirely too much time on my hands, I devoted a weekend to playing with cake. 

 

On Friday, I baked a test cake using my new Sur la Table stadium bundt pan.  And thank goodness, because look what happened!

In the end, it all worked out.  I made a dozen carrot cake pumpkins with cream cheese filling and 2 white stadium cakes, one for UCLA and one for USC--to stir up some friendly rivalry (and also so that Kjerstin's husband--USC all the way!--wouldn't make us leave their party!).  S just wanted one cake, UCLA...imagine that! 

I'm being lazy with picture positioning today!  Also this week, I cleaned out the pantry again to keep it nice and organized.

While organizing, we decided it was time to take our 6 bags of recyclables to the recycling center, netting us a whopping $13.05 (only 5 cents a bottle/can here).

When we came home, I admired our Bird of Paradise.  The bloom had fallen off and we were told that it wouldn't come back 'til next year.  But look!  One last showing for the season.  So pretty!!

We also got a new gardener.  A neighbor, actually.  He started his own company when he got laid off a few years ago, and he's very nice.  And cheaper!  And we can communicate better with him.  Our other guy was really nice at first, but then got lazy and started letting things go just like the last one! Hopefully this will be our last one!

On Friday night, we went to see Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs in IMAX 3D.  I highly recommend it! We thought it was excellent.  Before making our way to the theater, we stopped at Borders so I could read the book to S, who'd never even heard of it.  It was a good refresher for me, too, because I was able to notice how closely the movie resembled the details of the book!

On Saturday, I set out to restripe the kayak.  The custom stripes on the side were chipped and not looking too good, so I taped them up and used a plastic paint to restore the design.  I'm 50% finished with this task, as I wasn't sure how it was going to turn out and haven't gotten back to the garage to do the other side.  Maybe today...

After that was painted, I moved on to some other small projects while it dried.  We have 3 flower boxes on the side of the garage that were weathered and ugly and falling apart.  Now they're still falling apart and pretty ugly, but at least not looking as weathered.  Also, flowerless.

And our outdoor elephant that Suleyman's grandparents bought us this summer while we were in Turkey, lost its eye.  So I used all-weather silicone to put it back on.  Now it's in the yard where it belongs...no elephants in the house!  He doesn't really hang sideways, I'm just too lazy to figure out how to rotate the pictures!

Last but not least, I cleaned out the fridge yesterday.  We purchased a ZeroWater pitcher, which is a Brita competitor that guarantees a reading of 000 parts per million in a glass of filtered water.  Our tap water has about 350+, where a bottle of Dasani has about 14.  In our first filling of the pitcher, we got a reading of 50, not zero!  So something is wrong here, and that pitcher may be going back to Target. However, not before its height required me to remodel the fridge and remove an entire shelf!! Grr.

I think that's just about it.  Today I'll study for my Turkish class this weekend. Classes are every other weekend and this will be our second class.  This teacher has plans to finish our entire textbook, which is amazing seeing as I've covered 3 chapters in 2 years.  She's blazing a trail and I'm quite impressed!  There are 4 people in the class and they're all really nice, so it's going to be a good year! 

Sold!

Sunday night, we got a call from a really nice woman, responding to our Craigslist post for the kayak.  Her son wanted it, so they hauled the whole family of four to our house within the hour.  The son was 23 and was so excited, he didn't know what to do with himself.  They asked him, "Do you even know which end is the front?", and he promptly pointed to the stern.

Their 11 year old daughter seemed to have an impairment of some sort, but she was extremely intelligent.  Each time she spoke to me, she'd say "Excuse me" to first get my attention, and then would wait for permission to proceed.  Her manners were refreshing!  She needed to use the restroom, but didn't want to ask.  I welcomed her to use ours and I think she thanked us 10 times, and also commented on the pleasant scent of the soap!

They were really a sweet family, which is surprising for a Craigslist transaction.  They were here for nearly 2 hours, asking questions mostly about how to kayak, not about the kayak specifically.  I showed their son how to paddle and how to get back on if he falls out in water, and we went over basic rules of the water.  He never stopped smiling!  He ended up taking one of the lesser quality paddles that came with our new kayak (longer, built for speed rather than longevity), so he left us with our practically new one.

They gave us exactly what we asked for it, which is also unexpected, but it was a great deal for sure.  They got a practically brand new kayak with seats, a paddle, and a fishfinder, and we got money to cover the one we bought plus all the work we need to put into it!  

We took it to the watersports shop yesterday, and they had never seen one quite that shade!  They're keeping it this week to install a new large rectangular hatch (existing one is cracked), a small round hatch (existing one is missing its lid and rubber seal), new bow/stern handles (existing ones are ugly and weakening), and to plug a hole previously used for the fishfinder's transducer cable.  We picked up a new tall-back seat to match mine so S can be comfortable now that he'll have a regular forward-facing seat instead of balancing himself on the bow, and 2 new paddles to match the boat.  We took the almost-new orange paddle the son didn't want, and the watersports store agreed they could sell it as new and gave us credit for the new paddle!  Perfect.

On our way there, we kept hitting every redlight next to a police car.  The driver kept checking out the kayak and followed alongside us for several miles.  We turned right into the store parking lot, and the police car kept going straight.  We got out and started to untie the straps and hitch tiedown, and into the back parking lot enters the same police officer.  He sat in his car for a while, while we hauled the boat inside and talked to our guy.  Then he eventually wandered in and started talking about how he's wanted a kayak for years. I should've asked for a discount for street marketing! That's all for now, hopefully she'll be beautiful when we pick her up later this week.

Happy Birthday, Aunt Joyce!

Today's Aunt Joyce's birthday, and I bet she had to get up early on this Monday morning and go teach.  Hopefully she'll have a fun afternoon and some yummy cake to celebrate another year of being an awesome mom, daughter, aunt, grandma, friend, teacher, etc.  Happy Birthday!