Oldest Daughter: Is orange juice an antacid?
Beautiful Wife had an appointment with The Surgeon the other day. He examined her, scheduled x-rays, blood-work, and surgery before sending us on our merry way.
The positive news is that it appears to have been caught early. The bad news is that we're still on a bed of needles until the x-rays, blood-work, surgery, and subsequent pathology is complete. The surgery is September 7th.
Beautiful Wife also has an appointment on September 2nd with the dermatologist to make sure there aren't any other moles that need to be removed.
Note to others: There are two different scales for determining the type and severity of your melanoma. Make sure you know which one is being used when you are told your results. The same number can mean "caught it early get it treated" on one scale and "oh my God, you better make arrangements" on the other.
Beautiful Wife took Oldest Daughter to the doctor's office the other day because she's been sick for a week. She's not been able to shake it and her temperature has been in the 103 region.
Beautiful Wife went into the office with Oldest Daughter and witnessed the following conversation with the nurse:
Nurse: *taking temp, looking in ears and throat* When's the last time you had a bowel movement.
Oldest Daughter: *blank look* Umm...wait...what's that again?
Beautiful Wife: You know...poop....
Oldest Daughter: Oh...
I really enjoyed getting home last night, opening a beer, and then sitting on the deck chatting with Middle Daughter and waiting for everyone else to get home.
The evening was crisp, the sky a great color of blue, and the lawn looked great after being mowed this past weekend.
I was out the door at around 7am this morning and it was a bit nippy outside. The air certainly had that dry, crisp feel that I associate with fall.
We have some kids on this road that have dirt bikes. I can often hear them in the woods in the surrounding area and I'm ok with that. What I'm not ok with is when they go flying up the middle of the road in front of our house full throttle. The designers of the bikes weren't thinking about noise control when they built them.
Hardworking Father on conference call with co-workers.
Home phone rings. Middle Daughter looks up from book that she's reading while laying on the couch and then goes back to reading. Phone continues to ring.
HF mutes phone and says, "Pick it up and be quiet, I'm on an important call."
MD rolls eyes and heaves her body off the couch as if she bears the weight a circus elephant on her shoulders.
HF takes phone off of mute..."Say that again please..."
MD answers phone, stands in the middle of the living room and yells "MOM!"
HF quickly mutes phone ..."I'm working!"
MD looks at me, wanders over to the basement stairs that are around the corner and a few feet down the hall from where I sit. Her voice echos down the stairs "MOM, AUNT KAREN'S ON THE PHONE!!!!"
HF didn't bother taking phone off of mute so this exchange isn't heard but then he starts answering a question and gets 10 seconds into it before he realizes that the phone is still on mute and everyone is waiting for him to answer.
School starts in a couple of weeks...school starts in a couple of weeks...
Two questions that are bound to eat up a lot of time.
We did board breaking in our karate classes last night. If you signed up you got one board for free. You could purchase additional boards for $3/each but I decided to pass.
Beautiful Wife got two extra boards and did a great job breaking them.
Son punched through his one board.
I held my own board in the palm of my hand and broke it with a hammer fist strike.
The thing I noticed is that you get the most support, encouragement, and credit if you don't break the board on your first few tries but persevere, maybe cry a little, and then finally break the board.
The funniest moment was when a white belt prepared to do a heel stomp through two boards perched between two cinder blocks. He lined up his foot and went though the two boards when he was obviously just doing a practice strike to make sure he'd hit in the middle. The shocked look on his face when both boards cracked was priceless.
There's a reason why we have people do a heel stomp for their first break and it is all about building confidence. The easiest way to break a board is to aim through the board as if it isn't there. You get hurt and bruised when you barely hit the surface because all of your force rebounds back into your hand instead of dissipating on the other side of the broken board.
Say it with me...there is no board...
I actually opened up the blog editing program without any idea of what I was going to write.
I got out of work, watched a martial arts documentary, taught a karate class, took a karate class, and then went home.
We are at the half way point for a sai kata but it is going to take us around six months to learn the second half because it doesn't follow a pattern like the first half.
I made a dinner for Mary on Friday night and opened our bottle of 1996 Château Léoville Barton. We received this wine from our realtor when we closed on our home last year. It had a Wine Spectator score of 90 and it was wonderful.
WS Review:
A well-structured, racy red. Lovely, fresh aromas of raspberries, cream and currants. Medium- to full-bodied, with well-integrated tannins which are firm yet silky. One of the more reasonably priced top '96s. Best after 2000.
This had a finish that seemed to go on forever. We enjoyed drinking it but I think that if I had paid for it I would have been disappointed. I've had wines that were nowhere near the price tag of this one (I'm guessing around $100) that were just as good.
Last night I opened a bottle of 2001 Shiraz Mudgee Hill of Gold by Rosemount. It only cost $17 at the liquor store and it scored a 90 just like the bordeaux we had on Friday. It was a great wine to drink and I can see how it would be good until the projected date of 2010. We have one more bottle of it and I will buy more if I see it in the store. I'll have to see if the ones showing in the liquor store inventory are the same vintage.
We were watching Sister Act the other night. As the movie played I mentioned that I used to be a choir director in a church but that it was very hard because only a few people could sight read.
Youngest Daughter looked at me and said, "So were the rest of them blind?"
Beautiful Wife and I will celebrate our 21st anniversary tomorrow. In some ways it seems like we just finished doing the bridal register.
We've lived in Georgia, Arizona, and New Hampshire. We've had four kids together and now they're almost grown. We've gone plinking in a canyon in AZ and scuba diving at a beach in Hawaii. We've fought and made up. And we're still friends, lovers, and spouses after all these years.
Son called me on my cell phone yesterday and asked if it would be ok if he came home, did some laundry, and slept in his bed. I told him that he is always welcome and that he doesn't need permission to come home.
I hope that doesn't come back to haunt me when he's forty.
O for a Muse of fire, that would ascend
The brightest heaven of invention, and help
me in my attainment of a worthy blog.
But pardon, gentles all, and let me on your
imaginary forces work. For 'tis now your thoughts
that must deck this blog, carry my intended
meanings here and there, jumping o'er times
and gaps in my logic, turning the accomplishments
of a few minutes into an hour glass, for which supply
Admit me Chorus to this blog;
Who prologue-like your humble patience pray,
Gently to hear, kindly to judge, this blog!
This story shall the good parent teach their child;
And Wednesday Morning shall ne'er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remember'd;
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers and sisters;
For anyone to-day that reads my blog with me
Shall be my sibling; be they ne'er so vile,
This day shall gentle their condition:
And gentlemen and ladies in the Internet now a-bed
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,
And hold their cable modems cheap whiles any speaks
That read my blog upon Wednesday Morning!
We had a great dinner over at the abode of You Who and his Wife last night.
Beautiful Wife and I enjoyed some cheese and crackers and a Great Bay Breeze Martini while we waited for You Who's Wife to come home. We had a great time sitting around and talking while he worked on dinner. He picked a 30MM for this evening and it was great. He also had an awesome salad featuring tomatoes from a local farm that were incredible. The 30MM featured a seasoned flank steak and BLT (bacon, leeks, and tomatoes) mashed potatoes.
Dinner was paired with a Martin and Weyrich Zinfandel la Primitiva. I love zins and this was a very fruit forward jammie one that was easy to drink. It was an ok pairing but I think it may have been a little on the fruity side for what we were eating.
Beautiful Wife and I brought a raspberry pie and I made home-made whipped cream to go with it. We tried pairing it with some Chicoutai Cloudberry Liqueur. The liqueur has a nice taste but it is 25% alcohol and that tends to be overpowering at times. We tried mixing it with some club soda and ice and that was a bit better.
The other reason for our visit was so that Beautiful Wife could look at two fabrics that were possible choices for a new chair that You Who and Wife are going to purchase. This was the first time that Beautiful Wife's advice didn't jive with what they had already picked. I think the whole thing was a success just because I picked the same one as Beautiful Wife.
Beautiful Wife had a mole that she didn't think looked normal. She went to the doctor's office a couple of weeks ago and he pretty much laughed it off. He wanted to just freeze it and remove it that way. She insisted that it be removed and sent to the lab.
Last Friday she got a notice in the mail that said an appointment had been made for her at a dermatologist. Today, the doctor's office called (one of the nurses) to let her know that the lab report came back positive for melanoma.
Right now it looks like she won't get into the dermatologist until September 2nd. We're going to try to get in someplace sooner.
Until we know the "stage" it is impossible to think about treatment or know what we should do. Best case is that he got all the cancer when he removed the mole. This isn't likely since he obviously didn't know what the hell he was doing at the time. I'm guessing that the minimum will be that she has to have further surgery to make sure it all has been removed. I can't think any further than that right now.
Next on our list...find a new primary care physician.
I told Oldest Daughter that I had blogged about her and her observations about pork.
OD: Shut up!
D: I think it is pretty funny that you thought pork chops were lamb.
OD: Well, me and Brittany though roast beef came from pigs.
D: Ok, so you don't know that beef comes from steers which are cows?
OD: Well, Dad, sometimes things are called something that they're not.
D: Come on...it is beef, what didn't you understand about that?
OD: Hello...Buffalo Wings!
D: *me cracking up*
OD: What? They're not even wings!
D: WHAT!?!?!?! They're chicken wings!
OD: They don't have that wing thingy that looks like the end of the wing on them...are you sure they aren't pork?
D: *non-stop laughter*
OD: What...*laugh* WHAT? *laughing* I hate you!
I went downstairs to put some clothes in the washing machine and it was full. I went to empty the dryer first and there were clothes in there that I didn't recognize. I put them on the sofa and when I transfered the clothes from the washer to the dryer I didn't recognize those clothes either.
The clothes were uniforms from the local cooking school that is part of the college that my son attends so I figured that they must belong to a friend or roommate of his.
I think we need to have a talk about the proper use of our laundry facilities...
Oldest Daughter very well may be on track to be famous and have her own reality tv show like Jessica Simpson based on recent conversations with her at dinner.
OD: Where do spare ribs come from?
D: They come from a pig.
OD: Shut up!
D: They're a pork product.
OD: Wait a minute...so pork chops are from a pig too?
D: Yes...where did you think they came from?
OD: I thought they were lamb.
D: Lamb?!?! Where did you get that idea?
OD: You know...that tv show with the lady that had the hand puppet...
D: You mean Lamb Chop?
OD: Oh.....LAMB chop...for some reason I thought it was pork...
We had my Sainted Mother and Oldest Younger Sister, with her FSO, over for a cookout on Saturday. After we finished we went to Portsmouth, had ice cream at Annabelle's, and then saw the Prescott Park production of Joseph.
Prescott Park has new leadership and it was obvious. The same cast of characters did not get cast in this play and I have to say it was for the best. There's a female character actor that always got cast for a lead role and you really had to stretch your imagination to believe that she was supposed to be the cute/pretty/sexy one.
Potifer's wife was easy on the eyes and did a great dance number. You can see how men would be after her and how Joseph would be tempted. This role was given to the female mentioned above in the music only revue that daughter and I did a few years ago. She was not tempting but since Joseph was obviously saving himself for Pharaoh it wasn't an issue.
It was nice to see the men act like men and avoid gaying things up which was becoming the norm for the plays at Prescott Park.