Say What?

'Back in the Ridges ER, you don't know how lucky you are boy, back in the Ridges, back in the Ridges, back in the Ridges Er!' I couldn't get that little song I'd put to Beatles music out of my head as I lay on the stretcher/bed at Ridges to begin this day way too early. This morning had us back in the ER with more of the chest/rib pain that brought me there ten days earlier. To find myself succumbing to the pain again was such a disappointment because of the progress I'd made. I had been off all my pain meds since Tuesday morning and over the preceding days I was working out on the elliptical, rower and treadmill and holding nothing back. People would ask me how I felt and I'd reply "great!" I wasn't feeling so great last night. I took some pain meds but once they'd worn off the pain came back even stronger. It was 3:15 in the morning when Tammy placed a call to a doctor at the ER. He quickly phoned us back and after listening to me hal...

This is a continuation of a post I wrote last night about being admitted to the hospital over the weekend. I finally drifted off sometime after 5:30 Saturday morning to be awoken a little more than an hour later and wheeled through the catacomb of hallways that make up Ridges Hospital for an appointment with an ultrasound technician. She spent twenty minutes going over every inch of my legs in search of more clots. I asked her if she could tell me if she found anything but she said she couldn't discuss the results with me. I was taken back to my room and under a haze of Oxycodone and Morphine, unwilling or unable to sleep, I sat up in bed pretty much numb to the world around me. Well-wishes by the dozens were coming in on my Facebook wall and they did a lot to brighten my day. I wanted to respond to them but I didn't have the strength. It's so easy to become self-centered in a crisis such as this but I was trying to remember that I wasn't going through it alone....

I hardly know where to begin but from what I gather I'm very blessed, lucky, call it what you will, to be around. Maybe that's overstating it. I don't know. I woke up two Saturday mornings ago with a tightness in my ribs on my left side. I dismissed it as a pulled muscle from some firewood I'd lifted the previous night. A few days later the pain was still there and it wasn't getting better. I mentioned it to Tammy and she suggested I go in to be seen. Tammy is a telephone triage nurse and this is the sort of thing she deals with all the time. I knew she was right but I wanted to believe that whatever it was it would go away on its own. I should've listened to her. We went out to Mall of America Friday night to kick around for a while; the usual—grab some coffees, walk a couple of laps and find a restaurant for dinner. Throughout the night I was finding myself taking deeper than normal breaths trying to ease the discomfort I was feeling on the left side of ...

Tammy got a phone call a few months ago from a company calling themselves Yellow Pages saying that they had a refund for us. Before she could ask any questions they informed her that I had signed up for advertising services (we're sitting on a domain name for a possible side business when we're retired) from them but that I was canceling the remainder of the services and that they needed to know where to send the $500. They asked her a series of questions and recorded her answers before transferring her to another telemarketer who began to explain the contract she'd just entered into. Say what? Tammy made it clear to them that she didn't sign up for anything and called them on the scam they were engaged in. Tammy documented everything that had occurred and sent it off to the Minnesota Attorney General's office wanting to have a record in case they should later come after us. And now they have. We got a call two weeks ago asking for a payment of $500 for service...

We have a lot less blown glass in our home than we did just a few weeks ago. Much of what we didn't give away as Christmas gifts was brought home by Rachel's friends. Tammy and I joke that these are what will be referred to as 'early Gilmores' years from now after we've made a name for ourselves. Just kidding of course. Friday's three hours in the studio were more of a humbling experience than anything for me but there are lessons to be learned from all those failed pieces. And actually, this is sort of what Steve was talking to me about last month. Rather than playing it cautiously because I'm so intent on having a piece to show for my efforts, I should push the limits of my abilities with the understanding that the piece will more likely than not be a failure in the sense that it won't make it into the 'box'. I can't honestly say that that was my mindset on Friday but pretending it was helped to ease my frustration. Our Blown Glass s...

I'm sitting here, New Year's Eve, relaxing by the crackling fireplace with a glass of wine (oops...it's empty...brb) and my laptop. I don't know that life gets any more relaxing. Tammy has been in the office all afternoon and evening taking calls from people in search of medical assistance, sussing out their needs and coordinating any required help. Our most mild and brown winter is going to have a new look when we wake up in the morning as snow is falling heavily. I'm ok with that. I've got a new snowblower that is itching to show me what it can do as well as my Mukluk. They both thrive on snow. I'm becoming more accepting of it. It's been a full week for us. Aren't they all? I'll typically make notes on my Bionic throughout the week of things I'd like to touch on in my blog and this week there's a long list. I won't get to them all. I've become more aware in recent years that less is more. It'll be difficult to hold true t...

Quite a contrast between last year and this year... I love a brown Christmas—well, maybe an inch of snow would be acceptable but no more! Oh, wait a minute...I have a snow-bike now. Strike that! I had some use-or-lose vacation time to burn through before the end of the year so I took Wednesday off and spent it getting familiar with my Mukluk on the trails along the Minnesota River bottom. I actually had a difficult time falling asleep on Tuesday night in anticipation of my ride. I was excited to get out there and that excitement was for a good reason. It was one of the more fun rides I've had in a very long time. I've never experienced anything like that on a bike. More about this later. Christmas, 2011 is nearly gone as I sit down to add to my blog. I can't think of another year where I felt so detached from the celebration. I'm not sure why. I just never got caught up in much of the hype this year aside from putting up outdoor lights. I'm actuall...