Beep's Purple Blog

  My mom talked with my godfather today and there is a positive development: my godmother is starting to recognize people.  I am praying hard that she pulls out of this.  No matter what happens in the future, we all know now that if she does, we need to spend some special time with her asap.  I also really wish she would come to CA to see some of the docs here, but that's another story.

My own blood sugar is still too high after meals.  It seems I tolerate two things so far: unsweetened iced tea, and plain celery.  Not sure I can build a nutritious diet on just those two.  However, the BS (yes I call it that for a reason!) is better than a couple of days ago.  I am asking everyone who is close to me to please cut me a lot of slack right now until the BS is stabilzed, either by diet/exercise or with the addition of meds.  

I have the unpleasant task today of going through my address book again to delete some of my recently deceased family and friends.  I'm not going to have much of an address book to manage any more.  What a strange thing it has been to lose so many people in just one year.

I also need to try and figure out how to publicize a speaker coming to my rheumatic diseases group next week.  I wasn't well enough to go posting flyers all over the place as I would have done had yet another new diagnosis not sprouted up...

The coming days are a bit crazy.  Santa Barbara tomorrow for foot doc (which is going to be pretty important now with the diabetes) and I would really like to find a good place to view the inauguration if I don't get home in time.  Is this really Bush's last day in office?  Pinch me so I know the nightmare is really over...no, I don't hate him; I think in fact he was poorly advised, but his presidency has been a poor fit for the times we are now living in...

Wednesday I have to go to LA for my regular post-experimental chemo checkup...

Thursday back to SB to see the diabetes physician assistant...

I need some rest; trying to get it today.  Relax.  Breathe.  Think beautiful thoughts.

 No news re my godmother :(

When I think about that the blood sugar goes way on up so I have to do things like take deep breaths or look at soothing photos or something to try to keep the stress outside of my body instead of in it...I assume crying is ok since it is a release but it's the stoic stuff that kills, I think.

This was taken at sunset in Santa Barbara last Thursday.

 Before dburr  got drafted into the ranks of the historic November 2008 layoffs , he had asked me if I wanted him and some others (such as my mom) to get together and get me a new camera for Christmas.  The one I have now is one that he gave me and I really love it; it was chosen to do better than average in low-light conditions which means pix of my niece Gracie :)  But the problem I have with it is when I am actually outside in the sun (what should be a rare occasion for health reasons but it's tricky since I live in southern California), I cannot see anything on the viewscreen because there is too much glare.  There is no viewfinder.  So I do take outdoor pix but I just hold the camera in the general direction and shoot.  Needless to say this is not optimal.  I have a lot of crooked pictures and pictures of stuff I don't want.

Since I was maybe going to get a new camera I also asked for more zoom since unfortunately my ability to hike to whatever it is I would like to get to is often not exactly up to the task.  Sigh.  

Now that the economy has struck another lightning bolt in my immediate vicinity, I am tempted to borrow his Canon G9 sometimes.  Since it has the RAW feature I could actually try to use the Aperture program that is on this computer somewhere (once the computer gets fixed) to edit in RAW.  But first I would have to find it, and it's in his Room of Doom.  Second I would have to get permission.  Third I would have to pray hard I didn't damage it.  Fourth he would have to not be using it that day.  Seems like a lot of ifs.   I may just keep living with my method of blind picture taking...the G9 is on sale at a local store now, but I would need it to be on more of a sale.

Speaking of cameras I saw one demonstrated that dburr  must get for himself someday.  The salesperson threw it on the ground!   It has a "shockproof" feature.  For someone who has "oops" as one of his favorite words...

Been browsing the net since I'm too sick to get out of bed...enjoy these :)

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2008/04/28/really-stunning-pictures-and-photos/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/xbeepx

Pics from Japan 2004 going up slowly tonight as we speak, and others were added yesterday and today.

There is a whole set with dburr, but to view it, you need Friend access. Let me know if you want an invite to a free account to get that access.

and has to have surgery...!

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/07/060724-snake-blanket.html?source=rss