No Evacuation

Just a very quick note to say we're just fine and weren't evacuated yesterday. Several areas here in Calabasas and nearby communities were but the firefighters were successful in keep the big fire here (20,000 acres burned thus far) on the north side of the freeway so we were able to ride it out here at home.

The air is still full of smoke but ash isn't currently falling and at least today we can see the sun. It was a bit surreal to be watching the news reports yesterday and seeing them show nearby streets we are familiar with and flames shooting up behind the homes there. They are advising people here to stay indoors today and school is cancelled for a second day.

Now I've got to get busy and tackle some of the things I didn't get done yesterday before I get any further behind. Thanks to everyone who called or emailed yesterday to check on us!

RIP Tammy

Tammy passed away peacefully this morning, it was time.

Sad News

Our Vet Dr. Pallai has been wonderful this week. He has been calling to check on Tammy frequently and when she was no better by Tuesday evening he told me to bring her in for another exam and more tests first thing Wednesday. It's not good. Tammy has lymphocytic leukemia.

Tammy is four years old and a real sweetheart. When one of our cats, Bella, passed away a few years ago Stephanie took it hard. Bella was her baby. So for Stephanie's birthday that year we went to the shelter to let her pick out a kitten, which is how Tammy came to be a member of our family. We immediately took Tammy to Dr. Pallai for a check-up and her shots, he's been our vet for years. Shelters test for rabies but not for feline leukemia, which is very contagious, but there is a vaccine and I've always had our cats vaccinated for it.

Sadly Dr. Pallai informed us that Tammy was leukemia positive. Probably her mother, who was a stray, had it. We were aware that meant that Tammy would live a short life but since the disease wasn't active we, as a family, made the choice to keep her in the hope that whatever time she had would be as pleasant as we could make it. Despite everything we'll never regret that decision, Tammy has enriched all our lives in so many ways.

Stephanie did a great job raising her. I should really say Stephanie and Dax did. Dax is our dog, a lab/pointer mix. Tammy was eight weeks old when she came to us, an adorable little bundle of love. Dax's maternal instincts kicked in and she treated Tammy as if she was her pup. They've always been the best of buddies and one of the sweetest things I've ever seem is the two of them cuddling and grooming each other.

Sadly Tammy's time is now limited. She feels pretty rotten but is not yet in any pain so we'll keep her as comfortable as possible and take things as they come but the knowledge that we will, at some point, have to let her go is devastating nonetheless.

Lost

Our family got hooked on the television show Lost last year so we've been looking forward to the shows return. The boys made a little event of it and last night we all settled in to watch. We weren't disappointed--awesome!

Tami Update

Tami was no better yesterday, she still had no interest in food and wouldn't drink, so I took her to animal emergency care as our own vet was closed for the weekend. The doctor there examined her but couldn't find anything obvious, no temperature etc.

So they suggested that I leave her with them for a while so they could draw blood and run some tests and get some fluids into her via an IV since she badly dehydrated. Her white blood cell count was a bit high so they filled her up with antibiotics before I brought her home and I'm to give her more twice a day. Last night she seemed no better however, still doesn't want food or water and she just lays there.

I've been sitting here waiting for our own vet to open so I can call him. Dr. Pallai knows all our animals very well and I'd like him to look over the blood test results himself.

Just Stuff

Just a sort of general update on what's up with all of us.

Sam's doing great, everything seems to be under control with his immune system at the moment. In fact he's been doing so well that he's got the okay from his doctors to take a couple of business trips. So he'll be going to the new San Antonio show next weekend (they added two new trade shows to their calendar this year) and in mid-October he's supposed to go to China for two weeks.

We've been hearing from Stephanie very frequently. She's taken a job in the admissions office and has settled into college life well. I had to laugh on Monday though when she surprised me with me a call in the middle of the day. She'd just gotten her first paper back and got a C. She was a little freaked out because she's never gotten a C before. I think she now understands that college is a whole new world and a kick in the pants never hurt anyone.

She's been to her first football game, which Oxy won. Watching her school win was a bit of a novelty, the high school team hasn't won a game in years. Her best friend Michelle leaves for school soon and Michelle spent a couple of days at Oxy with Steph this week. Steph had intended to take two months off from skating but says she's really missing it so she's going to start back up as soon as her skates are ready to go. Thinking she wouldn't be needing them I had left them in to be sharpened and relined but they should be ready this week. Once they call to say they are ready to be picked up she'll be all set.

Adam has settled into high school well although he's a bit bored in a couple of his classes. He's always been in honors math but didn't want to take honors geometry and he's bored stiff now but insists he doesn't want to switch. I'm not surprised at all that he's find geography boring, it's not exactly a challenging class but it's required. On the flip side he's finding honors biology much harder than he expected. At least one of his classes is challenging him.

Andrew's starting the school year out better than usual. He really likes his teachers this year. Today was the first game of the fall season for his Pony league. He's on the A's again. They've been looking good in practice but at the end of the second inning they were down 5 to 0. In the third inning we finally got a man on base then Andrew came to the plate and hit a solid double right into the gap to bring his teammate in before scoring himself after stealing both third and home.

In the fifth inning Cameron got on again and again Andrew hit another double to bring him in. Josh came up two batters later to bring in Andrew and then scored himself so the game was tied 5-5 which ended up being the final score. So Andrew's off to a good start going 2 for 3 today, with two RBI's.

I read and reviewed two books this week and thought I was done for the month (with reviews at least) but the mail brought two books I wasn't expecting as they are older titles. One I'll probably go ahead and review, the other I really have no interest in reading. There's a couple of article ideas I've got and a couple of different sites interested in both pieces but they'll require a lot of research so I'd rather put my time and energy into that at the moment and next week I've really got to get busy on putting together the school directory if I'm going to get that done so it can go home with the kids asap.

I'm a bit worried about Tami though. Tami's one of our cats. She hasn't been herself all day and she isn't interested in food. That's a big red flag with Tami as she loves to eat. She's not in any obvious distress though so I decided to wait and see how she does tomorrow. I'd much rather take her to our own vet if she's no better by Monday but if she's gets worse overnight or tomorrow I'll run her to the emergency animal hospital.

Disappointment

As a parent when your kids have a major disappointment you experience it right along with them. Case in point, Andrew's attempt to make the baseball team at his high school.

Andrew's been playing baseball since he was seven but in the past couple of years playing the game has become an obsession with him. He went from simply enjoying playing with his buddies to being determined to become a really good ball player and he began to dream about playing in high school and college. To that end he's been working his butt off, both on and off the field during both the fall and spring seasons, and the off seasons as well for the past couple of years.

Andrew's biggest strength has always been his hitting. He's got a good eye, is patient at the plate and makes contact with the ball pretty consistently. Since he turned 13 and started to grow like mad he turned into a real power hitter with a very impressive slugging percentage but he also recognized his weaknesses as a player and he has worked so hard to improve in those areas.

So last week he was both nervous and excited when try-out day came. As tempting as it was to go watch I stayed away, I didn't want to embarrass him. He came home feeling very satisfied, saying he felt like it had gone really well, he'd done better than usual in the fielding drills and hit every pitch he was thrown, driving three all the way to the center field fence which is 350 feet.

He was expecting to hear either way sometime this past weekend but no call. So yesterday afternoon the phone rings and it's one of the assistant coaches. Andrew didn't make the team. 28 kids tried out for two spots and both spots went to freshman players. Andrew is a sophomore. I knew how disappointed Andrew was going to be so I wasn't looking forward to telling him but he took it better than I expected.

As yesterday evening wore on I couldn't help but notice that Andrew wasn't acting like himself and as I suspected he was trying not to let on to how frustrated he was feeling. He has, I believe, a tendency to be too hard on himself, but I felt reassured after we talked a bit by the fact that he wasn't feeling frustrated with how he had performed at the try out. He knew that he had done the best he could and that made me realize just how much he's matured recently.

Sometimes in life, no matter how hard you try, your best just isn't good enough. It's not one of life's pleasanter lessons to learn but sometimes that's just how it is. He hasn't given up though, he's still determined to improve and continue playing even though it won't be for his high school. He'll age out of Pony at the end of the 2006 spring season but there are other leagues and as long as he still wants to play, I'll support him in every way I can.

Mental Floss

The new issue of Mental Floss came--yeah!

We're all big trivia buffs at our house so we love this magazine. I've lost count of the number and types of trivia games we have, mostly different editions of Trivial Pursuit, but some others as well.

What I enjoy so much about this bi-monthly magazine is the way the trivia is presented. The topics are often fairly wacky but they are always amusing. This issue for example has an article about the trials and errors of the world's grandest community housing experiments. Sounds like a total yawn doesn't it? But I assure you it wasn't, it was clever and interesting.

As much as I enjoy whatever odd topics they think of for articles my favorite thing about Mental Floss is the regular columns and features. Things like The Dead Guy Interview, Know-it-All and the Masterpieces. A new column this month that will now be a regular addition is Six Degress of Ken Jennings.

But my own favorite of all the regular features of Mental Floss is the 50-cent Tour. Each issue examines a major world city. Let's just say this isn't stuff you'd find in your average tour guide. This issue was Singapore and after reading it if I ever go to Singapore I won't have any hesitation about using a public restroom but will have to be very careful when I open my big mouth as my grammer isn't always what it should be.

A Good Read

If you're looking for a good read and enjoy mysteries I just finished reading a really good one.

UNLUCKY FOR SOME by Jill McGown

This is McGown's 13th Lloyd and Hill mystery. The author has never let me down, she tells one heck of a story.

The books are set in England and the puzzle is always complex and compeling. The personalities of McGown's characters just leap off the page.

As usual I thought I had it figured out, at least in part, but of course McGown got me again.

There Are Days

Sometimes I don't like what I do, and today was one of those days.

I'm well aware that the book reviews I write are just my own opinion, the earth is going to keep spinning no matter what I think of a particular novel or story, but that book was written by someone and with feelings who has labored for months to produce a book they've poured their heart and soul into. That's why I really REALLY hate to write a negative review.

As much I try not to beat myself up over it and maintain some type of professional detachment, I have to admit that I don't always succeed. Today I submitted a negative review of a novel by an author who I personally like very much and whose past writings include some of my favorite Star Trek books. This one however, was far from great. It wasn't terrible but when you're expecting the consumer to shell out almost $25 for a book, it better be a whole lot better than mildly enjoyable.

I actually finished the book a couple of days ago but put off writing the review until today so that I could reread parts of the book hoping that my first impression was somehow wrong. Unfortunately the extra perusal only reinforced my intitial feelings so it was time to bite the bullet and just write the darn thing and I've been feeling guilty ever since.

I keep telling myself I'm only doing my job, that the review was fair, honest and objective but that doesn't make it any easier. Since I have a strong feeling that the author is going to be both disappointed and hurt by my comments on the book (I would be if it was me.) I decided that the courteous thing to do would be to warn him before he reads the review that it's wasn't exactly a glowing affirmation of the story.

Somehow I thought pouring all this out here, would make me feel better. It hasn't. Now instead of feeling guilty, I'm also pissed off with myself for feeling guity. Sheeesshh! I'll take that to mean it's time to find something mindless on tv to watch so I'll stop thinking so negatively.

Suprised--Not Really

Like many people I've found the news reports and images of the aftermath of hurricane Katrina this past week to be both sad and horrifying and my heart goes out to those effected by the magnitude of this disaster.

As events unfolded and the days went by I have to admit that I wasn't surprised by the stupidity and incompetence of the Federal Government in responding to the disaster, I'm more suprised that it only took them six days to start to get their act together.

If this had been a terrorist attack relief efforts and aid would have been on the way within hours but there's no political mileage to be gained from a natural disaster.