Year: 2007

Well, the big day finally went off without a hitch. My ‘diseased’ gall bladder (as the surgeon termed it) was removed in a quick, relatively painless, and easy operation this afternoon. I’m already back home and in my own bed and ready to get on with life. What’s really amazing is how quick and smooth...

A couple of hours from now, I head to the «hospital», where the «surgeon» will perform a «laparoscopic cholocystectomy« and thereby rid me of one of my internal problems. The worst part pre-operatively speaking is going without food and water after midnight. Since the procedure isn’t until 1 p.m., that’ s a long, long time...

About that previous entry … well, cancel that. My surgery was cancelled by the anesthesiologist, who is concerned that my high blood pressue could cause me to stroke out or have a heart attack on the table. He cancelled the surgery a mere 12 hours before it was supposed to start. Chalk up yet another...

Frank and I can relate (he’s the dog heading for the floor to get away from his snoring husband).    

What was originally described on local radio as a spill amounting to just “140 gallons of bunker oil” following the ramming of the Bay Bridge by a container ship last week rapidly turned into 58,000 gallons of oil spilled into San Francisco Bay, which will have «long-lasting effects»: ‘A major oil spill is making San...

It’s looking like Bayley was the victim of «rat poison»: ‘Rat poison was found in the pet food suspected of causing kidney failure that killed at least 16 cats and dogs, but scientists still don’t know how it got there, state officials said Friday. The toxin was identified as aminopterin, which is used to kill...

Sad moments today: Bayley Murphey Beagle came home for the last time. I picked up his cremains at 11:30 this morning. Whoever did the work did a very nice job (except that they spelled his name, “Bailey” as usual). There is a paw print in plaster, and the cremains are in a very nice cedar...

While cleaning up and pruning the dead hedges that we lost to hard freezes this winter, a piece of branch flew off and hit me right in the eyeball. My vision got cloudy and I’ve got a very red eye. David ran me to the «eye doctor», which is just a couple of blocks away,...

Not only was Bayley’s passing painful, but I was also in the middle of the last two weeks of the quarter, getting ready for and in the middle of finals, as well as the evaluations for our school becoming a California Distinguished School (which we did accomplish), a very intense time. And now comes this...

‘Today, perhaps more than ever before, we face the task of determining what America truly is. So much of where we find ourselves now shows what we have failed to learn from mistakes of the past. Zealots, whose dream of Imperial America has led us to the brink of moral and economic bankruptcy, continue to spin the plates and deny reality. Stuck in Iraq, American kids in uniform have become our version of Israel’s “facts on the ground.”’

I received a call this evening from a nurse at the emergency hospital where we took Bayley when he had his seizure last week, the start of our horrifying ordeal. Seems his blood work revealed no evidence of bacterial infection. Which means that his kidneys failed from old age, most likely, according to the nurse...

Bayley Murphey Beagle 20-Aug-1994 — 2-Mar-2007 Dear Bayley Murphey, Thank you for being such a wonderful and good dog, a loving companion, for keeping us sane, for loving us unconditionally, for being such an incredibly important part of our lives for 12-and-a-half years. Thank you for putting up with all the picture-taking, ear rubbing, nail...

It is with tremendous sorrow that Frank and I (and Unca David) must tell you that our beloved beagle, Bayley Murphey, passed away this evening, at 5:35 p.m. PST, Friday, 2-March-07, age 12 years and 6 months. Bayley had been slowing down considerably in the last six months, but we chalked that up to advancing...

Says the Guardian: The Boy Emperor has a «one-track mind»: ‘George Bush is a man of conviction and clearly a hard man to change. When reality confronts his plans he does not alter them but instead alters his understanding of reality. … he stands with a tight band of followers, both deluded and determined, understanding...

I’ve decided to start posting political rants again. I don’t know why. I guess I’m bored.

«This joke» is, according to the IraqSlogger website (the new endeavor by illustrious former CNN-er Eason Jordan), making the rounds in Baghdad: ‘A driver is stuck in a traffic jam on the highway. Suddenly a man knocks on his window. The driver rolls down his window and asks, “What’s going on?” “Terrorists down the road...