precipitateness

A couple of weekends ago, I saw a honey bee outside our kitchen window. I thought it odd, but not too odd. After all, we do have beekeepers less than two or three miles from us. It briefly crossed my mind that we might have a new hive somewhere in our wooded backyard.

Not quite that far away, it turns out.  It seems some squirrels had eaten their way into our attic and left a little doorway to the outside on the back corner of our roof. That, combined with the Icynene insulation we recently had put in the attic, created a convenient, closed in space for an enterprising swarm to move into.

While I applaud their resourcefulness in finding such a unique dwelling, I'd like to point out that we have several hundred trees in our backyard, many of which probably have equally convenient (if less stylish) spaces for setting up their honey factory.

Girl v1.0 and I were supposed to go see Panic(!) at the Disco (et al.) this weekend. Didn't happen.

Originally we had tickets to the Sunday show, but the two Atlanta shows were combined and moved to another location when the tornado damaged the original venue (The Tablernacle). When I went to print out the tickets Saturday afternoon before we left, I discovered that Ticketmaster had listed the concert as cancelled in their system--which meant that our convenient, printable-from-the-web tickets weren't. After two hours and three phone calls to Ticketmaster, it was determined that there was no way to get the tickets to us via email. They ended up refunding our tickets and suggesting we try buying tickets at the door. Unfortunately, Masquerade wasn't selling tickets at the door, so no show for us.

I will say, for the record, that the Ticketmaster customer service reps on the phone were incredibly nice, and the last person tried everything she could before deciding there was just nothing to be done for it.

Girl v1.0 was devastated, particularly in light of the fact that I'm probably going to miss the Izzard show as well. We made the best of the situation; she and her boy went out for a late dinner Saturday, and she and I went out shopping on Sunday so she could have some "Mom" time, away from the house and her siblings.

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May, she is about to get hectic.

It's the last month of school for the kids, so there's the myriad of End of School Things to be done, seen, and read. (Not restricted to: Prom, finals, the SAT, author's teas, violin recitals, martial art demonstrations, and end-of-year productions.)

We also have two birthdays: Girl v1.0 and The Boy, who will be turning 17 and 6, respectively.

Then, of course, there are Other Things such as: a visit from Mel's Boy, more Renn Fest (including Pirate Invasion), my final paper for my Tech Comm class, and (last but not least in fact pretty much firstfirstfirst) our trip to Maui for my and Dwiv's 10-year anniversary.

Hi?

Stefanie Posavec “On the Map" via (NOTCOT): Gorgeous maps that embody the possibilities of visualization of information.

Periodic Table Menu at Miracle of Science in Cambridge via Laughing Squid: Does the Hb come with Fr and Ko?

10 Best New Illustrators via Tigerprint: I love some of these. I foresee new books for The Boy.

Asterisk Bookends: And other functional art at Blank Project.

Blank is Like Blank, analogies to live by: Using Helvetica is like owning a Mac: It looks so cool that you never bother to stop and think if you really need to.

David Nykl is coming to Dragon*Con!

*dolphin noises*

From Tigerprint: I love some of these. I foresee new books for The Boy.

Apparently my two weeks of (mostly) vacation from my workout was enough for my muscles to protest A LOT when I got back into it this week. I firmly believe that my arms and thighs would boycott the rest of my body and walk off the job if they were able. Instead, they're settling for making me miserable. Still, only 5 weeks (from today!) until we fly to Maui, so I must stay vigilant! ::looks sternly at thighs::

In further news of suck, it's starting to look very much like I'm going to miss Eddie Izzard when he comes in June. We have tickets for one of the shows, but I just had a business trip pop up that I don't think I can miss. I am pissed. When we bought the tickets, we included Girl v1.0 as a birthday present (she turns 17(!) in May) because Izzard has been the source of untold numbers of inside jokes between me and her for years. Now I'm going to miss it and she'll have to go with someone else.

Plus, the trip is right after I get back from Seattle, so instead of hanging around in Seattle over the weekend and coming back on Sunday, I'll be flying back Thursday or Friday so that I can spend some time with the family before having to head off again. Consequently, I'm probably going to take the Saturday before the conference starts to take Amtrak up to Vancouver from Seattle, spend the day, and then take the train back down Saturday night.

On the other hand, work itself is going well overall. There are a couple of new projects I've come up with which should be fun, and there's the ongoing HUGE project as well. I'm one of those people who would rather have too much work than not enough, so this is good.

I'm trying to figure out how to make time for all the things I want to make time for, without scheduling myself into minutiae. Not sure this is possible.

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This weekend:

• Dwiv and I drove up to Nashville and came back with this. It's a 2007 Lexus RX400h (hybrid), it gets over twice the MPG of my Odyssey, and it's lovely. (It talks, OMG!)
• While we were gone, The Boy managed to fall face-first into Girl v2.0's bed and split his lip wide open. It looks pretty big and ugly, but apparently ice cream heals all things.
• Gaming happened yesterday. We're at a sort of weird in-between place where we don't really seem to have a goal. Or we have too many of them. Not sure.
• I worked on my website. Laura's inspired me to go back to getting all my stuff moved over to my domain and crosspost. She pointed out two WP plug-ins, one for LJ and one for IJ, and I found one for Vox so...  I may have gone a little nuts with my tags though. ::look shifty::

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And now, back to the new projects I've come up with for work and, later, reading lots of articles on folksonomies for school. Paper's due in two weeks--EEP.

(Forgive the crappy picture quality. Dark room + flash = ick.)

Dwiv and I went to The Shakespeare Tavern last night to see Romeo & Juliet.  Alton Brown read the Prologue.  He hung out both before and after the show, signed lots of autographs and took many, many pictures with folks.  Dwiv told Alton's wife that she must be the most patient woman on earth.  (She just laughed and said, "It's part of who he is." Dwiv asked for her autograph.)  My friend Ann had the honor of herding escorting Alton around and making sure he got to where he needed to go, which was only right as she was the one who suggested they invite him in the first place. :)

The production itself was excellent.  It was the whole play, not the shortened version usually staged, so it was a very full 3.5 hours.  They didn't shy away from the bawdier bits of the play, either--in fact, they used body language to make them perfectly clear. *g*  The actress that played Juliet did an excellent 14 year old, which sounds odd to say, but I think many actresses forget that she's so young and it shows in how they play her.  I can honestly say I enjoyed the production despite the fact that I largely loathe Romeo & Juliet as a play. 

I went into anaphylactic shock this afternoon.

I went to the doctor this afternoon  at three because the antibiotic they'd given me last week wasn't working to get rid of my bacterial infection.  He gave me three doses of Levaquin and told me to call in three days and let him know how I was doing.  I went home, picked up Girl v1.0 for her doctor appointment and headed back out.  After we got on the road, I decided to go ahead and take my Levaquin dose for today in hopes I'd start feeling better by tomorrow morning. 

About a minute after I took the pill, I noticed my throat feeling scratchy.  I wondered if I'd accidentally inhaled something because it felt like there was something pointy in the back of my throat.  In less than two minutes it was obvious that my throat was swelling because I started having trouble swallowing, and then breathing.   My heart started racing.  I was on the phone with Dwiv at the time, and told him, "I think we have a problem."

As luck would have it, I happened to be, at that very moment, driving only a block away from North Fulton Hospital.  There was a quick detour.  (Can I just pause here and say how much it sucks to be driving and having a life-threatening medical issue at the same time?)  I worried briefly that they'd have to trach me in front of Girl v1.0.  We got to the hospital within five minutes of the reaction starting. 

By time I got there, I could no longer swallow at all, and breathing was a real issue.  I ran up to the front desk, pulled out the Levaquin blister pack, showed it to the lady at the counter and pointed at my throat.  I said, "Having an allergic reaction," but I'm not sure how intelligible it was at that point.  She asked me to fill out paperwork.  I looked at her like she was out of her mind.  I was frantic.  The triage nurse came out and took me straight back to a room, but was way calmer than I wanted her to be considering I COULDN'T BREATHE.   There were a lot of WTFs in between my thoughts of can'tbreathecan'tswallowcan'tbreathe.  They really did work very fast, and I know that I was having a time compression issue because I was panicking. 

My lips and fingers had started to turn blue by time they shot me up with epinephrine.   After the epi shot, they gave me one other medicine (the name of which the nurse told me but I've forgotten), Benadryl and Pepsid through an IV, and put me on oxygen.  By time Dwiv got there with the wee beasties, the epi had started wearing off and all I really wanted to do was sleep because of the Benadryl.  Total time in the ER--3 hours.

There's some worry that I may have a biphasic reaction because the Levaquin is a 24 hour dose, and it will still be in my bloodstream well after the epi/benadryl wears off.  The doctor gave me a pile of scripts, though, so hopefully the 3(!) antihistamines he prescribed will keep that from happening. 

And now, I'm very tired.  My throat is still very sore and somewhat swollen, and swallowing is still a problem (but doable).

So, uh, how was your day?