Posts Tagged ‘ailments’

Rhino had his two month well baby appointment with the base pediatrician today. They took his length (24.4 in; 92nd percentile) and weight (14lb 15oz; 95th percentile). He has a very mild case of cradle cap, but it’s nothing to worry about and we don’t need to do anything for it. The doctor also talked to us about vitamin D supplementation, which apparently is recommended for babies over two months who are exclusively breastfed. Babies, usually with darker skin, are at a risk of rickets because they don’t get enough vitamin D in the first year. He said if Rhino got about ten minutes of sunlight each day, that would be more than enough to make up for the deficiency. We took home some multivitamin drops in case we want to use them, but for now we’re thinking we’ll just stick with sunlight and not worry about it. The doc says that shouldn’t be a problem for Rhino.

We also started his vaccinations today. I’ve been doing a lot of research over the past few months about vaccines and their controversies surrounding them. It’s a tough choice — whether to vaccinate and risk the side effects, or to opt-out and risk the disease. I got a great book by Dr. Bob Sears where he provided a lot of information about each of the twelve vaccines, their associated diseases, risks, etc. The book was helpful, but it still doesn’t make some of these choices easy. He provided a vaccination schedule as an alternate to the AAP’s recommended schedule. These are the reasons he gave for the alternative schedule:

The main difference in my suggested alternative vaccine schedule is it spreads the infant vaccines out over the first few years of life, instead of bunching them all up in the first 18 months. It gives fewer vaccines at a time, gives the most important vaccines first, and slightly delays the less important vaccines. But ultimately the end result is the same – a fully vaccinated child. What are the benefits of my alternative schedule compared to the standard one?

• By only giving two vaccines at a time (instead of as many as 6), I decrease the chance of chemical overload from grouping so many vaccines chemicals all together at once. This allows a baby’s body to better detoxify the chemicals one or two at a time.

• I give only 1 aluminum-containing vaccine at a time (instead of the recommended 4). Overloading on this metal can be particularly toxic to the brain.
• I give only one live-virus vaccine component at a time to allow the body’s immune system to better handle the live viruses in these vaccines.
• Giving fewer shots at a time may decrease the side effects, in my experience.
• Giving fewer shots at a time also makes it easier to figure out which vaccine a child is reacting to if a severe reaction occurs.

That sounded reasonable to me. With us traveling internationally, I was too concerned about some of the diseases and didn’t want to opt-out. (Maybe, had we been staying state-side, I could have seen not giving Rhino a few of them.) I like the idea of the alternative schedule, and he will eventually be fully vaccinated if we choose to stay on the schedule. The doctor and I talked about this for a little while and I was pleased not to have been met with resistance. With the experiences I’ve had with the last few doctors, I was a little nervous that the doctor wouldn’t want to discuss it. I wish all doctors were like this pediatrician! So that all worked out just fine. I gave Rhino his rotavirus vaccine orally and the technician injected him with the DTaP vaccine. I had heard a few times of mothers nursing their babies while they were injected and that it helps keep the baby calm or sometimes they don’t stir at all. I asked the technicians about that and they seemed kind of shocked and said they can’t accommodate that for their own safety. Rhino did just fine stretched out on the table, though. He let out one shriek and then was fine when I picked him up. And he got a cute yellow crayon band-aid on his thigh! As for the DTaP vaccine, Dr. Bob recommends either the Daptacel or Tripedia, not the Infanrix. This is mostly for the high level of aluminum in the Infanrix brand. Well, that was the only one that the clinic had, so we went ahead and chose to do it anyway. When Rhino is 3 months, we’ll be getting him the Pc and the HiB immunizations.

This is what Barbara, our Bradley instructor and doula wrote about Rhino’s birth:

The Birth of “Rhino”

I arrived at your house just before 10 am. You had been having contractions all night and they were now 4-6 minutes apart. Your water had been leaking during the night, too. Since we had an hour drive to the hospital, we all agreed that it would be best to go ahead and drive to Santa Barbara.

It was a hard drive for you. You couldn’t get comfortable and got sick.

We arrived at the hospital around 11:20 am and they hooked you up to the monitor for an initial strip. They did an exam and found 5-6 cm, 100% effaced. They took you off the monitor. You threw up again (4th time) so they started you on an IV.

12:30 pm – Dr. came in to check on you. Exam – 6-7 cm, 0 station. Started IV antibiotics. They were concerned about the baby’s heartbeat, so you couldn’t take a bath.

12:50 – Bathroom and on the birth ball for a few contractions.

1:15 – Feeling some pressure, maybe wanting to push. Exam – 8-9 cm, +1 station. Baby looks better. A lip, but baby in good position.

You did such an amazing job working together.

1:30 – Grunting at the peak of contractions. Nurse says it’s OK to push, just don’t hold your breath.

1:40 – 9.5 cm, rim of cervix left.

Started pushing around 2:00.

Baby “Rhino” is born at 4:06, February 13, 2008.

Placenta took a long time to come,I think it was finally born around 5:15. Thank you, God!!! They were talking about doing surgery to get it out. I rubbed and rubbed the top of your uterus, trying to get it to detach.

Rhino wasn’t a very aggressive nurser right away, but he caught on. You and Matt are going to be great parents. Rhino is blessed to have you.

“Rhino”
Born February 13, 2008 at 4:06 PM
weight: 8 lb 10 oz
height: 20-3/4 in

Matt has been working mid-shifts, 5:30pm-6am. I was up late Tuesday night when my water started leaking and I had weak contractions. It was about 1:30am and I decided not to get too excited just yet — we could have a very long day ahead of us. I didn’t call Matt because I didn’t want him to come home until I needed him because I didn’t want his paternity leave to start just yet. Around 3:30am contractions were about 8 minutes apart and I couldn’t sleep through them. I was debating whether or not to call Matt or just wait a few more hours. Matt came home at 6 and we decided to try and get some rest. Of course, I couldn’t sleep more than a few minutes at a time. Matt got about an hour of sleep before I woke him. I called Barbara around 8 and told her I was feeling fine, but to stand by. She had spent a week in Kentucky and had just arrived back the previous day, very tired. I had been feeling decent, but from then on things started speeding up a lot. I called Barbara back at 9 to let her know she needed to hurry up. I was considering just skipping Santa Barbara and going to the Lompoc hospital instead. She assured me I had plenty of time, but she was still an hour away from us. Matt was great with every contraction and made sure to take care of me, give me plenty of water, rub my back, and keep me calm. I was encouraged to eat a little bit, so I made some oatmeal. Then I started getting sick with the contractions, which was quite a surprise. Barbara arrived around 10 and we pretty much left right away.

The drive to Santa Barbara is about an hour and I didn’t think that would be such a bad idea. Contractions were uncomfortable enough in a bed, they were even worse in the passenger’s seat of Barbara’s car. I was sick a few times along the way and had to pull over on the side of the 101 for an especially rough contraction. We showed up at the hospital at 11 and a nurse told me to take a seat in the waiting room. Sitting was the last thing I wanted to do, so I took my pillow and curled up on the floor. The man sitting next to me didn’t seem to mind. I was taken to the delivery room with the tub because I had requested to labor in water.

Matt with Melissa, laboring

The nurses knew how I felt about my doctor, that I was worried about him wanting to intervene to speed things up or try to push pain medication on me. After my first exam, the nurses asked him to go back to work and they would call him when the baby crowned. I was hooked up to the fetal monitor, supposedly for a 10-minute strip. With each contraction, Baby’s heart rate was dropping, so they kept me hooked up to keep on eye on it. I tried a lot of different positions to move Baby around, and eventually something worked. The tub was filled, but I was never able to get into it because I was on the monitor. I was still getting sick, so they put me on an IV to replenish all the fluids I had lost. Because my water had broken more than 12 hours previously, they also put me on antibiotics. When I arrived and had my first exam, I was 5 cm dilated. I focused a lot on relaxing and pretty much “played dead” most of the time. Keeping my eyes closed, keeping my breathing deep and regular, and staying quiet was the key for me. Supposedly I progressed really quickly for a first baby. By 2pm, I was complete and ready to push. I wanted to push when I felt the need and not have anyone tell me when. The pain was so much more tolerable by this point and each push was a relief. I hadn’t slept for over a day and didn’t have any food in me, so I was pretty exhausted. I pushed for two hours, which were probably the most tiring two hours I have ever experienced.

Meeting our son, “Rhino”

At 4:06 pm our son was born. I tore a little bit, but it wasn’t bad. Matt cut Rhino’s cord and then he was immediately placed on my chest to feed. He was really stuffed up with mucus and was having difficulty breathing, which made feeding really hard. They tried to unclog him with the aspirator, but it wasn’t enough. They suctioned him out with tubes, which helped him out a lot. I had some complications with the afterbirth and was on the table for another hour trying to get everything to detach. They kept talking of sending me in for surgery, which would have been really disappointing. To go through all that I had with no pain medication to have a natural birth, I really didn’t want to be put under for surgery. I prayed and pushed and, against all expectations of the nurses and doctor, at 5 finally I was finished. Matt had spent the hour with Rhino and Jen (who was present the whole time) and Barbara was there to support me. Because Matt had been up working all night, by 7pm he passed out in the waiting room. Barbara went home and Jen stayed with me to eat.

Hospital Family Photo

The birth center was great to us. Matt and I had our own private room with two beds and Rhino was able to sleep with us the whole time. The accommodations were comfortable and the nurses were wonderful and very helpful.

Melissa and Rhino

It was the most amazing day ever and I felt so empowered, energized, and ecstatic. Rhino is so beautiful and I fell in love instantly.

Well, just posting so you know I'm still alive. Mostly. School's been going well. I was taking an honors calculus 1 course, all independent study projects, but I dropped it because I think it was just too much work. I have enough to worry about between the others. Which are going quite well, actually. It's just a lot of work, but it's fun. So, Matt and I gave up on City of Heroes. Not that it wasn't cool … I think it just got old faster than I expected. The best part was creating a new character … playing it was well … okay. I think the thing is, I need loot in my game. In CoH, you don't have an inventory or find treasures or anything like that. We decided to get sucked into World of Warcraft last weekend. That definitely hits the spot! I heard all the ranting and raving about it, I just didn't think it would be so much fun! We spent way too much time gaming over the weekend and while doing so, I came down with something awful. I feel like I get sick way too often. I think it was just my time to get sick, but the staying up late on the computer Friday and Saturday really didn't help. I missed school on Monday … everything was just so painful and I couldn't speak. Tuesday was hardly much better, but I had a physics quiz, so I dealt with it. I'm now 95% healthy. I surprisingly don't have much news. Really, my life is: wake up -> school -> home -> dinner -> hang out with Matt / play computer games -> sleep. So exciting! Last night we were playing WoW and our pastor and two other people from church stopped by unannounced. That wasn't a problem at all, but if I had known our pastor was coming by, I would have straightened up! It's been a sick/lazy week … Anyhow, we're relatively new to the church and they stopped in just to say hello and chat. Get to know us a bit more. They asked a lot of questions … you know "if you died today, do you know for sure you'd go to Heaven?" "if you died right now and were standing before God and He asked 'why should I let you in?' how would you respond?" You know … kind of morbid stuff. It was nice to talk to them, though, just about any general questions we had about the church or our walk or anything. I kind of want them to come over more regularly, because I have plenty of questions! It was a nice visit, just kind of caught us off-guard. And one of the guys left his coat here … I guess I'll bring it to church with me. :p The last three weeks have had quite a few ups and downs. I know I worry unnecessarily about things. All the time. I guess every now and then I just panic and go "what on earth am I doing? Why am I studying EE? What will I do with it? I want kids, right? I don't want the daycare center to raise them, I want to, right? So, what's the point? For after they're grown? Why all the hard work?" I dunno … I guess I've just been worrying a lot about the future and what it is I really want. I do want to learn all this cool physics and stuff like that, and half of me wants to do awesome things with it … and the other half of me just wants to have a family and take care of them and be a mom who's around for them and possibly homeschool for parts of their education. But then would this education go to waste? Or maybe I'll use it 20 years down the road. Then I think about kids. I want kids, I want to be a mother. I think the idea of it is starting to scare me a little bit. Silliness, I know. Some of it is selfish: "ohh, having kids will prevent us from being able to do this and that and whatever else selfish stuff". I know the argument for that, of course, but I still think about it. I think for some reason I'm also fearing having kids. Part of that is a guy Matt and I know from work tells the most terrifying horror stories about his wife's complications in birth and all that and it just got me really freaked out. For like … the past year. I guess I'm just perturbed because since I was young I had "a plan". I know, that's silly too, because you never know how things will turn out. But still, I had one (or a few rather, throughout my childhood): a timeline of how I wanted my life to go. Now my plan forks all over the place … I don't know exactly which path I want. It's okay, it's all part of the journey. I think because school is tough and it's hard work, I just want to make sure it won't all be for nothing (well, other than my satisfaction of learning something interesting). I'm sure it won't be. So … Hurricane Rita. =\ My carpool and study buddy, Erick has been freaking out about it all day. I guess I just haven't been keeping up with it all that much for it to scare me so. It's a big deal and I'm glad people are evacuating and all that. Especially after Katrina, it is really scary. His father and older sister and (as of yesterday) a new baby brother all live in Houston and are unable to leave because the gas stations are all empty and the traffic is horrible. And they can't find plywood anywhere, everyone has run out, so they're panicking a whole lot. So Erick has been a mess all day and he really wants to do something to help. I don't know what to do either. We can't drive down there and hand out gasoline and plywood. We're poor. We're just praying. My father lives in Dallas and my sister lives in San Angelo, so I'm not really so worried about them. I guess Dallas will get hit with some 70mph winds and rain, but that's not as scary. Like I said, Matt and I are playing WoW now. We're playing with friends of mine from Fort Collins: Tim, Joe, and Dave. It's really great to have friends to play with, even if they are far away, and I'm very glad Matt likes them so much. The five of us are having a blast. I think now that I'm talking to these guys I used to hang out with at CSU more, I'm getting homesick. I haven't really been homesick since I got to California. I think now because of the guys and also the season … it's fall, my favorite time of the year, but here in Lompoc every season seems the same. Leaves don't turn colors, the air doesn't really get brisk. I keep daydreaming about Fort Collins in the fall and I'm getting too nostalgic. I hope Matt gets orders soon. I really, really hope they're to Colorado. Anyhow … off I go to do homework, sprinkled with World of Warcraft. Or maybe the other way around.

So this is my last week to slack-off. School starts up on Monday and I just realized I'm kind of nervous. I've been going to school a bit for a while, but now I will have a full-load and won't be working … I'll just be going to school. This is a good thing. It's just, it's been a while … I went to CSU in 2001 and failed at it miserably. I guess I'm just worried. I started out in an electrical engineering program, and that's what I figured I'd continue with. I guess I'm just not so sure about that. Maybe I'm just feeling down on myself, but I just don't feel that smart, that I can make it as an EE. I'm still just attending a junior college to earn enough credits to transfer to a university (wherever we end up), so this semester I'm just taking chemistry, physics, and calculus, which isn't that bad. I'm just worried about later on. Things are different this time around — my life isn't like it was four years ago — but I'm still afraid of not making it. Not that I won't try or anything like that … well, I really am just worrying. I'm excited about school and all … it's just been a while since I've done serious studying. And they'll be long days. It will be fine. So playing City of Heroes on my laptop has been a nightmare. It technically runs it, mostly. I had to turn the resolution and all the graphics settings way down to minimum and disable a bunch of stuff, so it looked horrible, but it worked. My mouse pointer was the biggest frustration. It would just vanish … well, it was gone most of the time. I'd just have to flail about, hoping something would highlight and I'd have an idea of where my invisible pointer is. This is not a good thing to do in the heat of battle. Other times, I think all the activity on-screen was just too much and the program would just freeze and crash. So Matt and I decided it was time for me to get a desktop. I ordered a bunch of parts online last week and they arrived on Friday. We had to make a few runs to Best Buy to pick up a few things. It's been a while since I built a system, but it's not too hard, and I got everything pieced together. Of course, it didn't power up at all. I called up my dad for help and he assisted in troubleshooting. We narrowed it down to either the power supply, motherboard, or processor, which was discouraging news for me (sending back the proc or mobo and then waiting for a replacement would just take too long! I want it now!) :p Matt and I were disappointed and a bit grumpy, so we just back-burnered the whole computer thing for the night. Saturday morning I went back to Best Buy to pick up a power supply and try that out. Tada! Thank goodness! So everything is just peachy keen. We had a spare Radeon 9600 sitting around that Matt's system can't use, so I got to install that and now CoH and everything else is gorgeous! I've overstressed my laptop far too long, so it's nice to have a system that doesn't struggle so much. Now game play is more fun and less frustration, the way it should be! Speaking of CoH, I put up a gallery of characters. Matt and I have gone crazy with character creation (maybe 20 of them?), it's kind of silly but really fun! We keep deleting characters to make room for new ones, so I can't get screen shots of the ones we deleted to put up there, but they were cool too. My main character is Impathy (the 3rd one to be named, but this one's a keeper), an electric/electric blaster. It's way fun! Other than that, things have been pretty dull. I'm not complaining at all, I like things to be mellow. It's just there's not much of interest to report. :p I've been spending a lot of time in the kitchen baking treats and whatnot, which I believe Matt appreciates.

So uhm, I think I got poison oak … again. And I just recovered from the horror! I swear, I haven't been in the woods, I just think something in the apartment reinfected me. I'm sterilizing the house today … Since I'm finished with school, I'm just kind of hanging out. I didn't want to feel like a complete bum, so I've been living my days by massive To Do lists. It's kind of pathetic, but I'm so obsessed with gettin' 'er done and checking off my next task. My spastic running around has resulted in a very, very clean apartment, a detailed spending log of our dining out and groceries for the year (with pretty graphs!), an a pretty, organized filing cabinet, and a very freaked-out cat. I just haven't left myself with too much more that needs to be done. So I whipped up a webpage for one of my mom's real estate projects, CharterCraft Homes. It gives me something to do, and she paid for it in wedding cake, mmm. ^_^ I know, it's not gorgeous, but I do what I can! Other than that, I've just been playing City of Heroes with Matt in the evenings. Really, I'm having fun. I like that the character creation is really … uhm, in-depth. You really don't see two people running around that look alike. Matt was telling me about this guild that all looks like monkeys … you can tweak the size/shape of all the facial features and whatnot. I really only play one character (my ice blaster, Dreamsicle), but I have too much fun creating new ones. I just made one to resemble Blackwolf's soldiers from the movie Wizards named I Killed Fritz. I also made a character that kind of looks like me if I were to actually go and be a super-hero, complete with a little white-with-orange cat on my shoulder (Tal). And we made old people, too. Conk Daddy and Conk Mommy are all martial-artsy matching outfits little kick-and-punch old Japanese people. And yah, a bunch of other characters, too … So our old-man neighbor, Fred, just came by and dropped off his tape. This guy is some old Mexican man that just moved in a few months ago and lives by himself with his fat, tiny, fat, old dog Princess. He's very, very nice … but very, very annoying. Every time he "catches" us (and we do try not to make it so easy for him) he tells us the same old, long story … "Yah … I sing, you know? And I'm on video now, too. I do all my recording in the apartment. Yup, I hope it doesn't bother you. I'm really good. People tell me I'm just like some-old-musician-I've-never-heard-of. I'm in a band in Santa Maria, but you know … they aren't really going anywhere. I'm going to Nashville, though! I had some opportunities to get signed out there a few years ago … with Sun … you know, who Elvis is, right?… but well, they limited my creativity too much. I can't be stuck in one genre, I need to be able to sing whatever I want. I'm going out there soon, though. The guys there at the Grand Ole Opry loved my video and want me out there as soon as possible … I should give you a tape! I have a Latin tape too, if you'd like that. And you can come over and sing with me on video anytime … " Anyhow, I won't go on as much as he does. It's all nice and we're very polite and smile and nod … but he tells us the same story every single time we see him. Well, he finally came knocking and gave me a tape to listen to. The only cassette player I have is in the car, and Matt has that right now. I'm sure he'd love to listen to it with me when we drive to base tonight. I don't dislike the guy or anything, it's just well … he must be really lonely and have a horrible memory. And I don't think he knows a thing about us, he just like to talk about how wonderful he is. I feel bad; he must need some friends … but uhm, I'm hesitant to be that, I guess! I just hope when I'm old I'm not too obnoxious to the kids that are forty years younger than me. I'll let you know how his tape is, though!

Well, you haven't missed too much. I spent ten days absolutely miserable, you really wouldn't have wanted to hear me rant. Having poison oak is definitely in my top five worst experiences in my life thus far. It spread. So. Much. And really, it wasn't from scratching (the doctor I saw confirmed this), but from not showering and cleaning everything immediately following exposure (I had no idea for days). Remember this if you ever know you were exposed! I thought I could handle it. Oatmeal baths thrice daily, applying calamine lotion on almost everything from my knees up even more frequently, cortizone cream … no, they were no match for this infection. I finally went and saw a doctor. Prednisone has been my best friend. Really, it's that easy. I should have gone two weeks ago. I still have small, dry, red patches in various places, but I'm not finished with the medicine yet either. Thank goodness that's over! I know, I know, you wanted to hear all about it … So my father called me up this morning to remind me it's Jerry Garcia's birthday. He would be 63 today. Just, you know … so you know. I'm not baking a cake or anything like that, but I will put on CD and make a new LJ icon. ^_^ Last weekend was a good one. My (adopted) little sister just got back from a month-long out-of-state vacation, so we got together for an exciting Saturday in Santa Barbara. Real quick if you don't know, she's not really adopted adopted, just through the Big Brothers Big Sisters of America. She's thirteen now and her name is Melissa, so it's a little confusing when we're introduced out in public. People are so silly: "Oh, you're both named Melissa? Wow, are you real sisters then?" What on earth? Anyhow, enough of that. We drove down to Santa Barbara and just kind of meandered around the shops on State Street. Then we headed off to the Santa Barbara Zoo. It's a very pretty zoo and I was psyched because I haven't been to one in ages. It's kind of small, so we didn't spend all day there, but we saw it all. Melissa's not too young where she wants to spend too much time looking at anything in particular, so we made it sort of a photo safari. She just got a camera for her birthday, so we'd go up to a cage "click", move on, "click", move on. I took a few myself for the fun of it which are posted hehe. The highlights of my zoo trip were the red panda (how cute! I'd never seen one before and he was way cool!) and the capybaras. I had no idea what a capybara was before Saturday, but they're pretty neat. Like 150-pound guinea pigs with funny legs. I loved them! After the zoo we went to go see Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Matt took me to see it when it came out, but Melissa was dying to go, so I saw it again. I like it mostly. There's things about the first movie I enjoyed more, and the same with this one. I adore Johnny Depp in almost everything I've seen of his, but I personally enjoy Gene Wilder's Wonka better. I know, the movies were very different, but still, Johnny Depp's Wonka kind of irritated me sometimes. But it was a blast and I enjoyed it thoroughly anyway! Other than that, I've just been schooling still. I finished up my logic class and my human sexuality class. The logic I worked pretty hard for and got an A. I'm still very disgruntled about the teacher, though. And not just for previously mentioned reasons. He maybe knows his topic, but he's horrible at communicating (typos everywhere! Not just spelling, sometimes I wasn't sure he learned how to put together a sentence correctly.) And don't judge me, this is blogging not teaching, so I'm allowed to type improperly! :p And he had no idea how to use the online program. He just uhm, wouldn't post things correctly or post them five times or there would be delays because he couldn't figure out his computer. Sheesh. Okay … Sexuality, well that was okay. It was 80% test, 20% essay and I didn't really do so well on the essay portion. It's not that I can't write when I want to. It's that all his discussion topics (and they were set up to be class discussions) were pretty personal. And on some things, my opinion is the minority and it was just uncomfortable. I know it's part of the class, there were just some ethical/personal views that I didn't want to discuss with a bunch of strangers (or be called closed-minded or anything like that). So eh, it doesn't really bother me. The grade was good enough and I didn't need the credit for anything other than GPA points, and the class was somewhat interesting (though I felt our book was strongly biased towards certain moral views which I don't necessarily agree with). So, now all I have to work on for the next nine days is history. Oh joy. It's not so bad, though, I'm just not at all a history buff! Speaking of school, I guess now I'd better get cracking. Enough wasting time! Don't fret, you'll get another dose of my oh-so-exciting life soon enough!

So I wrote my logic professor back the other day. I was kind of worried about presenting an argument to him as, well, forming and debunking arguments is supposedly his area of expertise. I thought back to the text and created a conclusion and supporting premises concerning why I believe the plagiarism issue is my business. I think his whole idea of "letting people fall on their own sword" is kind of stupid, because if someone had run up and stolen his car stereo or his graduate thesis or his pants, he probably wouldn't feel that way. Anyhow, I thought I made a good argument. He wrote back to me with "I simply wonder is this is all part of the society of spying on others, reporting others etc. If you wish to police school work that is up to you" which is not at all what I'm doing. It's not that I'm only concerned about "the law" when it affects me, I think it should be an issue whether Joe plagiarized Sally or I plagiarized Joe or Sally plagiarized me, but I don't run around spying on other students to see who did what to whom. It just so happened I was looking at other tests, not to see who could have copied me, but more to see how I did on my test, and ran into one that was identical to mine. It was chance. Ahwell. He gave me a 100% on it but I still feel a little ripped-off. Anyhow, I guess that's enough of that. Three posts of my ranting about this subject is more than enough. So the little bike-trip in the woods the other day, well I think it left me a present. Yesterday morning I noticed horribly itchy tiny bumps on the underside of my arm, all lined up in neat little rows (I thought that was weird). As they day went on, they seemed to pop up nearly everywhere. I have them on both my arms, my back, neck, and all up my sides and they are driving me so insane! I thought that poison ivy and poison oak rashes were all red and blotchy, as I've seen a few photos like that. But while doing some more research, I ran into photos like this. That's it. All over. I've never had a poison plant rash before and it's less fun than I even thought it would be. Matt keeps scolding me whenever I scratch so I don't spread the rash, but everything that I've read says you can't spread it once you break-out, that the oils are set in. I know I can't believe everything I read, but that sounds good to me! *scratch scratch scratch* Anyhow, I got some of that super anti-itch cream and have gone through nearly half the tube, but I don't think it's doing much for me. Anyhow, I'm miserable. I just want to snuggle up to a porcupine. I found some poison oak "etiquette" somewhere on the web. Because Poison Oak is one of the worst afflictions mankind must suffer, there must be rules of etiquette for dealing with it. If you have never had poison oak:

• You may not joke about it.
• You cannot say, "Don't you know what it looks like?"
• You may not offer your advice on how to treat it.
• You must show nothing but sympathy, and if it is feigned it must seem genuine.
• Absolutely no smirking!
• You are not allowed to intimate that the person who has Poison Oak deserved it, or is afflicted due to incompetence on their part.

Hehe, so there! And, no, I hadn't a clue what it looks like. I know what poison ivy looks like and I'm certain I didn't see any of that! Back to scratching …

It's not that it's been a particularly bad day. And I hate to keep a blog for the purpose of whining about all that crap that happens from day to day. Just a quick one, though! In addition to the silly plagiarism/crummy logic professor incident, Matt and I had a little marital spat earlier today. About a video game. Ughh. Anyhow, it was no big deal, but he went for a walk to cool down and I went for a bike ride to do the same. I was riding through the neighborhood on the way to my little sister's house when I found a dirt path that led up into the Lompoc backcountry. Lol! It seemed like a decent path, so I took it! Well, it turned out to be a horrible bike path of near-death. Well, maybe not death. But still, the ground turned to quicksand below me, so I could only manage to walk the bike up the hill. The path got more and more narrow and overgrown with shrubs and branches and things, that my entire body is now scraped and cut all over. I was just really peeved, so I was walking my bike through the sand up the hill through the brush really, really hard. Like, a mile and a half along this horrible trail, it pretty much just disappeared. I was in some sort of a meadow in the crazy heat on top of this hill and really didn't want to turn around and go through it all again. So I went down the hill. Very quickly as my bike dragged me along. (Hah, I'm such a weenie!) I ran into tons of trees and a stream and a cliff and all this stuff and figured "yah! I can drop my bike down into this stream, climb down there myself, then push my bike up the cliff and pull myself up!" Well, I actually managed to, but on the other side I was greeted with vines and plants and no trail whatsoever. It would have been just as difficult for me to navigate through the mess without the bike. So I turned around. Now, just desperate to get home (cooled down from the spat, but burned now by the spiteful sun), I ran me and my bike (she really needs a name, hmm?) up the hill and back through the trail of doom, swinging my arms in machete chopping motions to clear myself a path, and nearly died when I returned home. I was looking for a little adventure, after all. Well, it was horrible then, mostly because I was angry and didn't bring any water or sunglasses or anything (I really thought I was going to be just riding around the neighborhood for a few minutes) but it seems a little fun now! I think I'll take Matt with me next time. >:D Anyhow, the whole point of this is that I wanted to share a link with you. My new picker-upper. So I had a kind of crummy day. It's all better, thanks to I Love Egg! The Egg Song in the upper-right — that's all I need. It will relieve me of all of life's frustrations. Of course, I exaggerate a bit, but really, it makes me very, very happy. Oodle doodle!

So … it's been a while. And here we go! Well, my mother has now nearly fully recovered from her appendectomy. She was in the hospital for seven days, got out and had three horrible days, and then was on a smooth road to recovery. Just a few days after leaving the hospital, my sister, Andrea, was admitted for appendicitis! The craziness! Thankfully hers hadn't ruptured, but was just causing her problems. So she had hers removed as well. I think I should make myself an appointment! :p The lucky duck, she gets two weeks of convalescent leave to recuperate. She's doing just fine now … So last weekend Matt got Friday and Monday off so we took a little trip up into the Sierra Nevadas. Friday morning we drove five hours to Sacramento to hang out with some family friends Chris & ShaRon and Kris & Jaylene. We hung out at Chris's office when we arrived in town. He works in Old Town Folsom where all the shops look like old West saloons. Chris & ShaRon, Rusty & Tiny (their boys), Matt & I had dinner at a nice little Italian place on the balcony overlooking the main street. It just so happened that the rodeo had come to town that day and there was going to be a parade through Old Town. The men wearing chaps and giant hats and the women in big, frilly dresses staged us a little gun fight in the middle of the street and we watched a bunch of horses and old men in go-karts parade around. The coolest part was the long horns they had run down the street. Moo! Then we went over to Kris & Jaylene's to hang out and chat it up through the night. It was a nice visit with people we really haven't seen that much (except for at the wedding). We had to get up early the next morning to head up to Quincy (at least three more hours north) though, so it wasn't a very long visit. A few weeks ago we got tickets to the High Sierra Music Festival. It's a four-day festival (Thurs-Sun) but we could only make it up for the last two days. We arrived in town around 11 am and set up camp in the blazing heat. I've been to a few festivals in the past with my father (mainly Rockygrass in Lyons, CO) and was expecting something similar. This was huge! Matt said it was like a music festival theme park! All the tents were practically on top of each other in a huge meadow, which wasn't quite as comfortable as I was expecting, but it was fine. There were four main stages and bands playing in other venues throughout the area. Tons of vendors and classes and workshops and crazy people! It was, well, kind of like a zoo. The music was good … a little bit of a lot of things: bluegrass, funk, jazz, blues, rock, reggae, tribal … mostly bands just jamming. The first one we saw was Tea Leaf Green, which I do enjoy very much. We also took in some Blue Turtle Seduction (one of Matt's faves, a “High-Altitude Bohemian Tribal Funk Grass” band), Railroad Earth, and The New Mastersounds (a cool funk band from the UK). We saw a little bit of Meltone on Saturday, a jam band of Japanese kids, but we saw more of them playing on top of a camper on Sunday. One of the main attractions for me on Saturday was Gov't Mule and I was waiting most of the day to see them. Well, it was very hot in Quincy that weekend and there was very, very little shade available. I had my CamelBak and lots of sunscreen and was conscious of staying well hydrated all day, but I think I got sun poisoning anyway. My Saturday night was miserable with nausea and the worst headache I've ever experienced. So I just crashed early and missed Gov't Mule. Grrr! Anywho, here are a few photos from our festival experience! It's very difficult to sleep-in in a 2-man tent in the scorching heat with thousands of people all around, so Matt and I were up pretty early on Sunday. The music didn't start on stage until about 10 and there wasn't much that we were interested in until 3 anyway, so we took off and went exploring. To my surprise, Lassen Volcanic National Park was closer than I had thought. Man, we were a lot further north than I had thought, actually! So we got a nose-full of stinky sulfur and a bunch of pretty photos! It was nice to get away from the festival grounds and up where there's a little snow. Sunday afternoon was a blast! We saw Meltone, The New Mastersounds again, and … Leo Kottke & Mike Gordon! Woohoo! That was the highlight of the festival for me and it was awesome! We decided to pack up and drive home right after their show … we really just wanted to get home rather than camp another night. So Matt drove the eight hours home until sunrise on the 4th. So it’s a week later and really there hasn’t been too much excitement since. All week long I have been doing school work, watching Bewitched, and playing Ragnarok. School is a drag. They’re all online classes, so it’s just a whole lot of reading, essays, and quizzes every single day. It’s working out, though. I just registered for the fall semester. Calculus, physics, and chemistry. It should be fun. Last weekend was my first Air National Guard weekend. I signed up for six years, so wherever we happen to move, I’m going to have a job for two days out of the month. I didn’t really learn too much last weekend, just met a bunch of people and did a little bit of training on things I all ready knew, but hopefully come October I’ll get to work more on the equipment and all that jazz. Well, that’s all for now. I’ve been working all day on my security clearance paperwork and a website for my mother’s business. So I'm gonna go watch some Carnivale and conk out now. Ciao!