This past month has been pretty rough. It seems that one crisis comes up right after another, and I barely have the time or energy to stay on top of things. First of all, my employer laid off a large group of people, including one of my coworkers. The result: low morale, and more work for me. Around the same time, I started getting pain and swelling in my jaw, and had to see a dentist, who was unable to figure out what was going on. Then, I got so sick, I had to go to the hospital, just before taking a badly-needed mini-vacation. I was able to proceed with the trip, but was sick half the time, and didn't really enjoy myself. Then, a pipe decided to start leaking in one of our walls, and I'm still in the process of arranging for contractors to come and fix it, along with a couple of other hope repairs. Back to the dentist for a cleaning, which turned out to be painful and bloody, with a possible diagnosis of gum problems, requiring another visit to the dentist in 2 weeks. We haven't even addressed my wisdom tooth problem yet! On top of everything, our beloved and healthy-seeming cat Oliver was diagnosed with a heart murmur, and my wife is freaking out that he has an enlarged heart or other life-shortening, medication-requiring condition. He has a cardiologist appointment next month, which will be pretty expensive. Hopefully, it will be a benign condition, but with my luck having pets with chronic, expensive medical conditions with lots of complications, I wouldn't be surprised if he has a major problem. Coming up, I need to make arrangements to visit my family for "fake Thanksgiving" and get the car maintained before we head up to LI. Not a happy camper lately!

After the unusual mouth swelling, my stomach started to hurt, and yesterday I threw up and had diarrhea at work (not fun). I went home, crawled into bed with severe chills, and continued alternating vomiting with diarrhea. I couldn't keep the smallest sip of water down, and got very dehydrated. After a few hours of that, my lips and mouth were very dry, and I started to actually become delirious. My wife drove me to Sibley Hospital around 9:30 PM, and I threw up again in the car, fortunately into a plastic bag. I was very worried because my brother had similar symptoms, and ended up with part of his intestine removed, and a colostomy, so I thought maybe there was a blockage, or my appendix or gall bladder were about to burst.

They took me back into the ER pretty quickly and started IV fluids and anti-nausea meds, which was a huge relief. IVs usually freak me out, but I welcomed it this time. Unfortunately, my room was very cold and I was shivering uncontrollably. They piled around 5 blankets on me, which helped, but man, that hospital is cold! I tossed back a disgusting "vanilla" Barium drink, and was then given an abdominal CT scan. The good news is I didn't need surgery! I do have some gallstones, and will probably have to have my gall bladder removed at some point, but basically I had a really bad viral infection in my GI tract. It's not the H1N1 virus, fortunately. They sent me home at 3:00 in the morning, and we saw a deer walking in the middle of one of the streets near the hospital.

Today, I'm resting and drinking clear fluids, and taking antacids and anti-nausea medication. Believe it or not, I think we're still going to go on a small trip this weekend, just to get out of town and relax a bit. My wife is taking care of all the details, I'll just be along for the ride. Going to take a nap now, and looking forward to a piece of plain toast for dinner!

Last night, I was eating dinner (quesedilla w/hot sauce), when my wife looked at me funny. She said I looked like I had swelling on one side of my face. I checked in the mirror, and she was correct - the right side of my face, basically my whole cheek was noticeably swollen, bulging out a good centimeter more than usual! I had just looked in the mirror before dinner, and didn't notice anything unusual, so it must have happened quickly. It didn't hurt, but gradually became a little tender. My first thought was it was an allergic reaction to something in the food, but it was a home-cooked meal I've had before with no problems. Just in case, I took a Benadryl, and also Ibuprofen to help any inflammation die down. I brushed my teeth and used dental rinse, and poked around in there. All my teeth seemed OK, so I applied an ice pack to the swollen area for 10 minutes on and ten minutes off the rest of the evening.

The swelling has gone down about 75%, but it's still a little tender, and I'm planning to make a dentist appointment today. It's probably related to my impacted wisdom tooth, which they've been telling me to have removed for 20 years. My response, yeah, I'll have it removed when you dentists adopt less barbaric, Medieval-era technology. The current procedure seems to involve chiseling wisdom teeth out, with no way to prevent or treat the inevitable "dry socket" during recovery. How about something a little more high tech? Anyway, this operation has been my greatest fear for decades, and it seems I finally will have to deal with it.

An added wrinkle is we have a mini-vacation coming up soon, and if this latest weird medical episode causes it to be delayed or canceled, I'll be very, very disappointed. I need a break!

We interrupt this sporadically-updated blog to ask your kind assistance in voting for my cat Oliver, in a contest held by the Prince of Petworth to find the "coolest pet in Popville (DC)". Oliver was deemed a finalist in the cat category, and can be voted for here: http://www.princeofpetworth.com/2009/08/coolest-pet-in-popville-cat-finalists/  Thank you very much! 

That's all I seem to have lately, brief snippets of time in between work, the gym, and selling stuff on eBay to make a little extra money. Twitter was made for brief snippets of time, so I've been posting there more, and here less, as you can tell. So, for more frequent updates, check me out on Twitter, I'm MrTinDC there, no spaces or punctuation. Oops, gotta run!

Too busy to write anything meaningful, but these tweets provide a sort of fragmented mini-narrative:

  is a "left moderate social libertarian", according to a Political Spectrum Quiz that's going around.
about 23 hours ago from web  
  @mccanner Yes, in part 2 so far LA has been devastated by the storm, and the 90210 guy was killed. It seems more destruction is to come...
8:39 PM Aug 2nd from web  
  Re: The Storm, part 2, don't skyscrapers have lightning rods? This is SOOO cheesy.
8:29 PM Aug 2nd from web  
  is back from the Spanish Arms & Armor show at the National Gallery. Very interesting, but no photography allowed. :(
3:09 PM Aug 2nd from web  
  just had coffee and breakfast with Mark. Looks like the day will be a washout, so much for playing with new Sigma 10-20mm f/3.5 outdoors
10:40 AM Aug 2nd from web  
  @mccanner Yes, same Waffle Shop. Here's the hi-rez version on Shorpy: http://bit.ly/7Us0V
8:56 PM Aug 1st from web  
  @bearshapedsper Heee! Will go back to Chinatown Coffee to see if they put up your picture by the register w/sign "do not serve this person"
8:27 PM Aug 1st from web  
  just walked past Wonderland, but didn't recognize anyone.
7:14 PM Aug 1st from web  
  @mccanner I loves Spices (Cleveland Pk, right?) - you will surely find something to soothe your sore throat there. Or possibly make it worse
3:16 PM Aug 1st from web  
  Going to the gym.
8:24 AM Aug 1st from web  
  @dcveggiegirl Ooh, a Mini - I'd love to go for a ride around the block, maybe take a few photos.
7:54 AM Aug 1st from web  
  @bearshapedspher I think Oliver misses you!
8:57 PM Jul 31st from web  
  Chatting with @DCVeggieGirl
8:03 PM Jul 31st from web  
  Off to work; looks to be a busy, busy day.

Wow, what on earth did we do before Twitter, ha ha ha:

didn't sleep well/enough, sooo tired.
less than 20 seconds ago from web  
  got stuck in the storm w/o an umbrella, soaked to the skin thanks to a vague weather forecast on WTOP.
about 9 hours ago from web  
  @Mr_Darling same here with Bob Mondello - he goes to the WSC gym in Columbia Heights.
about 24 hours ago from web  
  watching "The Storm" too - seems very cheesy...
9:24 PM Jul 26th from web  
  @heathermg I might be able to help w/bookcase depending on day & time.
7:10 PM Jul 26th from web  
  inertia is too much to overcome - staying in Columbia Heights. :(
4:04 PM Jul 26th from web  
  debating whether to go to the Flickr meetup - not too excited about a Sunday evening outing. On the fence - halp!!!
3:16 PM Jul 26th from web  
  Thanks DCist for the Sunday POTD: http://bit.ly/U84uI
2:34 PM Jul 26th from web  
  is back from the Smithsonian American Art Museum.
3:56 PM Jul 25th from web  
  overslept and is skipping the gym. Yikes!
11:45 AM Jul 25th from web  
  @kimberlyfaye and @spiggy, thanks for the kind welcome to Twitter.
10:50 PM Jul 24th from web

So, due to peer pressure and the feeling that I'm missing out on a lot of stuff, I've decided to get a Twitter account. I don't intend to send out any tweets, but just want to follow various people and institutions to keep up with events. My question is, do people use anonymous blog-type names, like Mr. T in DC, or do they use real or abbreviated names on Twitter? I have no idea what I'm doing - halp!

Sorry, I haven't had time to update here in awhile. Between my new extended work hours, the gym, chores, and selling stuff on eBay in the evenings to make a little extra money, I hardly have time for anything anymore. For more timely update, see my Flickr photostream, which I play with as time permits. Hopefully, I'll be able to post here again soon.

Believe it or not, in the mid-late 1970s, when I was a kid, I had the iconic Farrah Fawcett red bathing suit poster on the wall of my room. Looking back, I'm surprised my mom allowed it, but I had so many other posters and crap on the walls it probably eluded her attention. What a gorgeous photograph, with no plastic surgery or photoshopping in evidence, maybe just a hint of airbrushing.

When I first laid eyes on the poster, I realized I LIKED girls, and no longer found them yucky! I discovered I was straight thanks to Farrah Fawcett, and now she's gone. More and more of my childhood heroes are fading away, and it definitely makes me feel sad, and old. I wish I had kept that poster, but I moved it around frequently and it had so many holes in it, it was pretty much trashed after a couple of years. I can imagine an autographed original fetching a tidy sum today on eBay, as another 40something man tries to recapture his youth.

Gene Weingarten had a couple of good quotes about teaching a friend how to drive a stick-shift in his column in the Washington Post magazine last Sunday. I pretty much agree with him that ...the near extinction of the manual transmission is a national disgrace, one of several signs of Americans' growing fecklessness and lassitude...  it is embarrassing that Americans' driving infantilism is the laughingstock of people in other countries.

Overall, I'm extremely happy that Barack Obama is President, and that the dumbass George Bush is outta here. There is always room for improvement though, and I'm a bit disappointed that Obama has fallen behind the curve on gay rights. Why is "don't ask, don't tell" still the rule in the military? I understand these things take time to change, but Obama hasn't even made a statement condemning the policy. If gay people are welcome to serve in the greatest navy to ever sail the seas, why can't they do so openly in the US Navy?

Also, it would be nice to see Obama take a swing at DOMA, the Defense of Marriage Act. Recent filings from the Justice Department have defended the statute, in contrast with statements Obama made on the campaign trail. Does anyone doub that 25, 50, or at the most 100 years from now, people will look back on DOMA, and Don't Ask, Don't Tell with horror, the same way we now look back at the Dred Scott Decision?

Out of the blue the other day, the thought occurred to me: why doesn't Anchorage, Alaska have an NHL hockey team? It would be the perfect place for a franchise! It's cold, it's dark, there's nothing to do, it's close to Canada, and Sarah Palin recently mentioned she was a "hockey mom", so a lot of kids must play hockey up there. It's not a very large market, admittedly, but they'd have to fill up the arena more than the teams in Atlanta, Tampa, and Phoenix. C'mon, not only do they not have ice naturally in Phoenix, they don't have water. It's the desert! Hockey should be played in cold, dark regions, populated with many beer-drinking guys. Sounds like a team would be a perfect fit in Alaska. 

This week marked the end of Washington Post Metro section columnist Marc Fisher's long-running column, blog and online chats. As part of the overall restructuring and cost-cutting at the Post, they have kicked him upstairs, to become an editor at the helm of a small "enterprise group" of presumably inexperienced (cheaper!) your reporters on the Metro beat. As usual, I'm not a fan of fixing something that isn't broken, and in this case, I think the move will be a net loss for Washington. Whatever comes of the new venture, which to me seems a bit ill-defined, I don't think it's worth the loss of Fisher's excellent columns, blog postings, and weekly online chats about the Metro area. Over the past decade, his name has become synonymous with the Metro section, and as a classic old-school columnist, he has generated as much if not more hate mail than fan mail over the years. Love him or hate him, he's a DC institution, and the city will be poorer without his daily writings. Over the years, I've agreed with him (development, density, preservation, hatred of Dippin' Dots) as well as disagreed with him (smoking bans, cab meters, pets), but I always appreciated his dogged pursuit of the truth. The Washington Post will be the poorer for his absence.

Today, there was a guy selling baby turtles on the street, in front of the Samuel Kelsey apartments on 14th Street NW in Columbia Heights. The poor creatures were in little plastic containers, the kind you'd find in a pet store for bringing fish home, with nothing but a few drops of water. The vendor didn't have a table or anything, just a pile of baby turtle containers on the hot, dirty sidewalk. Some kids from the neighborhood were buying them, and lord knows what kind of short and miserable lives these poor turtles will have.

Where did this guy get the turtles? Did he raid a wildlife sanctuary, or plunder Rock Creek Park? Were  they a rare species, smuggled into the country? Does he breed them in his home? I'm guessing he didn't have proper permits and whatnot.

As I walked by, I briefly thought about buying all of them, and setting them free, or bringing them to my friend who works at the zoo and who could likely assist in rescuing them. G, if you're reading, what do you advise? Then I thought I should just call the police, but decided otherwise when I imagined the conversation with the 911 dispatcher. By the time I thought to call the DC Humane Society, it was too late - the turtle seller had gone. If he comes back tomorrow, I'll try the humane society and see what they recommend.

So, it looks like we'll have another wet weekend, followed by a crisp, sunny Monday and Tuesday, when it does nobody any good (well, except the unemployed). WTF is up with this pattern? Once again, there will be no bike rides, no outdoor photography, no long walks, no sitting at an outdoor cafe. The government should shift the work week and make Monday and Tuesday the new weekend by decree, or shift it on a case-by-by-case basis so that the hardworking people of the east coast megalopolis, the nation's economic engine, can get a break on occasion!

Meanwhile, my wife is in Hawaii for a conference, where she'll hopefully have some downtime and be able to hang out on the beach, or hike around Diamond Head (or stalk the actors in Lost, ha ha).

May is travel month for my wife. She just got back from a week in Chicago for her employer's annual meeting, and next week she's going to Hawaii(!), also for a business-related trip. I'm holdingdown the fort here, taking care of our refinancing (need to get that power of attorney form!) and trying to keep up with this crazy kitty, who really misses his mom. Me too!

Just a quick update to say I'm really getting tired of this rain. It has rained on and off for a full week, and it isn't supposed to start clearing up until Sunday (just in time for the work week!). It's like the Pacific Northwest here, and it's making me crazy and depressed, not to mention sleepy. Where is the sun?

Or, more accurately, not sleeping enough. I started out the week with a night of only 2-3 hours sleep, due to worrying about various things. Since then, I haven't recovered, and while I've intended to go to bed early and catch up on the missing shuteye, it hasn't happened. There's simply too much to do! Consequences include being hungry all the time, resulting in overeating, and I have no energy. I tried to go to the gym last night, but had a terrible workout, despite consuming a packet of GU with caffeine beforehand. Hopefully, this weekend I'll catch up.