Thotz as we enter 2006

Here are a few thoughts that have been running through my head recently, none really is deserving of it's own post, but together it works, and since it's the New Year, what the heck.

- Ok, this one is just weird, but Spencer Kayden has a sexy voice. Where might you have heard it? As Mrs. Pepper on Blue's Clues, of course - twisted, I know, but listening to a BC CD my son got at the library made me realize it... Here she is:


and her alter ego:



- June 2004 continues to haunt me. In case you weren't around or don't remember, I got very sick then and it turned out to be a combination of colitis (or Crohn's Disease, one or the other, but it doesn't really matter, they are treated the same), which basically means my large intestine gets annoyed easily. What made me sick was the fact that it got so fed up with me, it stopped doing one of it's major responsibilities, releasing water into the rest of my body. I got dehydrated badly and went downhill from there. I ended up in the hospital not because of the colitis, but because the emergency room doctor thought I had a blood clot. Well, it's hard to say for certain whether I did or not now, but subsequent blood tests, etc. have led the doctors to the conclusion that it's in my best interest to be on a blood thinner.

Ok, fast forward to now...On Friday, I have to go in for a colonoscopy to make sure everything is ok in there. Can't tell you how much I'm looking forward to that...now, normally that would mean a day or two of discomfort, but nothing that big a deal. But in my case, it will be a somewhat bigger deal. No one has said they will have to, but during a scope, the doc may have to do a biopsy. Since that would mean cutting something, that means something will probably bleed. That's not good when you're on blood thinners. So, I have to do what's called a "window". I stop taking my usual blood thinners, and give myself an injection twice a day. The injection blood thinner gets out of my system in a day (the pills take several days). The injections are leaving awful-looking bruises on my stomach. But I stop the injections a day before the scope so my blood will be able to coagulate (clot like it's supposed to) if they do any cutting while they're in there, this is the "window." Then I go back on the regular thinners afterward in addition to continuing to inject myself for another week. I have new respect for diabetics...Yuck!

- Christmas was great! The little guy made out like a bandit, of course. We (Mrs. Dave and I) got ourselves a new entertainment system because our old one had bitten the dust. It's a panasonic home theater system and it's awesome. I got Mrs. Dave an iPod Nano, which she seems to like a lot. I got clothes and Mrs. Dave got me a Bose SoundDock for my iPod. It killed me to have to return it. We had to decide between the SoundDock and the entertainment system, and the system won this round. But no worries. We also got an iFusion iPod player that is way-cool. Maybe not as good as the Bose, but much better than I expected. iFusion is this little hard-shell suitcase of a thing. It has a zipper and opens like a suitcase but reveals a set of speakers and dock for your iPod. Just plant your iPod in there, plug it in (or not if the iFusion batteries are charged) and jam to completely portable tunes. The sound is great considering the size, and the cool thing is that you can still connect it to your computer while it's in the player, download stuff, etc. plus, when the iFusion is plugged in it charges the iPod. We got it mainly because my son's cheapo CD player that we use during baths and such finally crapped out. But if you're looking for a good little iPod player, this is a great option!

- My "Brother-In-Law" is a complete asswipe, no, that's being euphamistic, he's the turd, dang, still not strong enough. Imagine the place at the treatment plant where all the waste from everywhere in town goes before it gets "treated". That's my brother in law. His daughter, my niece, was taken away from him again by social services for suspicion of abuse. We don't doubt it's true, we've seen bruises all over her. We took a picture of the one that was shaped exactly like someone's hand on her rear end. And it looked like a rather old bruise. Can you imagine the force with which she was hit to leave a bruise of the entire hand (think about your open palm and what you would have to do to leave a bruise with your thumb)? This is a three-year-old girl he's doing this to! A girl who has never known her real mother (Mrs. Dave's sister) because she died a month and a half after my niece was born.

She's been shuffled around to so many places in her life, she probably has no idea where she belongs. We've been helpless to do anything about it because that $#$%#&* is her father. Fortunately, someone who wasn't as worried about not seeing her again called social services when the boy she lived with ($*^%$%*^'s girlfriend's son) told his grandfather some of the things that have been going on with my niece (details of which we still don't know). But whatever he said, it was enough to get both kids taken away from their parents for an extended period of time. It's a nightmare. I'd adopt her in a second if I could. She is a handful, but I think with some consistency in her surroundings and lots of love, and particularly the absence of abject fear of being beaten senseless, she could become a relatively normal girl. We may never know because of the amount of damage that has already been done.

We're just hoping that it's my niece's mother above that is making all this happen so my niece can be happy again. She didn't deserve to be treated the way she was. Like I said, this is a THREE YEAR-OLD. It will be another interesting year in this saga. Let's just hope it works out the best for her.

Dave