Instant Karma

Hahahahahaahhahahahaha......hahahahahahaha....I can't stop laughing :-D. Thanks to my friend Casey for this!

Saturday's Child

I was born on a Saturday. Maybe that's why it's my favorite day of the week, no matter what's going on. Of course, today is Sunday...I love Sundays too, LOL!

We are having what I think is the mildest July ever since we've moved to the desert! I mean, seriously; it cools off enough in the evenings to sit outside without sweating and it's nice enough once the shade falls over part of the back lawn to be outside playing with the doggies! That's huge! Last night it was so beautiful outside, I really wished I had the aero bed blown up and set up on the patio; I coulda slept there all night. Although, it would probably have been more like the "Barka-lounger" with Madison Macadamia Nut running and barking at every little thing. I think if I'd gotten the fountain and chimnea I am planning on I probably would have taken the time to have done it! Maybe in another month.

I'm a little sad too; my little job at the celebrity dog website is on hold again; I just love doing it so much and I really like the girl I worked for. She's really a wonderful and fun person. I know it seems so silly and trivial, but it really is pretty fun. And it gives me something to do besides obsess over my dogs or exercise. As despondent as I am, I completely understand. So much competition with websites these days and times are tough. I love doing research though and if pets are involved, so much the better, LOL! Kind of a match made in heaven. If it involved cooking it would meld everything in a perfect tied-with-a-bow package, haha.

I am onto a new vice...sangrias! Oh gosh, I made the best pitcher yesterday! Love love love good wines, but during the intensely hot summer here, it's a little daunting to be drinking a heavy cab or much of anything other than something like a white zin! Yes, I uttered those words. After living in the desert, white zin doesn't seem so unseemly, LOL. In fact, does anyone drink that stuff anywhere else? Hard to imagine.

OK, so onto the rest of my weekend; play with dogs, keep myself from making them wear their newest wardrobe additions til I bathe them at least, figuring out what in the world to make for dinner and catching up on some reading. OH..and ignoring any ironing that needs to be done, LOL. Looking forward to the coming week!

Laaazzzzzy Dayyyyyy

"....Just right for blogging away"


Geeze, what a strange day for a weekend! I finally get back here and it's like the most boring day of the month. Gotta do somethin' about that!

It's hot outside, but not horrifically hot as it can be at this time of year in the desert. It's humid though; I think that's what's going on. It feels like some heavy weight sitting on you and it's overcast, so when you look outside, it seems like it would be cold. NOT! Nosiree....it's not cold here!

Just saw a cool sight though; two jets flying side by side over the house. I love stuff like that. We're sort of in the landing approach for Palm Springs airport, so I get to see interesting things every now and then. I love watching airplanes; I just don't like BEING on them.

I've been watching the Tour de France; what a great race it is! I am totally amazed by Lance Armstrong; say what you will about him, but that guy is beyond freakin' incredible! After being off for ..what? 3 years? And he decides to come back, starts training, crashes and breaks his shoulder, has surgery and pins placed and STILL will be on the podium tomorrow? Not in the maillot jaune, but still....not too shabby. I swear, he is other than mortal! Aww, you know me and my bikes....I keep thinking about my bike chain napkin rings....I need to go dig those out for dinner tonite, LOL!

Dogs are doing fine today. Poor little Max has had a few seizures lately; don't know what's going on, but I think part of it is stress related. Seems like they usually occur when he's really frightened of something. Madison Macadamia Nutboy of course is perfectly fine. My little airhead. I wish I were like him...well, YKWIM..I KNOW I lean toward airheaded-ness, but I'm pretty sure it's only b/c I have so many things going on in my head!

Ok...seriously: I think I'm going to do Mark Bittman's 101 Simple Salads for the Season ......make one every day (I'll start on Monday; you know I never start anything immediately....need to strategize and organize first ya know!) and photograph them. Why am I doing it? Oh, who knows? I'm BORED. And it's HOT! So. Something to look forward to. Yayyyy.....ok.....hope today is not the day the music dies. Hasta!

Never Can Say Goodbye

"Never can say goodbye
No no no no, I
Never can say goodbye

Even though the pain and heartache
Seems to follow me whereever I go
Though I try and try to hide my feelings
They always seem to show
Then you try to say you're leaving me
And I always have to say no...

Tell me why
Is it so,,,"


Another goodbye. This time with much ado. And despite a troubled life, I feel it's rightly so. So many huge huge fans of Michael Jackson. It's hard to lose your idols, no matter how flawed they may be. When you love or admire someone, you tend to gloss over the less than desirable traits and focus on their good ones. Which, in death, is how it should be.

Tomorrow will be interesting. I wanted to get something in writing before the big event; heaven only knows what exactly will take place there in LA. But one thing for sure; a lot of insanity! I teased my dh who is crowd-phobic but is in LA all week that if I was watching the news coverage of the memorial and I saw him there I'd be really po'd. AS IF, haha. He freaks out just having to go to the grocery store, so somehow I kind of doubt he'll be front and center in a world-wide funeral frenzy.

If you haven't noticed, most of my blog titles are names of songs. The weird thing is, when I chose this one, I really didn't realize it was done by the Jackson 5. So long ago! To me, even though I'm not a die-hard MJ fan, I did enjoy his music and his dancing. I enjoyed him actually but I did think he became a sort of weird recluse who was doomed to either intense scrutiny because of that, or intense invasion otherwise. What would you choose? And how does one defend themselves without revealing too much of their personal life, regardless whether it's saintly or not?

OK...I'm not going to wax poetic on something that's going to be (or has already been) covered ad nauseum. I suppose that's the only thing about being dead; you don't care anymore what people say about you. I do hope MJ rests in peace at last.

So, we had a fun 4th; nothing exciting but just nice. I cooked up a storm, but things were all organized and done by the time guests arrived and the grilling was done by my dh. Nice guy; it was around 110 deg outside, so I was pretty grateful. I usually do the grilling and I really wasn't looking forward to going in and out to check it constantly. We had a nice dinner, good conversation, watched some fun tv and just kicked back basically. Next year, I swear I'll be in N. CA for the 4th!

Boys have their swimming pool. I was so busy working today along with having to go do some banking later on in the day, I didn't have time to fill it up and get them into it for pictures. Tomorrow will be THE day I think! No gardeners, no other interruptions. It should be fun. No kids, so the dogs get spoiled. You should have seen the bird's abode before they left me, so I don't feel like I'm being too terribly indulgent (yet). I'm planning though, LOL. OH...that's their pool up top; BW (before water), and of course, I'll situate it in the back yard instead of the entry way.

Tonite.....relax. House is cleaned, laundry done, dishes done, animals tended to and plants watered.....oh, did I forget the ones on the patio? ...Later people. Nightingale out (literally).

Saturday, In the Park....

.....I think it was the Fourth of July...."

Well, this year, the Fourth of July really IS on a Saturday and I'm already looking forward to it! I'm not sure why, but the Fourth has always been one of my favorite holidays. Hmmm....but Christmas is my first favorite...and then my birthday, LOL. And there's Easter, and New Year's Eve, and Thanksgiving.....well, I DO love holidays!

I have my menu pretty well set. Not that anything is really going on here. It's going to be at LEAST 108 (you can just bet if they're forecasting it to be that hot, it's going to be several degrees over that) that day, so obviously we won't be picnicing.

My friend Mel will be here with us with Max's little sissiepie, PieLinda (we call her that after the "flying Wallendas" b/c she has a tendency to leap from one piece of furniture to the arm of another, the little munchkin!), so it will just be the 3 humans and 3 dogs. I have a huge menu planned of course, LOL.

So, now I'm trying to figure out something fun to do during the day. Board games are OUT. I'm thinking maybe a flick at the theater, early. And I think I'm going to get the dogs a little swimming pool and see how they like it. I saw a really cute kids pool that has a blowup palm tree that you attach the hose to and it drips water into the pool. If I were a dog, I'd love that!

I wish they'd get that poor Michael Jackson buried already. I hate to sound callous, but don't you think when you focus on all the sadness and details of his life that it makes things seem so bleak? And the world is bleak enough right now!

And it seems like there's a rash of deaths in Hwood this last week or so...some untimely and others past their due date. Karl Malden was the latest (that I know of). I LOVED him in Streets of San Francisco! But gosh, he was 97! It just doesn't seem possible that so much time has passed and he could be that age!

I'm getting excited; speaking of SF. We're going! Taking a little trip home and I can't wait (but dread the period leading up to it....getting the cat and birds squared away before I leave (meaning CLEANING the cat's room which of course, is a disaster and stocking up on food for her and those damned birds. I swear, they'll never die. I had a dove who was so decrepit and psychotic and it must have been at least 12 years old...at LEAST. I can understand a parrot living that long, but a dove? And of course, I need to get hold of a pet sitter. I have one actually, I just need to call and give her the dates. Or at least, I hope she's still in the desert!
Only a week away from the heat of the desert, but it will be good for me and the dogs and Mel is coming with us, and she's never met my mom or a few of my friends, so it should be fun.

Anyway, it's a lovely day here albeit, hot. Yesterday it actually sprinkled a bit. Mel and I met at the new produce stand (store)....oh hallelujah! REAL produce at a decent price! Beautiful, huge heads of locally grown lettuces and pineapple that smelled so sweet. And heads of garlic that weren't microscopic or all squishy or weird shapes. You know when you want to roast garlic just to spread? And you don't want some stupid looking or misshapen head to put on a platter? I'm sorry; I like my roasted garlic to be nice and round so it looks nice when you present it. I Know.....weird. Anyway....

After we picked up a few things and scoped the entire store out (I'll be going back tomorrow to get what we need for the Fourth) we ducked over to the Elephant Bar for their Happy Hour (just luck) and had a few appetizers and a glass of wine. Which sufficed for dinner. It was a nice afternoon.

Which makes me think; do you ever make plans but they aren't exactly concrete with a friend. And then you kind of get involved in your day and are just winding down, ready to do what you normally do every evening and they call with your original plan that got delayed? That's the situation yesterday. I had called and said I'd be ready by 3 pm but I didn't hear back from her (my fault, somehow I missed her voicemail saying we'd meet between 3 and 3:30), so I was sort of just ready to get reading my latest book and when she called, I thought "Oh darn, I don't feel like getting all cleaned up to go out", but I decided since I'd told her I would, I should. So I did.

And then you have the BEST time? It's unusual for me to go out in the evening except on the weekend with dh, so I need to remember that having fun and not feeling so uber-responsible all the time is a GOOD thing!
Nightingale out.

Oh, What A Long Strange Trip It's Been!

I feel exhausted today. After losing Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson both in the same day, I had a violent headache and just didn't feel good. I don't know what the energy zap is when someone so BIG is suddenly gone, but it really knocked me for a loop this time!

As I logged into a pr agency site for photos for work, the first thing I see (it had to be like, 2 minutes after Farrah was pronounced...how do they do that???) is that she had passed away. It was not a good start to my day!

I am sad for Ryan and for Redmond (note to God: I hope this will scare him sober and he can make his mom proud of him)and for her friends.

She was just incandescent, yes she was! I am sad for the world to lose another wonderful, strong, REAL woman. And to share her agonizing last several months with us to help people who may potentially be or are going thru the same thing is beyond amazing. I don't want anyone around when I've got a headache for crying out loud! And I look at her younger photos and it takes me back to such a wonderful time in my life; when things were so much simpler and so much more glamorous. She was a real "STAR" in my eyes.


















On the other hand, I'm thankful that she isn't suffering or in pain any longer. And I know she wouldn't want her friends and family to have this horrible time dragged out for any longer.

Part of the reason she was so memorable to me aside from being the most beautiful woman in the world as far as I was concerned; was that she did something REALLY kind for me. Not so much for me, but for a couple of patients I had when I worked at Stanford Hospital in the ICU.

At that time, we were still in the old ICU; it was kind of a typical old hospital ward; long hallway with the patient rooms along one side which had windows overlooking some trees that lined the parking lot. Which looked out to some other medical buildings. Lovely view, haha.

The other side of the hall was just break room, storage rooms and nursing stations.

The patient room doors were made of dark wood and had just one small square window at about eye level, but that was it as far as any view went. Of course, most of the time, that made no difference, since we normally kept the door open (our patients were all heart surgery patients of one type or another and were usually in there for the least amount of time they needed to be: so basically, once they were awake enough to want some privacy they were transferred. Not quite that quickly, but you get the picture). Plus, we at the illustrious world-famous heart surgery institute known as Stanford, didn't have centralized monitoring. Dr. Shumway wanted a nurse in his patients rooms at all times. Which meant, we stayed in the room for the entire shift except when another nurse came to relieve us for our breaks.

I specialized with the heart transplant patients. At that time, Stanford was the only hospital in the entire world doing heart transplants and it was a HUGE BIG DEAL. It was so complicated and labor and time intensive getting the patients worked up and then they had to wait for a match; all the while getting weaker and weaker. By the time some of the patients got their heart, they were extremely ill.

Once they got their transplant, the patient was in what's called "reverse isolation", meaning, the door was shut at all times other than when people entered or exited; anyone who went in, had to be in a gown, cap, mask, gloves and booties. And the only people who could go in were the dr's, nurses who were working with the patient and immediate family.

The patient never saw what anyone looked like because all the gowning up was done outside the room before entering. So all these people behind masks with non-descript bodies were constantly hovering over them.

The television was marginal at best. They couldn't see out the door and there was not much of a view from the window.

Most of our transplant patients were teenagers or young adults! And they had to stay in this room until they were no longer in rejection; which sometimes would be MONTHS after surgery. So imagine being a teenaged boy and being stuck in a room (this was LONG before iPods, text messaging and iPhones existed) with nothing to do!

It was very boring and disheartening for them. A couple of them that I took care of; two teen boys; used to see each other in the hallway once they were well enough to take walks down the hall (but then, THEY had to be the ones gowned, masked, gloved etc) and they would talk a bit as they passed each other on their daily walks but it was sort of discouraged for them to really hang out together (only b/c they didn't want them to catch anything the other one might be carrying), so they'd talk on the phone between rooms.

One thing they found that they had in common was they both had crushes on Farrah Fawcett (bet you thought I'd forgotten what the point of this story was, huh?).
And they'd yak about her and watch Charlie's Angels and then yak about her some more (having to be in the room constantly made me privy to a lot of their personal information, LOL).

It was a good thing; it gave them something normal to think about other than meds (of which there were dozens a day for them to take) and procedures and lab work.

When my one guy went into rejection not long after this, his out of room walks were discontinued and he was back on the painful anti rejection injections, ATG. He was so down, and I felt so badly. I thought "what can I do to cheer him up so he'll get better?" and the only thing I could come up with that didn't involve food he couldn't eat or people he couldn't have in his room was maybe a picture of Farrah Fawcett signed by her.

Of course, I had NO clue how to get that, but I called the SF radio station KNBR and told them what I wanted to do but had no idea how to contact Farrah. They said they didn't know either, but they'd find out and get back to me.

Later that day, someone from the radio station called me with a phone number and told me it was Farrahs' publicist and I could at least try her and see where it went from there. I figured "it can't hurt". So I dialed.

A pleasant sounding woman anwered the call and I explained what the situation was; 18 yr old heart transplant in rejection, sad and dejected and in need of a happy surprise. She hesitated a second and said "I'm going to let you talk to Ms. Fawcett yourself"...and she handed the phone to Farrah herself! OMG!!! I was totally NOT expecting to speak to a movie star right then and there! I was almost speechless!

But Farrah was so patient while my words tumbled out of me and I felt so dumb, but she just listened and said "I'll tell you what I'm going to do"....and she said she'd send them both an autographed poster (yes, THE poster of the red swimsuit) signed to THEM, and she would call them the next day between 2 and 3 pm (which is when I was at work). She took their names and took down the phone number of the intensive care unit. And I thought...."oh, she'll probably get busy and forget all about it" so I wasn't going to say a word to the boys.

But sure enough.....she DID call them the next day and I don't think I've ever seen two boys ( I was SO glad she called them both b/c there would have been a lot of jealousy if only one got a call, LOL) so excited! And a week or so later, they got the posters and she also sent some other photos of her to them.

So, that's my Farrah story and that's why I think she was just the best of the best! And why I'll miss her so much. Her sparkling laughter and her sense of humor and joy.

I'm sure she's resting in peace. Don't all angels?

RIP, Farrah Fawcett