Nana

Nana lived in a San Francisco neighborhood across the highway from Candlestick Park and Little Hollywood in Visitacion Valley just above a barber shop and nextdoor to a dry cleaners. I LOVED visiting her. She'd serve me coffee loaded with sugar and milk and didn't worry she was stunting my growth. We'd play black jack with real money she saved up. She always left her kitchen door open and the wind would whip around and feel so chilly, but she would wipe the sweat off her brow complaining of hot flashes.

Her boyfriend was named Meryl. And he smoke tipperillos and drank Olympia beer. Nana smoked Kools and drank burbon.

One day, Nana happily agreed to let my cousin style her hair and give her a permanent. When it was time to pull out the curlers, all of her hair came out with it! Nana laughed so hard when she saw herself in the mirror.

That afternoon she went shopping for a wig.

My place of work

I'm really loving my new place of work. It feels so comfortable. I LOVE the people there. The compatability is extraordinary. I love coming in each day. I feel so blessed.

The art studio is filled with fabric. Some fabric came in today that I designed. I stared at it when no one was looking. I felt it with my fingers. My heart felt so warm, I felt as though it was about to melt into my skin.

It was something I wished for and it came true.

I pinched myself to see if this was a dream. And then I realized it still is a dream. A dream come true.

Yay for my sparkling floors

My floors are finished. My unpacking is not. The loveseat in the photo belongs in another room. But it is heavy because it's a pullout bed and the heavy bars underneath have already scratched my floors. So for now, it stays there, until some strong men help carry it to its destination.

My large TV still sits on the floor as well. Everything feels in a disarray.

If I could only wave a magic wand.

Or, even if I felt better, I could plow through my lists of things to do. But instead, I just keep adding more to my list.

I love going to a place to work. There, I can focus on things at hand. Here, at home, it's like I am wading through thick mud. I feel as though I'm losing my footing under my To Do List that is weighing me down. I can't seem to climb my way out of it.

I just stare at all the things I need to do. And then. I add more to my list.

I need to call a plumber. My car is dirty. I have weeds everywhere in my yard that I need to pull. My house is a mess. My backyard lawn has turned yellow. I have phone calls to return. I'm out of shampoo. I need to buy groceries. I need to do laundry. I have emails to return. I need to bring my lawn mower to the shop. I need to take a truckload to the dump. I'm still having computer problems. It's the second time, I have lost everything on my computer in two months. (Apple thinks its my logic board failing). I'm sick about it. But not nearly as sick as I've been feeling.

I am thinking it wasn't the beef jerky I ate afterall.

I'm still going through numerous medical tests and I hope we can find what it is so I can start the road of recovery. It's been five long weeks of intestinal distress and after two separate antibiotics later, I still fight a fever from time to time. oy.

I know when I feel better, my list won't seem so overwhelming. There is nothing I like more than to cross things off my list. Now I'm just feeling cross about my list.

But. Enough about me. How are you doing?

Feed Your Wild Side

Click on it to see a bigger image.



"FEED YOUR WILD SIDE" is the slogan of Jack Link's Beef Jerky.

You must go visit their website! I believe chunks of the fury "big foot" character shown on their site was stuffed inside my bag of Beef Jerky I ate.

The nurse called me this morning.

"How are you feeling?"
"Still having problems..." I said, "Has the test results come in yet?"
"Yes, " she said. "They turned out normal."

NORMAL!?

Ok. So, I'm happy I don't have any parasites dwelling inside me, and maybe that's all they tested me for. Perhaps it never occurred to them to test me for BOTULISM.

Seeing the photos, I feel sick all over again. The expiration date on the beef jerky is Sept 2007. I just hope I don't expire before then.

Shaken by the Jerk in Beef Jerky

So. How was I supposed to know that the beef jerky I ate while in Texas was rancid? Within days, it had turned various shades of green with white spots and sprouting leaves like a bean stalk.

Lovely.

My friend just called and described the remaining bag of beef jerky to me over the telephone. It was the bag I was snacking on during our roadtrip to Austin.

I started to feel sick the morning I left Texas.

I flew home to San Francisco, touching down in Houston for an hour layover while suffering with a chill, tingly skin and what doctors call "intestinal distress". Eight days later, after too many nights waking up in a drenching sweat, red splotches on my skin, light-headedness, blurry vision and painful jerky abdominal cramps, I made an appointment to see my doctor.

"He can see you on August 3rd".
"But. It's July 24th."
"There's a 3:45 pm appointment on August 3rd and if you don't take it, that appointment will be snatched up in ten minutes, " she said, without any empathy.

"Can you have the doctor call me?" I asked.
Huge loud sigh. "What's your number?"

I thought he could suggest something to me over the phone. He called me several hours later and after I told him my symptoms, he asked me to come in immediately and I went in the following morning for lab tests and a prescription for antibiotics.

I felt miserable. I was beginning a new job. I was having my floors refinished and my house was still bare with furniture. Plus, the fumes were harsh to breathe in. We were experiencing a record-breaking heatwave and It was 112 degrees outside and inside my nearly empty house varied between 94 and 97 degrees. I also had a birthday through this sickness. I tried hard to cover up my uncomfortableness but it wasn't easy to always hide my stomach shaking around like a small earthquake. I kept pretending everything was fine.

--(interruption)--

We just had an earthquake. I'm not kidding you. As soon as I wrote the word, it hit. If I didn't just see the Seismic Graph online, I would have thought I was experiencing another abdominal cramp.

I've had a few different lab tests and though I haven't received the results yet, I'm now quite certain it was the green beef jerky sprouting leaves that made me sick. I'm on my 15th day and just now feeling more comfortable in my body.

Well. Until about five minutes ago. Before we had an earthquake and shook me up again. So, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go stand under a doorway for a bit. Or at least until I need to scurry down the hallway again to visit the first room on the right.