Last year around this time, I drew a comic of Marin doing some pumpkin carving because, well, I like carving pumpkins.
This year, I’m not going to get around to it myself, and Marin is equally busy with an engineering problem of epic proportions, so instead I point out Extreme Pumpkin Carving at ExtremePumpkins.com. They do a hell of a lot better job than I do anyway.
Hi!
My name is Anne Gibson. I’m a 30-year-old married woman living in Pennsylvania, who votes on a regular basis. I like technology, intelligent thought, and peace and quiet.
I’m getting an average of a half dozen political calls per day. That’s six times each evening that a recorded voice for someone’s political party, special interest group, or election team calls my house and disrupts my life to spew on about their political priorities. Sometimes, I might agree with their points. Sometimes, I do not. Either way, right now, I’m hanging up as soon as I determine that the caller is not, in fact, human.
It’s wasting my time. It’s wasting the money of the political parties and pundits that are so desperately craving my attention and aren’t getting it because they’re making me angry. As there is illness in my household right now, it’s disrupting the ability for my family to rest and heal. I can’t politely describe how frustrating that is.
I’m very tired of it. I’m on the Pennsylvania “Do Not Call” lists because I don’t want to receive telephone calls that from groups I haven’t “opted in” to receive. While I support the right of members of our political parties to attempt to spread their messages to me, I don’t want to have to shut my phone off at night so I can enjoy the occasional dinner with my family uninterrupted. When a survey company calls me, I can request that they remove my household from their calling list. I haven’t found a way to do that yet for a call coming from a recorded nonperson.
The November elections are on their way. Political calls are by far one of the smallest issues you have to deal with. On the other hand, it’s disrupting my life and I need to know: What are you doing to silence my phone?
Thank you for your time and attention
Anne Gibson
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PS. I’ve already sent copies to: the Republican Party, Democratic Party, Curt Weldon, Rick Santorum, and Ed Rendell. (Their websites all list contact info. It’s handy.) Anyone have any further suggestions on who I can contact?
PPS. The funniest one so far was when they held the special elections in New Jersey and someone called to urge me to get out and vote. I’m not, nor never have been, a resident of that state. Are they a “vote early, vote often” state?
So Nighthawk’s home and slowly regaining his voice, still nowhere near 100% but a lot better than he was a week ago. (Well, not a whole week ago. Exactly this time last Monday they hadn’t made the first cut yet and he was feeling fine. But, you know, a week ago by say, 1:00.)
It’s a good thing that he’s feeling so well, too, because our heater just quit and he’s sitting at home under a massive pile of blankets waiting for the repairman.
The freakin’ heater was only just installed in June-ish, so I’m a bit perturbed. It does explain why we’ve spent the past few days noticing that the heater seems to run an awful lot and it still seems cold. I don’t think the ice building up on the outside of the condenser was exactly an advertised feature, either.
At least it’s almost sunny out….
Heaven help us all.
I hope the model got paid well for that one.
Monday:
Arrived at the hospital at 7:30. Pre-op started around 9. I read all of Dragonsblood between 7:30 and around 1. It’s worth the read, and is especially good when coupled with an iPod to drown out the soap operas in the waiting room.
(Side tangent:
Seriously, I swear that hospitals ought to be banned from being allowed to show soaps in waiting rooms. It was bad enough that I was subjected to a couple horrible morning shows and a portion of the New York Columbus Day parade when I was in Philadelphia. But it was followed by absolute horrors on the soaps.
NOT HELPFUL.)
The TV update-you-on-your-spouse-in-surgery thing in the hospital indicated Nighthawk was in recovery (post-op) by 1:15, which coincidentally was just a little before his mom and brother arrived. I popped out of the waiting room just long enough to greet them, get some yogurt, and totally miss Nighthawk’s doctor, who instead called me and let me know everything went incredibly well and he should be placed in a room soon.
By 4:00 we were hearing rumors that there were no beds available, so I finally cornered a nurse who invited me back to Recovery to see Nighthawk. He was understandably grouchy that he’d been counting holes in the ceiling for three hours. Since he wouldn’t waste energy being grouchy if he was in serious trouble, I took that as a good sign.
Nighthawk didn’t get a room until 6:30. It made for a long day, and he hadn’t even met his nurses yet.
On the other hand, once he was finally upstairs everything was great. I cannot say enough positive things about Presbyterian Hospital or the staff that we dealt with. They had a lot to manage, between the thyroid removal, the cystic fibrosis treatments, the diabetes treatments, and the fact that Nighthawk was running about 4 hours later than anyone’d expected just to arrive, but they did a great job of making him comfortable, making sure he had everything that he needed, and setting our expectations for the night. Nighthawk’s nurse even hunted down a recliner for me to sleep in, so I could stay there with him overnight.
Tuesday:
We both caught some frequently-interrupted sleep between the end of Monday Night Football and 6:45, when the first doctor arrived to scope him out (literally) and remove the drain in his neck. After some blood work, a healthy breakfast, another check-in by the docs, and the usual rounds of meds they declared him healthy enough to leave, and he was given his discharge papers before I could even finish my (admittedly late) breakfast.
We were in the car and on the way home by 10:30 yesterday morning. Nighthawk was comfy in his recliner by noon, and I was off fighting with an idiot pharmacy where nobody can count until around 3.
Today:
So how is he? He still hasn’t gotten his whole voice back yet but he hasn’t been in any significant pain the whole time (hasn’t even been on pain meds for most of the last two days) and is in a good mood. He’s still pretty damn tired, which I pretty much expect.
To be clear, having the thyroid removed is not in and of itself a cure for thyroid cancer. There’s still much to be done, including treatments with radioactive iodine and scans and balancing of new medications. Whee. But the first hurdle has been surpassed, and we get a short break before the festivities continue.
And how am I? Relieved. And exhausted. Possibly as exhausted as he is. My day today consisted of calling back various doctors to schedule various follow-up appointments, and then visiting my own doctor for another round of battle-the-sinus-infection. (My in-laws, who had awesomely taken JessieDog for the overnight, also stopped by to return her today.) It’s currently just after 11:00, a time I could easily stay awake past two weeks ago, and I’m barely awake enough to write this post.
Tomorrow I go back to work. Tomorrow night I might get working on Saturday’s comic. With luck everything goes back to on schedule from this point forward.
Every day is a new adventure. This week has been a set of adventures I’m glad to say I had overestimated. Thanks to everyone who’d sent their prayers, positive vibes, or whatever, in our general direction.
Acts of Gord: Love the Gord, Fear the Gord is a website filled with stories of the idiots a video game store owner had to deal with during the time he owned the store. It’s funny.
I’m 100% sure that with my office’s policies on not plugging any USB devices in, the USB iGrill would get me fired, but it would be the kind of fired that would at least have the folks in Info Security talking for a good long time. I mean, hell, they’d be lining up to fire me — Facilities for having cookware on my desk, InfoSec for plugging in unauthorized USB devices, the hungry people in my department for not bringing enough meat for everyone…. If I ever decide I don’t want to work anymore, that might be the route I take ;)