Can I get some cat-ma? When I picked Charlie up from spending the weekend at the vet for kidney stuff, they told me to bring him back in if he didn't eat for 24 hours. He didn't eat last night or this morning, so we're going over there shortly.

Job~ma at 12:30 pst, if you would. Interviewing for a job I really want.

My Jack Russell, Betsy, had some kind of attack last night...this morning the vet said it was renal failure. It's already way too quiet in here. She was fourteen, so she wasn't deprived, but...

My father and his wife came out for a visit and to meet the new grandson and she collapsed when they landed at the airport.

I'm heading over to the hospital. She is coming out of heavy sedation and we'll be getting a series of test results this evening. They told my father to start thinking about a DNR.

She could come through over several weeks or she could die at any time. Throw in a certain amount of estrangement between my father and the rest of us because this isn't daunting enough.

Wish us luck.

She is coming out of heavy sedation and we'll be getting a series of test results this evening.

Just spoke with Trudy and the medical team decided to keep her father's wife heavily sedated today and they are hoping to be able to run the tests and get results tomorrow.

Ford L-M was born today at 8:06AM. 9lbs, 21.5". He is in good health, but has fluid in his lungs, so is in the NICU overnight, possibly a bit longer. Argh!

It's one step up, two steps back with my father's wife. Looks like we're in it for the long haul. Nobody has said she CAN'T recover... but nobody is saying that she will either.

Nilly's father passed away tonight (it's almost 1:00pm now in Israel). The funeral will take place later today.

They FINALLY extubated my father's wife on Wednesday and completely un-sedated her. This has been scheduled, half-done, and cancelled several times. I called her phone yesterday (since my dad has been using it) and she picked it up herself. You could have knocked me over with a feather. Saturday dad and I were pretty sure she was on the verge of death and now she's chattering away like nothing happened.

To her, nothing did. She has no memory since leaving San Francisco over a week ago. I saw her last night and the whole thing is a little surreal. I promised her the new grandson she was coming to meet didn't lose any cuteness in the 10 days she was out of comission.

She's not out of the woods by any means. It feels like she's all better, but she's still in the CICU. The heart rhythm fluctuations that (probably) caused this are still not understood or controlled. It could all start all over again. We can be grateful that she's alive and there is no brain damage, but she's got a long way to go.

Thank you for all your kind thoughts and messages. It's been hard but it has not been lonely.

OK, so I’m homeless now. The upstairs unit (the landlord’s) of the two-decker I’m in caught on fire early yesterday morning. I got woken up to a heavy smoke smell by some folks who saw the smoke banging on my door and yelling to get the fuck out. I ran out into the street in a bathrobe and a pair of (mismatched) shoes and watched in horror as flames started shooting out of one of the upstairs windows.

I was relatively lucky in that the fire never spread to my unit, so I’m only looking at water damage from what got in from upstairs, and the smell smoke in everything I own. And luckily the fire department threw tarps over a ton of my stuff that was in the line of where the water was going to come in. Currently the Red Cross has put me up in a hotel for three nights, and then I’m going to stay with friends who have a good-size house for the duration, but I still have to find a place to live. I do have on definite option that’s looking more and more likely from a friend who moved to PA and is in the process of selling his condo. He’s willing to lease for a year with an option to buy.

My land lord wasn’t so lucky. He didn’t make it out.

I’m OK. I think I have a handle on what I have to get done on a day by day basis which is better than I felt yesterday when I felt I was staring into the abyss. I must say I’ve been really impressed by the Salem Fire Dept and the Red Cross. They’ve been great. This month is turning into my complete definition of hell, though. I hate moving under good circumstance with the white-hot passion of a thousand suns, but this is a non-negotiable. I have to move so I have SOME place to go home to.

Thank God this happened on a Saturday night when people were still up and about on a Saturday night, because otherwise it might not have been noticed until it was full ablaze. I might not have made it out.

ETA - needless to say, I'm not sure how much I'm going to be around here for a bit (not that I've been around so much anyway lately).