Tag: life or something like it

“They wept together, for the things they now knew.”

For his friends, he gives everything.

Even when it is difficult or hurts.

It always amazes him when others don’t (even though he’s seen it time and time again).

It just seems so simple (even when it isn’t).

And so his heart is torn…between passion, friendship and love.

He wished to know her better, and now he does.  He wonders if perhaps the passion will be muted.  He steps away, as he feels he must, hopeful, yet expecting nothing.  

He gave himself to the moments, worrying not about the past or the future (at least not much).  He is thankful for those moments, for they were wonderful.

Permanent link to this article: https://www.rhinoblues.com/thoughts/2007/they-wept-together-for-the-things-they-now-knew/

When it rains…(or I love it when a plan falls apart)

We just dropped my roommate off at the airport for her move to Japan.  I’m really happy for her but I am sad to see her go.  We managed to have a pretty good going away gathering for her Friday night.  I got a keg of Rogue Hazelnut Brown and she invited over her friends for one last hurah.  Most everyone showed up and seemed to have a good time.  Lauren said she did and that was the most important part.

So already a little meloncholy, I return home this morning to recieve an email from Delta notifying me of a change in my itinerary to NYC next month.  Our non-stop flight from PDX to JFK has been canceled and they’ve rerouted us through Atlanta.  The problem is, now we’ve got an almost 4 hour layover in Atlanta and I won’t get up to NYC in time to drive up to New Haven to check out Yale as planned.  Ugh…I guess one of Monday’s plans will be to call Delta and see if we can get an earlier second leg of the flight.

Girls are confusing the fuck out of me right now.  I don’t yet have the words to explain it. 

Can I have a redo on this weekend? 

Permanent link to this article: https://www.rhinoblues.com/thoughts/2007/when-it-rainsor-i-love-it-when-a-plan-falls-apart/

march on

Change is afoot.

One of my roommates is moving to Japan on Sunday.  I’m really excited for her, but I’m sad she’s leaving (and a little jealous).  This week is a series of goodbye gatherings though…its a little bittersweet.

I’ve applied for an internship in LA.  It would start near the end of August. If I get the internship, I’ll have to get my car fixed and insured again.  I’m anxious to find out what happens with the application.  I’m a little on the upper end of the age range for the internship and hope that doesn’t work against me.

I’m getting a little stir crazy here in town.  The last time I left town was for an afternoon in early February to drive down to Eugene to get a letter of recommendation for the internship application.  Sadly, It doesn’t look like I’ll get out of town until I head down to Southern California at the end of the month for a conference I’m staffing.  I am however looking forward to going to New York City in April for a long weekend. 

Permanent link to this article: https://www.rhinoblues.com/thoughts/2007/march-on/

a day in the life of rhino

Someone pointed out to me today that lately all I’ve posted is poems.  That my posts don’t tell enough about what is actually going on in my life.  So a brief update seems to be in order.

Work is good.  It has been pretty busy lately, but that’s a good thing, it makes the day go by quickly.

Outside of work I’ve been pretty busy as well.  Been hanging out with various friends, going dancing, hosting beer tasting parties.  It’s been a blast.

Today’s big news is that I bought a plane ticket to NYC.  And to make things even better my best friend is coming along with me to NYC.  We’re going in the middle of April.  I’m very excited, I’ll get to see my little sister and hang out with a couple of friends I haven’t seen in quite awhile.

The month of April is shaping up to be a great month as I have plans for all but one weekend already.

Permanent link to this article: https://www.rhinoblues.com/thoughts/2007/a-day-in-the-life-of-rhino/

Reason # 415,894,894,468 our President is a giant douche

Because of the “surge” my friend Nicole’s husband gets to stay in Iraq another six months instead of coming home on Valentine’s Day.

* And yes I made up the number to approximate the dollars wasted on this necessary war

Permanent link to this article: https://www.rhinoblues.com/thoughts/2007/reason-415894894468-our-president-is-a-giant-douche/

RIP Grandma

At 7pm tonight…my grandma passed away.  She’d had a couple of rough days of fighting…but the last two days it was difficult for her to breathe.  At least now she’s at peace.

I love you grandma and I’ll miss you.

Permanent link to this article: https://www.rhinoblues.com/thoughts/2007/rip-grandma/

clouds hanging over life

Things don’t look good with my grandma.  Even if she were to recover…she’s likely never to be able to really return home.  The last couple days have been rough on her.  She’s having a much harder time breathing.  It’s a very labor intensive process for her.  She doesn’t want to die, but she’s also very afraid.  You can hear it in her voice and see it in her eyes.  If she can’t stabilize…they can’t do a surgery for a feeding tube in her stomach.  And she can’t go to a rehab center without the surgery.  

It’s been such an emotional roller coaster this past week.  The strength of my grandpa and my uncle and dad amazes me.  They’ve slept so little since Thursday…taking turns to make sure someone is always with her.  I know I haven’t had their strength.  Being at the hospital is tough and makes me sad.  I go at least once or twice a day…but I’m always exhausted after just a few hours.

Permanent link to this article: https://www.rhinoblues.com/thoughts/2007/clouds-hanging-over-life/

the joys of eldercare

I headed down to Eugene Wednesday after work in order to make sure I’d have a chance to see my grandma.  She’d had a pretty rough weekend and it was pretty touch and go.  Thursday morning, my sisters and I were getting ready to head over to the hospital for a visit when my dad called.  They had decided that they would be removing the feeding tube and ventilator currently down her throat.  The risk (and what the doctors expected to happen) was that her throat would continue to swell after removing the tube, making it impossible for her to breathe.  So around 10:30am Thursday morning, the tubes were removed and an unexpected thing happened.  Nothing.  She stabilized fairly quickly and remained that way for the rest of the afternoon.  At this point, they decided to move her downstairs from the ICU into a regular hospital room.  However the doctors still didn’t expect her to make it through the night.   A little after 4pm my sisters and I headed home for a little break and nap.  I headed back over to the hospital around 6.30pm.  Around 8pm, despite the morphine, she woke up enough and began to talk for the first time all day.  She told us she wants to go home and asked questions.

Today she has been improving throughout the day.  She’s more talkative (and more insistent on going home).  She doesn’t however want to go home just to die.  She’s fighting with all she has.  The doctors were all happily surprised she survived the night.  Now they are busy figuring out what med’s they are going to restart to help give her the tools she needs to fight the things afflicting her.  If she continues to improve over the next few days…she’ll likely be released from the hospital and at least get to move to a rehab facility where she’ll be able to continue her recovery.

Permanent link to this article: https://www.rhinoblues.com/thoughts/2007/the-joys-of-eldercare/

Fire on Belmont

I was watching college football this afternoon and around 1:30pm heard something weird outside.  I looked out the back window to see the upper story of the building behind us on fire.

Right as I looked out, my neighbor knocked on my door, yelling about the fire.  I grabbed my camera, snapped the above shot from my window…and grabbed my laptop and passport and left the building (just in case the fire spread).  I went over the the back yard of the house being remodeled next door and shot the following picture before the fire department had shown up (maybe five minutes had elapsed at this point)

After the fire department arrived they quickly got control of the fire.  As of now, I don’t know of anyone being hurt.  I did find one of the neighbor’s cat running around.  I gave them a call on the number on the cat’s collar and left a voice mail.  Walked around for a bit looking to see if I could find his/her owner…but couldn’t so brought him back to my house after letting someone with the FD know that I had the cat. (They were going to call animal control).

The owner just called me and are on the way to pick up at least one of their kitties. (From the call, they’ve got at least 2 cats.)

A few more pictures here.

Update:  According to the news, no one was hurt.  4 of the 8 apts are completely uninhabitable, the other 4 with extensive damage.  I was on KOIN 6 and didn’t look like a complete dork (at least I don’t think so).

Update 2: Bella, the cat, is with her owners. Turns out there was only the one cat from that apartment.  I did however get a call from another resident of the building who is still looking for her cat. 🙁

Permanent link to this article: https://www.rhinoblues.com/thoughts/2007/fire-on-belmont/

the new year

In what I hope is not a harbinger of the coming year, my New Year’s Eve was cast upon with loneliness and death.  My closest friends were all out of town and none of the “nightlife” options appealed to me this year.  The most difficult part of the day was however the update my father gave me on my grandmother.  Friday, she had been moved back to the hospital from the rehab center.  On Saturday, she was moved back into ICU.  After being bed ridden with a feeding tube down one nostril for two weeks, she had developed pneumonia.  The doctors wanted to do a surgery to insert a feeding tube directly into her stomach, however because of the respiratory problems, could not do the surgery yet.  Saturday night was a rough night for my grandma, she was having a hard time breathing.  However, Sunday morning she was doing better after one big coughing bit.  For now they are going to see if they can work on breaking up some of the blockage, so they can go ahead with the surgery to insert a feeding tube into her stomach.  However that’ll be a couple of days at the earliest (that they would do the surgery).

I was lucky to be with a friend when I did get this call though.  Because my dad talked to me about what would happen if things got worse.  They are going to aggressively treat what they can…but they aren’t going to keep her alive just for the sake of keeping her alive.  I know she’s lived a long and good life, but its still kinda tough to wrap my head around the fact that she might die.

Permanent link to this article: https://www.rhinoblues.com/thoughts/2007/the-new-year/