Fast Fiction

I’m sure you never expected such a thing from me. And of course it’s not what you expected.

I predict that within the next five years the superbowl pre-game coverage will include a red-carpet-style arrivals. That’s right, people will arrive for the skyboxes, the various sports stars and celebrities and they’ll be asked what they’re wearing and they’ll say “Nike” or “Champion” or “from that guy in the parking lot.”

I kept seeing these headlines for the past two days:

Stewart to Star in ‘Apprentice’ Spin-Off

I don’t watch The Apprentice, I don’t care much for reality TV but I was actually excited to hear that Jon Stewart might head a spin-off of the Donald Trump show. Now that’s a reality show I’d actually audition for!

Alas, it’s Martha Stewart. Pfft!

The thing about being an early adopter of new technology is that you’re a bit of a guinea pig.

My 2004 Toyota Prius (I call her Dyna) had a software malfunction yesterday while I was driving to my whale watch class.

The system threw up an alert on all screens with alerts a’beeping. It continued to function, but just didn’t want me to continue driving.

What happened isn’t clear. I was driving along, actually getting pretty good mileage with my tank total (about 90 miles on the tank so far) at about 53 MPG. My battery was fully charged with all green bars and even though I was driving on battery the full indicator didn’t change for at least a minute. I thought it odd, but then again I was getting an infinite amount of miles per gallon and when driving in rush hour traffice it’s like winning the game. The traffic was moving, at about 25-40 MPH. I was going 38 when the system started its warning. The car was driveable, in fact besides the lights, there seemed to be nothing wrong with the car. I was in the far left lane and I immediately put on my signal to merge off the freeway. The fellow next to me did not immediately oblige so I put on my hazards and everyone let me off. I made it to the Exposition Blvd. offramp and parked myself in the LAPD Internal Affairs office parking lot.

I called Toyota’s roadside assistance and they said they’d tow my car to the closest dealer, which happened to be Carson where I bought the car. In retrospect I should have insisted that they take it to Hollywood Toyota where I last had it serviced, and of course the closest location to my home.

I talked to the service guys this morning and they can’t figure out why the car was giving me the errors and said that it’s driveable and I can come get it. They called Toyota’s helpline for additional guidance and have not heard back from them yet. So I’m going to leave the car with them until they know why it did that. There’s another brake light wiring recall on it right now anyway that I needed to have done and they needed to order the part.

I’ll just figure out how to get to and from work the next couple days and it’ll all be okay.

One of the things I was looking forward to during jury duty was taking some photos during the long lunch break.

When I parked my car on the roof of the parking structure at the corner of First and Hill, I saw the early morning sun on the concert hall and seriously thought about starting my day that way. But I was an obedient little juror and hurried along to my duties.

I went during my two hour lunch. Though it wasn’t really that warm today, I’ll admit that this place is like a toaster oven on a sunny day.

I’ve taken so many photos with my camera that it’s rolled over!

I hit photo number 10,000 today sometime downtown. Now the camera started over with file naming at DSC00001.jpg.

Yikes, that’s a lot of photos. And until today I’d saved them all. But I’m out of room and have to make more space for the good ones.

Here it is ... guess where I was.

This morning I reported at 7:30 AM for Jury Duty at the Los Angeles Superior Court. At 3:40 PM I departed the Mosk Court Building with a slip of paper that said that I had completed my task and was released from service for twelve consecutive months.

More on the experience later.

At the moment I need to clear off space on my hard drive, as I keep getting messages that my storage space is critically low. Must be too many blurry pictures of dolphins taking up all that room.

I did a long blog entry with lots of great photos over at blogging.la if you wanna go see that one too. I don’t like to do cross-posts, so don’t worry, this is not the same entry.

This morning I was booked on a whale watch boat out of Redondo Beach (Redondo Sportfishing). The boat is the Voyager, the same one I went out on Monday the 17th. This was a morning trip, so the light is different and I was a little worried that it would be cold out on the water.

The air was still and the water calm (though the swells were still about three feet) and the water was spectactularly clear.

The landing didn’t send out any boats yesterday, as high winds and swells kept the whale watchers landlocked.

Today was vastly different than last time, mostly because there were three other naturalists on board. The fellow who was the leader was fabulous. He had a wonderful sense of timing, giving basic information to fill the time and then giving out relevant information when we were looking at the actual creatures.

In addition to the mentor naturalists were two others. One was a woman who had huge numbers of patches and pins on her jacket, I think going back at least ten years. She had a bag with all sorts of stuff, including patches and pins that she sold on behalf of the organization and reference sheets to show the passengers.

I love the trips. I enjoy hanging out at the railing and talking to the passengers about what’s right in front of them (or maybe their camera or other travels). I still haven’t taken the microphone though. I’m not sure what’s holding me back. It’s not like I don’t know the material. I’m not afraid of speaking in front of groups. But maybe I just enjoy being down in the trenches. Well, how am I supposed to know that I prefer that until I try the microphone? Okay, next time! Promise.

I found this on Stacie‘s blog and thought I’d propagate it. (Hey! She invited me!)

The goal of this exercise is to identify nine other bloggers that you would like to meet for dinner/drinks. The only caveat is that these bloggers must be strangers—you haven’t met them before. State the blogger’s name, a link to the blog, and why you would like him/her to be in attendance.

I regularly read about twenty blogs. But most are by people I know. So this’ll be tough. (Because some blogs I read are not necessarily by folks I’d like to dine with!)

1. Kevin L. Hoover - The Arcata Eye Police Log - okay, it’s not really a blog, but I read it regularly and it’s not exactly journalism. More like non-fiction poetry.

2. Tony Pierce - Busblog - because he’s a local and I think I could learn a lot about being a consistent blogger from him.

3. Aaron Logan - Loblogomy - I’m sure he’s too busy with the medical stuff, but I like his photos. Maybe he could figure out what’s wrong with the dog.

4. Brian Overton - Weirdwriter - I’d like to kick his ass for not posting more often, especially not posting about the squids washing up all over SoCal this month.

5. Cory Doctorow - BoingBoing - he’s self-published and successful and all

6. Paul Davidson - Words for My Enjoyment - it’s not so much a blog as an often updated list o’ funny things.

7. Brendan Powell Smith - The Reverend - the man behind the lego bible.

Um, I’m at a loss from there. Most of the other blogs I read regularly, I actually know the people who write them.

UPDATED: I thought of two more that I really should have included.

Well, poor Becky is starting really hate going to the vet.

This has been her life this week:

Tuesday morning - visit to the vet - shots, bath & nail trim
Thursday morning - visit to the vet - stay for the day, more shots, blood test
Thursday evening - visit to the vet for overnight stay & tests
Friday morning - pickup from the vet
Saturday morning - visit to the vet - more shots & blood tests

At the moment the doctor has ruled out the previously suspected Immune-Mediated Thrombocytopenia because she has no immune response indicators in her blood. Her ears are still swollen, though not nearly as badly as they have been earlier this week - just a little bit thicker at the base, but normal at the ends.

The vet still thinks that whatever is causing her blood in the urine and swollen ears has something to do with her blood clotting - whether immune overactivity, an allergic reaction or blood disorder.

We have her on a raft of medications - steroids, antibiotics, something for her thyroid (because one test came back with abnormal levels) and now vitamin K to help her clotting. She’s really starting to hate me. I might have to start hiding the pills in the cheese again. It’s not hard with most of the little pills, but the antibiotic is a regular sized capsule.

Here’s the latest - her ears are still very pink on the insides, but hang pretty much normally now.

This week’s LA Insight might be in answer to the request for more photos on LA Blogs. Or maybe just a new years way to shake things up.

I’m a little late in posting because of the doggy stuff (back from the vet again, $240 poorer and still no answers), but here are some photos that I’ve taken in Los Angeles in the past year or so. Click on the thumbnails for a 350x350 pop-up of the images.

Well, we took her back to the vet.

Dr. Jimerson thinks it’s an autoimmune disorder. The Man left Becky for some more tests and they discovered blood in her urine and they’ve also noticed small broken blood vessels in her mouth that can indicate a platelet problem.

The doctor called it Immune-Mediated Thrombocytopenia. Basically, her immune system is attacking her platelets. It doesn’t look like it’s a bad attack, as she shows none of the more drastic symptoms like lethargy or trouble breathing. So they’re keeping her overnight where they’ll boost her steroid levels to fight the inflammation and whatever is attacking her platelets. This web page seems to indicate that there’s a 50/50 chance that we’ll get through this and she’ll never have trouble again. We’re hoping and praying for her.

Folks have always noticed that Becky has bat ears. If she’s looking right up at you, her ears perk straight up and look like bat ears.

Right now they’re still too heavy to do that. I’ve got a fat eared dog. A fuschia pink fat eared dog.

I took some photos this morning:

If you’re curious about some before and after, I found some similar poses from some photos from last June to compare her ears.

I’m still waiting to hear back from the vet about her blood tests and of course ask for something else to relieve her symptoms.

UPDATE: 3:35 PM - I just talked to the vet and he said that her bloodwork was normal. I told him that her ears were still HUGE and he said bring her back in. So, The Man is loading her into the car for a return visit.

Our little Becky is experiencing some sort of massive allergic reaction. As a result of this, she’s all swelled up. Most notably her ears are swollen. I don’t mean the ear canals, I mean those floppy fur covered things - they’re thick and heavy and full of fluid.

This started early yesterday morning. She wasn’t upstairs outside the bathroom door when I got out of the shower and I called for her and she came up, she didn’t seem like herself. She made a couple of passes at the bed as if she was going to jump up (she has to get a running start), she gave up. I knelt down to check her out and pet her and immediately felt her huge eats and hot face.

I got dressed and took her right to the vet (well outside for her morning business first). After a rather long wait Dr. Jimerson over at Gateway Animal Hospital saw her and said that it was some sort of systemic allergic reaction. We don’t know what she’s allergic to, but he wanted to keep her for the day to run some tests and give her a few shots. (They also trimmed her nails and gave her a bath.) She weighed a full five pounds more than she did last summer and the doctor said it was probably all water. Now five pounds on me is uncomfortable, I can’t imagine what it’s like for a dog that usually weighs thirty pounds.

Now she’s got three different prescriptions, one for her eyes, one antibiotic for any lingering infection and a steroid to reduce her inflammation.

This morning she didn’t seem much better, her ears though better yesterday after The Man picked her up at the vet were almost back to normal but this morning they were thick and full of fluid again.

The good thing is that she’s in good spirits. She’s still peppy and responsive, eating her food as normal but drinking lots (and peeing lots).

I called the vet and he said to give the drugs more time to work. They also took some blood samples and won’t have results until tomorrow. So for now we’ll just wait and keep an eye on her.

This little thing I found via boingboing.net is the best!

It’s a link generator for the NY Times.

I link there all the time, but of course if someone doesn’t click on the link to the story in the first week, it’s gone.

But this generator creates a non-expiring link to any story on the current NY Times!

Sweet!

This weekend I went up to Pasadena to exchange a gift and decided that the confluence of events meant it was time to try the new “drinking chocolate” from Starbucks known as Chantico(tm).

I got a Starbucks card charged up with $20 from some co-workers and there I was at a mall with a cafe.

But let me back up about 22 years.

When I was in college I took at trip to Spain with my high school Spanish class. When we got to Madrid, we were too early to check into our hotel. It was barely mornining (about six am) so our tour guides and chaperones took us to Plaza Mayor where we walked the quiet plaza with it’s grand arches and huge space that would later in the day be filled with throngs of touristas and Madrilenos. We rested there for an hour with our empty cameras and had churros y chocolate.

Oh, Man! The stuff was like hot pudding, thick and flavorful and of course the plainness and crunch of the churros was the perfect compliment. There was nothing like this available back in Mechanicsburg and I was in love.

When I got to college, I enjoyed a Sunday morning tradition with my live-in boyfriend at the time - a bagel and Mexican hot chocolate. We’d walk from our little two bedroom apartment (that we shared at one time with three other guys) about a half a mile through the Arcata Plaza to Los Bagels. Not only was this my first exposure to Ibarra hot chocolate (which they made the right way with milk), but also this is where I fell in love with guacamole. Yes, my Sunday breakfast was a garlic bagel with heaps of fresh guacamole and a hot chocolate.

I’ve been searching for that Spanish drinking chocolate ever since. Granted, my tastes have changed quite a bit since I was sixteen. My substitute has been hot pudding. That’s right, I make Jell-o Cook & Serve pudding and then eat it before it sets. But it’s pudding and it’s never chocolately enough for me.

Chantico comes in one size. And that’s not a bad idea. It’s only six ounces and before you go saying, “where’s my grande!” you don’t need more than six ounces.

It is smooth, hot and sweet but has a wonderful mouth feel (see the fat content on this stuff). The chocolate flavor sticks around and gives a slight dryness to it (so much so that I recommend some water with whatever you’re having).

I think it’s great. But it really is very chocolately and I think it’s best served with a pastry that’s not sweet. This is not something you’d have a pecan sweet roll with. I think a plain scone or croissant is a good compliment, and if you went with something flavored, I think I’d stick to raspberry.

So, my long search for that European-style thick drinking chocolate is over. Is this something I’ll swig like coffee? Certainly not. It’s a drink for enjoying like a dessert or maybe a full meal. Yes, I’ll go back and order it again. After all, it was a $20 Starbucks card ... I’ve got six more waiting there for me!