Pre-Lenten Stuff

Luckily we never had to drive to Denver on Monday to collect a brand new, all improved, revised letter from my Immunologist. He faxed it to Greg's work. However, he, meaning the doctor, lectured Greg on the phone in a sort of unpleasant way saying that "next time we need a letter written we need to get all the information needed in the letter BEFOREHAND." Right. Well, that's what we did. And his first letter consisted of my test results and other boring, not-relevant-in-helping-us-move information. The second was an ok letter, so we put that one in our paperwork, but the people signing off on it said it needed a few word changes. I knew the doctor would be none too thrilled to do up another, after all he is busy...seeing patients and lecturing at the University of Colorado and all that jazz. But still. It wasn't our fault. Some superiors just thought it would be "nicer" to change some wording. Why they didn't contact the doctor themselves I still don't know. I guess they knew he'd be pretty irritated so left it to us. At any rate, it got into the hands of the appropriate people, and now our papers are on the way to Randolph AFB in Texas to get all approved and we should be knowing when we move real soon.

Anyway, back to Monday. So we didn't have to drive to Denver. I still got my weekly injection and blood drawn per usual down at the cancer centre. And my white counts are pretty awful. .08 to be exact. For those of you not familiar with the breakdown of your plasma, your white cells help fight infection and ward off germs trying to infiltrate your body. They play an important part of your immune system. And when they get low, you are at risk for catching pretty much everything. And when they get as low as mine have dropped to, that means massive danger. All alerts are on. Stay locked in the house and stay far away from people and all those nasty germs they carry. But I didn't get too worked up about it. I have things I need to do and unless anyone is going to volunteer to do those things for me, then well, I have to do it myself.

So after the wonderful lab visit, we went out to eat at a little cafe in "Old Colorado City," called "Cafe Latte." I like that place. Old Colorado City is like a miniature SoHo. Lots of neat specialty shops, craftsy type places, etc., etc. And Cafe Latte may be a bit pricey, but have they got the yummiest chicken salad on croissant, ever. Not to mention you can get a big steaming pot of tea as well. After we devoured our lunch it was time for our tax appointment. Our nice H&R Block tax lady Lorraine did up our taxes again this year. She is one cool lady. And hilarious. She keeps you in stitches the entire time. We were having such a grand time we neglected to sign all of the paperwork and had to go back today and get that done. Since I had the digital camera handy, we took a picture too. I will include that down below. Oh yeah, we got to do a bit more with our taxes this time around, like claim some of our fire damaged items. So that was an added bonus. We filed that under the title "EXTREME FIRE." Then had a huge laugh over that, wondering how the IRS is going to react when they read our paperwork. Extreme fire. Well, it was! We have the pictures from that to prove it. But let's not talk about fires.

This morning I got to see Dr. McDonald here at the Air Force Academy hospital. She too, is one cool lady, as well as the one who performed my hysterectomy in January. So I had my post-op appointment today. All was fine and I got a photo of us together also. I know, I'm insane. But when will we get to see these people after we move back East?? Ok then. Besides Dr. McDonald is about my age and such a nice wonderful doctor. I can't say enough good things about her. So I had to have a photo. So there.

Tomorrow is Ash Wednesday so I figure I have to get my clan up, fed, dressed and out the door at a reasonable hour in the morning to make it to Mass. I've been debating what to give up for Lent this year. There is really nothing I obsessively indulge in that would just be oh-so-hard to do without for forty days. I suppose I will go with chocolates this year. Usually I do the sugar-soda-sweets route, so why should this year be any different?

I really wish we could have gone to Mardi Gras this year. We were in New Orleans for our Anniversary in 2001. It is a weird, cool, bizarre, extremely interesting city. My husband wants to live right in the middle of the French Quarter. I just shook my head and said "imagine all the noise coming from down there every night while we were trying to sleep." Of course that is a bit of a joke since I don't sleep much. And the size of the roaches I saw crawling around kind of turned me off of actually dwelling in the middle of that city. But visiting is fun. Maybe next year we can hit Mardi Gras.

I'll end with this:

Greg: Did you ever swallow a marble when you were a kid?

Ande (looking up from reading): Ehm....no. DID YOU???

Greg: No, I didn't.

Ande: Then why did you ask?

Greg: I don't know, just a random thought floating around in the mind of Greg.

Ande: Mmmm, ok.

Right, so first we have a lovely picture of myself with Dr. McDonald (did I mention she is the coolest doctor ever??); next is Our Lady of the Taxes, Lorraine, holding Clare.... and that's me hovering in the background.