WebKittyn Warbles
Tuesday, March 02, 2010
Images in Vogue
'Strangers in Love,' great 80's one hit wonder.
I like strange things, I like strange people, I like strange places and situations. Always have.
Darkstar is strange, he's my best friend.
Strange is trying to adapt to a blog entry every day based on a theme. I'm going to get through March though and maybe I'll even come up with something of substance.
Tilo Wolff is strange looking but man is he drop dead sexy.
Nestle's Quik power on top of peanut butter is strange but damn tasty.
Strange is waking up in a hospital bed with a catheter hanging out of your vagina and having no idea where you are or why you're there.
Strange is the thought of having three kidneys.
Strange is not having my dad there to talk to every day.
Strange is my obsession with Bravo's Real Housewives.
There's a lot of strange in my world.
Viva la strange.
I like strange things, I like strange people, I like strange places and situations. Always have.
Darkstar is strange, he's my best friend.
Strange is trying to adapt to a blog entry every day based on a theme. I'm going to get through March though and maybe I'll even come up with something of substance.
Tilo Wolff is strange looking but man is he drop dead sexy.
Nestle's Quik power on top of peanut butter is strange but damn tasty.
Strange is waking up in a hospital bed with a catheter hanging out of your vagina and having no idea where you are or why you're there.
Strange is the thought of having three kidneys.
Strange is not having my dad there to talk to every day.
Strange is my obsession with Bravo's Real Housewives.
There's a lot of strange in my world.
Viva la strange.
Goodnight, Irene
One of many quirky anecdotes one accumulates during an eight-week stay in a hospital. I had 13 roommates during my stay, the most memorable of which is definitely Irene.
Irene was an elderly woman in her 80's who came in one night in a bad state. She was suffering from God knows what and a heavy case of dementia on top of it. She would perk up at night and would literally spend the entire night screaming at the top of her lungs. For a frail old woman, she had some lungs. She never really yelled anything you could understand either, just yelled. They had to strap her to the bed at night and they would keep her bed outside the room right next to the nursing station.
As my room was right pretty much across from the nursing station I got a whole lot of Irene.
She kept tearing her Foley bag (pee catheter) out, which is painful and messy but it didn't seem to bother Irene.
They didn't know what to do with Irene. The 5th floor of Albany Medical Center is where the really sick people go, you can't put a seriously ill and die-hard crazy old lady who needs to be strapped down and likes to scream all night with just anyone.
One Tuesday they came to get me to wheel me down to dialysis as usual. I did my thing, got filtered like a cold-brewed iced tea and came back to my room to find they had removed Lisa (who was on a ventilator and clearly dying) and replaced her with my newest roomie - Irene.
What the.. How come you give her to ME? She's going to break out of her straps and stab me with a plastic knife in the middle of the night.
I questioned the nurses on their sanity and they told me I was one of the few patients they considered 'well' enough to handle being in the same room with Irene. Looking around the rest of the floor I had to grousingly agree but it wasn't easy. I remember when Darkstar came to visit, she spent the whole time glaring at him like he was the devil.
We had a grand time together, Irene and I. She with her nightly screaming (another reason I got her, they knew I was up all night to begin with) and the daily yanking of the Foley bag.
Turned out Irene wasn't crazy after all. At the root of it all was a bad reaction to some medication she shouldn't have been given. It caused the dementia. I'll be damned if Irene didn't walk out of that hospital with her family fully alert, aware and she actually said "Goodbye, Heather. Good luck." when she left.
Wherever Irene is now, I hope she's still alive and kicking and well. She certainly made my life a bit more interesting.
Irene was an elderly woman in her 80's who came in one night in a bad state. She was suffering from God knows what and a heavy case of dementia on top of it. She would perk up at night and would literally spend the entire night screaming at the top of her lungs. For a frail old woman, she had some lungs. She never really yelled anything you could understand either, just yelled. They had to strap her to the bed at night and they would keep her bed outside the room right next to the nursing station.
As my room was right pretty much across from the nursing station I got a whole lot of Irene.
She kept tearing her Foley bag (pee catheter) out, which is painful and messy but it didn't seem to bother Irene.
They didn't know what to do with Irene. The 5th floor of Albany Medical Center is where the really sick people go, you can't put a seriously ill and die-hard crazy old lady who needs to be strapped down and likes to scream all night with just anyone.
One Tuesday they came to get me to wheel me down to dialysis as usual. I did my thing, got filtered like a cold-brewed iced tea and came back to my room to find they had removed Lisa (who was on a ventilator and clearly dying) and replaced her with my newest roomie - Irene.
What the.. How come you give her to ME? She's going to break out of her straps and stab me with a plastic knife in the middle of the night.
I questioned the nurses on their sanity and they told me I was one of the few patients they considered 'well' enough to handle being in the same room with Irene. Looking around the rest of the floor I had to grousingly agree but it wasn't easy. I remember when Darkstar came to visit, she spent the whole time glaring at him like he was the devil.
We had a grand time together, Irene and I. She with her nightly screaming (another reason I got her, they knew I was up all night to begin with) and the daily yanking of the Foley bag.
Turned out Irene wasn't crazy after all. At the root of it all was a bad reaction to some medication she shouldn't have been given. It caused the dementia. I'll be damned if Irene didn't walk out of that hospital with her family fully alert, aware and she actually said "Goodbye, Heather. Good luck." when she left.
Wherever Irene is now, I hope she's still alive and kicking and well. She certainly made my life a bit more interesting.
Monday, March 01, 2010
Strange is…
..looking at a new layout for a blog that's had the same design for the past five years.
I like it, it's just going to take some getting used to.
Many thanks to Meathe for his help.
(yes, the comment security blows, we're working on that).
Strange, indeed!
I like it, it's just going to take some getting used to.
Many thanks to Meathe for his help.
(yes, the comment security blows, we're working on that).
Strange, indeed!
Monday, February 15, 2010
This Blog and This Woman
This blog used to be a happy place full of halfhearted attempts at being whimsical and looking at life with a perspective that I always thought wasn't so bad. It wasn't a super blog or one of the 'big' blogs but it felt good for me to write my thoughts here and come here and read my crap to myself.
Now it feels like a totally different blog. It's sad. It's filled with disease and death and sadness and sense of desperation and defeat I've never experienced in all my years. I know that I've had a really bad two years but somehow in those two years I've lost every little spark of happy I had. And I haven't really wanted to do anything about it.
I withdrew. I stopped blogging except for show announcements. I stopped IMing with people I spoke to on a regular basis. I stopped most of my communications with pretty much everyone except Darkstar.
I always thought of myself as a capable person. When the apartment burned down and we lost everything, I was calm and dealt with it. I've endured a few tragedies with friends and always considered myself capable and maybe even strong.
Sometimes I wasn't the nicest person in the world but shit, we can't always be nice. There are people I screwed, people I've said sorry to or should have said sorry to, people I've wronged. I'm human. I don't think I was ever a bad person though. I always believed in myself.
The past two years have stripped away much of the veneer and the fact that I know I'm getting worse again each day with the kidneys (you can tell, there are fairly disgusting symptons) and I've lost my heath, my father, my dignity, my pride, my independence, my cocky side.
I've become perpetually sad, like this blog.
It's not depression in the classic sense but it's definite sad. It's finally starting to hit me that my life will never be the same no matter how much I cry over it or will it to be or want it to be or cry for it to be. Like it or not, I'm going to have to either accept a kidney transplant or die. Considering I never had any of this until Kingston GAVE it to me, it's still all sinking in. Maybe two years (well, a tad under two years) is a long time and maybe I'm slow but it's all finally becoming real. Like it or not, this is my life now.
I haven't figured out a way out of the hole of sad I've dug myself into and to be honest I haven't really done much to try.
This blog used to help me, it used to be a form of therapy for me. Now all I see when I come here is the sad.
I don't want to start a new blog and pretend none of it ever happened and changed my life. I could give it a complete re-vamp but that requires the ability to sit and think and do things for a few hours and that's hard lately in between the increased throwing up and the rest of it.
I know that where I'm at right now is not a place I can stay. I'm slowly making my kidneys worse paying no attention to the diet (hell, it all comes back up anyway so who cares how much potassium is in those taters) and I don't like being sad all the time. As bad off as I am, there are people worse off than I and they haven't given up.
I don't want to go talk to anyone except for the fact that it helps the lawsuit. I have one or two or three friends I can say anything to who know me well enough to speak wisely. I know what I'm doing, I know I'm self-sabotaging and wallowing in sad and doing everything wrong.
Fact: I will never have my father back.
Fact: I will never have healthy kidneys.
Fact: I will need a kidney transplant in the next few years.
Fact: They're going to try and put me back on dialysis.
Fact: Throwing up 3-21 times a day is not normal.
Fact: This is my life now. I am powerless to change any of it.
Fact: However, I am not powerless to change how I deal with any of it.
They say the first step is admitting the problem. I've never had trouble with admitting the problem but here I am saying it out loud. Doesn't mean I'm having any great epiphany either, I may post this and go back to my shell of nothingness and hang out there but hopefully this will poke at me enough that I can change this blog to make it look new.
I'm not at the new beginnings stage yet. I'm still stuck in limbo medically and financially so I can't even claim with determination that I'm ready to move on. I guess maybe I can stick something pink on the walls of limbo and try a little harder to get out of it, I don't know.
It sounds so fucken corny but I don't know myself anymore. Who is this fatherless sad person with the dead kidneys and nonstop puking and where the hell did she come from? Just because I didn't cause any of this doesn't mean I have to live with the victim mentality (thanks, Darkstar). I hate victims and I've let my head turn my into one.
I finally got my full set of records and looked at the 'lost week.' Those 6 days of seizures and near death in ICU are all there in print and I sat and read them and cried. My mother lied, I asked her if I peed on myself when I had the seizure and she said no but there it was in the records, 'patient had incontinence and was foaming at the mouth.' Hullo. This was me? Are you sure? ME? Lemme tell ya, it's a little trippy finding out two years later what happened during six days that were completely blank.
So back to this blog. I'm probably going to unlink it from Facebook. If I manage to change the look I'll be doing a lot of writing as I try to get my shit together and I'm not sure I want that auto linking there. Anyone who gives a damn knows where to go.
YummY used to do this thing where she posted a few positive things at the end of every entry, 'the little things' I think she called it. It's a good practise, I've swam in the negativity all day, I should end with finding something positive.
I will change this blog.
My fat grey cat sleeps right next to me every night.
Chocolate cherries.
Three is all I've got.
Yah. I'm done. My hole is calling.
Now it feels like a totally different blog. It's sad. It's filled with disease and death and sadness and sense of desperation and defeat I've never experienced in all my years. I know that I've had a really bad two years but somehow in those two years I've lost every little spark of happy I had. And I haven't really wanted to do anything about it.
I withdrew. I stopped blogging except for show announcements. I stopped IMing with people I spoke to on a regular basis. I stopped most of my communications with pretty much everyone except Darkstar.
I always thought of myself as a capable person. When the apartment burned down and we lost everything, I was calm and dealt with it. I've endured a few tragedies with friends and always considered myself capable and maybe even strong.
Sometimes I wasn't the nicest person in the world but shit, we can't always be nice. There are people I screwed, people I've said sorry to or should have said sorry to, people I've wronged. I'm human. I don't think I was ever a bad person though. I always believed in myself.
The past two years have stripped away much of the veneer and the fact that I know I'm getting worse again each day with the kidneys (you can tell, there are fairly disgusting symptons) and I've lost my heath, my father, my dignity, my pride, my independence, my cocky side.
I've become perpetually sad, like this blog.
It's not depression in the classic sense but it's definite sad. It's finally starting to hit me that my life will never be the same no matter how much I cry over it or will it to be or want it to be or cry for it to be. Like it or not, I'm going to have to either accept a kidney transplant or die. Considering I never had any of this until Kingston GAVE it to me, it's still all sinking in. Maybe two years (well, a tad under two years) is a long time and maybe I'm slow but it's all finally becoming real. Like it or not, this is my life now.
I haven't figured out a way out of the hole of sad I've dug myself into and to be honest I haven't really done much to try.
This blog used to help me, it used to be a form of therapy for me. Now all I see when I come here is the sad.
I don't want to start a new blog and pretend none of it ever happened and changed my life. I could give it a complete re-vamp but that requires the ability to sit and think and do things for a few hours and that's hard lately in between the increased throwing up and the rest of it.
I know that where I'm at right now is not a place I can stay. I'm slowly making my kidneys worse paying no attention to the diet (hell, it all comes back up anyway so who cares how much potassium is in those taters) and I don't like being sad all the time. As bad off as I am, there are people worse off than I and they haven't given up.
I don't want to go talk to anyone except for the fact that it helps the lawsuit. I have one or two or three friends I can say anything to who know me well enough to speak wisely. I know what I'm doing, I know I'm self-sabotaging and wallowing in sad and doing everything wrong.
Fact: I will never have my father back.
Fact: I will never have healthy kidneys.
Fact: I will need a kidney transplant in the next few years.
Fact: They're going to try and put me back on dialysis.
Fact: Throwing up 3-21 times a day is not normal.
Fact: This is my life now. I am powerless to change any of it.
Fact: However, I am not powerless to change how I deal with any of it.
They say the first step is admitting the problem. I've never had trouble with admitting the problem but here I am saying it out loud. Doesn't mean I'm having any great epiphany either, I may post this and go back to my shell of nothingness and hang out there but hopefully this will poke at me enough that I can change this blog to make it look new.
I'm not at the new beginnings stage yet. I'm still stuck in limbo medically and financially so I can't even claim with determination that I'm ready to move on. I guess maybe I can stick something pink on the walls of limbo and try a little harder to get out of it, I don't know.
It sounds so fucken corny but I don't know myself anymore. Who is this fatherless sad person with the dead kidneys and nonstop puking and where the hell did she come from? Just because I didn't cause any of this doesn't mean I have to live with the victim mentality (thanks, Darkstar). I hate victims and I've let my head turn my into one.
I finally got my full set of records and looked at the 'lost week.' Those 6 days of seizures and near death in ICU are all there in print and I sat and read them and cried. My mother lied, I asked her if I peed on myself when I had the seizure and she said no but there it was in the records, 'patient had incontinence and was foaming at the mouth.' Hullo. This was me? Are you sure? ME? Lemme tell ya, it's a little trippy finding out two years later what happened during six days that were completely blank.
So back to this blog. I'm probably going to unlink it from Facebook. If I manage to change the look I'll be doing a lot of writing as I try to get my shit together and I'm not sure I want that auto linking there. Anyone who gives a damn knows where to go.
YummY used to do this thing where she posted a few positive things at the end of every entry, 'the little things' I think she called it. It's a good practise, I've swam in the negativity all day, I should end with finding something positive.
I will change this blog.
My fat grey cat sleeps right next to me every night.
Chocolate cherries.
Three is all I've got.
Yah. I'm done. My hole is calling.
Sunday, February 07, 2010
Remembering Claudie and Sherpa’s One Year With Us
Four years ago today I lost my best friend and my 'Muse the mews."
It still makes me sad, I still miss that cat terribly. I have his ashes in an urn by my bed, I talk to him now and then and I swear sometimes he's here playing with the rest of them when they chase off after nothing.
He was my first cat, he was my love and he was responsible for making me the crazy cat lady I am today.
I didn't want this day to go forgotten.
I still love you and miss you, Claudie.
I wrote this last year, it seemed worth re-posting. More on Sherpa as she is now tomorrow!
Three years ago today I lost my first cat. Claude was my best friend, the keeper of my secrets and my strength. He was my 'Muse that Mews' and I still miss him dearly. Even my dad liked Claude, he would sleep right next to the heater in the den with him. I keep Claude's ashes in an urn on my desk and I still talk to him and miss him.
So it seems fitting that on the anniversary of a loss we celebrate an addition.
My mother and I decided this house needed something so we went for a cat. I have a hell of a story to tell about that but I'm going to save that, this entry is written with respect for my Claudie.
Please allow me to introduce the newest addition to the Ives family - Sherpa. Yes, Sherpa.
She's 6-7 months old and she hasn't stopped running since we let her out of the carrier. She's sweet and full of life and I think today was the first day I smiled and meant it since my dad died.
Here's to a long and happy life, little Sherpa. And Claudie, you are always with me to this day. I hope you're out there sleeping next to my dad and his heater somewhere.
Meow.
It still makes me sad, I still miss that cat terribly. I have his ashes in an urn by my bed, I talk to him now and then and I swear sometimes he's here playing with the rest of them when they chase off after nothing.
He was my first cat, he was my love and he was responsible for making me the crazy cat lady I am today.
I didn't want this day to go forgotten.
I still love you and miss you, Claudie.
I wrote this last year, it seemed worth re-posting. More on Sherpa as she is now tomorrow!
Three years ago today I lost my first cat. Claude was my best friend, the keeper of my secrets and my strength. He was my 'Muse that Mews' and I still miss him dearly. Even my dad liked Claude, he would sleep right next to the heater in the den with him. I keep Claude's ashes in an urn on my desk and I still talk to him and miss him.
So it seems fitting that on the anniversary of a loss we celebrate an addition.
My mother and I decided this house needed something so we went for a cat. I have a hell of a story to tell about that but I'm going to save that, this entry is written with respect for my Claudie.
Please allow me to introduce the newest addition to the Ives family - Sherpa. Yes, Sherpa.
She's 6-7 months old and she hasn't stopped running since we let her out of the carrier. She's sweet and full of life and I think today was the first day I smiled and meant it since my dad died.
Here's to a long and happy life, little Sherpa. And Claudie, you are always with me to this day. I hope you're out there sleeping next to my dad and his heater somewhere.
Meow.
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
LIVE 24 HOUR BEG-A-THON THIS SATURDAY ON KMRL, 9AM SAT. TO 9AM SUN.
Yes, are are that crazy.
We've had some amazing responses to the call for help and I am THRILLED to say we raised enough to go back on the air with live shows! Thank you over and over to all of you who were kind enough to get us back to working status!
However, we need more. We lost the capability for a decent default rotation and that sucks. We have it in the works, we just need to raise more money.
So we got together and brainstormed and the most fun way we could think of to raise money was to have a live 24 hour beg-a-thon! 24 live hours of the DJs you know and love, good music and us asking you for your donations!
We'll sing for your donations, we'll sing your praises along with anything you want us to sing. We'll have a raffle or two for some small prizes to show our appreciation.
We'll have a special guest during Darkstar's show as the wonderful Leslie Savage makes her KMRL debut! We'll have the chatroom going the entire 24 hours as well and who knows who else might show up for the fun!
As of now, the PoorBastards of Mojo Radio Live Beg-a-thon will run as follows:
SAT. 9AM - 1PM - TreemanX
Sat. 1PM - 5/6PM - TBA
Sat. 5/6PM - 10/11PM - Deathsquad
Sat. 10/11PM - Sun. 3AM - Darkstar
Sun. 3AM - 9AM - Kittyn anchoring the rear!
Please join us for the Beg-a-thon even if you're just there to root us on and keep us going!
Those of you who want to donate, our paypal email is
We're looking forward to your company for the 'thon and we'll be updating during the week!
Spread the word! We need YOU!
Thanks!
KMRL Beg-a-thon
Saturday, January 16th - 9AM to Sunday, January 17th - 9AM
We've had some amazing responses to the call for help and I am THRILLED to say we raised enough to go back on the air with live shows! Thank you over and over to all of you who were kind enough to get us back to working status!
However, we need more. We lost the capability for a decent default rotation and that sucks. We have it in the works, we just need to raise more money.
So we got together and brainstormed and the most fun way we could think of to raise money was to have a live 24 hour beg-a-thon! 24 live hours of the DJs you know and love, good music and us asking you for your donations!
We'll sing for your donations, we'll sing your praises along with anything you want us to sing. We'll have a raffle or two for some small prizes to show our appreciation.
We'll have a special guest during Darkstar's show as the wonderful Leslie Savage makes her KMRL debut! We'll have the chatroom going the entire 24 hours as well and who knows who else might show up for the fun!
As of now, the PoorBastards of Mojo Radio Live Beg-a-thon will run as follows:
SAT. 9AM - 1PM - TreemanX
Sat. 1PM - 5/6PM - TBA
Sat. 5/6PM - 10/11PM - Deathsquad
Sat. 10/11PM - Sun. 3AM - Darkstar
Sun. 3AM - 9AM - Kittyn anchoring the rear!
Please join us for the Beg-a-thon even if you're just there to root us on and keep us going!
Those of you who want to donate, our paypal email is
We're looking forward to your company for the 'thon and we'll be updating during the week!
Spread the word! We need YOU!
Thanks!
KMRL Beg-a-thon
Saturday, January 16th - 9AM to Sunday, January 17th - 9AM
