So, I went to Alabama last week because my little brother Rushkae had some medical procedures going on. I drove with my mom there from central FL. We left at like 3 am and I am absolutely non-functional if I'm tired, so she ended up driving the whole way while I slept in the back seat. We brought Kidow the cat along, and she's actually quite the good-natured traveller! Didn't whine once, even though we couldn't exactly let her out for bathroom breaks or anything. She's a kitty leash escape artist. For the future, do any experienced cat owners know of litterbox solutions for cars? There's gotta be something we can do.

We stayed at a decent, but extremely overpriced hotel. My dad and brothers stayed on the first floor, and my mom and I and Kidow on the second. The second day, my youngest brother Skandrae brought their dog, Lucky, over. Kidow did not like Lucky. Lucky liked Kidow, but more in the "OMG YOU LOOK LIKE FOOD AND YOU SMELL LIKE BACON" way.

The night before we left, we played Trivial Pursuit until like 3am. The girl team totally pwned the boy team.

I wore Lolita all week. My dad didn't mind it, although I'm sure he was weirded out by my mom's obsessive picture-taking. Rushkae was embarassed, but that's his issue.

Mom and I went to a cool civil rights museum [she was pissed they didn't have anything about the Kennedys in it, though] and went to a cool little soul food restaurant where my anxiety went through the roof because I couldn't shake the feeling that I didn't belong there and my mom would not stay in line and stop blocking people. *sigh* Realllly good food, though, although I forgot that almost everything would have meat in it T___T blech

The drive home sucked hard because we left in the afternoon. We missed a turn so we got to go down backroads all through southern AL and a bit of northern FL. Very, very pretty. Florala is a gorgeous town. We pulled up by a lake and saw some toddlers chasing ducks. It was adorable. We didn't get home until early morning, though. I ended up having to take a half-day off work to sleep for a bit.

It was a really good trip, though, I'm really glad I went!


Rushkae had an appointment to determine whether he should or would or could be put on the transplant list for a new liver. It seemed like he had to have every kind of medical test under the sun, plus things like meeting with psychologists, nutritionists, and social workers. He totally schooled his nutritionist. It was awesome. After about five minutes she gave up [including whimpering something about only being there to educate him about lowering his salt intake, etc.] and is going to use him as an example for her future patients/clients/whatever. Rushkae knows more about nutrition than most expert nutritionists and doctors combined, so it was just genuinely hilarious. He was also on par with his doctors as far as basic medical knowledge, and he was discussing his treatments and conditions with them like a colleague. It was really awesome to watch. It's too bad his grades suck due to lack of any and all motivation, he'd be an absolutely brilliant medical professional of any sort.

I, however, am completely lost when it comes to that stuff. I don't even know the first thing about my own stuff that I'm dealing with. So it was really good to finally meet with a doctor who spoke in layman's terms and get to understand what exactly was going on with Rush. Apparently his HepC [which as far as they can tell, he's been dealing with since birth. Best guess is an unclean immunization needle or some such] is unable to be treated with regular medication because his platelet count is crazy low, possibly due to his extremely enlarged spleen [and I'm already starting to get all fuzzy with remembering the details and organs and crap] if I remember right, and the genotype of the disease is another reason they can't treat him as they usually would, so basically he's been controlling it purely on diet and exercise and whatnot, and yet even though he is in the worst stages of it, his liver is functioning essentially normally and he's extremely healthy, which everyone was really surprised at. They're thinking of maybe doing a TIPS shunt thingy for his liver to try and help the low-platelet issue, and did a helpful stick-figure drawing that made it fairly easy to understand, although I've forgotten it all by now, but hopefully it will help if they do do that.

All in all, they decided that he was way too healthy and in good shape to be considered for an organ transplant yet, and that would not be the best option anyway because they can't yet treat the actual disease so he would just end up being reinfected and having to do it all over again. So their plan was to try a couple things like the TIPS and some trial medicines and wait a couple years until more effective medicines are on the market.

I'm just really happy to finally know what exactly is going on with him and to know that he's doing very well. I've always known in my heart that he'd be just fine, but it's good to hear encouraging news toward that conclusion.


I saw Star Trek on Friday and almost died of love.

First off, I want to state that I didn't mind the time travel bit like most people seem to, but I'm not a trekkie by any means [my biggest joy was just knowing all the damn characters for once, and actually <i>getting</i> most of the references/inside jokes/etc.] and that sort of plot never bothers me, as it does some people. All in all, I was literally jumping up and down with happiness over how great the movie was.

Simon Pegg as Scotty was just the best casting choice in history. Also, I'm officially in love with Zachary Quinto. I kept expecting him to go all Sylar halfway through the movie, yet was not disappointed.

As far as dislikes, I agree with mhael 's last two points: Nimoy was... off... and rock-ewok needed to go.

The effects were beyond phenomenal. It made me realize that we've actually gotten to that point I've been dreaming of since I saw Jurassic Park in elementary school [which I guess makes one of us either old or young, depending]. So freaking happy. Everything was flawless!

Also, the trailers were about as good as the movie. I literally CANNOT WAIT for Transformers and Terminator.


Saturday I hung out with my friends

I went to help Cheshire move and pick out paint for her new apartment [which is ridiculously gorgeous, btw] and she let me pick out paint for the back/craft room for the-shop-that-will-happen-or-else. I picked Steampunk stripes: Rich chocolate-y brown and metallic brass. My mom is incredulous that we were/she is going to paint without having done it before. I had to leave before we started actual painting, so I still don't know how it went.

Afterwards, we scrambled to be on time to meet Wash and Zoe for a long, long, LONG-overdue hang out session. We went to dinner, where Wash and Wicked regaled everyone with awesome stories, then to bowling, where I totally pwned [and Zoe taught me how to make origami cranes! I've always wanted to learn that!]. Then we went to the arcade and did little-kid bowling, ski ball [at which I totally pwned], and an epic air hocky match [at which I totally pwned. TWICE]. With our tickets, we each got a giant pixie stick and a cheapie hackeysack.

When we got home, we gathered around the table doing pixie stick shots and amusing ourselves with how awesomely weird we are. Then we played Uno and watched Care Bears and totally ripped it apart with innuendos and horrible jokes. It was MST3K on acid. With pixie sticks.

Needless to say, I slept till noon the next day [yay, sugar coma] and totally missed half of mother's day. Then I spent the next three hours trying to convince Wicked to come with me [like he said he would six times] to my mom's for mother's day, but nothin' doin'. I got to hear over and over about how late I was and now we couldn't do anything once I got there, but I got her over that hurdle and helped her move some heavy ass furniture around [at this point, between bowling balls, moving boxes, and entertainment centers, I'm kind of tired of picking up heavy things] *grumble grumble* Then we made dinner and watched Secret Life of Bees, which is going on my favorite movies list [I'm a sucker for Dakota Fanning and Jennifer Hudson, wdywfm].


And it literally took me two hours to write this update....