Brain currently booting in Safe Mode

I went out to see two movies yesterday, at two separate theatres, which happens so rarely I can count the times that it has happened on one hand and still have fingers left over.

First up, we took Declan out to see Cars 3. If you completely ignore Cars 2 (or think of it as an unfortunate direct-to-video Mater movie), this is the actual sequel to Cars. It's funny and touching and FEELS like the first movie, which the second never did. And yes, at one point there were onion ninjas in the theatre. Declan flaps his arms when he gets super excited. There were a few points where I was convinced he was going to fly away he was flapping that hard and fast. Worth watching with, or without, kids in tow.

Later, I went out with clawfoot for Spider-Man: Homecoming. I wasn't expecting much, which is probably why I enjoyed it so damn much. The acting was superb and the casting was pretty much perfect. Tom Holland is spot on for Peter Parker, and Michael Keaton made the Vulture human. One other thing that I noticed was this: the cast was MIXED race. Not everyone who was named/part of the comic's rich and varied history was white. They found the best actors for the roles, skin colour be damned. It made me believe in Spider-Man's universe just a little bit more. It's also funny and heroic and the end-credit scene is probably my favourite of the lot thus far.

This weekend, both of my D&D games happened. My Saturday night game, run by Dulthgaiea, started late and ended really late. There was a lot of rain and only one encounter. One encounter in which Murphy was sitting at the table and proudly rolling dice. There was comedy, sure, but it's the type of comedy where if you have to laugh, lest you fall in a pit of ennui and never come out again. Now Dulth and I get to sort this mess out between games just to keep things moving.

Yesterday was my 4e game. We got through TWO encounters! Two! Ooooo, exciting! ;)

(Mostly it was just the three of us catching up and kvetching for the first half, running through one relatively easy encounter, then lunch out, followed by blowing through a second. We went to South St Burger for lunch. It was...okay? I didn't find the burger patty particularly flavourful, although it was juicy. And why does everything have to be Angus beef these days? Was I expecting too much? I doubt I will go back because it was a 'premium' fast food place, and I have no desire to pay that much for something that I find to be meh.)

I FINALLY GOT TO SEE ROGUE ONE! WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN ALL MY LIFE?! I greatly enjoyed it, loved the diverse cast, and the Star Wars easter eggs. I also think that it's my (current) favourite Star Wars film. The story is solid and that ending? Magnifique! If anyone needs me, I'll be over here, geeking out about how amazing it is.

And it's that time of year again; Jump Rope for Heart has rolled around again. Here is Declan's online donate link if you are so inclined: http://support.heartandstroke.ca/goto/bigsister

Bedtime, soon, methinks. I spent the evening with clawfoot, eating burgers and junk food and watching Black Hawk Down (plus American Dad on Global, as it just happened to be on television once the DVD player was turned off..it was amusing, however). It's odd. After two weeks of not eating crap, I feel slow and sluggish now. I guess I did before, but never noticed. If eating too many potato chips and having an ice cream bar and drinking one can of gingerale makes me feel like this, then it's time to stop. I haven't really missed it up until this point (well, except for ice cream...I can eat that stuff for breakfast and have done on occasion), so it will be good to just keep it up as a rare treat and not buy stuff like that every time we do groceries.

Bed time now. Work tomorrow. I need to get quarters and bus tickets and I have to get the bedding washed sometime this week and still finish my costume. Busy week ahead. Busy busy week. I should get some sleep if I'm going to tackle it.

Just called the hospital. Shannon's taken a slight downturn. The CO2 levels in her blood are too high, so they're going to put her on a different ventilator (one called an oscillator) to see if that helps. They were fine before we left, so I'm hoping that it's just a minor setback and oscillator does the trick.

And we've now finally seen Episode III. It was much much better than I was expecting (and since I wasn't expecting anything except some Ewan-y goodness, it was a pleasant surprise). I noticed, too, that the Padme/Anakin scenes were painful (as warned), but whenever one of them acted against someone else, their own abilities were magnified. Now maybe that's just some wishful thinking or it's a result of others talent masking their own woodenness, but it was still very obvious.

Ooooo! I can't forget the trailers. One was for the Fantastic Four (I'm so worried it's going to suck and suck hard), another was for the Island (more Ewan-y goodness), and the last made me clap my hands like a little girl. I have now seen a trailer for The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. It looked really good. And come December, I'm going to see it on opening night if I can.

And one more thing...

In honour of clawfoot's Study Carrel Graffiti, I bring you Theatre Bathroom Graffiti...

I am not a nugget.

But you are an idiot for writing that.

Things were better today. After the rocky start and the crash, there was some improvement. Before Shannon went into the Cath Lab, the doctors and nurses were tense and falsely hopeful. After, the hope was genuine and the relief was obvious.

It's really odd when you're waving to doctors in the hallway because you know who they are. It's not unpleasant, but it is a reminder that we've spent too much freaking time in that hospital. One of the nurses that looked after Shannon when she was in a step-down room on 4D noticed that we were waiting in the Surgical Lounge and came in to talk to us. Today, while Shannon was in the Cath Lab, she came in again to see how things were. It was comforting, in a way, if a bit strange...mostly on account of her being from Elmira and having worked with Shannon's paediatrician. Small world, indeed.

Dried cantaloupe is really tasty.

Walking down Yonge, there was a mounted policeman. There is definitely a dichotomy between the horse (which was a lovely chocolate brown) and the flak jacket and firearm. On the way back from seeing "Madagascar", we passed a group of fairies. I'm not being derogatory, either. It was a group of gay men dressed in pink leotards with tutus and carrying fairy wands. :)

I'm doing some laundry and I noticed that the furnace was on AGAIN! WTF? It's not that cold, even in the basement apartment. And if you are cold, put on a sweater or something, but for the love of Pete, don't turn on the fucking heat until October.

With the last of the money from fuzzpsych's grandmother, I went to Zellers and bought a Jolly Jumper. Shannon's not quite sure what to make of it, but she doesn't scream when she's put into it, so I'm going to take that as a positive sign. She should figure it out soon enough, and then she will scream, but only when we're taking her out! :)

The surgery date is looming ahead. We're both under constant stress and unease. The next two weeks are going to be maddening...not all anticipation is good. Adding to this is another layer of stress coming from my mom. When we told both sets of parental units about the surgery and about our wish to not have them come down to the hospital and wait with us, my in-laws agreed to that without argument and will only come down when it's a good time for Shannon to have visitors, but my mom is being argumentative.

Let me set the stage for Shannon's first heart surgery (PDA Stent and Bilateral Pulmonary Banding...also called the Hybrid Procedure) on 2004 Dec 07: the grandparents (my in-laws and mom) want to be there. I would rather that they didn't, but fuzzpsych wanted them to be there for support, so I relented. I don't play well with others at the best of times, and being under so much stress, I couldn't handle anyone, so I went into the CCU waiting lounge across the hall alone. fuzzpsych felt like he was being pulled in two directions and he also felt that he had to entertain the grandparents while at the hospital. I felt pressured and high strung for most of the day until my sister stopped by in the late afternoon. I started to calm down. While my sister was there, the grandparents left to go home (thank the gods) and after seeing Shannon one more time, we went back to my sister's place with her on the subway, had a bite to eat, then met up with clawfoot and epi_lj for the Spongebob Squarepants Movie.

All in all, not a very pleasant experience. We both had enough on our plates with the Hybrid procedure without fuzzpsych having to deal with family and me trying to avoid them. It clearly didn't work very well. This time, we decided to do this one alone, calling with the result as soon as we knew what was going on.

But that's not good enough for my mom.

When we told her the surgery date, she argued against our explicit wish to not come to Sick Kids. She's even using strong arm tactics to guilt/pressure my in-laws (who are being incredibly supportive about this) into changing their minds so that she can be there. I understand that she's terrified. But she has no right to make this all about her. She made the case that if something happens, she wants to be there to say goodbye. But this is open heart surgery with a heart-lung machine and the whole works. If something happens (touch wood that it doesn't), it will happen fast. There won't be time for the kind of goodbyes where Shannon can hear them. It will be too late for that.

I know it's morbid and negative to think like this, but this is why they have survival rates for surgeries.

I want her to understand that we're not doing this as a punishment or to marginalize her importance in Shannon's life, but that as her parents we have to be as focused as possible and we can only do that without distraction from the parental units. fuzzpsych is going to talk to my mom about this sometime this week. If I went with him, it would become a heated argument and it wouldn't get anyone anywhere.

I'm just don't want this to turn into a grudge. My mom and her brother no longer speak to each other because when he needed her to be there for him, she was too busy with something else (this was 7 years ago!). It's stupid, but that's all it takes, and I'm worried that this whole surgery thing is going to cut me off from my mom and poison the it's-now-finally-a-good relationship I have with my sister (which is very bad, since we'll be staying with my sister and her boyfriend while in Toronto).

Now my tummy is urpy. :P That's enough or I will get an ulcer.