I can't decide who's the cutest!

This evening Benjamin's sister and her family stopped by to borrow tapes of HBO's Carnivale. Of course the kids inspired me to get out the camera. :-)

I made a chicken pot pie for dinner Monday night. It was very yummy but I think the chicken I used was suspect because I got really nauseous before bed. Well, I know what to do differently next time.

Pete carpooled home with us today.

Saturday night our friend Rob came over to play a new video game beta with Benjamin. Then the three of us walked up to the sweet little Italian place near us and ate a yummy dinner and drank a good pinot griogio.

J.R. was my knight in silver Beetle today. I missed the shuttle to physical therapy (due to a SharePoint issue I don't care to go into right now) so J.R. let me drive his Beetle to the Pro Club and back. Thanks, J.R.!

Pain and depression

I have a "repetitive stress injury" (RSI) that makes typing and mousing cause pain in my hands and forearms, as well as giving me headaches over the course of the day. Yet I work on a computer all day. I have an L&I claim open (worker's compensation) and have been receiving physical therapy for several months. Recently L&I has started giving me shit and denying my claims/referrals for an MRI and visit to a neurologist. They tell me fucked up things like "we need objective measures of your condition and pain is subjective so we can't consider that". So I tell them, well I have reduced range of motion in my neck and reduced sensation in my hands, as measured by my physical therapist. So they say "we can't rely on those reports because your physical therapist is not a medical doctor". But my primary care doctor and the neurologist both just do gross examinations of range of motion, meaning they just look at you and see if you can move okay rather than actually measuring the degree of motion, and they say my range of motion appears normal. So I got an MRI even though L&I said no and today I went to the neurosurgeon. He was a dork and just basically said "your MRI looks fine; you don't need surgery so you need to go see someone else. I am not interested in figuring out the cause of your condition." The one potentially good thing he did was have a series of 7 x-rays of my neck taken in different positions to see if my cervical spine moves correctly (the MRI is with the neck in a single position while lying down). After the 18 x-rays they took of the teeth at the dentist yesterday I am just all full of nasty rays. In terms of my RSI I feel like everyone is telling me it's just my imagination and shuttling me on to someone else. So then every time my hands hurt (all the time) it makes me angry and frustrated. The woman administering my L&I claim treats me like a criminal; like I am out to defraud the system. I understand that they have to watch for this, but there is no secondary benefit to me so why would I do this? If I were getting narcotics or getting paid not to work I could see being cautious but who the hell wants to get an MRI for shits & giggles? If you ever have the option of going through insurance versus L&I, stick with insurance (at least at Microsoft). The insurance companies at least believe your doctor when s/he says something is medically necessary, whereas the asses at L&I tell you your pain isn't valid and send you to stupid "independent medical examinations" so that other doctors can say you are really just fine.

Another Congressional seat for the Dems?

Have you heard that Jennifer Dunn, the current congressperson for Washington's 8th district, is not running again this year? Her seat could go Democrat in this election and we'd have one more Dem on our side in the house. I recently listened to interviews with the Democratic candidates for the 8th district on KUOW. The three candidates are Dave Ross, Alex Alben and Heidi Behrens-Benedict. I'm not an expert on these candidates, but I have to say I really liked Alex Alben and I found Dave Ross to be really slippery (he constantly diffused questions and wouldn't state his position on issues). In contrast, Alben was concise and definitive in answering questions and stating his positions. I was unimpressed by Heidi Behrens-Benedict; she has already run for this seat several times and seems to be the type of candidate who isn't running to win but to "foster discussion of the issues." So, if you live in the 8th district I would encourage you to vote for Alben in the primary on September 14th. If you don't live in the 8th but want to see more Democrats in Congress I would encourage you to donate money to Alex Alben and/or the Democratic primary winner for this seat. Thoughts?

This is the current transmission on my PuppyCam™. :-)

It poured rain last night and the skies were stormy while we drove home from Lake Roosevelt today.

In addition to the houseboat we also rent a small speedboat along with water skis and an innertube. I went innertubing on Saturday and it was tons of fun, but my back muscles are killing me now!

This weekend Benjamin went on the annual houseboat trip with Peter, et al.

Who to endorse for WA Dem Gubernatorial candidate in Sept primary

There has been some discussion recently about who is a better Dem candidate for WA governor – Ron Sims or Christine Gregoire. I have to admit I don’t have long-standing knowledge of either one, but I am leaning toward Gregoire. Many of us on this mail are upset about Ron Sims’ proposed 65/10 rule restricting King County residents’ use of their own personal property. In addition not everyone agrees with his sweeping tax reform proposal. In addition to reading his proposal there is also a recent Seattle Times article about it. I know many of us have some doubts about Gregoire, but two things I found interesting were her endorsements and a recent article talking about how her plans are more realistic than Sims’ and how she has more appeal to voters statewide and is leading against the primary Republican contender, Rossi, in the polls. One of the things dogging Gregoire is the past scandal over the handling of a criminal database project her office was in charge of. There is a Seattle PI article on this issue from May. There are some who feel she should have taken responsibility for the failure and some allegations of money mismanagement in her office which may have resulting in the firing of some employees. Ron Sims has been dinged for trying to thwart the monorail project and I think I heard something about money mismanagement around him too, but I don’t have any info on that. For more info on each candidate you can visit their web sites online at http://www.gregoire2004.com and http://www.ronsimsforgovernor.com There are also some relevant shows in the KUOW archive you may want to listen to: Local News Highlights: Profile of Washington’s Democratic Gubernatorial Candidates Weekday: Gubernatorial Candidate Chris Gregoire Weekday: Gubernatorial Candidate Ron Sims The Conversation: Tax Reform

Tonight my Mom & Rich came to visit and brought Carol along. We had Thai food delivered and ate on the back porch. Carol spent most of the evening wrapping her leash around everything and trying to crawl under the neighbor's fence.

Bevin Keely, the massage therapist Benjamin and I saw for years (until Meghan became a massage therapist) just had her first baby.

Benjamin and I went to my friend Jen's wedding last night at the Dome Room downtown.

This must be Bush's philosophy.

My brother is freakin' hilarious! See the latest photos he posted on our family photo site.

New clematis on my birthday trellis.

One of my Gerbera daisies has been revived by repotting.

There appears to be a rogue wisteria blossom on our vine.

My sweetie knew that I've been having a shitty couple of days so today he not only ran errands for me but also showed up with roses and an adorable card. I'm a lucky girl!

Yesterday Benjamin & I went to see The Manchurian Candidate with his parents and my dad & Mimi. Then we went and had dinner at the Sherry's condo.

I just got home from Jen's "pizza & porn" bachelorette party. We ate a lot and saw more porn than any reasonable girls need to, but it was good fun and we got Jen that much more ready for marriage. :-)

Today Benjamin and I babysat for our nephews for 5 hours. It was exhausting. But isn't this one just the cutest thing in the world? He's a kick in the pants!