playing catch-up

I have not posted for a while, and while normally I'd sit down and catch up on it bit by bit, the sad fact of the matter is that I'm still posting entries from April over here, and to be honest, I'd rather just pretend the entire thing never happened.

So.

It has been a weird and wiggy year, and the damn thing is only two months old, if that. (Speaking of which, my sister's turning 30 tomorrow. Haha! Old, responsible sister! ...except not.) First there was the flu of death, which wiped me and the husband out for pretty much a solid month. Inconvenient timing.

Right after the new year, I had a doctor's appointment with my current OB/Gyn. There was a little of this and a little of that, and anyway, the long and the short of it was that there was a small scare through the month of January, which wasn't really serious! Really! But then the husband and I got sick, which meant I couldn't schedule the procedure until beginning of February-ish, when I was mobile again. And then my doctor disappeared, and his office didn't return my phone calls for some reason or another, so I didn't get my results and OH NO ...

It was a stressful month, but the doctor's office finally called me back late last week, and all is well. Which I pretty much figured, but it's always good to get the validation.

It's a random fact that despite my involvement with the medical software business, all the people around me seem to be dying. I mean, barring the natural progression towards death that is part of the human condition: literally, dying. One of the people in my office died about a year ago, due to a possibly diabetes-related form of cancer that was so rare, they'd only had four instances of it on record, ever. One of the people in QA is, I believe, in stage 4; she hasn't been in the office for about two months now, and about the only reason I know she's not already dead is--

--scratch that. I'm not entirely sure that I do know she's not dead. Someone would have told me though, I think, since her manager is one of my friends in the office. And she'd probably know, wouldn't she? (Would she? I should maybe check with her.)

Meanwhile, one of my friends is having a scare of her own, one that has been ongoing for far longer than it should have ever been allowed to go. Due to assorted stupidities on the part of medical insurance, communication between doctors, and general feet-dragging, it is now 6 months later, and they have just now scheduled her for a biopsy. Medicine in America, ladies and gents. If anyone tells you that there's a solution, they're part of the problem.

All of which has succeeded in pushing me off my procrastinating ass. Life is too short to dawdle. Today, we signed the paperwork to officially make an offer for a townhouse in Santa Clara.

It's our first home offer, and we're told that these often don't go through, which is fine. It's a home that we can see ourselves living in for a while, and while we're not in love with it -- always a safer bet in this particular housing market -- we definitely could after we've been there a while. The house is 1700 sq ft, 3 bedrooms and 2.5 baths, has wood floors and a private backyard that's a good size for small parties. Living room, dining room, nice kitchen, and a 2-car garage, and all for the listing price of $664,900.

Our real estate market's still a little nuts, yo.

When I mention that this was one of the cheapest things we've seen, it just goes to show you. When we first started looking for houses, I was anticipating having to spend at least $800k, but we've got a great real estate agent who's been doing a hell of a lot of filtering for us.

God. Buying a house. That's a little depressingly grown-up, isn't it? I'll have a mortgage soon.

Bleh.

Along the same lines of mortality and personal projects dreamed of but never quite started -- I've started collecting my family stories into an actual ... what's the word? Singular mess? I am not Hemingway. My stories have very little merit. However, they do have a single good quality, which is that they are related to my family, and to specific branches of my family, at that. When my father passed away, I thought I would remember his stories forever -- God knows, he repeated them to us often enough -- but the sad fact is, it's now 11 years later and I can only remember a very precious few.

Memory's a swiftly fading thing. Especially if you're me.

If I plan on having children, or even if I don't; if my sister does, or my cousins do -- have done, in fact, but never mind that (overachieving bastards) -- I'd like to give them something a little more meaningful than another swiftly fading memory of that small, squirrely Asian chick with the glasses who talks really fast.

So anyway. Personal projects that I never started. So now I've started.

Finishing? That's a whole other ball of shit.