I’ve been working a lot lately, scrambling to catch up with some application programming work.  Part of this is a result of being behind the technological curve in terms of the particular programming environment I’m working in (J2EE/WebSphere/Hibernate/Spring).  Suffice it to say I’ve been working some overtime.

At about 2:45 AM this morning I was finishing up for the day.  I had been making progress for about 14 hours straight, and hadn’t recently checked my work into our version control system (CVS) at the office.  Our cat Iris came strutting into my work area, announced her presence, and when I didn’t completely focus on her, started to bump against me.  When that didn’t work, she started climbing over the obstacles on my desk and bumped against my hand- this netted her a couple of pets, but I still was busy trying to wrap things up for the day.  So she decided to take a walk across my keyboard.

I can’t exactly tell you how she did it, but in two or three little dainty steps she somehow managed to:

• turn off EJB interface decorations in Rational Software Architect/Eclipse
• make my entire EJB project (one of five active in my workspace at the time) disappear

Anyone who knows Iris…

… would realize that I haven’t a hope of getting angry at her.  But there I was, thinking that 14 hours of difficult labour was instantly and irrevocably gone…with this little kitten (a bit bigger now than in the picture, but not much) kneading and purring and bumping against my arm as I tried to fix things. 

Fortunately, I soon discovered that the missing EJB project had just been removed from the workspace- it was still actually there.  Of course, I had to re-run my unit tests and stuff, but I had everything back in order about an hour later…at 3:45 AM.

Well, not completely back in order.  I still haven’t figured out what happened to my EJB interface decorations.  They are little iconic characters that appear next to methods to tell you whether they’ve been promoted to the EJB interface classes or not.  If you see them lying around on the floor*, send them back please- my kitten didn’t mean to lose them.

* I’m kidding, of course: this is a software feature you turn off and on- I just haven’t figured out how she turned them off or how to turn it back on yet…

My back problems flared up today big time.  I have some hinky stuff going on with my C4/C5 vertebrae- arthritic growths/bony spurs, microfractures, and stuff like that.  Once in a while something happens and the bones pinch the nerves that run through/near them, or at least that’s how it was explained to me. 

I’m not a doctor, but I can say this: it translates into a lot of pain.  And the really irritating thing is that it isn’t “heroic” pain: I can’t claim I hurt my back playing rugby or sky diving or something.  Instead, more often than not, I have no idea what I’ve done to make things bad. 

Today, the pain started when I put on my shirt: it was bad enough that I couldn’t breath (the pain sort of runs right through my back and into my chest).  I was contemplating working from home at the time, and the pain pretty much cinched my decision.  Of course, since I’m hurting, I’m not able to be particularly productive.

In fact, at the moment, I’m on enough drugs that its actually getting a bit hard to concentrate.  The pain is still there, but its wrapped in a nice layer of cotton batten, or perhaps more accurately my brain is, and so it seems less important.  I spent an hour with a heating pad on my back, and that seemed to help.  But I really don’t know how people with more severe problems handle it- I doff my hat to people living day to day with pain that probably makes what I feel right now seem trivial.  Thank the powers that be that my concerns are relatively trivial.

Earlier this week I was relaxing in the back yard reading a book.  It was about 6:00 PM, and was starting to cool down after reaching 25 degrees Celsius or thereabouts.  I heard a rustling sound in the vines and some odd “chuff” noises from the corner of our gazebo.  I looked in the direction of the sound, and saw Mama Raccoon hanging upside down and peering at me.

She uttered a few more odd sounds (I am not a raccoon person, but they do make funny noises) and sort of drew her self back up into the branches of the overhanging vines.  At this point, I was perhaps 15 feet away from her.  I heard some more rustling in the vines over the gazebo, and then the crows that hang out in our trees started scolding loudly.  I assumed they had just noticed the Mama raccoon…

As I sat there, watching in the direction I had last observed the Mama raccoon, I heard some more chirrups and chuffs coming from a slightly different part of the gazebo.  The vines rustled more vigorously, and then suddenly three baby raccoons, formed up single file, came waddling along the deck.

They chirruped several times each as they made their way around the deck, coming right past me: barely three feet away.  They didn’t run, or stare at me: they just waddled past and into a gap underneath our deck, one by one.  Each of the babies was an odd combination of adult and baby features: a big head, but a very small fluffy body, and a stubby tail. 

A few moments later, Mama raccoon re-appeared in the same spot as previously, hanging down and making odd noises again.  I decided to get out of her way in case she felt she needed to go to exactly the same place as the babies- I slowly gathered my things up and went back into the house.  As it turned out, Mama raccoon had a different entrance on the other side of the deck that she used.

I saw the Mama a couple more times that day.  I’m finding it odd how active the ‘coons are during the daytime.  I *thought* they were supposed to be more nocturnal, and maybe they are more active at night, but they are certainly making appearances during the day.  According to one useful website I found, nursing mother raccoons will go out more often during the day, and raccoons in general are not purely nocturnal.  No need for infrared cameras then, I guess! 

Earlier today, my wife and her parents noticed a raccoon walking through our back yard.  Later, the ‘coon came back, this time poking around under our deck.  This time, I got a look at her (I’ll explain the gender assumption in a moment): she is huge, easily twice the size of our largest cat.  I’d speculate that she’s 30 pounds, give or take.  And she seemed to have absolutely no fear: I stepped out into the back yard, and she turned around as she walked towards our gate and looked at me before walking off.  Our cat Rommel was out in the cat run, and fluffed up/hissed at the raccoon at this point, who completely ignored him. 

An hour or so later, Irene’s dad saw the raccoon in our back yard again, carrying a baby (kit), and going underneath our deck.  That is why we speculate the adult is a “she”: I’m guessing males don’t parent the babies much.

I’m a little worried about having a creature this large taking up residence in our back yard.  Raccoons are smart, and our cats might look a bit too much like dinner.  If the raccoon puts her mind to it, she might be able to get into the cat run, and from there into our house.  I’ll be watching for signs of entry attempts, but I can’t be watching all the time. 

I’ll also see if I can get a picture of her sometime.  Irene was talking about putting out water for her: yeah, right, let’s just make her right at home…geez.

“Happy Easter” seems like a strange thing to say given the religious meaning of the holiday, but I’m not religious in any way so I’ll say it and not feel guilty.  For me, Easter is sort of like Thanksgiving: a time to give thanks for all the good things in life and to spend some time with family over a meal. 

Easter is also a celebration of rebirth and spring, and here on the Wet Coast it’s when all the flowers really start to kick things into high gear.  Everything is turning all those wonderful shades of green that months of falling rain can inspire, and we even get the occasional sunny day during which to admire the colours. 

Today we had a great meal over at our sister and brother-in-law’s house.  We had a good visit with folks as well, and I enjoyed every minute of it.  We left a bit early to try to make time to visit Irene’s horse, Spirit, but of course it started dumping rain on us as we neared home.  We drove on home and waved in the general direction of Spirit’s pasture, and Irene promised to come back another day with her horse’s Easter apple.

I finished the main story in Tomb Raider: Legend last night.   I really liked the game, but I have to say: talk about a set up for part two…which hasn’t been released yet, grrr!   Ah well, I guess I’ll just have to wait and hope that the usual gaming industry shuffle doesn’t result in part two never being produced…

Today was a good day.  Irene and I met my Mom and sister Judy at the Casino for a bit- that’s always fun.  We don’t really gamble much- it’s basically more of a chance to sit down and have a coffee with just the four of us.  I put $5 in a slot machine, and came home empty handed: perfectly normal

Later in the day I hooked up with my nephew Shane and friend Jim to kill each other in Battlefield 2.  For folks who haven’t played this game, it is in essence a squad based first person shooter set in “modern” battlefields.  You have Americans, Chinese, and UAE (Arab) military.  Shane killed me many, many times.  I just got the game a few days ago, so that’s my excuse.  Towards the end Jim and I were on the same side (it was really painful when Jim and Shane ganged up on me), and I think we actually had a couple of victories against Shane.  

Gambling and shooting friends: what could be better?

Janet and Gord, friends of Irene and myself from Edmonton (they actually introduced us) came out here last week.  Unlike ordinary houseguests, though, they came to look after us: they fed us, cleaned up, and kept Irene entertained.

I’m not a very good nurse, so I think Irene really appreciated having Janet and Gord looking after her instead.  They distracted her from her post-surgery thoughts, cheered her up, and generally got her spirits up.  And as a side bonus, I didn’t have to prepare any meals for the entire time they were here.  I say “prepare” rather than “cook”, since I don’t actually cook- everything I feed Irene and myself goes from freezer to microwave to plate.  Gord actually *cooked*, creating food from raw ingredients and so forth.

In any case, they’ve been gone now for a few days, and I think both Irene and I miss their presence.  Thanks, Gord and Janet!

We had a bit of an adventure last night, or more accurately very early this morning.  At around 1:00 am, Irene went to get up and her surgical wound started to drain…a lot.  It took half a dozen large paper towels and a big (2′ x 1′) surgical gauze mat to sort of stem the tide of mostly-clear blood tinged fluid, during which time I called the district health nurse.  Irene started shaking and feeling faint, which isn’t too terribly surprising under the circumstances.

After talking to me on the phone, the health nurse told me to call 911.  I ran around the house, grabbing as many cats as I could and closing them in a room so that they would be out of the way.  Five minutes later, we had a fire engine with emergency response at the house, and a few minutes after that we had an ambulance.  Irene was trapped in the bathroom with four big burly men and her pants down, while I talked to a fifth guy outside the bathroom giving him her particulars.  After the fact it’s sort of funny, but at the time it was far from it. 

Of course, by the time the emergency folks arrived, the fluid flow had slowed significantly.  The firemen left, and the paramedics ran a few more checks.  One of the poor paramedics was badly allergic to cats…and he was in our house!  The poor guy was sneezing away, apologizing to us while I apologized to him for the cats.  The paramedics gave us the option of either waiting until later and going to a clinic for follow up, or going to emergency right away just to make sure.   We made our decision, and a few minutes later Irene was on her way to emergency in the ambulance, and I drove along behind with her book, care card, and water bottle, which she had asked for…but not grabbing a pair of pants for her, something both of us overlooked.  I thought of pants as I drove to emergency- strange how the most obvious things slip your mind.

We spent a fun two and a half hours in emergency before the doctor got to us…very nice guy, as all the folks at Langley Memorial seem to be.  He checked out the surgery site, said it looked basically fine, and said the drainage was a seroma.  In essence, blood plasma trapped in a pocket from the surgery site decided to leak out all at once.  The amount sort of surprised me, and definitely surprised Irene, but I guess it’s not uncommon.  The doctor prescribed some antibiotics to be on the safe side, and sent us home.

We were back at the house by 4:30 or so…I fed the cats so they wouldn’t wake us up right away, and we were in bed by about 5:00 am.  I fell asleep holding Irene’s hand, which was about all I could do throughout the “excitement”: thank goodness for all the health and emergency folks who knew more than I did about what to do.  Irene is fine now, in fact she was hungry when we got home from emergency and I had to feed her…okay, it was a tin of Ensure, but it was sort of foodish.  Both of us are sort of tired, but perfectly all right.

Irene went in to the hospital today for her second hip replacement surgery (left hip this time).  Everything seems to have gone well: she was in pre-op at 8:00 am, entered the surgical ward around 9:30, surgery around 10:00 am done by about noon, out of post op by around 2:00 pm. 

I wasn’t able to see her at all from 9:30 am until about 2:00 pm, and her surgeon wasn’t around to talk to me.  However, Irene seems fine, although basically she was sleeping the whole time I was with her.  I got home about 30 minutes ago.  I felt kind of bad leaving, but the cats need to be fed.  And stupid as it sounds, I was starting to feel pretty zonked by about 4:00 pm- I was becoming jeleaous of Irene’s comfy bed and her snores

I’ll be going back to the hospital tomorrow to visit.  Irene should be home by Thursday, assuming things go as per plan.  Thanks to everyone for all the kind thoughts you have relayed!

In the “my God, I can’t believe he took pictures of that…” department, I give you…pictures of my office cleanup!

For the protection of the squeamish, I’ve put the pictures behind a break.  Click “Read the rest…” to see them…if you dare!

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