Tuesday, May 18, 2010

LOST and a broken heart

so i'm a LOST junkie.  it's true.  i tried watching it a few years ago, and got really bored with 'the hatch' dragging on for as long as it did, so i stopped.  then mike and i started from the beginning through the beauty of the roku [we love you, roku!], and it was o.v.e.r.  we were like fiends, ripping through seasons in mere days, anxiously awaiting the next season to come out on netflix ["wait, i have to wait 2 whole weeks??!!  nooooo!"].  it was bad.  tonight was the last episode before the multi-hour sunday final event, and i'm scrambling to find someone to cover me at work so i can be home to watch it.  it's a sickness, i tell ya.  and i'm not even really a t.v. person, but it's just that good.  keep your fingers crossed that someone in the starbucks corporation understands my need to be home sunday night.

so last thursday on facebook, i had a status update in which i said, "jill *****'s heart is broken", having not thought ahead of what people might assume.  it just was.  no, mike did not do anything to hurt me.  i recieved an onslaught of love and support from friends, which was amazing.  i really do have the best friends a girl could only wish for.  the cool part of this is that it's my reality, so that is very rad.  i will now share with you, my beloved readers, why my heart was broken.  some of you already know this.  for the rest of you, it's like so...  [be warned, this might be a long one]

as many of you know, i did the reggae run last october, after i got the new leg.  it was rather important to do this particular 5k, as it is done in memory of maria olberding, who was actually mike's cousin.  she was brutally murdered by some looney kid from kentucky while running her usual route through ault park.  he's still locked up.  she loved reggae music and running, thus the bird of the memorial run.  it's a massive event, and pretty much every relative mike has is in town for it.  ault park being as hilly as it is, this is not an easy run, even for skilled runners, and since i've never acutally ran and i'd never done a 5k, i decided to walk it.  mike, my mom and my brother walked it with me, but mike stayed at my side the whole time because he's awesome like that.  i finished it in 1 hour 7 minutes, which may seem like a long time to some of you, but don't forget that i'm on one wheel, so i was quite proud of my time.  i ate what seemed like an entire animal's worth of meat things after, then we had a few beers and enjoyed the reggae band with some of mike's family members.  it was great.  once we got home and i took off my shoes, however, i had this extraordinary pain in my legs.  i could barely walk and i was in tears. 

i made an appointment with my primary, and he sent me for xrays, and decided that i had a stress fracture.  i did the things he told me to do:  elevate, ice, rest, compression, etc.  this went on for a few weeks, but my pain never let up.  he sent me to see an orthopaedist.  orthopaediest sent me for an MRI.  the MRI showed two torn ligaments, so i was put on sabbatical at work for 6 weeks while i donned a rather unsexy boot thing that took a one-legged gal like myself a little while to get used to, since no part of my body was actually touching the ground anymore.  6 weeks later, i went back to work, and it was like i never was off at all because it still hurt.  i just dealt with it for a while, and finally got so tired of the pain, i went back to primary doc and asked for a second opinion.  he sent me to foot and ankle specialist fella. 

after 3 weeks of painful waiting, i went to see him on thursday.  he took new xrays, and he delivered a heavy hand of bad, bad news.  now before i get into the bad news, i have to preempt with 2 things:  [1] my worst case scenario was that they were going to tell me that i was going to have to have surgery to repair the 2 torn ligaments, and i've already been under the knife more times than most of you have had, combined, and [2] mike was out of town at a financial aid conference in newark, ohio, which is apparently the armpit of ohio.  in any case, he was not here.  now for the bad news.  foot and ankle specialist fella came in with one film from the fresh round of xrays and said, "well, it's certainly not a twisted ankle..." as he put the film onto the lightbox and flipped on the switch.  he then points to two bones and begins to tell me that they are deformed, either from overuse after 32 years OR [and this really messed me up] it could be related to my other birth defect, meaning it was just always like that, since the day i was born.  say what??  now, this was sort of the equivalent of him telling me that i was adopted or something.  pretty heavy stuff.  and i was then in shock, as he continued, telling me that i would need to wear an 'arizona brace' for 3 whole months, and at some point in my life, the pain might get so intense that i would consider foot surgery to fuse all the bones in my foot together, leaving me footless.  wth.  i floated out of the room, fighting back tears.  as i made my follow up appointment, i texted mike to see if he could dip out of the conference, and started to feel tears streaming down my face.  i fled the office, booked it to my car and broke down crying as i answered mike's call.  i sobbed through the whole conversation, drove myself to work, collected myself, clocked in, worked the shift, then went to karaoke, where i did not sing, i just drank.  worst news ever.  even worse than ligament surgery, and that's bad.

today, i called my primary, explaining what i was told.  he was going to call the foot and ankle dude and convo about it, then call me back tomorrow to discuss.  at this point, i have no idea what's happening.  i know that my not-sexy arizona brace is being priced out for the making, but that's it so far, so i am hoping to know more tomorrow.  i am also hoping for a 4th opinion, that 4th dude will agree with 1 of the 3 diagnoses i've been given, and that this pain will go away soon, because i can't really take it much longer.  it's made me grumpy and distracted.  i don't like either of those.  i need answers.

so there you have it, kids.  the source of my broken heart.  and foot.  or not.  to be continued...

Monday, May 17, 2010

nelsonville MF

got back late last night from the nelsonville music festival in scenic hocking hills, near athens, ohio.  awesome times, really tired.  here's my recount.  enjoy!

the crew:  cabiners were gregg [the best man] + fiancĂ© emily, kevin + allee, me + mike.  also from cincinnati, we had dan + leah, chris + kristen, dan [who owns the fabulous park + vine, cincinnati's green general store], steve, alena, jenny, timmy, as well as a few others.  i will list them as soon as i can remember.  :)

the cabin:  we stayed at the settle down cabins.  it was a lovely place [at first, i'll get to that later, though] with an equipped kitchen, 4-6 person hot tub, a grill, a firepit, a picnic table, and at least 2-3 sleeping areas surrounded by woods.  very private.  pretty affordable.  the pros:  close proximity to the fest [about 6 mi], nothing like the campgrounds at the festival, indoor sleeping for up to 6, shower and a hot tub to soak your tired festival feet, clean, all towels/plates/cups/etc provided, cable tv [that we didn't even turn on], secluded, etc.  the cons:  the hornets nest on the porch [bee allergy - yikes!], the brown recluse that was found on the futon/sleeper [yikes again!], the long, hilly, windy road leading to the cabin and the tiny, not-quite-visible-from-the-road sign indicating you've arrived at the cabin, the shotty craftsmanship that left no mystery when other folks are peeing or brushing their teeth, and a queen bed that felt somewhat like you were sleeping on bags of trash covered with rubber sheets disguised as a mattress.  not the most comfortable.  and loud.  any movement will be heard by other guests, so keep that in mind if you stay with other folks.  onto the festival part.

the festival:  good turnout but not terribly crowded, which i loved.  parking was very close to the stages [great for an injured handi-girl], and if you're a camper, that was really close too.  good food options [my faves include o'bettys red hot weenies, the funnel cake, seriously a-mazing poutine, and cold-brew iced coffee. ahhh...], i was actually able to have a chair and close to bands/artists, and the line-up was terrific.  the beer was sort of terrible - the choices were marietta brewing company, jackie o's, crap domestics from anheuser busch and pbr.  apparently marietta and jackie o's are typically good breweries, according to our resident in-tow beer distributor/brewer/snob gregg, but those places musta sent their swill, because i was resigned to drinking the pbr due to it's superior flavor.  yes, it was that bad.  and the vendors.  tents full of hippie junk/clothing and really bad paintings, for the most part, but they had decent vinyl [according to my vinyl-loving fiancĂ©] and the merch tent was solid, so if you go and hate hippie garbage, avoid the rest of it.  one more thing:  the weather was perfect.  i mean, perfect.  warm and sunny, but breezy, no rain, the sort of weather that makes you want to nap outside.  it could not have been better.  let's talk music now, shall we?

the music:  the new finds were moon high and samantha crain.  both were really great.  the bigs were big, however.  friday's closer was man man.  they were high energy, lots of fun.  everyone was dancing.  that was my third time seeing them, and they just keep getting better and better.  awesome show.  saturday's 1st highlight was seeing loretta lynn live.  yes, you read that right.  loretta lynn.  the coal miner's daughter.  country legend.  now that was pretty crazy.  her stuff was awesome, but i will say this:  she needs to leave her drunk, attention whore children at home and far, far away from her set.  i get it, she's old.  she can't do a whole set.  that's fine.  what she doesn't need, however, is the circus-y filler provided by her talentless, coattail-riding, drunk and fame-hungry adult children.  they.  were.  terrible.  not only that, but it sort of ruined the whole 'seeing loretta lynn live' thing for me.  it was a darn shame.  my grandpa would have been so sad about it.  the biggest surprise of saturday was ms. sharon jones and the dap kings.  my god.  i knew it would be good, i just didn't know it would be good like that.  it was fantastic, VERY high energy, lots of fun, tons of dancing, an encore that wasn't supposed to happen, they were a-mazingthey are actually playing in the tri-state monday night, but from what i heard tonight, i think it's sold out, which is sad, because everyone should see them.  yes, everyone.  they were that good.  swell season played sunday, to close out the festival, which was perfect.  they are excellent live, and very engaged with their audience.  great show.  just so great.  i felt 'included' at this show, which is rare for indie-rock shows, as most musicians are somewhat aloof to the fact that you've just paid $xx to see them play.  it was refreshing.  you may be saying to yourself, "jill, where have i seen these two before?"  well, if you've seen the movie 'once', that's where.  and that part was quite apparent at the festival.  glen hansard [the dude, also from 'the frames'] was sitting in the grass less than 10 feet away from where mike + i were chilling for one of the shows.  we witnessed many a rabid fan swarm him, armed with cds, dvds and sharpies, when it was clear that all the poor guy wanted to do was see a show while he was there.  poor thing.  we were so disgusted by it that we relocated.  we wanted to catch drakkar sauna, but it was packed, so we didn't.  next time.

so that's the jam.  all in all, great time.  LOTS of cincy representation, so that was also very cool.  met some other cool people.  you should go next year, regardless of the lineup, as it was quite a pleasant festival experience.  be warned that there are quite a few hippies there, however, and that hula hoops seem to be the current 'glow stick'.  otherwise, it was a blast.

mad love to all of cincy who helped make the weekend fun for me.  you know who you are.  <3

stay tuned this week to see how jill will turn a basic anthropologie headband into an appropriate piece of head-garb for the big day!  it's DIY mayhem!

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

blargh

sorry, i've been watching a fair amount of 30 rock on the roku lately.  :)

though i've been up since 8:15ish, i've yet to get out of bed.  michael left sometime this morning for a financial aid conference in beautiful newark, ohio and won't be back 'til later friday, and it's pouring.  i just don't understand why we're getting march rain in may in cincinnati right now, but i can safely say that i'm over it.  it makes me hurt, so just stop it, rain, ok?  my bed feels warm and cozy [though empty], and here my foot doesn't realize how much it hurts, so here i stay.  i don't have a ton on my to-do list today anyway.  i keep going back and forth between going back to sleep and getting up for an iced coffee.

yesterday, i got to spend the afternoon of my day off with bestie and future officiant girl, roberta.  she, her husband tom, baby julian and i went to Amma's Kitchen for a delicious vegan indian lunch, then after tom and julian went down for naps [tom works overnights], birda met me at anthropologie for some girling out.  i got this cute headband that i may turn into a wedding hair thingy.  i swooned over these shoes.  after that, we hit up whole foods and i got an iced coffee and a cannoli while she got a few necessities.  it was nice.  oh, i forgot, i also found this crazy paper flower installation in the window of a banana republic.  i ran in to ask if i could have it, but one of the managers had already called dibs on it, so now i'm on a mission.  it's a stunning arrangement of paper ivory flowers, perfect for what mike and i are doing for the wedding, so i *must* score a few of these.  or at least one.  i'll try to photograph it so i can post it, but you would notice it right away because it is sooo lovely.  if you happen to live by a banana republic and somehow score one of these for me, i promise to do something extra-super-special for you in return.  :)

well, it's after 11.  guess i should put myself together, put on my wellies, get an iced coffee and try to salvage whatever is left of today.  tomorrow afternoon is round 2 of foot specialist appointment, so i'll be sure to post the results of this as soon as possible.  my schedule sucks the rest of the week, it looks like this:
  • today:  pack, run some errands, work 3-11:30, miss michael
  • thursday:  foot/ankle specialist @ 2, work 3-11:30, karaoke, miss michael
  • friday:  work 11-5, hug michael and welcome him back, leave for nelsonville!  yay! get home sunday.  business as usual.
stay dry, y'all, ok?

Sunday, May 9, 2010

to all the mommas out there...

hope you had a lovely mother's day today.  i know i sure did. 

even though i was shackled to the green apron for a few hours today, i got to spend the majority of my day with the two most important men in my life, as well as time with my own momma.  it was pretty great.  there were also two little 'reminders' [from our mothers] about the impending family that's about to go down:  a mother's and 'future-father's' day gift of new towels from my mom, and a lovely card from mike's mom signed, "mom g and dale" [dale is mike's step-dad].  it was pretty cool.  something about hearing the prior generation hint positively about the big event made it very real, for some reason.  quite different than hearing it from our friends.  it was a good thing.  :)

so, to all the experienced moms, new moms and moms-to-be in my life, i hope it was a day filled with joy for you... a little reminder that what you do is very important work.

me + my little man, via my facebook

Wednesday, May 5, 2010

the story about the leg

so, it occured to me by way of a conversation with my friend katie freshley [hi katie!] that some of you have never heard the story of the bird.  or birds.  as in the ones on my leg.  allow me to share, because it really is an incredible story.  and so we begin...

last summer, i started the process of getting a new prosthesis.  most of you know i am down one wheel.  this was due to a friendly, rare birth defect known medically as proximal focal femural deficiency, or to us commoners, she was born without a femur.  it's pretty uncommon, mostly cropping up in kids who's moms took the thalidomide to curb morning sickness, but instead, ended up with babies who had deformed extremities.  not my mom, however, she didn't do drugs.  for those of us who's moms didn't do drugs, we are just the 1 in 4,000,000 lucky ones.  so anyway, it was time to get a new leg, and i headed to my covered prosthetist to start the process.  it is a process, by the way.  my prosthetist, or leg dude, as i like to call him, informed me that because of the high tech substrate they use for the exterior, i could have some sort of prettiness on it in lieu of the boring black shell that would house my residual limb.  this thrilled me.  as a designy girl, i was on this like white on rice.  the issue came with the endlessness of it...  what would i want on there for the life of my leg?

i gave this some serious thought.

there was one clear choice, at the end:  as an avid charley harper fan, and a bird enthusiast, this had to be the thing.  my leg dude told me it was easiest done with fabric, so i went on a massive search for charley harper prints on fabric.  the issue here was, though it existed, it was tied up in a lawsuit between the fabric maker [design maven and harper fan todd oldham] and the company he made it for [a la-z-boy furniture series].  no dice.  i decided to contact fabulous frames, a local framing chain, to see if they had a solution, being a major retailer of charley harper things.  i spoke to a gal named megan carl, who invited me to come see her and figure out what we could do.  so i went to see her.  after a jovial conversation [it turned out that we had a mutual friend], she said they have no fabric, however, she got the blessing from her father [the company's owner] and brett harper [charley's only son] to use the images and print something on a vinyl-type substrate.  we then contacted queen city reprographics, where i telephone-met michael cipolloni, who became my guy through the process [as it turned out, he and i had a bunch of mutual friends as well, although we had never met before].  he was a harper fan too, so that was cool.  megan gave me the password to their FTP site, which housed every harper .psd you could ever imagine.  i about fell over.  from there, i dumped the birds into photoshop, isloated them from their backgrounds, resaved them, sent them to michael, and waited.  a million phone calls with michael later, i went to my leg guy to take my newly-finished leg for a test drive, and when i got there, the birds were on it!!  i had no idea they were going to be there at that point, so it was quite the pleasant surprise.  it looked a little something like this:


photos courtesy rob @ charley harper studios, via their blog


sweet, no?  :)

the technical aspect of this is incredible.  cincinnati reprographics sent over some dudes to the leg dude's office to actually apply a sheet of some vinyled material, much like in the way you would see on a metro bus or something like this.  pretty rad.  the birds are all charley's, mostly from his ford times era, on a neutral background.  i was so excited, you have no idea.  i was invited by rob and rena to come tour the charley harper studios, which is oddly about 10 minutes from my house, and that's where these photos were taken.  after the studio tour [whoa!!], i was then taken on a tour of the home of charley harper.  [!!!!!!]  i was floating through the house, i didn't want to leave.  if you've never seen it, it's the most immaculate example of midcentury modern classiness tucked away deep in the woods of one of the most unassuming neighborhoods cincinnati has to offer.  stunning.  i feel like the luckiest gal alive having had the opportunity to tour the home of one of my heros... this never happens.  well, i guess it can, but it really doesn't, you know?  awesome.  a few months later, the circle comes complete, as mike and i were shopping at whole foods.  we were walking down an aisle, when suddenly someone with a slightly familiar voice asked, "is your name jill, by any chance?".  i turned to the fella, who had a huge grin as he introduced himself.  his name was michael cipolloni.  i gave him a hug and showed him his handi-work.  it was rad.  :)

and there it is.  the story of the leg and the birds and the amazing people that made it all happen.  pretty great, eh?  :)

Tuesday, May 4, 2010

the coolest thing ever

last night, mike and i went to a 'screening' at the american sign museum [yes, the place where we tie the knot, for you attentive folk].  they were donated 100s of reels of old 16mm tins and we sorted through some of them last night.  unbelieveable.  rare animated sequences done by douglas leigh, who was basically the creative behind times square.  he basically was the brain behind all of those light up signs.  now, i already have this love affair with times square.  it basically stems from a photograph of my grandparents, a dress of my grandma's that i now own, NYE, an engagement.  so lovely.  i think my mom has the photo, so if i can, i will post it.   but i also love old signage.  in any case, the viewing was so cool, and it was just really special to me to get an inside look at the man who created the magic that my grandparents fell in love to.  seems universally satisfying to me.

Sunday, May 2, 2010

what the heck happened to april??

so i blink, and it's may.  jeesh.  how about that...

mike and i spent pretty much the whole day shopping and eating today.  despite the fact that it rained pretty much all day, we poked around the city looking for clever solutions for displaying bread puddings, decided on colors [since we know my sister is keeping the dress], ate, had coffees...  it was cool.  i'm not sure why, but i have really been a big grump lately.  maybe because of the excruciating pain i've been in lately?  maybe because my job sort of makes this foot pain worse?  maybe because we're in retrograde?  whatever the reason, i don't even like myself right now, so i can't imagine how badly mike wants to lock me in the basement until i stop being a terd.  i don't want to be a terd, but i'm just terribly grumpy and distant and things like this lately, and i'm not even sure why, let alone how to process this and move on.  it's frustrating.  sorry, i digress...  i felt this was important to mention, however, because there was some grumpy between mike and i between the foods and coffees and wedding stuffs.  moving on.

we also decided officially today that we are going to be honeymooning in...  [drumroll, please]
sunny san francisco!  i am horribly excited about this.  i have always wanted to go + neither of us have been there + we have some close friends who used to live in the mission, so they can give us the best 'must do' list of all time [hi jacob + jen!] + we have other friends who have visited/stayed for internships/etc.  the best part?  we know no one who actually lives there anymore*.  totally on our own.  austin was also a solid contender, for sure, but since i have about 30 friends who live there, i figured it would be best to wait and just 'vacation' there, rather than spending our honeymoon with our favorite austinites.  [sorry, austin loved ones - we'll be there soon though, and i still love you!]  so, september 23, we will board a plane and head out to san fran.  so terribly exciting!  if you have any suggestions aside from the massive list i'm going to get from jennifer, please leave me a comment - i welcome any and all ideas!

* i stand corrected, though krista *technically* lives in oakland...  see you in the fall, herbe!