Finally! Finally, finally, finally! I have internet access at home again. I can't tell you how happy I am about it. And to celebrate, I'm writing my first ever Saturday entry. Oooooh, don't you just feel special? I know I do!

I've also changed the look of the main pages of my Strand again. I'd been wanting to do it for a very long time. What once looked elegant to my eyes now appeared fussy, with the buttons and the gold and blue border. Too much. For months I'd been dying to get rid of those and to change the background. Streamline the look a bit, have a cleaner appearance. I'll still keep the dark blue background with the gold lettering, since it's a combination that's both appealing to me and easy on my light sensitive eyes. The navigation menu on the left side just looks so much...neater than the buttons, plus everything loads much faster. Except the splash page. There's no way I'm getting rid of that poem anytime soon.

(Though if I do, I know what I'm replacing it with:

Another poem I fell in love with, after watching Kathy Najimy and Matt Frewer recite it in In Search of Dr. Seuss. Simply and beautifully poignant.)

Heck, now that I've seen a couple of sites that use frames the way they're supposed to be used (The Daily Bleat is a prime example), I may eventually incorporate them. Sacrilege from someone who proudly proclaims her site to be frame-free on her splash page, but it's amazing how not-annoying frames are when they're used right.

Plus I'm considering getting rid of a few of the webrings. Like most people, I started joining them to find like-minded folks and to drive up the number of visitors to the Strand. Now, when I look at them, I just see the desperation of a internet newbie looking for approval. Don't get me wrong, I'm still looking for approval. If I weren't I doubt I'd be back at my entries. But I'm no longer a newbie (this site will be two years old in December, can't wait to see what its Terrible Twos will bring) and I'm not quite so desperate these days. (Check back with me on that later, my level of desperation is subject to rapid changes.) I just think I need to pare down a bit on stuff that really isn't necessary or isn't going to help make the site better (i.e. more interesting, both content-wise and visually).

Next step: leave Geocities. They've really been getting on my nerves lately. Can anyone recommend a good, relatively inexpensive web host?

I was going to relate some more of the stuff that happened in September, right? Now where was I? Oh yeah.

Well, the day after little Ella died, two people were laid off at work, including boss Gail, a nice woman whom I was just getting to know. Boss/coffee buddy Dan was out due to Yom Kippur, but when he didn't show up on Tuesday for most of the day, I started to worry. He finally showed up later, telling me that we wouldn't be going on any more coffee runs. It was his way of telling me that he'd been laid off, too. Apparently he was paged Monday afternoon, with a message to show up at someone else's office in the corporate building Tuesday morning. (We're located off-site.) At that point he knew what was going to happen, and had expected it for some time anyway.

Since then things have been a bit tense at work, and most of us are rather sick of the creeping doom.

Then that Thursday, I was at work when I got a phone call at noon. It was my sis Teresa. "Hey, girl, whassup?" I asked. (Whenever I greet Teresa or some of my female friends, I suddenly sound like a refugee from Living Single. Don't ask me why. All I know is it's probably even sadder than I think it is. I mean, I'm as Wonder Bread as they come.)

"Now, don't panic(a sure sign it's time to panic), but Dad's in the hospital."

Teresa went on to tell me that Dad had an emergency angioplasty done that morning and would be fine, but had just gotten out of the O.R. Dad had complaned about shortness of breath, so he went to his doctor, who recommended that he go in for some tests. Dad made the appointment for Thursday morning, and when the folks at the hospital took a look at his heart, they found that two of the arteries leading to his heart were almost completely blocked. So they admitted him immediately and went in to his arteries and cleaned them out.

About this time I'm feeling woozy, on the verge of hyperventilating but forcing myself to get a grip. I got all the hospital info from Teresa, then hung up. And sat, staring at the phone. Finally, before anyone noticed, I roused myself and forced myself to go back to work. Why I didn't just tell my bosses that my dad was in the hospital and I was going to be with him, I don't know. There's still a part of me that's unwilling to let certain people see where my weaknesses lie. And the people in charge of my department are not people I like very much and for whom I can barely hide my contempt.

So I went to the hospital that night and barely made it before visiting hours were over (the nurses let us stay over for a while). Dad was in NICU, and the nurses only let a couple of people in at a time.

Seeing my daddy in a hospital bed with monitors and tubes hooked up to him shook me up pretty badly, and I was again reminded of how tenuous life really is. He could have had a major heart attack at any time, which would have seriously damaged the majority of his heart, and most likely would have been fatal. For the second time in as many years, Daddy managed to dodge a bullet (his diabetes was caught early enough a couple of years ago so that it's contolled with diet and medication, no insulin).

When Mom and I walked into NICU, he was watching TV. He saw us, and said, before I could even get close enough to hug him, "Carol, I've got a surprise for you." I looked at him, completely puzzled, and Dad, being Dad, spun around the TV so that I could see that he was watching M*A*S*H and that Mike Farrell was on the screen. I smiled, shook my head, and gave him a big hug. Or as big a hug I could give him without disconnecting anything.

Mom, Dad and I chatted a bit, about healthy diets and errant computers and various things. I told him about my new crush. ("Yeah, Professor Rassmussen from the 29th Century!" he said. Though he's not the Trekker I am, is it any wonder I turned out the way I did? Who do you think helped get me hooked on Star Trek and M*A*S*H? My turn to get him hooked on Max Headroom, I think.) He assured me that he'd be fine and was expecting to be home the next night, which he was. I had to work both jobs on Friday. but I went to the folks' place on Saturday, by which time he was sick of resting.

So Dad's gonna be fine. He just has to pay attention to what he eats and exercise more. That should be interesting, since Dad's never been into exercising. I think it comes from the fact that, as a youth, he never had to since he was a beanpole and burned up calories as fast as he consumed them (I've certainly never taken after him in that department). So he never got into the habit. But now he has Teresa and Mom after him to exercise (the rest of us get after him, too, but he doesn't have us living with him).

The other stuff that happened is nowhere near as serious, and probably wouldn't have been too big a deal, but after the emotional rollercoaster of the previous weeks, and a depression that I was slowly slipping into, I could barely handle the next news. My favorite head page, R., got a job as group coordinator with Audiences Unlimited and left my Friday show. We still e-mail each other and keep in touch, but not seeing him every week was a bit of a blow. Also, two other pages with whom I had formed friendships left, for various reasons. We're all planning on getting together again next month, which is going to be fun. But, though it's still a fun time on Fridays, it's just not the same without the old group.

I dreamed about R. not too long after his last night. In the dream I watched as a co-worker, who in real life knows how much I like R., leaned over and gave him a quick kiss on the lips, in the manner of a woman who's been with someone for a long time. R. walked away, and I took my co-worker aside and started screaming at her, calling her a bitch and how dare she when she knew how I felt about him?! I woke up, angry and crying, and I started to wonder if maybe I cared even more for R. than I thought I did.

Oh, and Neighbor Billy moved away. I made some vegan lasagna for him on his last night, and we visited for a bit. He sold me his bed (only a few months old) and I gave him some stuff I didn't need. I knew I'd miss him, but for the next few days, every time I passed his apartment, which was every time I went to my car, I'd feel an overwhelming sense of loss and nearly break into tears. It scared me how much I missed him. I'd always thought he was attractive, and thought he was a nice guy, but damn if it didn't throw me for a loop.

Before I'd bought his bed (which I still owe him money for) I Iaid down on it to make sure it would be comfortable enough for me. He joked about testing it out properly, and I made some kind of half-joking comment back, and I realized that I would have rather enjoyed putting the mattress through a few rigorous tests. But I was too chicken to do anything about it. Chalk it up to another lost opportunity.

Over the last couple of weeks I've been slowly coming out of my depression, joining life again and spending time with friends, even getting back in contact with a few e-mail buddies whom I had been less than good about responding to, due to little internet access and too much apathy.

I've even been enjoying myself again, though sometimes I slip back a little. But I have to say, regaining my long-lost energy has been mighty nice.

On a lighter note, my sis Lisa and her hubby Jeff are expecting another baby in June. *sigh* I just can't keep up with this family anymore!