Category Archives: Southern California Dreaming

Going Home Again

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I’m in San Jose for a whirlwind trip to my parents’ house and it amazes me how things in the old neighborhood change. The local Greek Orthodox church has a Montessori school sharing its facilities, the library is now new and high-tech with a gym, meeting rooms, and revamped community center, the playground is now muchly expanded, and new shops have replaced ones that I remembered being there for 20 years!

The neighborhood has changed as well. Longtime neighbors have moved away, those who were kids when I left for college are now getting ready to leave for college, and the houses look different.

San Jose has even changed. The malls look different and the routes to places are all switched around.

It’s disorienting in a strange way.

My Thoughts on Prop 8 Being Overturned

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I wouldn’t be a proper Californian blogger if I didn’t bring up Prop 8 being overturned.

My thoughts: I could honestly care less.

I know, I know. I’m a conservative Christian and I’m not flipping out about how it’s an abomination and all that. Thing is… it doesn’t change my life either way. It’s not like Jon is going to have to start performing same-sex unions (it’s one of those things in our denomination where it’s up to the pastor and the church) and it’s honestly not harming anything. Will I go to the weddings of my gay friends? Probably not but I also haven’t managed to attend the weddings of most of my straight friends either.

The other thing: I’ve got four burners on which I can deal with things. They’re being taken up right now with Daniel, Jon, job-hunting, and finances. (My father-in-law gets put on when one of the last two can be taken off and stirred.) I don’t have the mental and emotional energy to put toward being righteously indignant about this.

One of my friends who is pissed over Prop 8 being overturned asked on Facebook about “what one does when something one has voted for is thrown out”. I really had to force myself not to tell her to ask those who were disenfranchised under our ex-president about that.

Yet Another Surprise

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After my pregnancy with Daniel, I kept having joint and muscle pain which I couldn’t blame on pregnancy. It was worst in January and February and has continued intermittently since with the worst of it being at times of high stress.

I finally got a referral to a rheumatologist and saw him this morning. His thought: a “little bit” of fibromyalgia. Apparently, I have the tenderness in the right places and all the other symptoms and conditions that are associated.

The good news is that this isn’t life-threatening or crippling. Staying active will help keep it at bay.

The bad news is that flares can be triggered by excess stress and it’s one of those conditions that’s a diagnosis of exclusion which means that everything else needs to be ruled out first. They also can’t treat the disease — just the symptoms.

They took some blood and I’ll see the doctor again in two weeks.