Collages!

Look what I found in a box! Old collages I made, or perhaps I should more aptly call them "Time Capsules". (This post is inspired by Cheryl over at Mystic Missive)

This first one is from our ten day tour of Amsterdam for the Gay Games in August of 1998. We went over for work and since work was paying, we spent A LOT of MONEY. It was a blast!

The collage includes ticket stubs from the opening and closing ceremonies, flyers for the artists that performed and brochures of tours and parties we attended. There's a map of the city center where we spent most or our time, hotel key, restaurant receipts... Wow, it's freaky to remember all this.

This one is representing a trip we took to Manhattan.
I think this was the first trip Lyle and I had taken to NYC together. It was after I had been unjustly let go from my job at Nordstrom and we took my 401k money and blew it on a trip to New York. The ticket stubs say 1997 so I guess we can place this time capsule. I remember exactly what I said after we saw the Broadway Musical "Titanic".

Lyle: "What did you think?"
Me: It was kinda' sad.
"Of course it was sad. It was the TITANIC! You do know that nearly everyone dies, right?"
Yeah, but I thought maybe they would have focused on the ones that survived...

The next night we saw "Jekyll & Hyde".
Lyle: "What did you think?"
Me: It was kinda' sad.
"Oh my god. Weren't you forced to read this story in school? Everyone knows how this ends!"
Um, I skipped a lot of high school...


And here we have Los Angeles:
This has all our "Staff" backstage passes to the events we used to volunteer for at APLA (Aids Project Los Angeles). We met EVERYONE and I was always too shy to speak or get a photo. Lauren Bacall, Gore Vidal, Calvin Klein, Todd Oldham, Naomi Campbell, Jackie Collins, Liza Minelli, and on, and on, and on... It's funny, looking back, I remember meeting those famous people, but what I recall even more is how much fun we had with the other volunteers, our friends and just hanging out with each other.

I made these collages about 10 or more years ago and when I was done, I didn't even hang them up. Everything was a little too fresh in my mind and they seemed so cluttered. Now, they are going up on the wall. I need to remember more of these things and remember the joy of fresh experiences and the wonder of newness.

Lu

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So quiet around here...

Sometimes this blog is quiet because I'm busy. Sometimes I don't have anything to say. And sometimes I just don't want to talk about it.

Though I have been busy, the over arching plot of my life right now is something I just don't want to talk about. But I will.
Lola isn't well. There I wrote it, and I also started to cry.

At the end of August we took her in to see the vet because she had a cough that would not go away. And he told us it was congestive heart failure. What I didn't recall was that he had told us she had this last December. But she was okay last December. Just a "head's up" of something looming ahead.

He wanted to keep her overnight because he thought she may not make it through the night and Lyle's response was "Hell no, if she's gonna die tonight, she gonna die in my arms." So she came home.

About 6 years ago, Lola went through MAJOR medical issues involving her kidneys. She was a goner for certain and instead of buying a house, we put that house down payment into Lola. She survived, but only has about 20% use of her kidneys. This current health issue she has can be somewhat treated, but the treatment usually places a strain on the dog's kidneys, of which she doesn't really have any room to put a strain. But we are doing that anyway. AS our vet says, we are going to walk a very fine razor's edge.

Our vet specialist who treated her for the kidney issue loves our little Lola. After he spent that summer with her off and on, six years ago, he adopted his own female Dalmatian. It is sad to see him have to tell us all these diagnoses.

As he sent us home a month ago, he gave us a new pill regime for Lola and said we'd have maybe a week, maybe less. "Then again", he said, "she outwitted me once before, let's hope she will again."

And she has. She gets around 8 pills, twice a day, with another booster pill in the middle of the day.

My new mantra is 9-3-9 because those are the times she gets her pills. Wherever I am in my day or the city, I have to be home at 9-3-9 or have someone else cover that shift. The regime is working. She's still here.

I tend to be the glass half full kind of guy and fully expect her to be with us next Spring. Then she will have a bad night and cough and cough and cough. This is when I want to hold her and tell her it's okay, for her to go if it's too much pain for her. She coughs because there is fluid in her lungs. The fluid is there because her heart isn't pumping enough to get the fluid out. You can feel the entire house take a deep breath and hold it until she is done coughing. (Note to self: keep breathing)

We've canceled some travel, we've been ordering in food instead of going out. We're just hanging out with our dogs and appreciating what we've got. But it takes a toll and I guess that's why I haven't sat down here and told anyone. We're sad. But we're mindful of how very lucky we've been to have had her this long.

-----
I re-read this today and think it comes off as perhaps too maudlin. Yes, we're are devasted by what we have found out, but she is still the same dog now with a bonus cough and pill needs. She is still full of energy, begs for food ALL DAY, pulls on her nightly walk and spoons on afternoon naps. The vet did say things could happen "suddenly" but I know this dog, and she is in great spirits. Since she gets extra pills at night, we've started giving her a "third meal" to help absorb those pills. The joke around here goes, now that she is finally getting all the food she wants, she is NEVER going to leave!

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1. Backstabber (MTV Live Sessions) (2:54)

2. Blah Blah Blah & Party At A Rich Dude's House (MTV Live Sessions) (7:27)

3. Blah Blah Blah (American Idol) (3:58)

4. Blah Blah Blah (Live in London) (2:19)

5. D.I.N.O.S.A.U.R. (Live In London) (2:54)

6. D.I.N.O.S.A.U.R. (MTV Live Sessions) (2:43)

7. Party At A Rich Dude's House & TiK ToK (Live In London) (7:13)

8. Take It Off (Today Show 2010) (3:39)

9. TiK ToK (MTV Live Sessions) (3:49)

10. TiK ToK (SNL) (4:18)

11. Your Love Is My Drug (SNL) (3:17)

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Irresistible

Special Comiplation from 1997 with the full albums Kylie Minogue (1994) and Impossible Princess (1997) plus bonus b sides. 33 tracks.

Compilado de 1997 con los discos Kylie Minogue (1994) e Impossible Princess (1997) más bonus b sides. 33 tracks.

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