My wish's coming true!

According to Wunderground, for my home, the forecast for Sunday is:
Sunday Night :: Cloudy with a 50 percent chance of snow showers. Lows in the lower 30s.


.....OH MY GOD!

It will be CHAMP if I came back from a sunny and warm San Diego to a snowy Alexandria! Oh oh, I CANNOT WAIT!!!!!!!

And see, I told you, flushing ice cubes in your toilet works!

Trading in my scarf and mittens...

for a pair of REEF sandals and a denim skirt...!

San Diego-- I said I will come back, so shall I will this Wednesday!!

There is a big smile on my face as I check the wunderground site for weather.

The forecast for San Diego is 76 degrees on Wednesday while it will be 51 degrees where I live...

Oh yeah, I am definitely packing tank tops, shorts, skirts, and just sandals! Screw the raincoat, the boots, the mittens and the scarf! Well... I can still wear the scarf in San Diego, but not fleece or knit... a different type of scarf for San Diego will be a thin silk-like scarf as an accessory, not as a necessary.




:-) This is a hint that I will be out of Deaf v/blogosphere this upcoming weekend.

Behave yourselves!

Reverse-911 for Deaf/Hard-of-Hearing

Since I am from San Diego, the recent October fires had an impact on me-- being helpless three thousand miles away, watching the news reporting about the fires (with no CC, grr!), trying to pinpoint my families' homes and the distance from the ravaging fires, and trying to keep in contact via text messages.
I cannot imagine what it is like being there, but fortunately Jon Savage reported about it-- and one post of his that brought up a very important issue-- communication barrier .

Deaf Community Services' president has sent off a message to the San Diego to call attention to the issue that not many Deaf/HoH people have a TTY at hand and this creates a problem when reverse 911 system is in effect to warn the residents.

The reply from the city:
"Alert San Diego has the ability to recognize a TTY device. They should
register their TTY number as they would their cellular number. Thank
you for your concerns.

Office of Emergency Services"

So if you haven't done this, go ahead and sign up for information. You can sign up at
http://www.sandiego.gov/ohs/reverse911/index.shtml only if you are a San Diego (City) resident. Each city has their own reverse 911, so if you live in, say, Oceanside or Chula Vista, do check with your city and inquire about how they will contact you via text or tty.

For anybody outside of the San Diego County (like me!), you can sign up at http://www.sdcounty.ca.gov/oes/ready/signup.html to get any emergency alert.

You should only register your cell, email, et cetera-- they do ALREADY have the land-lines phone numbers in their databases.

Hopefully this is helpful to people who didn't get this email flying around.

Cold.

A funnie. :-)

All in honesty-- I have taken it in strides. Today was over 60 degrees and I only wore one long-sleeve tee shirt (but I had my "long john" under my jeans...) which is an improvement compared to me usually wearing two long-sleeve shirts and a sweatshirt and a raincoat.

You have to remember that I do work outside and stay outside all day so it is not like I stay in my warm car then work in a warm office. So I have to make sure I do not get cold at all at any point of my workday because I will become a very grouchy girl!

Rain is my absolute enemy now. The wet paws I gotta dry off, the mud tracks, and nobody picks up after their dogs so walking in a wet grassy area is like a minefield!

I take it back.

It is not hot. It is quite opposite to this post on the day of Monday, October 8 where I complained about the heat and humidity of Washington D.C.


It is not hot anymore. It is beyond cold. It has been below 60 degrees lately even in the high noon of days...

You people who have been lived in this area are crazy for wanting to stay here forever. You are missing a great life in California. People here said they hate thes ummer. Well, that is because you never experience an arid summer because otherwise you will LOVE the summer.

Back in California, winter is my favorite-- high waves, crispy and blue air, and a hot latte on the beach with a good fleece jacket. But now I am reconsidering my favorite season for the East Coast.

It better be snowing here or I will be pissed if it just rains all winter. Rain below 50 degrees are no fun for a dog-walker, I am telling you. Snow just makes it easy because I just have to take the dogs out to the backyard for their potty break and run back in to warm up by having playtime!

Winds are the biggest factor why the temperature below 50 degrees is unbearable here... Just the other day it was 45 degrees but I am just dandy, thanks to a fleece-lined gloves, poofy coat, and a knitted scarf... until the winds came then it just went through my scarf and blew up on my neck, froze my ears, and numbed my nose...

*SHIVERING!*
I think my birthday wish list will be composed of thermal underclothes, scarves, and warm sweaters like this at Old Navy...

Oh by the way, DONATIONS OF WARM CLOTHES AND ACCESSORIES ARE ACCEPTED. So send your old scarf over...!

Old Photo Club

SeekGeo did it, Gary Brooks did it-- and I am next!


At Lafayette Elementary School with my body hearing aid-- aka "the brown bra". I was probably 4 years old in this picture.


My grandmother's wedding in Finland-- she was only 18 years old.


Banging pots and pans was my favorite activity!

***
I really need to scan in more old pictures of family and me just as a back-up if the original pictures are damaged (oh god forbids!).

Asthma sucks.

I hate asthma. I especially hate it when I get an attack.

I try to stop it, but it keeps coming. I cannot escape from it. All I have to do is just sit and twindle my thumbs and hope for the best.

It is just so frustrating-- that I have to drop everything and focus on stablizing myself and counting the minutes until I can finally have my whole lungs back. The best analogy that I can give you is from an public adverstiing seen below:



It does! You see the poor goldfish gasping for water? It is the same thing-- I gasp for air, and try to catch a full breath but only get a third of my lungs to fill up...It is as if my chest is in a vise and I cannot wiggle out of the tight vise.

Obviously I had an asthmatic attack earlier today. It always came out of the blue-- I was in the kitchen, chatting with my husband, then all sudden I gasped for the air. I usually could handle my attacks within a matter of few minutes, but this one was difficult to maintain and went on too long that I ended up asking for my inhaler.

Oh how I hate my inhaler! I was so ashamed of it-- especially in PE classes-- I knew I need it when the class was sent out to run a mile... I tried to hide it in my sweatpant's wristband, stuffed in my sock, anything to conceal it.

One day I used it (like on all other days when I had to run a mile), my high school PE teacher saw me and didn't know I have asthma. He told me that I needed to fill out out a medical form (so I won't get arrested for "illegal drugs") and pulled up my grade from D to B-. Why? Because I never can run the cursed mile within 13 minutes. (I had to slow down a lot to let my lungs adjusted and getting its air). Yay, my GPA looked better and I am waivered from trying ot run a mile under 13 minutes!
BUT*
then all suddenly I get the special treatment. "You OK? we can slow down for you..." stop. Just go and run ahead without me. Go and lose weight and gain muscles.

I sulk when I have to bring my inhaler with me. I did use to dump it at home but with recent incidents, I do now carry around my inhaler in my purse just in case. None of my friends know I have asthma until I have to use it in their presence-- and they always go: "I didn't know you have asthma..."
Well, how do I make it obvious for you?

"Hi my name is Kirsi and I have asthma!"

No.