Shuffle | Corrine Kenner's Tarot Blog

Up to No Good

My neighbors are on vacation, and I have the key to their house. I was just looking out the window, and I thought, "You know, if I wanted to, I could sneak over there and ... read all their books." Yeah. That's the most mischief I could imagine. Don't tell anyone, though, because I'd hate for my neighbors to think they couldn't trust me.

Mother ' s Day Photos

I'm never disappointed on Mother's Day (or Christmas or my birthday, either), because I always pick out my own gift. Oh, I know it's crass and possibly in violation of the spirit of the day -- but I'm happy with the arrangement. My husband is even happier. I give him full credit for giving me the choice! This year, for Mother's Day, I picked this "Photo Studio in a Box." It includes a light box, two lights, and a tripod. It's really pretty slick.  I've wanted one for two years, to make it easier to shoot photos for my blog and website projects. Yesterday, I found it at a camera store that had been bought out -- so it was just $40. Oh, and since prices at the store were slashed, I threw in three new cameras, too: one for me, one for my 16-year-old Emily, and one for my seven-year-old Julia -- who promises to take her camera everywhere, to document everything she sees. I felt a little too impulsive, but the prices really were low: My camera had been cut from $600 to $100. Emily's was reduced from $200 to $35. And Julia's was marked down from $70 to $15. To justify all the extravagance, I really do have to post more pictures now.

Freudian Slips

My daughter Kate is studying psychology this semester, so she asked me to help her create a three-card tarot spread based on Freud's model of the psyche. I probed deep into my unconscious mind -- and my repressed memories of Psych 101 -- for this therapeutic analysis:

Notice how the Ego provides a balance between the Id's basic drives and the Superego's dreams. During a reading, I'd probably talk about the Id card first, then the Superego, and then focus most of my attention on the realities of that middle card. Now who wants a cigar?

Last Year ' s News

I woke up ridiculously early to pull an April Fool's Day prank on my neighbors this morning. I don't think they read my blog, so I can reveal it here. First, I'll tell you about my neighbors. Helge is a native Norwegian who fought with the resistance during World War II, and then immigrated to the U.S. He became a builder, and at one point he owned quite a bit of the countryside that grew into a popular Twin Cities suburb. Eunice is a business manager who's been running a manufacturing company for years. She started working there as a teenager, so she knows her industry inside-out. I know they both follow the news closely, which is why I decided to trick them this morning -- with last year's newspaper. Yes, I saved the Minneapolis Star-Tribune from April 1, 2008. For the last year, it's been hermetically sealed in the cabinet above my stove. I was careful with it, and this morning, it still looked new. Well, new enough. I started watching for the newspaper delivery guy at 4 a.m. When he came by at 5 a.m., I raced out into the darkness like a thief in the night. I was a thief in the night! I stole my neighbors' newspaper, and replaced it with last year's edition. There wasn't much in the headlines to give the year away. There was a story about the Twins' upcoming season, and a report about the high price of diesel fuel. I'm not even sure they'll notice the switch -- at least, not right away. If I know Helge, though, he'll check the stock markets. Won't he be happy to see the Dow back up at 12,000?

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Update: I called Helge and Eunice after work today, and asked what they thought of today's news. Eunice just kind of laughed and said, "We're a year behind!" "Helge's so mad," she said. "He wanted me to call the Star Tribune and complain." I started laughing, and she said, "Corrine ... Do you have our paper?" They were both laughing by the time I got to their door. Helge said he had tried to sit down with the paper at 7 this morning,  "But it didn't add up! There was an article about Bush being in Europe, but Obama's in Europe today. I looked at the TV listings, but they were all messed up. That didn't add up. I looked at the weather report, and it was written by Paul Douglas." (Paul Douglas is a local weatherman who left last year.) "That was strange. I thought, 'Is Paul Douglas doing the weather again?'" "Didn't you look at the date?" I asked. "I did," Helge said. "It said April 1!" "I looked at the obituaries," Eunice said, "and there was one for the man who designed the Guthrie. I read it and thought, 'Didn't he die a long time ago?'" Until I called, neither one had any clue that I had switched the paper. They both thought it was hysterical that I got up in the night to watch for the delivery man. "You just don't seem the type," Helge said, "but now you've got something coming your way, too."

April Foolishness

I've been planning an April Fool's prank for almost a full year -- and tomorrow at 4 a.m., I'll swing into action. I think I've designed the perfect trick. It's a tiny bit evil. It's impolite. It's probably illegal, but I know I won't be charged. It will leave my target frustrated and confused -- but it's not mean-spirited, and it's not harmful in any possible way. Tomorrow I'll let you know if I succeed with my little joke. Today I woke up remembering the worst April Fool's trick anyone played on me. Believe it or not, the villain was my own mother. Outwardly, she seems like the sweetest woman you'd ever meet -- but on the inside, she has a vicious love of practical jokes, and she's been fooling me for almost 45 years now. (You'd think I'd catch on, wouldn't you?) Anyway, years ago, when my oldest daughter Katie was 6, she was spending the week of spring break at my mother's house. Before she left, she had lost her two front teeth, and they'd been taking forever to grow back in. Her baby teeth had been slow to grow in the first time, though, so I wasn't worried. My mom had asked me about it when she picked her up, and on April 1, she called me. "Corrine," she said. "I didn't want to tell you this ahead of time, because I didn't want to upset you ... But I was worried about Katie's teeth. They should have come in by now, so yesterday I took her to see Kristin." Kristin is my cousin -- and she's a dentist in my hometown. "Kristin was concerned, too, so she took a full set of x-rays of Katie's mouth ... " My mother seemed to be crying at this point. "Corrine, Katie doesn't have any permanent teeth on top. Kristin says it's an unusual defect, but this happens sometimes." No permanent teeth? My child didn't have teeth? I had been standing in my bedroom, but when I heard that I sat down on my bed, hard. I had visions of my beautiful little child, toothless and deformed. I also had visions of subjecting her to a full row of dental implants -- and I could only imagine the cost, both physically and financially. How would she eat? How many specialists would we have to see? How could this happen? What were we going to do? I couldn't say anything. My mind was reeling. And then my mom started laughing. I didn't understand, until she shouted, "April Fool's!"

Sick Fantasies

Dan and I were up late with Julia, who had a crazy high fever: we gave her Tylenol, Popsicles, and a bath. This morning she feels a lot cooler. Sadly, she can't go to school today, since they want kids to be fever-free for 24 hours. (Maybe she'll just sleep.) But here's the funny thing I thought as I stumbled out of bed this morning, exhausted from yet another night with a sick kid. I had this little fantasy, where society would thank me for providing the next generation of taxpayers. I'm not talking about tax breaks or special legal protections or any of that political stuff. In my fantasy, people would literally thank me, on the street. And I would say, "You're welcome."

The House of God

On Saturday, knowing I would be taking my daughter Julia in for a tonsillectomy, I pulled a tarot card to see what the hospital would be like. I didn't expect the card that came up: The Tower. It's usually the card of drastic and surprising change. It can even suggest disaster or destruction. I puzzled about it overnight.  I didn't think the experience would be disastrous: a childrens hospital can usually handle a simple tonsillectomy. The Tower can sometimes represent a sudden flash of enlightenment, so I wondered if something would happen there that would lead to a brilliant stroke of illumination or insight ... but that didn't seem likely, either. And then, on Sunday, it hit me: the earliest versions of the Tower card used to be called "La Maison Dieu" -- The House of God. The term used to describe hospitals, too. (In fact, you can read about one famous "Maison Dieu," here.) I asked a simple question, and I got a simple answer in response. What would the hospital be like? A hospital. Next time, I'll try to be more specific.

T & A Tomorrow

My daughter Julia will have her tonsils and adenoids taken out tomorrow. She's six, and for the last couple of years, I've noticed that she has periodic sleep apnea that gets worse when she has a cold. A couple of weeks ago, I noticed that she's getting an underbite, too. I googled it, wondering whether we'd be putting her in braces, and learned that an underbite can be the result of mouth breathing. She is a mouth breather, so that freaked me out; the treatment for an underbite, apparently, could involve years of braces, and then surgery to break and re-set her jaw when she finishes growing 10 years down the road. So I rushed her to her pediatrician, panicked about her underbite, and the news got worse. The doctor told us that sleep apnea in children can lead to heart damage! it makes sense, if you think about it: their little hearts have to work harder when they're not getting a steady flow of oxygen at night, and over time, their hearts get enlarged. Luckily, the pediatrician said we're nowhere close to that point yet, but she sent us to an ear, nose and throat specialist. The ENT we saw asked Julia a few questions, and basically determined that she needed her tonsils and adenoids removed just by listening to her speak. To us, Julia sounds like she always has, but apparently there's a certain "stuffy" quality to her speech. He looked in her mouth, too, of course, and said that her tonsils and adenoids are definitely blocking her airway. So tomorrow we're off to Childrens Hospital of Minneapolis for outpatient surgery -- a tonsillectomy and adenoidectomy, or "T&A," according to the fun-filled comic book he gave Julia to read. With any luck, we'll be home by 8 or 9 o'clock tomorrow night. The procedure she's getting is a modified or partial T&A, and it's supposed to be much easier than the tonsillectomies of 20 years ago. The surgeon won't take out every last bit of the tonsils and adenoids. Instead, he'll just take most of them, leaving little nubs in place. It's supposed to hurt a lot less, and recovery is usually 3 to 5 days, as opposed to a week or two. It's a good option because her tonsils and adenoids aren't infected -- they're just too big. They might grow back this way, but given that we're not being driven by illness, I don't think that's a problem. I hope it goes smoothly. I'm a little nervous, of course, about the whole process. She'll be under anesthesia for the operation, which is a big deal. Afterward, I'm worried that she'll be tired and sore; I hope I won't have to hold a crying child for a week.  Which reminds me: popsicles! I forgot to buy popsicles at the store today! I bought pudding and apple juice for the aftermath, but I totally forgot to get popsicles and ice cream! Of course, that's what dads are for. POST-OP UPDATE: Everything went well. The surgery started early, took less time than I expected, and Julia spent about three hours in recovery before we went home. Thank you for your notes of support!

I ' m All Atwitter

Somebody told me I should try Twitter. I'm still brand-new to it, but it seems easier to update than a blog -- especially since I found the "BeTwittered" gadget for my desktop. Now Im starting to feel like those families on reality TV: I have to think of something interesting to do, so my updates are snappy. Oh, I know! I have to take the dog to the vet in a few minutes! I'll go twitter about that right now! http://twitter.com/corrinekenner

Christmas in the Hospital

Everything is okay now, but my oldest daughter, Katie, wound up in the hospital all weekend with pancreatitis.

Even when she's sick, she has a sense of humor. She kept telling me she was going to make a Lifetime movie of her experience, and title it, "Christmas in the Hospital." (And in the photo above, she practiced for her cameo.)

Katie, who's 18, had been feeling sick for the last two weeks. After the first week, her dad took her to urgent care and she was diagnosed with costochondritis -- a painful inflammation of the cartilage that connects the ribs to the breastbone. The urgent care doctor prescribed rest, Tylenol 3s, and prescription antacids.

Katie didn't get better, though. Last Thursday, she ran out of Tylenol 3 and switched to Motrin and Excedrin. By Friday night she was throwing up everything she ate or drink -- even small sips of water -- and she could hardly sit up. She was obviously dehydrated, and she had a splitting headache.

I took her to the emergency room at Fairview Southdale. There they did x-rays, which showed her pancreas was enlarged, and blood tests that showed elevated lipase levels. The ER doctor suspected gallstones, so they did a full set of ultrasounds, but luckily she didn't have any.

Even so, pancreatitis is bad enough. The doctor put Katie on morphine and a saline IV, and admitted her right away so she could have a few days of "bowel rest" with nothing to eat or drink -- just the I.V.

Ultimately, the doctors concluded that she started out with costochondritis, but all of the pain relievers she took irritated her system and inflamed her pancreas.

"Bowel rest" sounds incredibly disgusting, but it worked. After a day and a half, she started eating beef and chicken broth, and gradually worked back up to real food. We came home from the hospital on Christmas Eve. 

Katie is still tired and sore all over, but she's eating well. She even got into the Christmas chocolates last night -- against my better judgment, but her doctors did say, "no restrictions." She's also taking just one medication a day, a form of Prilosec.

It was a long weekend. Today my parents are going to come stay with Katie while the rest of us -- my husband and two younger daughters -- go to my sister's house a couple of hours away for a belated Christmas gift exchange.