Filed under: hip
AS I sit here, Shostakovich’s 7th “Leningrad” drowning out everything else going on, I’m getting nervous. I’ve kept very busy all morning, supervising a deep-cleaning of the house, doing laundry, making lists, and have been just fine.
Now everything’s done. SD’s mother is here, and he’s taken her to the grocery store for the provisions she wants for cooking, and I’m…in whatever it is they call it when airplanes just circle around waiting to land…holding pattern. Now I’m getting nervous.
It could be the 2 cups of coffee.
I don’t think so, tho.
I can’t put off thinking about it anymore, so I’m nervous. Not the “I don’t wanna!” nervous, just the “I’m anticipating something BIG but I’m not quite sure what” kinda anxiety.
I probably won’t post any more until I get home from the hospital…maybe Thursday or Friday. SD will be posting a little bit. since he’ll have th laptop and the hotel has wifi.
so…see you in a few days! Don’t wait up for me!
Filed under: Hooray!, I feel so smart!, Rest and Relaxation, friends IRL
ooh…a friend gave me an Amazon gift certificate, to keep me entertained while laid up. So, I bought some music WHEEE!
Ravi Shankar and Phillip Glass….Shankar’s kinda the Indian equivalent to Andre Segovia- he’s this sitar master world famous n stuff. Phillip Glass is this post-modernist composer of the minimalist school. Not ordinarily my thing as I like huge pounding symphonies and 200 piece orchestras, but this stuff! Wow! It’s this happy fairy Indian stuff, totally different from anything else in the library and I’m LOVIN’ it! It’s like jazz crossed with classical with an Indian guy with bad hair in the front.
I got Beethoven’s Eroica as well…can’t go wrong there. I have it on vinyl, but never got around to getting it on a CD. Now I have.
New music
Life is good.
Filed under: hip
I’m loading up the iPod, maybe thinking of taking it to the hospital. They say music has healing properties and soothes savage beasts and all, so I have this nice theory that it will reduce the post-operative discomfort to a level where I won’t need the morphine..because it scares me. I mean…MORPHINE. So, in place of narcotics I have just about anything from Jim Brickman with his Muzak piano stylings to Eric Clapton and Dvorak. Loud stuff, quiet stuff, rousing or snooze-inducing.
This thing holds alot more than I realized. Like… so far I’ve put 24 full length CD’s on it. Ain’t technology amazing!
It’s a little one, that will fit in my robe pocket so I can take it with me to physical therapy…not for ignoring the therapist, but to keep some larcenous individual from helping themselves to it when they steal my warm donuts.
Did I say that I’ll get a private room? I did? Well I’m going to say it again. I GET A PRIVATE ROOM
You don’t KNOW how much that thrills me. I’ve been in the hospital 5 times in my life, semi-private rooms (Ha…that’s a nice way to put it…more like Grand Central Station) each time, with roomates who somehow managed to find a channel that showed nothing but Jerry Springer all day long. One time she had 3 men in, all arguing over who was the baby’s daddy (nuh-uh! Wun’t me!), looking in my curtained area, staring at me. MAN that pissed me off.
But now… BLISS!
Did I say that I’ll get a private room? I did? Well I’m going to say it again. I GET A PRIVATE ROOM
The only thing I’m not just thrilled out of my shoes about…I won’t get to take a shower. Something about keeping the wound dry and risk of infection. I am not pretty 4 days without a shower. I have thin, fine hair that needs washing daily to keep from looking like cooked spaghetti. I’ll take a scarf, but still. Maybe I’ll bust out all Bro Scott and shave my head (not that there’s much for him to shave). Then I could just wipe my head with a wet washcloth. I can’t STAND that icky greasy unwashed feeling. Maybe if I beg, or generate an odor. Maybe I’ll take a bottle of splash, so I can smell like sweaty violets.
I’m trying to psyche myself into believing this is little more than a spa vacation. I know it’s not, but there’s no harm in wishing, right?
Filed under: Uncategorized
You know, there is something about a hospital that is privately run. St. Joseph’s is a Sisters of Mercy hospital, and I couldn’t find a single thing to gripe about. Even the construction was quiet. The lobby looks like a fine hotel, with marble and alabaster and a pair of extremely efficient Sisters of Mercy at the front desk. Once you get past the main entry and the cafeteria that looks more like a nice restaurant than a hospital eatery, it’s a well kept hospital with sensible floors and competent people bustling around.
Get this y’all…my appointment was for 9am. I checked in at 8:56. The admissions person called me back at 9:00 sharp. After taking care of the business end of it all, I was given clear and correct directions to another floor, where a nurse met me at the elevator, asked if I was Ms. Toot, and took me straight in for the medical exam stuff. While she was asking questions, someone else was on the other side, removing copious amounts of bodily fluids and putting stickers on my chest and legs for an EKG. The whole thing took less than 20 minutes. Everyone was cheerful and seemed to be happy to be there.
We had an hour before the class, so we went to Target about half-mile up the road, and looked for a new bathrobe (didn’t find one), and had coffee.
Then we went into the classroom, 3 other couples were there, 2 older couples and a pair of middle aged women. One leaned over to me and said “you’re a little young, aren’t you?” I said yeah, but there I was anyway. A tall and efficient nurse handed me a sandwich and a cup of fruit, and began lecturing on pre and post operative behavior. I can’t shave my legs…something about nicks and the introduction of infection risk. She said i could shave them 2 weeks after surgery. Gad…I’ll be able to braid it by then. Anyway, long story short, I learned stuff and got handout sheets and OH! This is VERY COOL!
All of the rooms are PRIVATE! No sharing germs or Jerry Springer with someone who has 14 cousins who sit on the bed and eat fried chicken all day! No being stared at by the cousins who have no concept of personal boundaries! Honestly, the fear of a horrible roomate was the greatest source of anxiety about this whole thing. Now…well! I can watch whatever I want, or nothing at all! Sweet Daddio and I can play cards or backgammon! OH! There’s a Krispy Kreme store down the way. If you go to one at like, 7 am, you can get hot donuts right out of the cooker. They have really good coffee as well. No roomate means no Southern sense of obligation to share. I don’t get a hot Krispy Kreme very often. I don’t get donuts of any sort very often, so I am NOT going to feel any guilt or shame at having a hot KK Tuesday morning.
Filed under: Uncategorized
SD and I are off to the hospital tomorrow at 7:30 am for pre-operative shenanigans. They’ll do an EKG, MRI,UPS,FedEx, and make me a salad.
They’re taking blood,wind, and urine.
They said to bring an advance directive and a comprehensive list of everything I put in my mouth during the day.
So, SD is my legal beagle who can decide whether I live or die. Dad is the alternative, in the event SD falls to pieces and can’t make a decision.
I also start on Coumadin tonight- it’s a blood thinner, warfarin, the same stuff rat poison is made of. It means I can’t have booze.
I don’t know which will be harder, the surgery or the abstinence. More ’specially since Mom will be here for 10 days.
How on Earth am I going to deal with 10 days of Mom without my beloved Pinot Grigio?
I’m sure I don’t know.
We arrived at the DMV promptly at 9 this morning, made them aware we were there, and waited for a bit. #3 took his test, passed with flying colors (96%, he forgot to signal when he was parallel parking), and is now the happy owner of the legal right to drive.
Yay! I can give him a $20 and send him to the store!
He can take the garbage to the dump all by himself!
He’ll find out just how much gas REALLY costs!
I am the mother of 3 teenage drivers. I need a drink.
Filed under: I feel so smart!
Yeah! Shostakovich’s 7th and 10th symphonies, 25 pounds of mosaic tiles and a wheeled nipper, a Panamanian mola, and a genuine WW2 propaganda poster featuring Uncle Sam, Hitler dressed as an organ-grinder’s monkey, and the leaders of the Allied countries tossing coins.
Ebay is quite the marketplace, no?
I have a system. Sometimes I sell stuff on Ebay. When people pay me via paypal, the money I make stays in paypal, and when something comes up that I want to purchase on Ebay, I use the paypal money. It’s kind of like…I never see it, the budget never sees it, I get to swap my goods for their goods. Fun!
Right now, I’m keeping my eyes on throw pillows made from red or gold kilim rugs or red leather, a flash for my camera, and Phillip Glass’ Ragas in a Minor Key. I wouldn’t say no to a Longaberger small market basket, either. Or a black coach purse. Or a small bottle of Chanel #5.
But for now, I’m going to shower and take #3 BACK to the DMV to try One More Time for that coveted driver’s license.
hooHOOO!
so. We get to the DMV 15 minutes early, and are sitting in the car going over rules and regulations when #3 shouts “$&*@!” and smacks his forehead. “What??” I asked.
“I forgot my driver’s license”! He drove there.
“Well &#@)!!#!” I said, and we hustled the 15 minute trip back home to get it, making it in 11 minutes (I was driving), so by the time we got back we were only 10 minutes late.
I handed over the paperwork, page after endless page of tedium and drivel. The sweet lady behind the counter looks it over, gives my logbook of driving time a hairy eyeball 
, and hands me a sheet of paper filled with minute little boxes, to be filled in, including how many miles were driven.
We didn’t keep a record of that. Only a record of amount of time spent driving.
So I, palsied from the motrin, try to transfer all the information off my logbook into those teeeensy little boxes. It takes me 45 minutes. Then we are told we need a current insurance card.
“$&*@!”
I send #3 out to the car, confident in the knowledge that the insurance card is sitting on the sideboard at home. #3 returns, with a card dated February 2006, and an expired registration card. The kind DMV woman says she can get the info she needs with the registration card, except that it, also, is expired.
“$&*@!”
#3 goes back out to the car and finds the current registration, which the sweet woman uses to verify our insurance. I love databases.
Ok, an hour after we were supposed to be there, the paperwork is finally in order, and #3 is told to meet the kind woman out by his car.
2 minutes later, she walks in and says “You have a brakelight out. We can’t test him until that’s fixed.”
$&*@. Double $&*@ with hemerhoids on top.
#3 is FURIOUS. He stomps. He snorts. He hurls a few things. Then he complains of being hungry. So I said, tell you what, I’ll take you home, you can get something to eat. Then he says “$&*@!” and I say “WHAT??”
“My backpack is locked in #2’s car.”
“I’ll get the spare key while we’re at home.”
By the time we get home it’s nearing 11, he’s still needing to calm down, and we’re both hungry.
“Tell you what…let’s go to Applebees for lunch, k?”
“Thanks Mom”
By the time we were done with lunch and all, it was 11:55. If it’s noon when you check in, you’re counted as absent for the day. So I said “Whatever. Let’s go home.”
His grades are good, he took tests yesterday…phphht. whatever.
We’ll try again tomorrow. At least I am confident the paperwork is in order.
Filed under: family
Well, my bedroom is cleaned stem to stern. Drawers are arranged neatly to make it easy for the mother-in-law to plunder through my collection of x-rated self-help books and be suitably appalled (or titillated). Layers of dust are removed, medication bottles are well hidden (except for the ones it’s ok to know about)…all’s done.
The temptation, just out of perversity, is to tie a silk scarf to each bedpost. I may yet.
My mother in law is a great cook, and a stellar grandmother, and very generous with her time, but…
she’s a bit of a snoop.
So I intend to make it worth her while.
just for fun.
