They say it's my birthday....

Daddio said yesterday that from now on we're going to reverse our ages.

So for example, say someone was turning.. 51, they would claim they were turning 15.

I'm so on board.

Except for the years when the second number is larger than the first.

I woke up this morning to a delightful coffee pot note...

Inside it read....

It contained a couple of handmade coupons...

(ps...I'm getting an iphone for my birthday)

(and a back rub...tee-hee)


You know you're getting old when you get that one candle on the cake. It's like, 'See if you can blow this out.' Jerry Seinfeld 

The more you praise and celebrate your life, the more there is in life to celebrate. Oprah Winfrey 

The more I praise and celebrate my life, the more there is in life to celebrate...

I love listening to the richest woman in the free world gush wisdom.

Lately, there have been days when I wouldn't wish my life on my worst enemy.

But you know, I woke up this morning, was able bodied enough (barely, you may remember that I'm suffering from Plantar Fasciitis and also from a fracture to my tailbone) to get my ass outta bed, I got an awesome birthday card, ate a candy bar for breakfast, went outside and stared at the stars in the sky.

I thought about my step dad (whose birthday was also September 24th)and how much we all miss him.

He was a gift to my mother and to our family.

I thought about my dad, it appears he is healing.

I thought about my mom, I am leaving on the 6th of October to go to California to fetch her and to bring her "home".

I thought about my wonderful husband, my awesome kids (including the bonus ones).

I thought about how I have the best siblings (including the bonus ones)

I thought about how much I mostly love my job.

And what a nice house I have.

And I thought about my dear dog.

And this blog (and how I may have missed my Poet calling)and all those who stop by and read. 

And this much loved computer,I thought about how truly I do adore this machine(who also celebrates a birthday today) on which I am typing this amazing post.

And in spite of all the bitter, I do have more sweet, much, much more sweet than most people I know.

This morning, at 5am when I ventured outside to let the pooch out to potty there were lots of stars in the sky.

I went back in, got my camera from the counter, I wanted to capture what I was seeing.

I fiddled with the settings and set it in Fireworks mode.

Lots of bright stars appeared to be moving, flashing and shooting.

I said a little prayer for an easier year.

And wished Garry, my dear friend, a Happy Birthday too.

Arrgh....Some days

This morning I woke up full of stories to spill.

Tales to tell.

Words to write.

Before I could tap one key I made the fatal mistake of clicking on Facebook (that awful, awful, rotten stink'n place) where I saw that a young friend had lost his dad.

And I was too sad to do anything other than write him a looooooooooong (probably waaaaaaa toooo loooooong) message about death and dying and survival and such.

But before that, before all that took place I wanted to put something in this space so that you didn't waste your time coming here...

I had some things to say, to share.

First of all, I wanted to tell you about my mother-in-law and my young neice going to the movies. And about how they waited in line (for like forever) and how when they got to the cashier they were told that they only  take cash as payment and so her bank card was pretty much useless in this situation. I would tell you how my mother-in law surveyed her surroundings, looking for an ATM or a bank or a small pile of cash laying on a seat somewhere... and how she came up empty handed. I would tell you how it's hard for my mother-in-law to walk and how much she was dreading walking back to the car, holding hands with a disappointed grandchild. I wanted to let you know that all turned out wonderfully when a man, a stranger with a small boy, put some money in my mother-in-law's hand and said "please let me pay for you".  She gratefully took the gift from the man and promised him to pay it forward (she even told him how much her daughter-in-law loves stories and tales such as these..and oh yes, yes.. I do I do I doooo-ooooh)

I really wanted to share that bit of uplifting news with you.

And then I read about Zach loosing his Pa.

And the bitterness of life made me forget all about the sweetness of it.

I hate it when that happens.

RIP Zack's dad...you have a helluva great son, but I know you already know that.

Thanks for listening.

Free falling........

Ever feel like the life boat you're in, the one you're holding on dear to, is either going to spring a really big (gashing, gushing, gouging) leak or tip over and pin you underneath....?

Last night I had a horrific dream.

In the dream I was riding along a California highway.

Daddio sat in the driver's seat and the older of his two sisters rode shotgun.

I was hiding in the backseat.

Every now and then I would lift my head and peek out over Daddio's shoulder, looking at the beautiful.

(no, I didn't forget a word)

He and his sister road mostly silently, every now and then saying "oooohhh" and "ahhhhh"

"look at that" or "haaaaaang on".

I didn't have to look to see what was happening, I could feel the car rounding steep corners.

"Slow down" I yell "you're going to kill us".

We're going over the side of a mountain, I am certain.

Or we'll fall into an ocean.

At any moment the earth is going to quake and the entire car will slide into a giant sink hole when California splits wide open.

Then later in my dream I find myself in the front seat, hunkered down next to Daddio, his arm heavy around my shoulders.

"Ohhhhhhh, look at that" he says as the car sails around yet another corner, this one steeper than the last.

As the car turns, I peek out from underneath Daddio and can see nothing but sky.

Then an edge.

I close my eyes because I don't want to see what's beyond the edge.

"Look at that" Daddio says, pulling me in tight.

When I do open my eyes I can only think of the car going over the edge.

Falling to the rocks and water below.

In my dream I force myself to go beyond my apprehension.

I force myself to keep my eyes open.

Pushing past the intense fear I'm feeling.

It's so bad I hold my breath and stiffen my body against Daddio's chest.

Just as suddenly as the fear threatens to swallow me whole, it lets me go.

The sights I'm seeing are taking my breath away, but this time, it's in a good way.

What is my dream saying?

That the car could go over the edge whether or not I look to see...?

True, but when I do look and see I'm delightfully and amazingly awestruck by the beauty of the view and the experience.

The good the bad, the bad the good.

The life boat I'm in, the one I'm hanging on dear to, could possibly spring a really big, gashing, gaping leaking hole,

it could tip and hold me underneath,

or, I could muster all my strength, wiggle out from underneath and allow myself to raise to the surface.

Toward the light,

up and over the edge

where there could possibly be...

more beauty to see and experience than I could have ever imagined.

Sounds like a plan.

Thanks so much for loaning me your ear (eyes).

Sorry I can't credit where I found this photo,
 Google Images dropped me like a hot potato before I could capture the link.

PS... To Marmie and LD... I am sooo looking forward to our adventure..the good, the bad, the ugly, the beautiful.

Whatever it takes....

The rehab center where my dad is currently trying to rebuild his life is connected to a nursing home.

The residents of both facilities have free reign of the hallways and since there are no definitive boundaries they mingle.

On a recent visit I was on my way out of the building and walking past a slew of wheelchairs, I came upon one, whose occupant was flagging me over.

A waif like creature with hair the color of storm clouds.

She wore a sweatshirt that looked like it belonged to her dad, the material falling in layering waves on her tiny body.

"Pick me up" she asked, with her veined, bony arms extended.

I smiled and kept walking.

"Pick me up..." she said again, a bit louder this time.

I stopped and acknowledge her outstretched arms.

"I can't pick you up dear" I said.

"I'm allowed to do that".

"PICK ME UP !!" she demanded, her rising volume gaining the attention of the other visitors in the small hallway.

"No, no honey, I can't pick you up" I said shaking my head.

For a split second she appeared to accept what I was saying.

Then she threw her head back and out from her mouth came a scream that could have woke China.

The scream,  "WAHHHHHH WAHHHHH WAHHHHH sounded exactly like an exaggerated, cartoonish version of a screeching toddler.

"Wahhhhhh, wahhhhhh, wahhhhhh" the antique baby cried,  her mouth open in a HUGE circle shape

The unexpected intensity of her expressed unhappiness and the absurdity of the whole situation almost made me laugh out loud.

Totally inappropriate, I know... but sometimes you just can't help what you just can't help.

A nurse who'd been sitting behind the desk and witnessing the whole exchange shushed the woman and said "she can't pick you up now".

Which, for the moment, seemed to pacify the crybaby.

Yesterday, I took my dad outside for some fresh air, we had to walk past the tiny woman again sitting in her chair near the door.

"See that little old lady" I whispered in my dad's one good ear "that one over there" I said, nodding in her direction.

As we wheeled by I told him the story about how she'd acted when I wouldn't pick her up out of her chair.

"Yeah" he said " I met her the other day in the dining room" he continued. "she wanted to eat my food, I pointed to the kitchen and told her that there was more in there."

"All hell broke loose"he said.

"She screeched like a banshee" he laughed, shaking his head.

"How embarrassing" I replied.

"Yeah, it sure was" he said.

Later, I laughed as I shared with Susan (my sister, the one who doesn't read this blog) our experiences with the old lady.

She told me she knew exactly who I was talking about.

Seems the whole family has raised the ire of this pint sized screamer.

Susan and her daughter walked past and answered an innocent enough sounding question...

"How old are you?" the senior asked my niece.

Her answer of "fifteen" unleashed the yowling beast.

"It came out of nowhere" Susan said.

Keeps ya on yer toes.... we both agreed.

It also gave me thoughts of my own personal "old lady bag of tricks"... (which is filling by the day.)

                                                    Video borrowed from YouTube...
                                               

Some love for his Ma.....

Any of you that read this blog with any regularity know I've got it bad for my kids.

They are, frankly, the best kids ever.

(don't noooo-body be actin a hater and say to themselves (or to me via private message) " her (your) kids ain't kids" or some other such nonsense..yer kids are yer kids are yer kids..matters not if they wear dentures and have gray hair or get a senior citizen discount...they still be yer kids...so shove a donut in yer pie hole and move on)

(I apologize for the above statement, it's early and I'm obviously crabby)

Allow me to get sidetracked here for a moment...

I took a little tumble down a few flights of stairs steps the other morning, I guess it was more of a slip-n-slide rather than a tumble.

When Bear didn't wake up (not to find me in a crumpled heap at the bottom of the stairs, mind you...NO, neither he or (that hard sleepin) Daddio of his heard the earth move nor felt the house shake...)

Whatever.....

Serves me right, if you're gonna fall down the stairs you should do it when people are awake, can witness, or at least her your cries of "Double-U-Tee-Eff", and appropriately feel really sorry for you.

So, as I lay alone on the floor, soaking wet (not only from pissin my drawers, as luck would have it I happen to be carrying a cup of water, which ended up dripping down my back, and running into my eyes. It soaked the front of my nightgown, from the top to the bottom, it also made a mess of the floor and wet the small rug that was near enough to catch some of the water)

(How the hell an inch of water could wreck such havoc and make such a mess, I'll never know)

So as I lay on the floor, soaking wet...and feeling incredibly sorry for myself, I did a quick inventory of my nearly 43 (my blog, my addition) year old bones.. they all felt in one piece, except for my tailbone.

Which ached like the dickens.

My trusty pooch noticed me laying there...she came, sniffed the situation, slurped up a bit of the water on the floor near my hand and waited (not so) patiently for me to notice that she was doing her pee-pee dance.

Once up I hobbled to the bathroom mirror, hiked up my nightgown, and surveyed the damage.

There didn't appear to be any.

(I'll have to see what Google has to say about invisible bruises)

No outward signs of damage... hmmm.

Well, I have then no explanation as to why I'm hurting so.

Anyway, back to my kids, my wonderful children.

Last night I sent Bear to the market to fetch some coffee filters.

I set up the coffeepot, placed a cup of fresh grounds nearby, added the proper amount of water, hit the "Delay" button so I'd wake up to the aroma of a fresh pot of Folgers.

I asked Bear to add the filter, then the grounds.

This morning I woke just the way I imagined..

I walked (very carefully) down the (steep, slippery sonofabeep) stairs.

Bear had followed all instructions and my pot of coffee was ready and waiting for me.

He'd also written me a lovely "coffee pot" note...

One of my favorite things ever..

A note from my treasured youngest son.

I could hardly contain myself as I limped (remember the big fall, right) to the light to better read the coffee pot "love note"....

"Good Morning" it said simply...

(Hey Y-O-U negative nellie naysayers you, you all know the rules here, right?... My blog, My take on shit).....

Gas money to you all....make it a great day!!!

Sensitivity training......

I've about had it with (mostly young) interns, fellows and residents... "doctors" in various degrees of their training.

Doctors "to be" aren't much different from the kid at Micky D's that wears the "have patience with me I'm a trainee" button, except that they don't wear a button.

You can be patient at the fast food counter when it takes the newbe forever to find the "no onion, light ketchup" option, you can be patient when you confuse the hell outta them when you hand them over different money then they've asked for, expecting to get different change than the register tells them is owed... you can be patient when you both smile and shrug shoulders as they stumble.

A night and day difference in a hospital setting.

A screwed up burger with extra onions and light mustard verses a screwed up treatment or a messed up fight for your life....

not weighable.

My dad's continued, very long, seemingly never-ending running streak of really shitty luck recently gave him a doctor in training that could barely manage to say "hello" in English...

couple that with my dad's one good hearing aid (low on batt-ries + old, poor quality equipment = he misses a lot)...

... add to that hot mess his being hopped up on treated with Morphine and you got yerself a little problem in the communication department.

When my dad told me what was said and I tattled on the trainee to his supervisor words weren't needed to convey to me that the trainee was in deep poo.

His supervisor's slack jaw, pop eye'd response said it all.

He then contested/corrected/backstroked/damage controlled every thing the trainee had said (or rather, tried to say).

Yesterday, my dad and I spent the better part of the morning in the emergency room.

He slept, I mostly listened to moans and cries of patients in surrounding rooms.

Separated by dingy, orange/green striped floor to ceiling curtains.

These emergency room slots were smaller than one of my bathrooms.

The chair I was sitting in hit the curtain of the room next to me, and my dad's bed was nearly as close to our neighbor, the patient on the other side.

When I tried not to listen, I would doodle heart shapes in the small notebook I carry to doodle small heart shapes in.

I had lots of pages filled.

In the room behind my chair was a mother and her daughter waiting for test results.

I knew both these things because that is what they told the hospital worker who stuck her head in to refill supplies.

While my dad slept and I scribbled heart shapes I heard some people enter the room next to ours.

A man's voice introduced himself as one of the doctor's on her case.

He also identified himself as an intern.

He told the mother that the source of her severe back pain appeared to be coming from some lesions on her spine.

"Any history of cancer?" Doc jr asked.

"Nope, none" answered the patient.

"I fell some time back" the old woman continued "when was that? she quizzed her memory...

"In December, yes, it was December" she determined.

"I think there was a little snow on the ground" she remarked.

"How long has your back been bothering you?" Doc jr asked.

She answered in an unsure way, again attempting to put time and incident together.

"When we see lesions like this" Doc jr said "they normally indicate cancer" he told the woman and her daughter sitting in the room next to me.

I stiffened in my seat and my pen stopped making heart shapes.

The old woman, panic rising in her voice asked the doctor what he meant.

"I have cancer?" she said, her voice cracking.

"Well" Doc jr said "we don't know that yet. We are going to put you through some tests and see if we can identify a source. The cancerous lesions are not the main cancer, in our experience, so there must be something else in your body, another source, a large mass, something like that" he went on to explain.

"Someone will be in to admit you to the hospital" he said, leaving the room.

I sat stiff in my seat as the mother and her daughter in the small room next to mine comforted each other.

I couldn't not hear their muffled cries.

Or hold back my own.

What in the hell is wrong with the training these new doctors are getting.

Why, I wonder couldn't that news be delivered when they were sure or knew more?

Maybe they wanted her to prepare?

Maybe Doc jr was practicing.

Fuck.

I hate hospitals, and heart shapes, and bad news, even when it's not mine.

Thank you for listening.

xoxo