Take me out to the ballgame...Scotty beam me up...Calgone take me away

I've been spending lots of time with Susan (she is my sister who cares not to read this blog...it truly is okay (you BIMBO) since her not reading lends itself to her becoming fodder for my blog.

And all the while she is totally unaware that she is subject to scrutiny, one sided opinion(s), the butt of many jokes and so on...tee-hee).

Anyway,  since our father has been so ill this past year Susan and I have been pretty much connected at the hip.

The two of us have mostly always been great friends. There were a couple of years when the most contact we had was chasing each other around the house catching the other by the hair..we did always reconnect though, as Marmie had us cleaning piles of our mixed hair from the stairs.

My sister and I share a trait (a quirk? a personality malfunction) which finds us in giddy hysterics at the worst possible time(s).

(Googie has demonstrated symptoms of this same issue)

Susan's quick wit and unique take on the world combined with some serious sleep deprivation can quickly spell disaster..

Or a pretty huge, embarrassingly loud, cackle fest.

This last all- night-er we pulled at the hospital is a stellar example of what I'm talking about.

We'd been at the hospital for hours, maybe 11 or so and our dad had not really gotten much treatment or a firm diagnosis.

Susan and I waited outside his room (really just to gather a breath, it's hard to watch a loved one suffer).

The frustration of the whole situation was forging a destructive path on my emotional well being and I was beginning to show signs of an explosion.

(Think Shirley McClaine's reaction in the movie Terms of Endearment when her dying daughter doesn't get her pain shot in time... see here)

After so many hours had passed and no one seemed to be doing much of anything Susan decided it was time to take matters into her own hands...

"I'll get us some quality help" Susan said.

She held up a pretend microphone and paged us a team of doctors.

"Paging Dr Larry"

"Dr Moe"

"Dr Curly"......

We (quietly) laughed so hard I peed my pants and Susan started her trademark "laugh-cry"... she laughed/cried so hard the tears rolled down her face...

Susan put her head down and her whole body shook with her hysterics.

A nurse, sitting at the station across the room took note.

She thought Susan was hysterical for other reasons and came over to calm her.

"We're doing the best we can" she said softly.

Susan caught the quick flowing tears that gathered under her eyes.

She wiped and nodded and bit her lip to keep her composure.

I hid in my sweatshirt neck and breathed my own BO... it worked like a sobering slap in da chops.

Stress relief comes in all forms.

Just sayin yo.

Elizabeth RN... (stands for Rotten Nurse)

TGIF... it's been a really really really really really loooooooooooong week.

Bear is going to survive, a really bad case of mono has been diagnosed, is being treated and is currently under good control..


whew that was a close one.


He tells no lie(s) when he says he has the immune system of a sickly two year old... and the healing properties of a 1,000 year old man.


My dad is still hanging out horizontally on the fifth floor of a local hospital... Susan (my sister, you may know her as the one who reads every other written word, in every medium, including the dosing instructions of baby Tylenol while having no small children, yes, she reads everything...ev-ery-thing except this blog)... where was I..?


Oh yeah Susan (you may know her as ....please see above) worked on a project at the very hospital that my dad is currently being killed at.... the project was done with a consulting firm the purpose of said project was to see where this hospital failed (the way in which it is horrifically run, that's where..yo) and where it could improve (stop killing so many with your poor, inept care..duh)


Susan says the hospital received high "marks" in the surgical arena however they received really low marks in aftercare... 


no shit... seriously? 


There is a particularly snooty nurse whose hair I would love to pull. She is condescending and rude. Not to mention mean, uncaring and a witch with a "B"....


The crack up is that this month she is the featured "EMPLOYEE of DA MUNT"... so her (fake) smiling mug is plastered on an 8x10 situated on the information board as you round the corner to my dad's room.


Ohhhh how I want(ed) to rip down that picture.


I even fantasized about putting the large photo in the toilet and pooping on it...( not a command pooper so that was out)


I didn't tell Susan (my sister...) about my plan because she likes to pretend to be the mature one...she'd rather write a complaint letter than take an un-flushed dump on a glossy 8x10.



Yesterday as we walked toward our dad's room she asked an odd question..."you don't have a Sharpie, do you...?" she said nodding toward the ugly picture of the ugly nurse.


What the hell...she was going to do a little ink "photo-shoping" on that bimbo's mug shot....


Good lawd, there is hope for that girl after all...


(I didn't have a Sharpie and thank goodness I didn't...neither one of us noticed the huge (really large) round "see everything up and down the hallway" mirror ball thingy hanging on the ceiling...it would have been hugely embarrassing having a security escort out of the hospital with a destruction of property charge looming)....


TTYL....


xoxo

Ride the stair......(you idiots)

I was a really good kid saddled with unusual siblings.

Susan (my sister, the one who doesn't read this blog) and our brother John were a bit on the odd side.

A little too smart for their own good some people liked to say.

I was not as book smart nor as easily entertained (ADD) as the two of them and often found myself thinking up all kinds of stuff to do to ward off childhood boredom.

Anything to make a chore easier or more fun.

Susan and I would wash the dishes in the bathtub after we'd played baseball with the leftover mashed potatoes.

(Sorry Marmie, just to let you know, we always "caught" the mashed potato ball)

We'd haul all the dishes in the bathroom and fill up the tub, it was an awesome plan, we could both wash at the same time.

( I shudder now to think of the possibilities of what else may have floated around with the dishes in that deep tub).

In addition to dressing up boring chores we also had John to help keep the doldrums at bay.

We'd think up all kinds of horrible practical jokes to play on him.

Hold him down and put makeup on him.

Torture him as only sisters can do.

As book smart as my siblings were they both lacked true common sense.

Evidenced by their love of a game that was nothing but horribly dangerous.

Stair-surfing is nearly as stupid as downhill skiing.

The minute Marmie shut the front door the two of them would drag a mattress to the head of the basement stairs and they would ride it down.

Like moth(s) to flame(s) they had neither clue nor care about their mortality.

Be it a fatal roll-off crash or Marmie discovering the shenanigans that went on when she left the house for an hour or two.

They were playing with fire, but the lure of the thrill was stronger than the fear of punishment.

Today while exploring the wide world of Pinterest I came upon something so neat it made me wish Susan (you know) read my blog so that she could see it too.

I would email it to her but she doesn't read her email.

I could probably phone her and let her know to read my blog or check out her email.

I'd do that, but she doesn't answer her phone either.

(Believe it or not, I don't think it's personal)

(slide dowwwwwn for the image)

(weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee)

Call home... call home...call home....

Saturday, I had the occasion to be in the car with my sister Susan (you may know her as the one who doesn't read this blog)...

We have lots of history in cars.

Going to the beach with mom.

Going to the beach with dad.

Drive-in movies.

Double dating...well, not really, since Susan didn't have a date, she was just sent to spy on me and a very young Daddio.

Well into our 20's we even got into a bit*h slap fight once in the car.

Where we traveled across three lanes of heavy traffic and back all the while we slapped at each others slapping hands.

(To this day I still wonder what the drivers around us must have been thinking)

I'm not all that fond of riding in cars with my sister.

She is a downtown "Deeee-troit" driver all the way.. she tailgates, she flips the bird, she ziz-zags in and out of lanes.. she is disregardful of pedestrians and yield signs and traffic cops too. 

Crazy as frick.

I like to sit in the back seat.

Where I can duck, hide, and pray.

Pray we don't get our asses kicked or in an accident.

On Saturday as Susan played NASCAR (with Googie as her co-driver) I sat and quietly bit my cuticles, ate my cheeks and periodically shit my pants.

Every now and then I screamed offered helpful hints from the back seat... they were unappreciated and ignored.

Susan and Googie got into a conversation about a feature that many new phones/cars have...hands free dialing.

I had it for a bit with my new car a couple of years ago.... I would yell commands at the damn thing and it would always call the wrong person.

Susan told a funny story about her mother in law trying to get the car phone to call her home.

"Call home" Susan's MIL said over and over and over.

The phone made no move to call anyone.

Susan's MIL tried to change her voice, adding, subtracting inflection...

Time after time the phone refused to cooperate.

Which made Susan laugh.

From the back seat I added my two cents.

"My phone would be just as stupid" I said "after a short awhile of intense aggravation I would cuss and  yell "CALL FUC*IN HOME.."

and finally, finally that damn phone would make a move..

"dialing Frank" it would say.

xoxo

Easter lickens.....

Dear Diary....

Friday... April 22nd 

Bear caught a bad, bad bug and thought he was on his way to meet his maker.

How, I wondered, am I going to send him off to college a couple of hours from home when a virus has him calling me at work predicting an impending death...?

Well, to be fair, his temp was over one hundred three degrees.

As any cleaver opportunist would do I totally jumped on the chance to kick him when he was down..and while wiping his sweaty brow said things like,

"Think my broom will make the flight to your bedside when it's two plus hours from home?"

"You can try, but you aren't going to find any roommate that can make chipped ice like I can"

"You're not ready to wean yet, mister, that SOS call is total proof"...

I was pretty annoying.

Desperate for him to change his mind and decide that he isn't ready to go had me pulling a butt load of tricks and trip-ups from my haversack of mother's little helpers.

Sick humor, guilt and confidence busters... I got em all.

It was a true Good Friday miracle what a good sawbones and couple of powerful drugs can and will do for an ailing young body... the next day the kid was good as new and still on that damn college away from home kick.

Sunday....April 24th

We had a lovely Easter... and dinner at my sister, "Martha"Susan"Stewart's" house.

The festive ambiance of her house was enviable.

The mishmash of crap that she's accumulated over the years has turned into quite the lovely collection.. seriously, her mantle and table were beautiful.

(note to self...take a big purse next year, she'll never notice a few missing items)

She had (what appeared to be) an antique Winnie the Pooh and Christopher Robin pail on the table as a centerpiece.

She'd filled it with potting soil and three different spring flower blooms.

Red tipped white tulips, daffodils, and Grape Hyacinth... very Martha.

A couple of multi tiered glass serving dishes waited patiently on a side table for Susan to fill them with homemade fudge.

A platter of deviled eggs with a perfect dusting of paprika sat opposite the flowers.

Tempting all of us to take the first one...

Only one of us was nervy enough to dig in before dinner.

That particular guest had four legs and lightening fast reflexes.

Once she'd helped herself to a sampling of the egg filling Daddio carried the platter of eggs to where Susan cooked.

"Ummm.." he said "looks like the seasoning has been licked off a couple of your eggs"

The white dog tried not to look guilty...in spite of her paprika red and yoke yellow tinged beard.

With a smile Susan deep sixed the three "tested" eggs and set the platter back out.

The remaining nine served as a decoration.

Daddio's mom made a friend for life when she slipped half her meal over the side of the table and to the waiting dog.

She even fed it a large blob of snow white butter cream frosting right off her fork.

Luckily we got out of there before the dog came down with the shits.

And not so lucky I came down with Bear's virus.

I sound like Maude.

And eerily, I look a bit like this chick...only my nose is red and the circles around my eyes are black.