Don't trip on the pee...

Susan (you may know her as my sister, the one who doesn't read this blog) and I spent one whole entire night at the hospital recently.

There is something quite odd about sitting in a foreign place and watching the sun go down and still being there to watch it rise hours later.

Our poor, poor dad is sick a-gain.

We've all been so disgusted with the treatment our local hospital has been giving my dad that we decided in advance that if he needed to be hospitalized again that we would take him to a nationally respected teaching hospital located in the middle of the "D".

A beautiful hospital surrounded by blight and homeless people.

The busy Emergency department would only allow one of us in the Triage area.

I drew the short straw and went in....Susan took a seat in the waiting room and pulled out some homework.

I found our dad laid out on a shabby stretcher in the middle of a bustling hallway where he' d been dropped by the EMS workers.

Next to him was a young thug laying on an equally shabby stretcher.

Next to the thug was a Police Officer, who it appeared, was keeping watch.

For once I was thankful that my dad is half deaf and can't hear many things outside a very close range.

Eavesdropping I learned that the young man, (in addition to having one of the foulest mouths I've ever heard) had been the victim of police brutality... he'd been roughed up, pepper sprayed and taser-ed.

He claimed they (The PoPo) had robbed him of his diamond pinky ring, and his pocket roll.

He alternately boo-hoo'd about getting his gun swiped and trying to strike a plea bargain (with the baby-sitting cop who couldn't do anything with that if you bribed him).

The bloody red eye'd boy was attempting to get the cop to get him out of his impending CCW charge.

The punk rambled on and on and on and the officer and I would occasionally trade glances and roll our eyes.

When the baby criminal paused for a quick breath I scanned the dump for something else to take my mind off of being there.

I spotted a creature with long, bright pink and braided (think Wednesday Adams) hair.

She wore a long, colorful (mostly pink) pinafore.

Ruffled white anklet socks and Mary Jane shoes.

An equally cutesy purse swung from her forearm when she skip-walked through the hallways of the ER.

When she pranced near enough for a closer inspection I almost laughed out loud.

She had gray roots beneath her colorful braids. Crows feet, a wrinkled forehead and lots of vertical lips lines... this babe was as old as time.

Susan (who'd seen the cartoonish doll in the outside waiting area) and I later compared notes about our common "what-THE-heck" when we overheard the ancient "girl" talking about being there with her mother.

I have no doubt, not a single one that any living mother of someone this old would have been GWR (Guinness World Record) worthy, fo sure....

Tramp stamps, bursting, tattoo'd cleavage and big booties covered in small thongs (peeking out from too tight too low trousers)  were abundant in the waiting area.

And so were the men that appreciate that kind of stuff.

Hoooo-hoooo-hoooo-ly cow.... the place was buzzing with people you'd hope to never meet in a dark alley.

While my dad rested with his eyes closed I entertained myself watching people try to dodge a large stream of light colored pee that was rushing toward a drain on the floor.

(* I knew it be pee because... [not just because I happen to be a knowitall, but because] the staff kept whispering (THIS LOUD)  that there was pee on the floor)

After calling at least 10 times to the housekeeping department and being ignored a nurse finally opened a large blanket and stuck it over the pee.

Then people could walk/trip (and ohhhh did they ever) over the blanket covered pee-pee on the floor.

Shame on me, I know.

Here, in this place, at this very time to stand guard over a potential malpractice victim (he's been through the ringer folks) and all I do is bobble-head over the whole room and take notes for my blog.

Survival friends, survival.

xoxo

Les incompetent....

I like to stay under the radar when it comes to certain things.

I like to fly low and steady attempting to not attract attention of any kind in certain circumstances.

Mostly, I don't like people knowing how old I am or how lame I can be.

My boss's boss asked me to do him a "personal favor"... he needs me to work the next three Friday's.

It's not the fact that I have to put my second "job" on hold or anything (although that really IS a super pain in the keister not to mention a pretty big cluster flup).

Making up for lost time on Saturday is not really all that big of a deal...

 (frickin hell to da yes it's a big azz deal...)

So while I'm totally being asked to be put out and put upon..."they" are my bread and butter, so I need to just suck it up and when they say "JUMP"... I must respond WTF "HOW HIGH ??"

It's not so much that I have to be there on Friday...mostly all working stiffs work 5 days a week.

The problem is WHAT they have me doing.

Kayaking .... week one we were going to Kayak.

I'm all about depending on me/myself/I .... but me/myself/I in a little floatation device being in total charge of me/myself/I and having not one single solitary outdoorsy type person to help out by sitting in the boat and doing everything while I hang (white knuckle) on to the sides with my eyes glued shut had me more than a little shook up (not to mention heart palpitations, which were lots).

I think my boss' boss could see that he was asking for a donation of my left kidney....

or for me to Pole Vault across six cars lined up side to side.

He could see me squirm (the tears streaming down my face didn't hurt either).

"Please don't make me go in a boat by myself" I silently begged

"Surely, I'll paddle (if I get the hang of it) right into International Waters (Canada is our nearest neighbor) or out to sea...

They'll find me days after the trip, one pinky finger gouged into the side of the kayak hanging on for dear survival, lips parched, severely sunburned and half eaten by whatever kinds of huge (whiskered) fish hang out in the deep, deep, dark waters of the Huron River...

Or the boat just may capsize, I won't drown, but I'll sink to the bottom and end up with dirt in places ladies shouldn't have dirt."

By a stroke of wonderful luck our kayaking trip was cancelled due to a forecast of heavy rain.

Daddio hugged me tight and said "they really have no idea how great it is that this event has been rained out, they don't want someone like you on a kayak"

(the man calls a fig a fig)

I nearly cried tears of joy at the change of plans which included a Movie with the group.

I like to watch movies, but don't go out to see them often. I don't like that I can't pause the show and take a tinkle break or get some diet ice cream or chocolate bars. I don't like that I may have to share the armrest with a total stranger or hear/smell someone enjoying their last meal of popcorn..

(crazy knows it...just sayin)

I figured I could get over myself and my idiosyncrasies for a couple hour movie.

Anything would be better than kayaking.

My group and I got to the theater late and had to walk in with the movie already in progress.

I found myself leading the way into the theater.

In my own defense I will say that I had no idea my "night blindness" was so advanced.

Or that the stairs were so far apart.

Climbing mostly blind to the top seats of the movie theater had me using my foot like a red tipped white cane...tap tap tap... okay there it is, you can step now...tap tap tap....there is the next one... and the next and the next.

Even though I couldn't see my hands in front of my face, I'm quite sure lots of people (including my boss' boss) saw me go down on all fours like an ape to keep from tripping.

Next week the plan is to go fishing.

I'm not sure if I should pray for rain, or not...?

We can poke your eye out with a rusty screwdriver or we can poke your eye out with a rusty screwdriver...

Arrgh.

Walk a mile in my pumps (or just a foot or two)....

Ohhhh, my dogs are barking.

They've been barking (loudly and incessantly) for a couple of months.

Over these past several months I've developed a HUGE calf muscle (that sideways looks like really fat turkey drumstick) on one leg.... a result of trying to walk on the side of one foot.

All because of a really shitty, rotten and nastily foul foot aliment called Plantar Faciitis.

Another gift of (menopausal weight gain) middle age.

The saying "feet don't fail me now" had never even crossed my mind as mine had always been very very kind to me.... they were good and sturdy and able to carry me, plus 23.81 #'s (collectively at birth) of babies, an over- the- years steady weight gain all happily supported (usually) by some super cute yet totally un-sensable shoes... mostly heels (and high ones at that).

My feet rocked.

As good as my feet were fundamentally and structurally, they were not ever pretty to look at and have always caused me a fair amount of embarrassment.

Fred Flintstone flat... ruddy colored vienna sausage like toes...

Like putting lipstick on a pig the shiny bright nail polish and neat home-done pedicures were basically a moot point.

A waste of time and money.

Still though, as ugly as they were, they totally had my respect and my undying gratitude for their loyal performance(s).

Until lately.

Lately I want to chop the whole foot off and put an end to my pain.

I hate the mo-fo's....

Since I saw my doctor about my aching foot and the exercises he gave me to try didn't work I've had all kinds of fantasies about asking him for a referral to a foot specialist.

There are lots of em... one peek in the pile of colorful advertisements that come through the mail and in the Sunday paper will find that every other advertisement is for a "foot job" repair all done by a miracle man Doctor of Podiatry.

I was on the elevator the other day, on my way to visit my ailing father.

I entered on the ground floor with the intention of going up to floor number 7.

A man and another woman hopped on board and pushed the floor buttons.

She was headed to floor #2.

The man to floor #8.

I was going to seven.

I'm not going to sugar coat this.... I get elevator anxiety. I smell things, I hear things and I often stifle giggles (thinking almost automatically about an old Peter Seller's "Pink Panther" movie, see clip below, tee- hee) ...

I look around so as not to look around...kwim?

A ride that far in an elevator is usually excruciating (at best) for someone like me.

I notice (while NOT looking around) that the man is a doctor...a Podiatrist.

I almost want to take this opportunistic moment to ask him about my barking dogs.

Since the elevator appeared to be stopping at every floor I had lots of time to try and get up my nerve.

I glanced over at him and noticed that he was looking down.

It didn't matter who was getting on or off that elevator the doctor was busy with his eyes elsewhere.

I followed his stare and it stopped at my feet.

I wondered if he could just somehow "tell" that I had foot problems.

Were there telltale signs that an expert could spot...?

His gaze didn't appear official.

Maybe he was thinking about how goofy and ugly my feet were...?

My initial response was to hide my toes... the more he stared the more I tried to nonchalantly curl them up under my sandal straps.

The harder I drew them in and up the more I felt a charley horse cramp beginning to creep into the bottom of my bad foot.

Suddenly I got the feeling that this guy was a bit of an odd ball.

Suddenly I got the feeling that he didn't find my feet repulsive at all....

Suddenly I got the feeling that I was on the elevator with a Podiatrist with a foot obsession.

And not in a professional way.

When I stumbled off on the 7th floor I wanted to find a place to wash my feet... they felt dirtier and uglier than usual.

I'm not joking when I say I felt totally violated.



On a lighter note... (please turn up your volume and listen carefully)

What I did on my summer vacation....

My loveable load has lessened, so much so that at this very moment I only have one.

(poor kid)

He comes to me after the academic potion of his day and believe me when I say "poor kid".

Not much could be worse for a punk rotten kid than to have to play nice with a cray-cray old woman who loves to hear herself babble.

In an effort to keep ourselves busy and get something accomplished we started off making mini meatloaves.

I sent the loveable to the big kitchen to fetch some eggs.

This kid's ADHD is the WORST I've ever encountered so I often find myself breaking down chores and being annoyingly through in my requests..

"Please go to the large kitchen and get a half dozen eggs. Don't let the eggs fall on the floor. Could you take a bowl, so you don't have to try and carry all 6 in your hands. Please don't get lost in the freezer. And don't touch anything else in there. Walk, don't run in the kitchen, Miss Sue doesn't like it when we run in her kitchen"

He stops twirling in circles and looks at me.

I point toward the bowls, he picks up three different sizes, one at a time and says "this one?"

"what about this one"

"this one or this one"

"Pick a bowl kid, any bowl and go get the eggs" I advise.

He comes back with an extra egg and it turns out to be a good thing when he begins to juggle three and drops one on the counter.

"Good thing you had an extra one" I say "don't do that at home, luck will have you having just enough and then you won't be able to make your recipe"

While we gather ingredients to make the meat loaf mixture, he takes a momentary "time out".

With a large spoon he "stirs" inside the huge metal bowl, which is empty.

His actions make quite a racket, but not as much as when the bowl spins off the counter and hits the floor.

(the sound rattles the metal fillings in my teeth)

"Wow" I say "lucky for you that bowl is empty".

He smiles and nods his head.

He dances back and forth, hops on one foot, then the other as we put the seasonings and the meat in a pile in the middle of the big bowl.

Like a race horse ready to run he leans and gestures his body forward, it's evident he can hardly wait to dig his gloved hands into the bowl to combine the mixture.

"Be careful" I say "go slow" I caution.

He dives in, both hands, up to his elbows.

A blob of the meat flies out of the bowl and hits the ground.

Shit, I think.... you need to frickin S-L-OOOOOOOOOOOO-W it down kid, slow down, slow down.

"Stand still" I say as I go near his feet to gather the ground beef off the floor.

He backs up from the bowl to give me room.

He steps on my pinky finger.

His size 13 shoe makes an impression.

I wonder if my nail will turn black and fall off..?

A sticky clump of meat mixture falls from his extended hands.

It falls in my hair.

"I'm sorry" he says, then as I stand up he reaches to get it out.

"I'm good" I say, backing away from his meat covered gloves.

I pulled out as much of the sticky burger as I can and back to work we go.

I leave him alone for a minute to get a cloth from the back room.

When I round the corner entering the room I see him lifting up a volley ball sized hunk of meatloaf mixture high above his head. He was just about ready to toss that into the air when I yelled for him to stop. He jumped so hard he knocked over the plastic measuring cup.

It bounced off the floor and hit my shin.

The cup doesn't break... I'm not too sure about my shin bone.

"YOU OKAY?" the lovable asks.

"I'm (FLIPPIN AZZ) fine, I'm good, put the meat back in the bowl" I respond.

While I look at the recipe for a baking time he shapes the meat into baseball sized mounds.

I want to scream "STOP PLAYING WITH YOUR MEAT"...

but I don't because I've done that before and not had the best reaction.

We end up having a lot of class time left when I make the executive (saving both our azzs') decision to finish the meat loaf (MYSELF) in the morning.

What to do what to do what to do.

"Ever make cupcakes?" I ask.

I send him, along with 17 "rules" to gather 6 more eggs from the big kitchen.

He brings 7, just in case.

We use a box mix, I like to teach them how to read the directions figuring that this is what they will most likely bake at home.

I tell him to always read left to right..following the band across the top of the cake mix box showing the ingredients needed and how much of each.

He chooses to use brute force (instead of the scissors sitting next to him) to open the plastic bag containing the dry mix.

The bag pulls apart sideways and half the mix poufs into the air and into both our faces.

As I wipe up the mess I'm not paying attention when he says "One cup of oil"....

Just as he's about to pour it in it hits me that that doesn't sound right.

"Wait a minute" I yell...

Oil sloshes sideways and over the edge of the cup's rim when he jerks his hand back to "STOP" like I order.

The oil hits the counter and threatens to go over the edge onto the floor.

I mop up the oil watching closely while he finishes with the next few additions.

"Have you ever used a hand mixer?" I ask him.

I demonstrate even though he tells me he has.

"If you lift these beaters up out of this bowl and any liquid flies anywhere it shouldn't" I warn him..."you WILL be washing walls and where ever else it hits...understand?"

He promises he does.

And for a second or two he remembers, then he does exactly what I told him not to do.

The beaters lift and turn with his body when he tries to say something to me.

I catch most of the flying batter.

Only not with my hands.

He comes at me with the oil covered cloth and I duck and weave and tell him "thank you very much, but I'll clean my own face".

He doesn't seem dissapointed when I tell him that we have to wait until tomorrow to frost our cupcakes.

I'm pooped.

And dirty and sticky.

And done with this day.

Later a co-worker would gesture that I had something on my face. I wiped left. He nodded, then gestured right. I wiped right, he nodded again. "Under your eye" he said "and on your eyebrow". I wiped both spots.

"There's something really gross in your hair" he said, then added "only one kid today...almost like a mini vacation huh?"

"Yeah, something like that" I reply.

Photo of messy kitchen "borrowed" from foodieinberlin's blog

****** PS

I would like to thank each and every one of you who read this blog. I want to thank those who comment, your thoughts and kind words delight me more than words can say. I always think I should "comment" back... but I don't know if you circle back and look to see if I did...??? When I make a comment on a blog I never go back and see if the author replied... so I don't know if they did... I want you to know that I read each and every comment and smile every time I do... If you comment, please let me know if you circle back or not...? Either way, I appreciate you and I owe you big time for taking the time to comment... saves me some ching on a therapist..kwim?

Good bye Bouncer...

HELLOOOOOO BARTENDER

Good gawd, Bear turned 21 on Saturday.

I can't remember my own 21st birthday, (no, I wasn't that drunk... I'd been legal for years, the drinking age in Michigan was 18 at the time.)

I cried while in the card store choosing the perfect birthday card for my boy.

Bear is one of a kind kind of kid... I like to tell people that when I find myself dozing on the couch and I feel a blanket being gently laid over my shoulders, when I look up, it's always Bear placing it there.

He notices when my feet ache or my heart is broken.

We spent so much time alone together when he was small.. I feel like we're pals.

Many of the cards I looked at had boys on the front that looked a lot like he did.

Dark, thick, tousled haired boys with sturdy hands and bright eyes.

Little boys playing ball, building Lincoln Log fortresses, fishing on the side of a wide stream... the kind of crap that automatically triggers the waterworks in a mother such as me.

The words below were on the card I choose...

"Along the halls of yesterday where happy memories glow, I sometimes see the little boy I loved so long ago.

He fills the house with noisy fun and laughter as he plays, banging doors in eagerness to reach his grown up days...

Today I'm proud to see a man who's grown to warm my heart even more than that small boy I loved so at the start. 


I'm going to miss having a kid around.


"21" is seriously "official" in the "I'm a grown ass man" arena.


I need to get to the mind frame that shouts "what a wonderful job you did with this kid person"...and stop wallowing in the whisper asking me how in the world "I" got old enough to have a baby that can not only drink vodka and not worry about getting caught.... but walk into any liquor store, with a bona fied ID and buy the crap...


YIKES....


Pages turn sister.....yes, yes, yes, they certainly do.


And the sooner you face facts the less you will look like a crazy lunatic.


Okay, yeah, sure.


xoxo..thanks for reading my blog!!

Exactly....

Some food for thought....

TGIF....for real this time.

xoxo

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