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

(S)mothering Bear....

If you are a friend (regular reader of this blog) you know that Bear has been stuck in the sharp, jagged claws of a fierce and immensly evil virus.

If you've just happened to stumble upon this blog ("Next Blog" feature, upper left hand corner Blogger blogs) Bear is my (baby boy) soon to be 21 year old son.

 Anyway, Bear has been sick as hell.

He's also been (more) ornery (than usual).

(His being ornery has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that he's been sick for almost two weeks and claims to be near death due not to fever or fatigue, but rather (according to him) because he is being smothered...)

(by me)

"TOMORROW I TURN OFF MY PHONE" he spats at me..

(not literally, yo)

"YOU AND DAD burned up my phone today, you each called about 20 times to check on me" he continued.

"Uh, I only called twice and texted twice" I defended myself.

"TWICE... EVERY FIFTEEN MINUTES !!!" Bear scowled.

Every day there has been discussion (ARGUMENT) about Bear going to work.

"You CAN'T work" I order.

"I CAN'T NOT WORK" Bear responds.

"You'll hurt yourself, you'll kill yourself, you'll be maimed for life, you won't reach 21, you'll have a lifetime of problems, you will infect the entire universe, you'll fall down in the parking lot at work and fry in the sweltering sun, you'll have a seizure, a stroke"

(taking a gulp of air...)

"you will get cancer, you will need a blood transfusion, this will lead to Type II Diabetes, this could make you sterile or you could go blind

(gulp)

Or deaf...do you hear me? You could go deaf"

"Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee-se take the mother effin day off! Please take the day off, don't do this to me or to yourself. Take some time off, get well, please!! you are going to hurt yourself, kill yourself, maim yourself, suffer lifelong consequences for this unwise behavior !!!".

"I have to work" Bear said

"I have responsibilities, they count on me there, no one else does what I do" he continued.

"Well.... then, what are they going to do when you die at your desk...? Hmmm, what are they going to do then? Get someone else to do your job... or rely on a corpse to do the work?"

"Mom, you are an idiot"

"I have to work, and I don't want to talk about it anymore"

When my own mother called to find out how Bear was feeling I told her of our exchange and my frustration with Bear's (really amazing) work ethic.

"He is a freakin idiot" I told Marmie.

"He's going to kill himself, maim himself, create lifelong problems, develop a flesh eating bacteria...." I cried.

"Elizabeth" Marmie said "have you ever thought of giving him (back) some control over his life...?"

"MOM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" Bear screamed later when I brought the subject back up " ENOUGH!!!!"

"I AM GO-ING TO WORK"

"NUTHIN YOU CAN SAY OR DO IS GOING TO CHANGE THAT...UNDERSTAND???"

Doing my best Marmie impersionation I took another stab at getting Bear to lay on the davenport another day...

"Son, I KNOW you will do what is right for you. You know yourself best, if you feel strong enough to work, then you go. I have confidence that you will take good care of yourself, make the best decision about work. Sometimes I forget that you are an adult and in charge of your own life... I trust you Bear, really I do."

Bear decided he is too sick to go to work.

(Thank you dear, dear wise Marmie, sometimes a girls gotta know when to bring in da big guns)

Dear Marmie.... you rock!

XOXO

Signed,

Grasshopper

Measuring up....(while on fire)

One of my co-workers (a Psych major, of course) talked me into taking some stupid IQ test.

"I wonder if you will answer my way, or the way Mr. G (the loveables bona-fide degreed "read'n, write'n, rith-ma-tic teacher) did?" he said.

Almost immediately I began to sweat bullets.

Concrete verses abstract thinking... and all under a microscope named Psych Major Smartypantsknowitall Co-Worker.

Sometimes when I have debates with this guy my brain starts to hurt.

Soon,  I smell smoke.

More like cauterizing brain cells than a bbq.

He began the test and I gave it about a nano second of my attention and then I screamed "I GIVE UP" what the frick is the frickin answer".

"Hmmmmm, interesting" he said.

This morning, while checkin out Facebook I stumbled upon this...

I've never felt so understood....

(Corey, my young friend, just where o where do you find such wonderful things to post..?)

Bring on the clowns...

When all the world is a hopeless jumble

And the raindrops tumble all around

Heaven opens a magic lane

When all the clouds darken up the skyway

There's a rainbow highway to be found

Leading from your windowpane

To a place behind the sun

Just a step beyond the rain

Somewhere, over the rainbow

Way up high

There's a land that I heared of

Once in a lullabye

Somewhere, over the rainbow

Skies are blue

And the dreams that you dare to dream

Really do come true

Some day I'll wish upon a star and wake up where the clouds are far behind me

Where troubles melt like lemon drops away above the chimney tops

That's where you'll find me

Somewhere, over the rainbow

Blue birds fly

Birds fly over the rainbow

Why, then oh, why can't I?

If happy little bluebirds fly

Beyond the rainbow

Why, oh, why can't I?

Koby family update.... life (still) sucks. 

Bear has had a fever for 8 days now. It's not constant, just enough to make us both ill. (Mine is all mental) 

Daddio is threatening to run for the hills. (he's not much into hysterics or "what if" worst case scenarios being played out twenty-four/seven by the over dramatic Henny Penny he's ball & chained to) 

Yes, the sky is falling.

I'm currently actively searching for a cement umbrella under which to hide.

Hope life in your neck of the woods is much sunnier, with no threats of falling skies, or children with fevers for eight long days.

My dear Bear is grown (" a grown ass man" to quote him)... but a mother is a mother is a mother is a mother...

and fretting (and driving your husband totally nuts) just seems to come with the territory.

PS... It is confirmed, I am a total azzhole. My son has a fever and has been suffering for eight long days. While it is a tad scary for all involved I was totally disrespectful to the mother's whose children lost their lives sitting innocently in a movie theater in Auora, Colorado... I hope my pathetic whining will be forgiven. 

Dear kind and faithful blog reader...

please be patient with me. I realize there is not much worse than typing in a web address expecting to read a new and exciting blog post only to find the ssdd...(same shit different day).

My apologies, I am currently in a really big and hugely gigantic fight against a really rotten, piece of crap, no good for nuthin set of circumstances (beyond my control) that appear to have taken up residence in my life...

My dad is sick sick sick (not to mention depressed depressed depressed) and my dear boy Bear has been suffering with a virus of some sort since Sunday night, the virus includes scary high fevers and terrible moods... he is, right at this minute, being smothered by a crazy woman (who's achilles heel is her children) with the sole intention of mothering him into good health, and sadly, I'm failing miserably.

His doctor... Dr. IAM-Too-Busy-to CareFOR-myTOO-Large-Practice... has been no help at all.

(I will be doctor shopping in the very very near future)

In addition to all of this, I'm tying to help my mother deal with her intense and horrific grief.

And some of my own grief.

So that you won't worry too much, dear reader... I want you to know that I have started not fewer than 4 blog posts to delight and entertain you with.

The kicker is that I can't seem to get a moment to finish them and I can't play on my computer while at work. The kill-joys that run the place tend to frown on people authoring blogs while on their dime.... to try and do so would risk adding "getting dissss-missed" to the thorny wild hair(s) that have recently crawled up my azz and set up shop.

See you soon (pray for the whole damn bunch of us, will ya?)

Please,

and

thank you...

xoxox