oh yeah...?

WELL, YOU SHOULD SEE THE OTHER GUY!

1st off, i need to tell you that she's a-ok. ok?

outline of the morning -

5:38 a.m.
(ring, ring, ring...)
"hell-o"
"blah blah blah your mom had a fall this morning. she's on her way to baylor hospital."

5:58 a.m.
(i walk over to mom all tubed and wired up in a hospital bed and take her hand...)
"hey good lookin'. how you feelin'?
"i'm ok." (smile)
"what happened?"
"i don't know."

6:00-7:00
"how'd you get here?"
"where?"
"the hospital."
(she cocks her head...) "i don't know..."
"did you get to ride in an ambulance?"
"...an ambulance...i did...clear across town in an ambulance. it took a long time."
she never did remember she'd fallen, but i heard about "goin' clear across town" a dozen times. (it's a 5 minute ride.)

........................................

"i was lying here in this bed looking out at that hallway yesterday. i remember being here yesterday."
"no, mom, this just happened this morning."
"i'm sorry you have to spend your day babysitting your mom again today..."
(again??)"no, ma'am. this just happened an hour or two ago."

(repeat the above a dozen times...)

"...going clear across town in an ambulance...someone in the ambulance mentioned alzheimer's..."(pause.)
then she asked me,"if you were told you had alzheimer's would it make you feel any different about things?"

(my mom has never been an analytical person. or a thinker, yet this is a profound question. particularly the word *feel* in that sentence.)

i thought for a while and said, "i don't know."
i thought for a while longer and finally asked the obvious, "how does it make you feel?"
"i don't know," she said.

................................................

8:00-9:00
at some point the subject of leaving the hospital came up and she asked, "where would we go?"
"back to Vickery Towers."
"hmmmm...i'm trying to think what that means to me...back to vickery towers...?...i don't really know what i'm thinking, if that makes any sense.

.................................................

9:00 a.m.
getting restless. pulling on and messing with all those hoses and wires and sticky things attached to her chest and arms and finger...kept sitting up and tugging on things. trying to get free. wanted her nightgown sleeves back on her arms. tugging on tubes and wires and sticky things...pulling on her sleeves...

all the while, i'm asking her/telling her to please lay down, please be patient just a few more minutes, the tests are all run, we'll be leaving soon, lay back down, the nurse will remove those pesky things real soon...eventually she decided if she couldn't get her arms in the sleeves the best thing she could do was to just take it off.

i pretty much got the full monty.

some day i guess i'll be the one to wash her ass and lift her saggy boobs to wash under them, but...but......

"come on, mom let's get this nightgown back on you. the doctor will be back soon to remove those hoses and stuff. we'll be leaving real soon. i promise."

..........................................................

bottom line:

1 full monty.
1 ekg, 1 head/neck ct scan, 1 hip x-ray. all results normal.
1 laceration over the eye. *stitched* with super glue or something.
1 bad-ass shiner.
1 bad-ass lady.

...........................................................

as cousin nance, who gave us a ride home, said,
"all that adventure and home by 10:00 a.m."


and mary anne smiled.

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mr. chi-city &... the Blog O' The Day (edited)

i found that video over at the 122 blog. stop by and have a look. (it's not all mr. chi-city)

[EDIT: i changed the above link to 122 to a specific post because aaron keeps posting chi-city stuff and the last one was lame. the 122 blog is a group of 16 or so, 20-something year old college buddies, some of whom have now graduated/are in grad school elsewhere. they started the blog after experiencing a very serious personal and communal tragedy. one we all should hope never to experience ourselves. 

as a consequence of their loss, this group of hyper-intelligent, caring, crazy mofos has an even stronger bond than before. 

because of their love for each other and their hilarious fucking senses of humor...may 122 live forever. amen.]

while i'm at it, check out this cool adventure...random news story otd.

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found & find

what is it?

give up, yet?




well, actually, it's just a couple of random plastic objects found on my walk and placed on the stove. the green thing is a felt-tip marker cap. the orange thing is...an orange thing.

on the stove top they look like an irish flag to me.

and i like it.



so that's the found.

and the find?

i-must-find-new-digs within walking distance of mom's.

soon.

i'm not bluffing this time. for the first time in years i find myself surrounded by people more fucked up than i am. (this can't be a good thing.) i'm so sick and tired of these crazy landlord people. (if that sounds like whining to you, think again. because that's another thing i'm sick to death of. whiners.)


gratuitous picture of "the dog with 1/2 white nails and 1/2 black nails" in a rare restful moment....

a *random* news story.

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lost and found

and lost again. and found again...

a friend found him in the middle of a busy street a few blocks away back in november. i adopted him the day or 2 before christmas. he's had several names since then: tabu, killah, wishbone, benjamin franklin, metro...

after i'd had him (as metro) for a couple of weeks he disappeared for 3 days. and he's obviously still awol from at least 1 somebody else, so that's his name. AWOL.

awol's a master paper shredder (witness him laying in his handiwork above). he's housebroken (usually) and he's a sniffer extraordinaire. i'd say he's mostly beagle with the eyes and ears of a chihuahua. it's the beagle in him that makes him go awol. 

he swears he's not doing it on purpose. says he's just 'following his nose.' doing his job as best he can.

which reminds me. he's also a a dick licker. (eew, shame on you. his, not mine.) a friend says he does it "because he can."

i think she's right.


here he is xmas day with the lovely josephine and her entourage.




his hand prints in the freshly laid cement scratchcoat of my in-progress shower floor. yes, i said *hand* prints. he likes to walk on his hind legs, so i figure my dog, unlike yours, has 2 legs and 2 arms.


it may be hard to see, but that's his beagle nose print in the same cement.


he's never without that dorky harness since he came back and always on leash when we go out. but i've spiffed it up with black marks-a-lot tiger stripes, and his name and phone # with a note saying, "for a good time, call me at..."

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M.O.T.D.

Metaphor Of The Day: 

[edit - see picture above and link below for a metaphor (this post), via the following Brilliant simile.]

"Building a fire is like playing jenga backwards." (jtb)

ok, so i haven't felt like posting much lately. 

i have a feeling that may change in the near future. i may even post pictures of my new dog. he's a pretty cool dude...mom kinda likes him.

she's always been a pretty hard sell for change. of any kind. 

(puns intended. and she's never been too fond of pets before now.)

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the dog song

thanks, terri. it's awesome. and pretty much right on... Read more!

who is your hero? [edited 1-20-09]

the first question that the Levite asked was, "If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?" But then the Good Samaritan came by. And he reversed the question: "If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?"

read the whole thing here.

what? you didn't read it. get back.

[edit: for a much more interesting and salient tribute, check this shit out from mr. bullet holes...] 

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i just learned that a blogger friend's mother died last night. i didn't know either one of them other than through this internet thing. but i can't stop crying.

the daughter is a true caregiver. she kept her mom in her home and cared for her until almost the very end; she washed her, fed her, was her companion and loving support.

the mom had alzheimer's.
i have mixed emotions. i feel for the daughter's indescribable loss and pain...i'm glad the mom is rid of hers.



when we 1st "met" i thought our moms sounded to be at pretty much the same stage of progression, but that wasn't so. my mom is still healthy - unbelievably so. she has lost more cognitive ability in the past month than in the past year, but she's still hanging in there and tries hard to catch a glimpse...she sleeps a whole lot more recently. i can see that weekly.

but she's still here. and for that i am grateful. i'm not ready for that. i guess i never will be?

peace to you and yours, Robyn.









my sister took us to walmart a few weeks ago and mom drove a go-cart for the first time ever. damn! she did good job maneuvering through the herds and strays of christmas shoppers.
and she didn't hit a single one. 

...or remember that she'd had such fun the next day. but she still likes hearing about it later.

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avocado salad and bachelor antipasta plate

are you tired of the same old peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for dinner night after night? would you like to have a nice bowl of cereal, but the milk is curdled? ...which brings me to the most difficult part of these recipes: gathering up the nerve to open the refrigerator.

(btw, where in the cornbread hell is the "d" in "refrigerator" and if that's the deal, lord, why does it unceremoniously show up in "fridge"? ??

that D should be more Tenacious.) 

did you listen to that? 

if not, do not even bother to read any further...

because this is just a tribute to the greatest refrigerator in the world!

AVOCADO SALAD for one:

the key here is to live where you can get a good avocado. (if you live in the hinterlands, substitute with toshiba apples or beef jerky.)

-slice your avocado in 2 and eat 1/2 of it with salt, pepper (and lime if you have it).
-place other 1/2 of avocado aside.
-open refrigerator and remove that mushy head of lettuce.
-remove mushy parts of lettuce.
-place unmushy parts on a plate.
-open fridge (again) and locate some old salad dressing. (the older the better. possibly the 'creamy cilantro' that wasn't as good as it sounded when you bought it, but it's better now, i promise.)
-pour a little* dressing on your lettuce** and mix with a fork.
open fridge again.
-find leftover parmesan cheese from your last pizza delivery and dump a little bit or a lot on.
-spoon out other 1/2 of avocado on top.
-add salt & lots of pepper.

and that's it. it's real good. if you happen to have carrots or onions in the refrigerator, don't add them to this particular salad. it's a total waste of time, but you can eat them while you cook.

and for you meat eaters, here's a great dish to go along with that one in case you didn't have enough unmushy lettuce for the salad to fill you up.

BACHELOR ANTIPASTA PLATE:

-open fridge (i know...i'm sorry!) and locate and remove any pizza less than 3 1/2 weeks old.
-while you're at it, locate and remove the container of sliced jalapenos that came with the pizza. and any old bologna that may be under the egg carton.
-(if there are eggs in the egg carton, extract them, too. because you can always add a fried or boiled egg to almost anything, especially salads and antipasta plates.)

-fry a slice or 2 of bologna. (or any available lunch meat or spare venison backstrap or sausage if you're real lucky.)
-scrape off the pizza toppings onto the fried bologna. (toss the crust. in the trash. it's too chewy when microwaved and it's most likely tasteless, anyway.)
-add jalapenos and nuke it all for a while. 

(tip: "a while" is sorta like "a dash" or "a pinch." i find 123 is a pretty universal microwave cooking time except for reheating cold coffee as it makes the cup too hot to hold.)

oh! & i almost forgot.

you're gonna have to open the fridge one more time to look for some more salad dressing. if you have any old italian dressing you're in luck big time. slosh some on top of your bachelor antipasta plate and you can call it, "deluxe.".

i have more great recipes to share. (but being the slacker that i am, i probably won't.)

or as the paraphrased french say... "enjoy, say la bone a pete."


* this is a tricky one. i can't really help you much, but suffice to say, too much dressing drenching is irreversible even if you have more stuff to add to the salad. if you get your lettuce too soggy, revert to the usual pb&j dinner.

** if you have some saltine crackers in little plastic packets that you got from a restaurant...crumble them up (before you open the packet) and pour them on the lettuce at this point of the preparation. (this "can" also work to "sort of" alleviate the above mentioned culinary snafu.)

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