Something unusual happened last night. I went to bed before midnight.

I am trying to get back into a semi-normal mode of sleep, whatever that really is. The goal is to sleep for at least 6 hours straight, and that just doesn't seem to happen. I assume my frequent awakenings are the reason I remember my dreams.

Unusual thing #2: I picked up on the same dream after I woke up the first time. Or a version of the same dream, I guess. Some friends were getting me together (quite a task in itself) to take me to O & M rehab. I was balking somewhat, finding excuses not to get out the door, and also having trouble finding all the things I was supposed to take with me, notably my white cane. When I did find it, it was under the edge of my bed, and missing the tip.

In part 2, they were still trying to get me ready to go, but it was like a comedy of errors. I kept insisting that I pack a few more things, and now I couldn't find my sunglasses. Someone asked if they were red, and I said "Hell, no, who do you think I am, Matt Murdock?" Then all these people dragged me out to a waiting car that was already overstuffed with other people and various types of luggage. I was crawling over a large duffle when I woke up. Geez.

If nothing else, maybe someone can get a laugh out of my subconscience.

Now if I only had good sense...

Ever get a little bored and want to try that Tickle IQ test? Well, I did for some reason.

Congratulations, ********!

Your IQ score is 133

This number is based on a scientific formula that compares how many questions you answered correctly on the Classic IQ Test relative to others.

Your Intellectual Type is Visionary Philosopher. This means you are highly intelligent and have a powerful mix of skills and insight that can be applied in a variety of different ways. Like Plato, your exceptional math and verbal skills make you very adept at explaining things to others — and at anticipating and predicting patterns. And that's just some of what we know about you from your IQ results.

Ok, is this what everybody gets back from this test? I would love to know. End of time wasted.

What's in a name?

Was just messing around and had to look mine up:

Alice

Add to My Favorite Names

Origin Meaning Old German noble Greek truth

Traits: Most people think of Alice as "Alice in Wonderland"--a young daydreamer who is gregarious and free-spirited. Some, though, see her as a prissy old homebody.

Famous people with this name: Lewis Carroll's children's story Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, rock singer Alice Cooper; actress Alice Faye; TV character Alice (The Honeymooners) Kramden; Arlo Guthrie's song "Alice's Restaurant"

Winter Solstice

Toby wishes you all a very happy holiday, whatever kind you celebrate.

*****

I'm trying to figure out how this house got into such a state of disarray. Certainly it must be the cats, because I'm not this messy.

Things here are filed in vertical chronilogical order. Yesterday, one of those files began an avalanche, and there was no stopping it. I countered by going to bed, where there is no avalanche zone, and sleeping a marathon in which I dreamed of going to an Episcopal church with my mother (the only time she ever stepped foot in one was for my first wedding) and winding up falling asleep in the pew, and waking up with only my skirt and bra on. Then I could not find the blouse I had worn in there. To add insult to injury, they ran out of communion wafers before they got to me. Wait til I tell this one to the shrink.

I awoke midevening, with a splitting headache and no desire to clean the avalanche. I downed some pain relief, and the usual nighttime medications and decided to see if I could sleep all night, which is something I haven't done in ages. That resulted in a dream also about my family, in which I was at my sister's house, and it was a sight worse than the avalanche I had avoided in reality here. What is it about you are better able to deal with someone else's mess than your own? I kept grousing at my sister for her slovenly ways, and my mother was there, once again, taking up for her. After all, my sister has CHILDREN and therefore is not responsible for any messy housekeeping practices. This sort of dream recurrs, where my mother absolves my sister of any misdoings, but punishes me relentlessly for the same. Ah, the middle child syndrome is alive and well in me.

I have finished all my orders to be shipped out, and since I don't shop for the holidays, I am pretty much done. I have some major housecleaning to do, so I can begin the new year in a bit better shape. I hope.

There it is. My exciting life these days. Oh, and Ringo says Happy New Year, too.

New Bed: Part Deux

Uncertainty as Toby sniffs the new bed. >>>
Ringo prepares to dive underneath.
~~~~~

It's taken two weeks for the furniture store to get my actual new bed. They had the mattress set in stock, and I have been sleeping (!) on it with it perched on a loaner frame.

There was a repeat performance with the cats. The doorbell rang. The cats skittered under the bed. The delivery men went in the bedroom to lift up the mattresses to retrieve the frame and cats went flying out. Oh shit, she's moving again.

I watched with great anticipation as first the headboard and then the footboard came through the front door. Then suddenly, the thought struck me that this was the first time in my entire life I had ever bought a NEW bed. My childhood bed was one of a pair of bunks left over from my older brothers, my teenaged bed was bought at a yard sale, and I had to strip layers of paint off it to finally repaint it an antiqued avocado (it was the 60's, after all). I took that bed with me to my marriage, and it was not replaced until I inherited Great Auntie's furniture. It was a good thing that at the time I was married to a very short man.

During my second marriage, we never had a real bed, just the mattress set on a frame. Toward the end, we did buy a headboard, but it never even got attached to that frame. By that time, I was sleeping in the other room in Great Auntie's bed anyway. So, that one doesn't count in my book. As far as I know, the headboard is still leaning against the wall.

Back to our story...this bed had to be assembled, as it had side rails and screwed in slats. The men put the platform back on the bed, I tossed on my new dust ruffle (the cats love that), they topped it off with the mattress, and they were on their way. The cats were still well hidden. I put on the sheets, tossed on the quilt, fluffed up the pillows, and still no cats. Hmm.

I flopped into the middle of the bed. Man, this is one tall bed. I can barely vault into it. I can't sit on the edge and put on my shoes, which is good anyway, because that ruins your bed eventually. There is a chair in the bedroom for that. Which now is uncluttered because I put a rack to hang my jackets and things up on the wall. What has come over me? I look semi-organised in there. Maybe it will spread to the rest of the house some day.

Eventually, the cats showed up from the undisclosed hiding place. The jaguar slink mode was employed once again, and both cats had to sniff the new furniture to see if it met to expectations. Once satisfied, they dived under the bed ruffle to check out the clearance beneath.

Then I pulled back the covers and dived in myself. Four hours later, I woke up because some fool thought he had dialed the contest line for the local radio station. I stumbled into the living room, as I don't keep the phone near the bed lest I answer before I fully awaken. No glasses, so no chance of reading the caller ID. This poor soul asks me "Am I the third caller?" On another, less wonderful day, he would have gotten the wrath of Khan. But I was nice, saying that he must have the wrong number, and please dial more carefully next time. He apologized. I hung up the phone.

I need to make up a snappy retort for this sort of call, because three hours later, it happened again. This time, the lady insisted she had dialed the number they gave on the radio. Impossible, I said, I've had this number for over ten years. She still argued, and I hung up on her. Next person is going to win an all expenses paid trip to the local landfill if they don't apologise for misdialing.

~~~~

Short story long: I love my new bed. I am the queen of the household. You may kiss my ring.

The Seal(y) of approval

After a lot of soul-searching and heeding the ever present aching of my back, I decided that maybe it wasn't a good idea to keep Great Auntie's antique bed any longer as my prime resting spot. As much as I cherish this bed, I would have to get a custom mattress made for it, since it would not really be possible to "squish" a standard 75" mattress into its really only 72" long frame. Only a few places remain that will build a custom mattress any more, and since I don't want a round or heart-shaped one, I am not willing to go hunt for them, then pay the shipping costs on top of everything else.

I shopped one more store, a locally owned one, and found what I wanted at a price I could afford. It seems that the mattress manufacturers change the coverings they offer on the outside of their products quite often, and the style conscious types must have the latest. I am not one of those. So I bought the "so last week" fabric, at a substantial savings, and got a much nicer mattress than I first thought I'd be able to get. Top it off with free delivery, and honey, you have yourself a sale!

Therefore, the domestic goddess got herself a queen-size bed. Harris Furniture delivered the mattress and foundation on Saturday morning, with a loaner frame until the bed itself arrives. The new bed is a nice imitation of my old bed, stylewise. It's oak, where the old bed is walnut, and of course, much lighter tone because it's new. There is a headboard and footboard, and it has a nice oval sort of shape and some little decorative carvings for accents. It will blend nicely with the real antiques, and I can buy sheets that fit! To say I am tickled is an understatement.

I knew that getting a new bed would be a trauma for the cats. They knew something was up Friday night when I was in there dusting and vacuuming everything within an inch of its life. (Look out! She's hoovering! Something is going to happen! Run! Hide!) When the two college age guys knocked on the door with the delivery, it was time for them to go into action. (Quick, under the bed!)

These guys were so nice. One of them commented about my "washing machine" on the front porch as they came in. While that sounds like something you would expect in Arkansas, famous for upholstered pieces on the veranda, it's not at all the avocado green appliance you are thinking about. It's the wringer frame that holds two tin washtubs, and has a built in rub board. It's at least a hundred years old, and I normally plant begonias in it in the spring. Last winter, some kittens took refuge in the tub, and began sleeping in it. They still do, so no flowers, just dirt. Anyway it's on my porch and it's sort of nifty.

I digress. That wasn't the only thing these young men hadn't seen before. When they dismantled the old bed, they hauled the mattress out first. I'm sure they had never seen a real cotton tick before. But the fun part was they had never been up close and personal to a real, honest-to-goodness bed spring. The kind you used to see in movie attic scenes of old houses, next to the dress form that no one really ever had in their attic (where DID that cliche come from?). I had to ask if either had ever seen one, and they said only in movies. Ha. I am ancient.

I digress once more. When the guys came in the house, the cats ran under the bed. When they began to dismantle the bed, the cats hauled ass to points unknown. I could not find either one of them, but I knew they didn't escape out the door, because I was guarding it. I didn't see Ringo for about 5 minutes after they left, when he came crawling out from under my library table. I didn't see hide nor hair of Toby.

Even rustling the new sheets didn't bring him out. This is a cat who is famous for playing "Lumpy Bed". Every morning when I climb out of bed, I turn around to make it up, and Toby is dead smack in the middle of it. I simply make it up anyway, letting him play his way out of the midst of the sheets. Of course this ritual is accompanied by "Where's the cat?" Pat, pat, pat around on the bed. I come back later to smooth the sheets. So where the hell was Toby?

I was putting the pillowslips on the new pillows when I looked up and he was doing the jungle cat slink into the bedroom. You know...like he was approaching a herd of gazelle on the Serengeti, low to the ground, move a couple steps forward, hide in the dense underbrush of the carpet. He had the most WTF expression. Wish I'd had a video camera. I'd have won on America's funniest video show. (Well, maybe not. It wouldn't have involved hitting a guy in the nuts, which seems to be a recurring theme there.)

Not long afterward, the domestic goddess and the two resident felines were most deliciously napping on the new bed. A nap that lasted five hours. I guess I was tired. Man, I love my new bed.

A firm-ative action

When's the last time you bought a mattress? I went out today in search of Mama Bear's perfect bed, and found out more than I want to know about them.

I don't need the box spring, or foundation, or whatever they call it now. I have an antique bed, and only the mattress will fit on it, and barely, as it's a bit shorter than the standard now. People just weren't as tall a hundred fifty or so years ago, I suppose, because this bed is only 72 inches long between the headboard and the footboard. Matters not for me, as I am only 60 inches tall.

I inherited this bed in 1975 from my great aunt, and she had told me that she inherited it in the 1930's from a doctor she used to work for, and he was born in that bed. He was 80 when he died. It's an OLD bed. I don't even want to think what that thing has seen.

It still has the mattress on it that my great aunt had. Goodness knows how old the thing is. The bedspring underneath is an open type spring that makes a very satisfying squeak when you get on the bed. It's been the guest bed (I've had very few guests) until last year, when I moved out on my own, and I've been sleeping on it since. Or attempting to sleep on it. This old cotton tick may be the reason for my insomnia.

I looked up the major brands of mattresses on the web, found who sells what in town, and set off to see what is out there. The first place I went, there was a buzzer on the front door that sounded as I walked in. I saw some movement in the far end of the large showroom, but no one spoke to me. I have a rule of thumb. If a salesperson does not greet me in some manner in two minutes, I leave. All they have to do is acknowledge my presence; that is good enough, because I will wait my turn. This first fellow almost didn't make the cut, and there was no one else in the showroom.

When a store is full of mattresses, and one is rather obviously looking at the bedding, the question "What may I help you with today?" seems quite silly. I had an overwhelming urge to say I wanted to buy a sofa. I asked if this store would sell me only a mattress, not a set, and the salesman said he could order me one, but people never buy full size mattresses anymore unless they are for kids' beds, so they don't stock the better mattresses in that size. He tried to sell me up in size, but I countered with this is an heirloom bed and I am determined to have a new mattress for it. About that time, a pretty young thing in a very short skirt waltzes in, and he drops me to wait on her. "Try some of them out", he says, and abandons me amidst a sea of foam mattresses. I left.

Another place in town sells a good brand, so I stopped by there. This store also sells only mattresses; in fact it's called Mattress King. Surely they have something in here for me. Some fat guy is sitting at a desk in the middle of the showroom, diddling around on a computer, from my angle looking like he's playing a game. About 30 seconds after I come through the door, he finally greets me and bellows out to someone in the back that there is a customer.

The fellow comes out of the back, and politely tells me he has a truck unloading in the back and he will be right back. He looks vaguely familiar. I go start looking at the price tags and bouncing on the beds. (I didn't really bounce, but I did lie down on them.) The beds are nice, but so are the prices. Holy crap, Batman! Can I afford to get a decent mattress?

By the time he returns, I have worked my way down the line, feeling like Goldilocks at the Bear residence. Some of them are too soft, some of them are totally unyielding. Then I found "just right". Of course, it was about the top of the line. The only thing I could do to make it more expensive would be to custom order the outer fabric. He asks about the wants and needs, and he suggests I might consider the new ultra foam mattress because that would certainly fit my bed. I tried one out, and it's comfy enough, but he could not give me a decent answer about how when this "memory foam" would develop dementia. I went back to the standard type.

When I mentioned to him I only wanted the mattress, not the underneath part, he did a sudden backpedal and said "Oh, we can't honor a warranty on the mattress if you don't buy the set". What the hell is a warranty on a mattress anyway? I told him I wasn't going to use it for a trampolene, so I wasn't worried about a warranty. Geez.

Ok, down to the price. He told me he could knock off $300 for the box springs. Then he started in about financing. Whoa. I am going to pay cash for this thing. How about a discount, mister? I think he must have sold cars at one time, because he did the old calculator thing back at the desk, then came back with a roughly ten percent discount.

I ask for his card and write the info down on the back. Then it hits me and him about the same time. I see his name, and it's the guy who lived next door to me when we first bought our house. He had moved down the street to another house a couple years later. He asked what my last name was, and I replied it wasn't the same as it used to be, and I didn't live there any more. A little embarrassing, after the trampolene comment. I told him that I was still shopping, but the deal looked promising, and I left.

I still have one more place in town to look, maybe two. But buying a mattress is a big commitment. This is the last one I will ever buy. I need to do it right this time.

Free at last, free at last...

I just paid off my final car note. I took a small leap of faith that a large check I've been expecting from a client would be here soon, and paid it off. Now that Inferno Red 2000 Plymouth Breeze is mine, all mine. Lock stock and single barrel carb. Hooo-ahhhh.

This comes one day short of five years since my infamous rollover through the cottonfields of Arkansas. That car was paid off, too. I almost am afraid to go out and drive it, for fear of the prospect of something happening to this one, too. But, this is why a person pays insurance, no?

Off I go, to the post office. I will try to not let this joyous occasion make me too complacent about my driving.

I shall be blasting the music of the Daredevil album in celebration!

Post Rita Update and allergic reactions

My sister contacted me by cell phone yesterday, and told me that they were roughing it back in their home with no water and no power. They have a natural gas range and water heater, so they can cook, and when the water is back on, they can shower comfortably.

The damage was light to the house itself. Some sections of shingles blown away, and some of the cedar shake siding, but nothing where water blew in. There was not any flood damage, and they managed to get back into the county even though it was shut down by martial law (National Guard patrolling everywhere) because her husband had a chainsaw and some ladders in the back of his truck, and he could be useful in helping clear some of the blocked roads.

Wind was the nightmare. It took down some 15,000 utility poles and the main grid power lines. I saw some footage of the damage on tv and it looked like the Hulk had been stomping through there. A really BIG Hulk. Or maybe Godzilla. Anyway, trees broken off and power lines down everywhere.

As I was speaking to her, she got the news that the water was back on. I don't know if it was fit to drink, but at least they can flush the toilets without carrying in pails of water from the kids' swimming pool.

They do have a generator, so they have enough power to run some box fans during the day. Who knows how long it will take to get the power restored? There is one store in town open, once it got the front window boarded up that were blown out, and there were people who came in wanting everything for free. Had the Guard not been keeping most of the residents out of the area until the power is back on, this would have evolved into a looting spree. Hard lessons learned by Katrina only weeks ago.

I am relieved that they are back at home, but will be worried until the power is completely restored.

***

I went to the dermatologist Tuesday to see what on earth is eating up my hands. Something I have not been able to get rid of, it cracks open and bleeds. Rather nasty looking, too, not to mention itchy and sore. They thought it might be something to do with a cervical vertabrae, because of the patterning on my hands. There is a definite line of demarcation. So I had to get xrays of my neck. For a rash on my hands.

They also decided to give me an allergen patch test. They stuck two rectangular patches on my back, taped them up nicely, and told me not to get them wet until Thursday when I could come back early to have the results read. Easier said than done. I couldn't wash my hair, as I cannot lean over the sink to do it, so I felt crusty despite taking a bath. The damn things itched like hell. I felt like an old bear, wanting to back up to a tree and scratch.

Thursday morning couldn't get here fast enough. I barely slept for the itching. Had to be in Memphis by 0830. Ugh. The deja vu of the early morning wreck five years ago was haunting me. The cotton fields are ready to be picked. That's what I plowed through when I wrecked my car. I drank a 20 oz Dr. Pepper for the caffeine.

Got to the VA hospital, and was first in line at the clinic. They stripped off the allergy tests and found I am sensitive to fragrances and potassium dichromate. Well, how do you do? What the hell did that mean? I have a list now of things with which I shouldn't come in contact. Leather goods. Green fabric. Chrome plated stuff. Some stainless steel. Building materials like drywall, brick, and mortar.

At least, it's not the cats.

News at last

No sooner than I finished putting the last entry in this blog, than the cell vibrated in my pocket. I fished it out and flipped it open to find my sister on the other end. She was weeping. I finally got out of her between sobs that they had contacted a neighbour after he got a connection and that even though a lot of trees and a good portion of town are history, the house is relatively unscathed.

I do hope that in their haste to return (they were getting water and gas and getting on the road) that they don't run into the type of thing they had during evacuation. I know it's normal to want to get back to your home, but sometimes when disaster like this strikes, and there is no power and safe drinking water, it can be best to wait a little. But I think they will be ok. Someone has their back. I am so relieved for them.

As you can tell by this entry, I did not blow away in a tornado last night. I had shut down a lot of stuff during the height of the thunderstorms, and had the tv going to let me know if anything were headed down my direct alley. I was packed and ready to run next door to the concrete bunker, but I am not like my mother, who would have spent the night down there with a radio and a kerosene lamp. I am way too claustrophobic to stay in a tornado shelter for any length of time.

Good news in that the thunderstorms lost some momentum just south of us, but it has rained incessantly and we are still under a flood watch until 7 pm. It's not been a hard rain for the most part, thank goodness, and right now it's just a steady drizzle which we actually need around here. That, I can deal with on an OK basis.

I was up almost until dawn, really exhausted from all the fretting more than anything else. I dreamt about taking an exam, one of my recurring dreams, and then about going to some sort of event for which I had to get dressed up. Of course, I could not seem to get my ensemble pulled together. (Anything more than a tshirt and jeans is an ensemble for me.) Part three of the dream was something I'd never had before that I recall. I was borrowing someone else's car to run an errand, and after pulling out of the parking lot, I noted it had no power steering and I was having to muscle this beast to control it. Suddenly, I was having to steer it by looking at a screen inside the car, with a birds'eye view of my location. I could not see out of the car around me and this was the only way to maneuver it. It was like a video game, but I was trying to keep from crashing into some other vehicle around me. A cat bounding across my chest woke me up, keeping me from finding out how well I might have handled the situation.

No word today on my sister's situation. My brother never did call to find out what was going on. He seemed clueless that they could even be in any danger when I talked to him beforehand. Must be nice to live in such a secure little world.

Today being Sunday, I did the routine we have established here: go get some fried chicken and hot apple pies from Popeye's, and take it to have lunch with my mother and Mrs. Harris, her roommate. They chow down on that chicken like it's prime rib, loving the little cinnamon apple pies. It makes them so happy, and it's such a small thing. I did not bring up the hurricane. In fact, well after we had finished eating, I finally said that my sister had taken her cats with her when they left. My mother did not seem overly worried about the property, so I said nothing about it. Some things are best left unsaid.

Instead, I regaled her with stories about what my cats had been into this week, and that a friend had a new baby boy, because she loves to hear baby stories. She enquired after my friends in the UK, because I always have a little anecdote to tell her about the Things, even if it's an old story, because they are new to her. She got a kick out of me playing Scrabble across the internet with Thing One. The time passed, and I left to retrieve my entries from the district fair.

I judged the quilt show in the fair last week, so was ineligible to enter that division, but there was a place in the crafts division where I entered the Daredevil origin quilt panel and the Murdock's Law quilt panel. I am pleased to report that not only did I receive blue ribbons on both, but a whopping prize check of $11.00! I didn't know you got cash at this fair. Maybe next year I can come up with more stuff to enter. Heh.

It's 7 pm. My sister just called, in tears. She reached the police dispatcher in Silsbee, and the town is under martial law. A dawn to dusk curfew is in effect, and people are not allowed to go back into town. Looting has already begun. What didn't blow away will probably not be there when they get back. The dispatcher said she has not gotten a report from the street where my sister lives, but the entire town looks like a bomb went off. The worst part here is that they don't know what to do.

The weather alarm just came on the local station here. There is a possible tornado on the ground two counties south of here. I'm trying to decide what to do here. I have the emergency bag by the door and the cat kennel ready. This is insane.

I heard from my sister yesterday about 6 pm. She and the family finally made it to the shelter of the Second Baptist Church in Marshall, TX. A trip that should have been less than five hours took almost twelve. I was very relieved to hear they made it safely, with all the chaos of evacuation.

Today, I finally reached her via cellphone around 2:30 pm. They have been hunkered down in the basement of the church because Marshal has been under a tornado warning. She has gauged the winds by watching a limb from a huge pecan tree rolling from one side of the road to the other. The kids have been entertaining the Church Cat (that's his name) who is a Morris lookalike, and taking care of the cats that they brought along with them.

News is not good from Silsbee. All she knew to tell me was the Walmart is gone, the Dairy Queen and some other fast food places have been leveled. Tornadic winds came right through the center of town. They have no way of knowing if their house is still standing.

She also told me of the convenience store owner who sold them the last tank of gas in town, and how he was trying to close up to gather his family from Port Arthur. She asked him why he had stayed open this long when all others are gone. He replied that the food or gas he still had may save someone's life up the road, it certainly wasn't the money. I do hope he got his loved ones out of harm's way, as Port Arthur really took a hit. His store is history, according to the scattered news my sister has been able to glean from all the reports.

It's now just past 4 pm here, and we are now under a tornado watch. Rita is not done. I have my emergency bag packed, and the cat kennel ready to shove the two cats in if I have to head into the "fraidy hole" next door. Weather can be a frightening if beautiful thing sometimes.

Stay tuned for your local forecast.

I am frantic

I just got a phone call from my sister. She, her two kids, husband, six cats, the car and the boat are stuck in gridlock near Center, TX. They have been on the road for six hours already and have not yet made it to the halfway point to the shelter they are seeking. Once they get off the two lane highway that has just been turned into northbound only, they should begin to make progress.

She reports that hundreds of cars are abandoned alongside the road, from people who couldn't get out yesterday and either ran out of gas or the car overheated in the nearly 100 degree heat. Today, TDOT (Texas Dept of Transportation) trucks are bringing gas and water to stranded motorists. A busload of 40 elderly residents of a nursing home burst into flames while caught in gridlock on the way to Dallas from Houston, and most of the people on it died. Horrible. This is a nightmare.

I won't rest until I know she and the family are in the shelter. To add insult to injury, the forecasts for local weather here say we will have tornadic storms beginning Saturday and lasting possibly until Monday. I have to go out and buy some non-perishable food in case the power is knocked out here. I will get my cat kennels ready in case I have to retreat to the tornado shelter in the neighbour's backyard.

The Weather Channel is showing us pictures of Surfside Beach, and it will be toast in a few hours. The waves are hitting the houses up on stilts along the beach. In Galveston, the surf is up to 17 feet and will breach the seawall. The Port Arthur fire department is staging everything to Lumberton, which is five miles or so from where my sister lives. There are three levees in New Orleans that have been breached already, and the worst case scenario is here. As if they didn't have enough already.

I have to go now. Stuff to be done.

Educating Rita (or being educated by Rita?)

I couldn't watch the Katrina coverage. But here I am, glued to the Weather Channel, since all I have is basic cable, watching and waiting for my hometown to be leveled.

I am also worried about my sister, to whom I spoke last around 3pm yesterday. She was loading up to leave. I had pleaded with her Tuesday to get out. She tried to tell me that they were fine, on "the highest spot in town". Bullshit. When you only live less than 30 miles inland and a storm like this comes up, that means nothing. Nothing. She then told me that she had things packed, and they would decide on Thursday. So I called, got no answer and left a message asking her to let me know what they decided.

She called me about 15 minutes later, said that they were scheduled to go to a shelter in Marshall, TX. That's about halfway from her house to mine. I told her she could come here, but all I have is the floor to offer. She said they would be leaving as soon as they were packed. Hmmm...thought she was ALREADY packed. I told her I loved her and be careful, call me when they get to the shelter.

I tried to call Thursday evening around 9 PM. The lines are jammed. I can't reach her. The Weather Channel reports people stranded on the gridlocked freeways, running out of gas and throwing baby diapers out the windows of the cars. I don't know where she is. I feel frantic. I am going to have to report to my mother and I have never really been able to lie to her. I have avoided telling her the entire story, but I can't lie to her. Maybe I can say that she headed for higher ground, and that she will call when the lines are open.

During all this, neither of us has heard from my brother. Seems like he could have offered my sister refuge in Central Texas. Guess he's got other fish to fry.

All I can do is stay tuned. And sleep with the cell phone next to me. And pray.

Time to adapt

I got a call last week from the state services for the blind last week (now I know they refer to themselves as the DSB), and went down to the office for my interview. "Down" to the office turned out to be correct, as they are located down a flight of stairs in the basement of the Arkansas Services Center. There was a small printed paper sign pointing down the stairs, and it crossed my mind that most people looking for this place would have someone else with them. All sorts of irony has been hitting me lately.

The closer I got to the office, the more I wondered what this "interview" would entail. I don't generally get nervous about such things, but the 95 degree afternoon and the descent to the basement office had me literally in a sweat. All this was dispelled when I went in the door. These are some of the friendliest government employees I have ever met.

Much more than merely cordial, the vocational rehab guy and the independent living lady were extremely helpful and upbeat about what the service could do for me in the future. Things are not so bad right now for me; I mean, I still am driving and can still read the computer screen as long as I've hiked up the resolution and made all the fonts bigger. I do qualify for services since Mr. MacDee is never going to leave, and even though it might not be next week, things will be downhill from here.

What they did do now is take my application and start my file. They have to get medical records and such, and coordinate things with the VA. This all makes me feel much relieved. My big worry was having no resources when the time comes to need them.

So now I have this great clock with giant black numbers on a white plexiglass open face that also has tactile markings. Seems like such a small thing to get excited about, but I have been guessing at the time for a while now, because I can't read my watch or my clock without my glasses when I first get up(or, more correctly, haven't gotten out of bed yet). They gave me some cool little stickon things for the appliances, and a lighted magnifier. Woohoo! I can read the phone book! (Please don't laugh. Too much, anyway.)

Adaptive technology, and rethinking some of the ways I do things. I can handle this. Right?

Hurricanes I have known

I have really been in a major funk for the past week. The tv set has only been turned on to pop in a dvd, because I cannot bear to watch the coverage of the disaster known as Hurricane Katrina. I've seen hurricanes first hand. They terrify me.

This makes me feel guilty in a way, but watching the horror and anguish of the survivors is even more gut wrenching than what we all witnessed when the tsunami struck last December. Part of it is that there was warning for this event. People knew it was coming.

Certainly, everyone was not able to evacuate from the area, for economic or physical reasons. The thing that struck me the cruelest were the jokes that were being circulated before the storm struck, like the sign that said, "We don't run from hurricanes, we drink them." There are always going to be idiots. Those people I do not fret over. They should know better, but they choose to hang around. My heart goes out to those who cannot flee.

The reason I turned off the tv coverage was seeing people smiling and waving at the camera as they looted stores, carrying out racks of sporting goods and expensive electronics. Need is one thing. Greed is a whole something else. These people stayed around because they were thinking about the spoils of disaster. They were there for what they could get because they knew they could get away with it. Bad karma, people.

I heard enough on the radio to keep me informed, but I couldn't deal with the pictures that I knew would haunt me. Maybe this is a huge character flaw in me, but knowing that there is nothing in this world that I can do about any of it left me feeling powerless, remorseful, and grieving for people I do not know.

I've been through hurricanes. I grew up on the Texas Gulf Coast, a few miles inland and at about 11 feet above sea level. Back then, we had some warning about storms, but nothing like we have now. My father taught me how to listen for the coordinates of the storm on the weather radio broadcasts, and showed me how to chart those locations on a gridded map that we kept on the wall of the dining room. He diligently watched the barometer that hung next to the map, and would try to make some best guesses about what to do in case it came to close to us. There was no Weather Channel with technicolor radar and up to the minute coverage. The only thing we saw on tv was the little hurricane symbol stuck onto the weatherman's map at 6 and 10 o'clock. Between then, all you could do is plot your own from the latest on the radio, updated every four to six hours.

In 1959, there was a hurricane that came up our alley, and my father boarded up the windows with big planks except for one on the north side of the house, so he could look out at the storm. We did not leave that time. The part I do remember is how dark the house was, and that my mother brought out a kerosene lamp and some candles in case the power went out. I played Zorro with my red cowboy hat, a red felt apron someone had given my grandmother for some reason wrapped around my shoulders for a cape, and a TinkerToy sword to make the mark of Zorro on anything that would stand still. I colored pictures in my coloring books. I'm sure I whined to go out and play in the rising water in the yard. But the sense of dread that I got from the adults in the house made me know there was something to be afraid of in this odd event. The wind howled and the rain blew sideways down the streets. The ditches filled up, and the yard flooded up to the top step. But no major damage other than tree limbs downed.

Official stats:

July 22-27, 1959 -- Hurricane Debra, Galveston: $6 million damage.1959 hurricane debra in july press 29.07. Winds gusted to 105 mph near Freeport. Hurricane force winds were experienced 100 miles inland. Storm surge 8 ft over 14" of rain.

Debra (Cat. 1 Hurricane - July 24th landfall)
Debra was called a "mild weather upset turned suddenly into a vicious storm." Debra hit Freeport with 100 mph winds only 36 hours after forming and maintaining hurricane winds 100 miles inland. The eye passed directly over Deer Park and La Porte on the 25th. Highest Houston winds were 82 mph, and 8.08 inches of rain was recorded.

~~~~~

We had been in school less than a week, starting the day after Labor Day for the new year. The weather reports were not good, and the teachers were getting antsy about how they were going to make up the time we might lose to the storm. We were released early one day, and that evening I held the nails as my father once again boarded up the windows on our house. He was doing the front side when the neighbour, Frenchie LeRibous, came across the street.

"Whatcha doin', Woody?" he said, even though it was pretty obvious.

"Gettin' ready to leave before the storm", my dad replied, still hammering nails.

"Well, hell, I ain't goin' nowhere." Frenchie boasted, "That house was built for wind."

I will never forget thinking to myself, Yeah, it was built for you, you old windbag.

We packed the 1959 Buick LeSabre, piled us four kids, my grandmother, and my parents in, and left early the next morning before daylight, heading north of Houston to Huntsville. My father worked as an electrician for the state department of corrections. The new prison farm they were constructing wasn't complete, but some of the housing for the prison guards' families was almost done, and the state offered us that as a place of shelter. We got there mid morning, and it was so hot and dry that the sticker-burrs were all over the yard and getting in my feet. There was no real grass yet, as the construction was barely done.

We had no luggage, just a few clothes in paper bags, and a box with some non-perishable food in it. I remember eating vienna sausages and Ritz Crackers, sitting on the floor in the duplex. We had a battery radio, and someone had gotten some cots for us to sleep on. We might have brought those with us, since my father was a scoutmaster. That part I don't remember.

By that evening, we went over to a Red Cross shelter set up in a school for a hot meal. They had hot food for us when we could come out and get it, and I remember not really liking the beef stew and cornbread, but eating it anyway. They had clothes that people had donated for the refugees; I got my first pair of denim jeans at the shelter. They were grey, not blue, but I thought it was great.

It began to rain the first evening, and we hunkered down in the house as the power went out. The house got very hot inside, and it was a miserable time. It stormed rather hard considering how far away we were from the coast; power was out in half of Texas. My father fiddled with the radio, trying to get some news from our hometown. There wasn't much coming out of the Freeport/Galveston area, because the water was so high no one could get in to find out what had happened. That was the first time I remember hearing the phrase "No news is good news", but I could tell he didn't believe it. We had no idea if we would even have a home when we got back.

Finally the word came through that the roads were passable. It had rained the whole time we were in Huntsville. By the time we got ready to leave the place, there was so much mud that one of my brothers carried me piggyback out to the car so I wouldn't get stuck and nasty. A far cry from the sun-parched yard a few days earlier.

The closer to home we got, the more evident things were bad. Power lines were down. Trees were flattened. Water was in ditches everywhere. We heard that people needed to watch out for snakes in houses. The radio reported dead cattle were hanging in powerlines and in trees. We figuratively held our breath as we turned down our street and headed to the house.

It was still standing. Our cedar trees were uprooted; the huge antenna for my father's ham radio was wrapped halfway around the house. Water was still in the yard and when we got out, our cat came out of the neighbor's garage, looking half drowned. She had evidently been up in the rafters. The worst damage was the warped hardwood floor where the water had been so high under the house, and the water leaks where some shingles had blown off. But we were very lucky, indeed.

Official stats:

Hurricane Carla, September 10. 1961: Hurricane Carla was the largest and most intense Gulf Coast hurricane in decades. On September 8, Carla's center took aim at the Texas coast. By the 9th, Carla's circulation enveloped the entire Gulf of Mexico with fringe effects along all Gulf Coast states. On the 9th, the largest mass evacuation to that date occurred, as an estimated one-half million residents of low coastal areas and islands off Texas and Louisiana were evacuated to higher ground. As the center approached Texas on the 10th, winds near the center were estimated at 150 mph. Reconnaissance aircraft indicated a central pressure of 931 mb just prior to its striking the coast. Only 46 lost their lives because of early warnings. Severe damage ang a wide expanse of the Texas coast was caused by unusually prolonged winds,high tides and flooding from torrential rains. Damage was about $2 billion in 1990 dollars. [Source:www.aoml.noaa.gov/general/lib/mgch.html]

Hurricane Carla. 465 injured.
Winds: 150mph. Pressure 931 mb. Hurricane force gusts were reported all along the Texas Coast from a short distance north of Brownsville to Port Arthur. 26 tornadoes. Hurricane Carla is the largest storm on record.

***

The thing that stands out most for me was the story of the family at Oyster Creek who decided to ride out the storm. This family had several adopted children, and they all drowned except for one, who was found floating on the roof of the house miles away. His story was told on the cover of Life Magazine. The most ironic part is that to have survived this horror, he was later killed in Vietnam.

***

Now for the last big one I experienced: Allen. My husband and I had already lost a car to a flood in Houston, and we decided that we were leaving town when Allen approached. Everyone else had the same idea. We attempted to get a taxi to the airport. None available. So we took the car, and it was several hours before we could get across town to the airport, and by then, it would be morning before we could fly out. We sat up all night in the airport, taking an early morning flight to Atlanta, then Virginia. By the time we reached Virginia, the storm had turned southward and made landfall near Brownsville. We stayed two days in Virginia, looked around at possibly where we might live, and when we went back to Texas, we began plans to move away from the Gulf Coast. I've never moved back.

Official Stats:

Hurricane Allen. Auqust 9-10. 1980: When it was over the open waters of the Atlantic Ocean, Caribbean Sea, and Gulf of Mexico, Hurricane Allen was one of the most intense hurricanes ever. Allen reached Category 5 status three times. It obtained a 911 mb (26.89 inches) central pressure in the eastern Caribbean on August 5 while south of Puerto Rico. After weakening near Haiti and Jamaica,Allen again strengthened and a minimum pressure of 899 mb (26.55 inches) was recorded by a NOAA aircraft on the 7th when it was off the Yucatan Peninsula. Only Hurricane Gilbert with the all time low pressure reading of 888 mb in 1988, and the infamous Labor Day hurricane of 1935 with a central pressure of 892 mb were lower than Allen's 899 mb central pressure. Allen lost strength again near the Yucatan Peninsula but regained it over the open waters of the Gulf of Mexico with a central pressure of 909 mb (26.84 inches) on 9th.

The center of Allen did not cross any land until it moved inland north of Brownsville, TX on the 9th. Just off the Texas coast, Allen hesitated long enough to weaken to 945 mb (27.91 inches), and then moved inland north of Brownsville bringing highest tides and winds over the least populated section of the Texas coast.

Only two deaths were directly attributed to Allen. The strongest measured winds were gusts to 129 mph at Port Mansfield, TX. A storm surge up to 12 feet along Padre Island caused numerous barrier island cuts and washouts. [Source: www.aoml.noaa.gov/general/lib/mgch.html]

Now, maybe you might realise why I could not watch all the coverage of Katrina.

Coming to the bend in the road

I did what I said I would. I called the state services for the blind and talked to a really nice lady who explained to me what type of things they could do for me in the rehab and life skills departments. Things depend on what the doctor's report says, as I have to be at 20/50 corrected vision to be eligible, or I have to wait. She said she would refer me to the vocational rehab specialist, and he would call me later.

Wow, all this happened in one day! He will be over on Thursday if he can work it into his schedule since I live here in town not far from their offices. He said he would evaluate what type of skills and equipment I use now and determine what it will take to either keep me doing what I am now, or get me the training to do something else. This is exciting news, because I do not want to feel like I am on the dole. So tomorrow will tell me more.

~~~

In other news, dealing with my lack of organisational skills, I could not locate the renewal slip for my car licence. Holy shit, today is the last day. I called the DMV, or whatever Arkansas calls it, and asked what happens if you can't find the renewal notice. She said I needed proof of insurance, last year's registration, and proof that the car had been assessed and the taxes paid on it. Holy 'nother shit, Batman! I had no idea if it had been assessed. Another problem you run into when you divorce. She gave me the number to the tax office, and I called to see what that would entail. She told me I would have to come down to the office to sign papers with the name change.

I have a list of things I have to do now, and it's growing longer. I hate running errands. I go to the tax office, get a primo parking space for once, and was in and out in less than five minutes. That has to be some sort of record. Then to the DMV for the tags (actually only a teeny sticker to cover up last year's number) and was second in line. Stopped by my post office box, and had a new book waiting for me! (Thanks, V!) And there was no waiting at the post office to mail a parcel, either. Today, I wished that Arkansas had a lottery. I would have bought a ticket.

Hope tomorrow is half this good.

Dealing with it

Ok, now that I've spilled my guts finally in public blogform about my latest news, I have decided that I will try to talk about what I am doing about it here, too.

In the real world, few of my friends and even fewer acquaintances have any idea about my recent diagnosis with macular degeneration. I don't know how to abbreviate this, because the MD acronym belongs to muscular dystrophy already, and the technical term for what I have is usually age-related macular degeneration, or ARMD. Since I fall outside the real parameters of it being age-related, I am going to christen this little speed bump in the road of my life MacDee, for my own purposes. Beats spelling it out every time. Besides, McDonald's already has Mickey D, and they would sue me if I used that.

Last year, about this time, I was at a county fair when some gentleman thrust a little credit card sized magnifier with advertising on it into my hand. I made a little fun to a few people about what it said on it: Promoting Independence, State Division of Services for the Blind. That wasn't funny, but I thought it was odd that it would also have a TDD number for the Deaf listed on it. That little bit of sport has come back to haunt me.

I had the thing in my purse, because it really is handy for telephone books and roadmaps which can be infinitessimally small. I dragged it out yesterday, and decided to call the toll-free number and see what sort of advice they could give me for the future. I dialed the number, but I hung up the phone. I couldn't find any words. I was...embarrassed. Maybe that's not the right word. I just didn't know how to ask or what to ask.

So I copped out and went online. There it was, Arkansas State Services for the Blind. Ok, now what. Look at the "qualifications" section. Here's where it gets tricky. I don't fit the first two categories, and the third is iffy. That says that you have rapidly deteriorating eyesight. How quick is "rapid"? It's all so confusing. What am I doing here? Are they going to disqualify me for not being "blind enough" yet? When do I reach that point? Do I have to wait until I can't read the print on the page to ask for some assistance?

I take a deep breath and fill in the form for consultation. All they can do is tell me no, right? I get down to the comments section and try to decide how to phrase this. I just lay it out there: "I have recently been diagnosed with macular degeneration, and I need to know what questions to ask and to whom I should be asking." That was it. How hard was that? I hit send.

~~~

I worked all day today packing quilt patterns to ship out to my vendors. I took a couple of phone calls that led to new clients to sell my patterns. With the packing finally done, I drove out to UPS to drop off the box to Keepsake Quilting, the catalog people who sell my patterns internationally. Swinging back around through town to my mailbox, which was empty, I drove into Taco Hell and picked up a kid's meal for myself. Two tacos and the crunchy cinnamon twisty thingies and a small Dr. Pepper. Cheap eatin' and I'm sick of ramen noodles. Tomorrow the eagle shits and I get paid. I hand the cashier my pocket change that I dredged up from the couch cushions and the car seats and drive away happy with the fragrance of the tacos tempting me from that brightly colored kid's meal bag.

My landlord is next door when I drive in and I think about how this looks...me carrying in tacos when I have asked him to let me pay partial rent during the verrrrrrry lean month of August. He's a wonderful guy, so he waves, and if he thought anything about it, it sure didn't show. But it makes me ashamed anyway.

I walk in my front door to be greeted by the cats, and find the caller ID blinking. It reads "AR STATE", and a local number, and there is a message waiting. I dial the message number, and it's a man from the State Services for the Blind. It's after 5:30 PM, so I don't return the call. Wow...was that fast. I am used to dealing with the veteran's affairs, and you are lucky to ever get a callback.

I will call him in the morning. I don't know what I will say, but I suppose it will come to me. Stay tuned.

Good news/bad news

Today is my birthday. I am getting past middle age now. My crisis, however, is just beginning.

Yesterday, I went to the ophthalmologist at the Veteran’s Hospital in Memphis. I wanted a second opinion, or a confirmation, or whatever on news I had been given a few months ago.

It started late one night with a bright flash in front of me like a photographer’s strobe. I panicked and rushed myself to the ER, thinking I might be having a stroke. Good news was that wasn’t it, but the bad news was I needed to see my eye doctor immediately.

A sleepless night and several expensive tests later, I was told that I might have macular degeneration in its earliest stages. Oh great. Nine years ago, the same doctor told me that I had early onset cataracts. I am one lucky person.

Dr. Kelly at the VA was thorough in the exams, and began to question me about family eye history. The only thing I knew to tell him about my dad was that he was not drafted in World War II because his eyes were so bad. He died almost 40 years ago, so I don’t remember much else. Must have been pretty bad to be rejected for that war.

The doctor did all the usual shine the bright light stuff to me, giving me a considerable migraine. He asked a few more questions, saying he wanted to confer with his superior. A few minutes later, she came in and ran that set of tests all over again. She commented that my cataract surgery was a “beautiful job”. Then she sat down. Uh oh.

She said she wished she had better news for me. Yes, you have macular degeneration. Worse in the left eye. Good news: you won’t go COMPLETELY blind, because most people retain some peripheral vision (Yippee.) Bad news: we can’t tell you how long before it gets really bad, and the type you have can neither be corrected nor stopped. (Boo.)

After that, they said little, waiting I suppose for me to break into uncontrollable sobbing. I didn’t. I just wanted to know if I would get any sort of assistance dealing with this when the time was deemed appropriate. My biggest fear is having no mobility training or assistive devices. I’m not going to crawl into a hole somewhere and die. It’s not the end of the freaking world. Adapt, adjust, and get the hell on with it.

Like a story one of my nurses told me once when I was in Intensive Care: A little kid asks his father for a pony. His father tells him to go out to the barn and clean out the stalls. A little friend comes by and asks what he is doing. The boy, shoveling furiously, replies, “With all this shit in here, there’s bound to be a pony in here someplace.”

I’ll find that pony yet. After all, it’s my birthday.

Little Shooters

No, not talking about shots of tequila, although in this dry county today, that might be nice with a little salt and lime.

Instead, this is about something that is one of those events in a person's life where you know exactly what you were doing when it happened. March of 1998, I was sitting at the computer in the local quilt shop, surfing the web, because I didn't have internet service at home yet. (Imagine that.) The talk radio was on, and I was mostly ignoring it because I am not a fan of Rush Limburger. Suddenly there was something that was breaking news, and Rush announced that there had been a shooting at a school...in Jonesboro, Arkansas.

I immediately pulled up the local ABC affiliate's website, and there it was, breaking news that someone had fired shots into a crowd of students outside the Westside Middle School. Police had two suspects in custody. Ambulances were on the way to the scene. This town, our lives, would never be the same. Talk about the end of the innocence, this was it.

We were all stunned, sitting in silence where moments before there had been the cacophony of the modern day quilting bee. We tuned to a local station, and the details began to flesh out the horror. Five dead, many wounded. Four young girls and a teacher. A fire alarm had been pulled, and the entire school had filed outside according to the protocol, and two shooters with deer rifles had picked them off as they came outside. Then the most chilling part of all: the shooters were students at the same school, one 11 and one 13, using rifles stolen from the 11 year old mastermind's grandfather's hunting rifle locker. They had stolen a van, and were going to flee in it, but were apprehended in the woods near the school.

Eleven year old Andrew Golden and thirteen year old Mitchell Johnson had sneaked away from home and gotten the weapons and the van, hid in a nearby wooded area, and waited for the time. Golden ran into the building just after lunch and pulled the fire alarm. He rejoined Johnson, and the two of them began firing at the unsuspecting students and teachers.

I've often wondered what went through the minds of these young boys as they were firing and killing people. Did they think this was sport? Was it just a "video game" to them? Did they have no idea that death is permanent? That you can't say GAME OVER and nothing is the worse for wear? What possessed them to even consider doing this?

Ok, why am I thinking about this now? Because yesterday, Mitchell Johnson turned twenty-one and he was released from prison. State laws cannot hold someone convicted of a crime as a juvenile past their twenty-first birthday. The law was actually amended because of this case from no detention past eighteen. So, today, Mitchell Johnson is a "free" MAN, no longer the weeping thirteen year old who asked for his mama in jail. No one knows if he has truly been released, or where he is headed. It is safe to say that he will not return to this neck of the woods.

Andrew Golden will be released in 2007 when he turns twenty-one.

I just wonder if this is a good thing that they get a clean slate and a fresh start. One part of me says maybe it is because of the Christian concept of forgiveness. But more of me tends to think about the five lives cut short by their callous and calculated juvenile "mischief". Once a sociopath...?

~~~

Not much is being said locally about all this. Hopefully it manages to get past the media circus that surrounded this town. For weeks, there were cable news crews and satellite trucks invading us. A year later, on the anniversary, they were back camped on the town steps. Somehow, a reporter from CNN found his way to the quilt shop where I was trying to piece together some quilt blocks to send to the victims of yet another shooting. He interviewed me while I was sewing. Fortunately (for most), my "news feature on CNN" was pre-empted by the news that the US had invaded Bosnia. Ted Koppel himself did a live town meeting from here. He ambushed the families of the victims, by bringing the mother of one of the shooters in through the back door and putting her on the spot in front of them. Yellow journalism, anyone?

All I could do then, was tie a white ribbon on my mailbox. I thought about putting another one out, but it would not do any more good than it did then.

My thoughts are with the families of the victims, and those who recovered from the physical wounds of the event. My prayers are that these two individuals will truly be "reformed" in mind and spirit, and that the remainder of their lives will be put to some good use, since they were spared further incarceration. Heaven help them.

Sh*t Happens...The story continues

Since someone asked, I will tell a little more to this story. How do I remember the details? Because I don't get put down by the drugs for some reason, and I stay wide awake. I'm just a detail oriented person, and one of those who can tell you stuff that's around me when I walk into a new place. I'm a quick scanner, I suppose, and that's something I will miss in the future.

Where was I? Oh, yeah, pulling into the emergency room at the Memphis VA with the two stooges. Once they parked me in a cubicle in the newly remodeled ER there (which is quite nice, by the way), passed my CT scan and Xray films to the doctors, and signed me off, the ER staff began to hover about. First another round of vital signs, then they brought me more blankets, which I did not want, because being the post-menopausal woman I am, I am NEVER cold indoors.

The preliminary forty questions were asked for the third time since I had gotten ill, and then the doctor came in to look over the films. He asked the same questions again, and disappeared outside the curtain. A very swishy male nurse came in, practically rubbing his hands together in glee, announcing that "we" were going to have an NG tube. I told him, no "WE" were not! He looked like I had slapped him, and slinked back out, and I could hear him tattling to the doctor "This patient refuses to have the NG tube" like a little girl telling the teacher that I wouldn't let him skip rope with me. Ugh.

It became a matter of wills at that point. I have had bowel obstructions before. They didn't put an NG tube down my nose then. Why now? I wanted explanations. I got them, and they made sense. A very kindly female nurse came in and talked to me about it. She explained to me how she was going to do this procedure, and was extremely patient and nice about it. Attitude is everything to me. I was not going to let Mr. Nancyboy shove a tube down my nose. He was way too eager.

Before they did the torture routine, the doctor authorized a good dose of Dilaudin and Phenergran, and that gave me a wave of feel good that relaxed me enough to finally give them the go-ahead for the NG tube. True to her word, this nurse had a technique that made it not so bad, and I will remember it if I ever have to do this again, heaven help me. She sprayed a numbing solution both in my nose and down my throat, and that made all the difference. Bless her.

~~~

There was a room ready for me, but it was a semi-private. They wheeled me in for the transfer to the bed, and the tv was blasting from the other side of the curtain. I was on the inside away from the window, and it was hot in the room to me. Damn, usually I had a private room at the VA because there are so few women. I just hoped I would sleep through this dastardly barrage of bad talk shows, Jerry Springer, and Maury.

The roomie had been through a mastectomy the day before, and I thought I had it good compared to her. But she was out of there shortly after noon that day, as they don't keep mastectomy patients very long at all. That is so unfair.

All day long, I had a parade of the Doogie Housers. The Memphis VA is staffed by the medical students and interns from the University of Tennessee Medical School, and I swear that some of these people were fifteen years old. (That's when you know you are getting old, heh.) The good news is that they are eager to learn, very thorough in their examinations, and even though I have to recite my medical history ten times a day, I do feel like I get good care there. Having a female in this facility is quite a novelty for them, so they send everybody in to scope me out, literally.

That afternoon, the nursing administrator came in to do his paperwork with me, and he was a bit of a swish, too, but very nice. After Fred introduced himself, he commented on my watch. I had to chuckle to myself, and handed it over for him to look at closer. It's an old braille watch that I got off ebay, antique-y looking and who knows how old. He was fascinated with its pop-open crystal. Nice conversation starter, that, and he had to finally excuse himself because we got way off the track of my medical history. Fred came back later with some Smithsonian magazines for me to read, bless him. Boredom is my big thing in the hospital, because I don't like to watch tv.

Shortly after Fred returned with my reading material, the staff came in to announce they were moving me to a different room. Oh, brother...now I thought...put me in with someone with forty relatives that trek by me all day. But, surprise! It was a private room with the best view in the hospital, overlooking the main intersection and the fire station across the street. Entertainment value at least.

For the next five days, I would lay in bed and watch the goings-on out that window. The fire trucks would leave the station on the average of a dozen times a day. I could see The Med, the medical center which is the home of the Elvis Presley Memorial Trauma Center, which I could also see from my window. Countless ambulances a day came roaring up to that entrance. It was there that Elvis himself was brought after they found him at Graceland that fateful day. (A bit of trivia here: it was a Jonesboro, Arkansas, ambulance driver who had brought a patient for transfer to The Med who saw Elvis coming into the trauma center that day and called his dispatcher with the news. The dispatcher called the local news station, and the rest is history.)

My ex came the second day, and brought me a bag of my books and some clothes. It was odd trying to tell him where things were in my apartment so he could gather them for me. I did have a book bag with my braille study stuff in it, and he brought that. It was fun to have that with me, as I'd practice into the night with the lights off, and the nurses would come in for vitals or whatever and wonder what the hell I was doing. I had a word puzzle book with me, and they thought I was a little nuts, but let it be. I wished that I had asked him to bring the first part of Harry Potter to me, but that would have been too much to ask for him to find it, even though it was sitting on a bookshelf in plain view. I'm so slow that I might have gotten a couple of pages read.

A friend who works at the VA in research brought me some novels and magazines. I read "The Secret Life of Bees" all in one shot one night, and got caught up on the Newsweek and Time accounts of the London bombings. What horror that must have been. We don't know how lucky we have been in the US. Dana also smuggled in a Dr. Pepper and some pretzels for me. I was supposed to be NPO, but that damn tube in my nose sucked everything back out, so I very sneakily enjoyed the salty treat and left the DP in my water cup to get flat before I enjoyed it too. Nothing harmed, so I got away with it.

The fourth day, the team came in and decided that they could pull the NG tube and get me out of bed. I was estactic. I still had the IV drip for antibiotics, but didn't have to be tethered to it all the time, so bathroom visits didn't involve dragging the IV stand with me. Yay! I told the intern who came in to remove the tube to please not act like she was starting the lawnmower. Someone did that to me once before, and it was awful. She was gentle, and all I had was a slight nosebleed after the fact, and a bit of a sore throat. Not too bad.

Once I got loose of all the equipment, I begged for a shower. The nursing assistant came in and plastic-wrapped my IV port and I went in to shower in the semi-private bathroom that adjoined the next room. I had no shampoo, so I used the stuff in the pump on the wall. My hair felt like glue, and I couldn't get it to rinse out. Stupid me...I couldn't read what it said without my glasses, and it was a lotion-based cleanser. (I read the container later.) Geez, I looked worse than before I showered.

But getting a shower made all the difference, sticky hair or not. I was able to get up and sit in the side chair and look farther down the street, which was nice. There was a storm coming up, and I watched the clouds roll in. At one point, I saw something I have never seen before, and I moved around to see if it were a fluke, but it was a piece of rainbow that curved upward in the sky. It started as a small section, then got longer in the arc, and I leaned over to look toward the 2 pm sun and there was a second section, also curving upward. I suppose had I been in a certain spot, I could have seen the full circle. Very odd. I've seen a double rainbow before, but only curving toward the horizon. I took it as a good sign.

My temperature evened out, and the antibiotics seemed to be doing their job, so the team decided to let me go on Monday. I called my ex to see when he could come across the river to pick me up, and it was going to be late afternoon before he could come. I went in after they pulled the IV port out and grabbed another shower, this time washing my hair in real shampoo that Dana brought me. It took three washings to get the goo out. Nasty. I got dressed in my real clothes, and suddenly realised I was breaking out in hives. Dammit...something had triggered an allergic reaction. They were all over me, from head to toe, and I ran out to the nurses station to ask if they could possibly get me some antihistamine. Lucky me, it was lunchtime. The docs were at a lunch meeting and they had to approve the drug. I thought I'd go crazy itching.

If it hadn't been for another friend that I got on the phone for about an hour, I think I'd have gone nuts with the rash. Distraction is a good thing. That's why I was glad to have a couple of people that I could call while I was laid up. Thank goodness for cell phones and unlimited nighttime minutes.

I was glad to get home to Ringo and Toby. They missed me, I could tell. They don't seem to want to let me out of their sight now.

So, that was the excitement (yawn) of my week from hell. Big whoop.

Thumping the Melon

No, this is not like jumping the shark, although some might disagree once they read this blog.

Yesterday I bought a watermelon. Big deal, you say. That depends on where you grew up, and when, I suppose. In the coastal part of Texas where I lived the formative years of my life, watermelons were summertime, and their selection was not taken lightly at my house.

One of the things I remember about my father was that he was the only one in the house to select the family melons. He might not do jack shit around the house for my mother, but he imparted a mystic ritual every summer, The Thumping of the Melons. We would go sometimes to a roadside stand, which actually was just a farmer from the valley set up on the tailgate of his big flatbed truck on the side of the highway, and peruse the various melons. Less eventful would be performing the ritual at the grocer's, but I have seen it done there, too.

The family would pile in the Buick, whether it was the '52, the '56', or the '59, and head out for the melons. He'd drive up and down the highway, checking out the prices, because there were always melon wars along the road. Cantaloupes were the gauge: this guy would have ten for a dollar; half a mile down the road they might be twelve for a dollar. (Yes, they were that cheap in my childhood. Gas was also twelve cents on occasion of a gas war.) The watermelons would be priced in accordance, usually by the pound. Having found the vendor with the best deal and the best looking Charleston Greys, he would park along the roadway and our clan would exit the car like clowns in the circus.

We would all gather round as my father would curl back his nicotine-stained second finger and give the long green orbs a thump. He'd successively narrow his choices until he was down to two. To this day, I could never figure out what tone he was aiming for in his criteria for selection. Once satisfied that he had the perfect melon, he'd hoist the behemoth onto his shoulder, pay the man, and ceremoniously load it in the trunk. The last pictures we have of my father are some home movies that my oldest brother took. He is bringing in the prize melon from the car, smiling his toothless grin for the camera, the big melon cradled in his arms like a precious commodity. My brother and his new wife were home for a visit, and I would bet it was the 4th of July. That was when we had THE Melon of the Summer.

There were three holidays when I was growing up: Christmas, Easter, and the Fourth of July. We generally went somewhere on the Fourth, either to the beach at Freeport, or to Hermann Park Zoo in Houston. These events for a time were well documented because my father was a bit of a camerabug, and I can remember all too well having to stand at attention facing the sun and tears streaming down my eyes because he was fiddling with the shutter on his Argus. There are a lot of squinty pictures of us kids.

These family outings were always accompanied by The Melon. If we went to Hermann Park, The Melon was done before we went to the zoo. If we went to the beach, The Melon was passed around with the caution not to drop it in the sand. (Duh.) The point was to eat your slice as sloppily as possible, juice dripping down your elbows, and spit the seeds farther than your brothers. (Alice's Rules of Melon Eating.) My father always cut out the center part of his slice and put it aside on his plate for the last to eat, and he referred to this as "the goody bite" as it had no seeds and was the sweet heart of the melon.

So yesterday I bought a watermelon at Kroger. The sign said "Seedless Melons". (How do they reproduce these things if there are no seeds? I know, it's just another miracle of science.) They all were uniform sized, little round dark green melons about the size of a soccer ball. Nothing compared to the Black Diamonds of yore. I grabbed one out of the bin, and thought, wouldn't do me any good to thump it, because I have no idea what it's supposed to sound like. Forgive me, Daddy, for I know not what I do here. I just hope it's ripe.

Sh*t Happens: Day One

Or in my case, it doesn't. Which makes for a sudden, total emergency.

DO NOT READ ANY FURTHER IF YOU DO NOT HAVE A STRONG CONSTITUTION.
This is the story of how the sh*t hit the fan last Tuesday night.
There, you've been warned.

~~~~

This wasn't the first time I've had a bowel obstruction. Ewwww...gross, you say. (And I warned you to proceed at your own risk.) Uh huh, it is. Hurts like a beeyotch, too. Forces you to confront your own mortality in none too subtle terms.

Here I was, minding my own business on a less than regular type of day. I had a couple of braille tshirts to finish packing for shipping (brailling the care instruction labels and the extra packet of iron on crystals), and some patterns to get processed before I took off for the annual visit to the dentist. I hate going to the dentist because of a bad childhood experience, and that didn't have me in the best of moods. I knew that it was time for the big gun panaramic xrays that they like to do every 5 years, and there was no way I had the money for that. It was likely that I wouldn't have enough to even pay for my cleaning. I bargained my way out of the comprehensive xrays, and they did the bitewings and discovered a hairline crack in a front tooth. Damn. Thankfully, they didn't schedule enough time that day to do it, so I rescheduled for later. I was right...$117 for cleaning and xrays. I wrote a check for $50 and promised the rest as soon as possible. I felt like a pauper. Albeit one with shiny teeth.

I had not eaten before I went to the 1PM appointment, so shortly after 2 I checked my post office box (yay! it's my braille Dymo labelmaker!) then headed through the McDonald's drive thru for quarter-pounder with cheese, some fries and a Dr. Pepper. Why I went there, I don't know, except that it was the easiest place to get through right then. I really hold McD's right in there with Walmart as a general rule. Don't go unless all else fails.

Took the heart-attack-in-a-sack home to eat and get online to check mail and see who was online. The burger was a little less hot than I like mine, so I nuked it for a few seconds, remembering why I like Wendy's so much better. It was passable, the fries were too greasy and the DP was flat. I was too busy reading and scrolling to really notice anything else.

About 4PM, I began to notice that there was little output in my "bag". (Short terminology for the "appliance" needed to hold what my gut used to. Appliances, to me, are things that go in the kitchen or laundry room.)
It was far too flat for this point in the day, considering I had packed away the combo meal. Trouble was brewing. My gut was not percolating like it should.

Five PM. I signed off for a while and decided maybe I needed a short nap, like I do on a fairly regular basis these days. Didn't happen. I began to have some dreadful cramps, and still nothing passing through. I gave up with the nap around six, and went back to chat online.

I was conversing with three friends when the nausea began. As soon as it did, I knew what was up. One of the most important things my ET nurse told me when I first got my ileostomy was to pay attention when things aren't coming through, and if you begin to throw up, go to the emergency room at once. I was fighting against throwing up, not only because that is the worst sick there is, but because I knew I would have to go in. I still haven't paid the bills from the last time I had to go to the ER. And that was no xrays or anything. Nearly a thousand dollars for less than 3 hours. I called my ex. Got his voice mail. Damn. Left a semi-coherent plea to call me, figuring that he had cut the phone off for the night. He has no land line any more, and only recently have I been able to convince him of the folly of leaving the cell in the truck overnight.

Ok, backup plan. I was online with another friend who has a key to my place to feed the cats when I am out of town. I asked her if she could stand by if I needed a ride to the ER. That's a terrible thing to spring on someone in the middle of a conversation. She agreed, but I hated having to ask.

I put a couple other conversations on hold when I felt a big wave of nausea hit. I decided to take the cell phone in the bathroom with me, because I had called 911 from the bathroom floor once before, when I couldn't stand up to get to the other phone.

I sat on the edge of the tub, and the phone rang. It was my ex, who said he would come over if I wanted. No sooner did he say it than I felt the need for sudden supplication to the porcelain goddess. I just said...hurry and bring your key to let yourself in. I know it seemed like hours, but he was here in about 6-7 minutes. I was still in the floor, and he called the ambulance while I called for Ralph several more times. I leaned back against the tub, still on the floor, and heard the siren coming. ("Hear that? They are coming for YOU....") Nothing like entertaining the entire neighbourhood on Tuesday night, now that there is nothing good on tv during that time. : P

The paramedics arrive, and later the ex tells me the look on their faces when they stepped into my apartment. I had been busy earlier, there was stuff stacked on my desk, my braillewriter was out on its little tv tray stand, and comic books were strewn around. Add this to the shock of my Daredevil shrine in the corner of the living room, and two panicked cats running for the cover of the bedskirt, and it was some sight, I'm sure. The ex says my place has the look of ten pounds of shit in a five pound bag. C'est la freaking vie.

I'm gathered up onto the waiting stretcher, and it's only hours later that I realise that I have no shoes and am wearing what I normally only sleep in: my favourite huge Ekco tshirt that is so long that it covers the black running shorts underneath. On the front is the Sienkewitz DD in faded red; the back is the same, smaller image in black outline. That ought to freak out the sisters at St. Bernard's hospital. But that's not where we went. It was much closer to Northeast Arkansas Hospital. Four stoplights and seven turns and we are there in about five minutes, bouncing everywhich way on the washboard pavement of Stadium Drive.
I hear the paramedic call in my vitals to the waiting ER staff. BEEP...BEEP...BEEP as we back into the unloading dock, and the noxious diesel fumes bouncing back into my face when they pull me and the gurney out into the steamy night air. It ain't easy being green.

They slide me through the automatic doors and the nurse points back to bay 8. Damn. Three times I've been to this hospital and all three times, I have landed in bay 8. At least give me a change of scenery. That would come soon, as they rolled me into a smaller room because they needed the heart monitor for a chest pain patient who was on the way. It was going to be a sleepless night for me, even though I was given a dose of Demerol and Phenergran that normally knocks people stupid. I kept praying it would knock me stupid. Never happened.

My ex stayed with me into the night, way above the call of duty. We watched out the door into the corridor as they brought in a "code". The whole ER scrambled, but to no avail. The phlebotimist comes in and draws umpteen vials of blood from me, after trying three times to find a vein. Suddenly a nurse slammed our door shut. The ex got up to see what happened, and they were calling the funeral home because the person in #2 had expired. Very shortly after that, one of the morticians came in with the stretcher with the body bag, but found out his person was still up on the third floor. That scene repeated about an hour later, when another came to take away someone's mother who had died of cancer. She must have been tiny, because the burgundy shroud barely registered a form underneath as he wheeled her out.

I was sent out to have some xrays done, and when I came back to the room, someone else was being wheeled into #2 . I thought that the family would freak if they knew that someone had just died in there. It seemed like people just kept showing up for this person, and they were taking shifts since only 2 at a time are allowed with a patient. Meanwhile, I was given a nasty concoction to drink for a CT scan.

More waiting. Now it's after 1 AM. The contrast dye has had time to settle in me, and I'm wheeled off to CT. The radiologist apologises as she has to put in a port for the contrast dye. Lucky me...it's in the bend of my right arm. At least this tech was honest about that "Don't breathe" stuff while they are doing the scan. She says as long as I don't move on the table, it will be ok. I can do that. Even as that warm feeling invades my body as the dyes injects, I remember that people just used to die from bowel obstructions before they could get in to see what was the problem.

~~~

By now, if you are still reading this, you are probably bored shitless. Sorry that I feel the need to recant this experience. I'm going to keep writing. That doesn't mean you have to keep reading.

~~~

Two o'clock in the morning. The ex has to be at work at 0730, so he calls it a night. The doctors have decided now that I am stable enough to be transported. They are waiting for the results of the CT scan to call in to the Veteran's Hospital in Memphis. They are done with me. I am a charity case. I have no insurance and they have done all they are obligated to do, unless the VA is full and cannot accept me on transfer. Then they will be forced to finish treatment. I wait some more.

A nurse comes in with a jar an sets it on the end of the bed. "You need to pee in this for me" she practically yells. "Not too much. But I need it quickly." Yeah, like I pee on command. I have no liquid in me. I threw it all up and have been NPO for the past four, five hours. I trot on down the hall anyway and find the loo. No sooner than I get my pants down and am hovering over this tiny jar, someone lets out a blood-curdling scream.

"Dear Jay-sus! She's gone!" Room #2 is two for two tonight. I have just pissed all over everything but the jar. If it weren't so awful, it would be funny. Someday, I might laugh. Not at that moment. The wailing in the hall continues as all the relatives race in.

I get myself back together and secure my vessel in a brown paper towel because I don't want to be carrying a cup of piss down the hall in front of the bereaved family. One of the wailing women is beside herself, and someone shakes her. She wanders off down the hall to collect "Mama's favourite blanket". I see her bring a tattered blue blanket back, and in a few minutes, she returns with a small child wrapped in that same blanket, and she goes back in with the deceased. I just hope the child is too young to remember any of this.

Shortly the coroner arrives. He questions the staff in the hall before he goes in and asks the family to step out. Time of death? Two-forty-two. I never hear the cause, but they must not have been expecting this. The coroner leaves, family members troop back into the room, and I hear the doctor discussing my fate with the VA on the phone.

Yes, they can take me. Am I coming by private vehicle, or by ambulance transfer? I hear the cranky nurse who stuffed that Demerol into my backside say that she doesn't give a damn if I go by Greyhound Bus. Just get me gone. Gee, thanks, Florence F*cking Nightengale. Holy shit, she's come back in with another syringe full of Demerol to give me right before they load me in the ambulance for the seventy-five mile trip to Memphis at four AM. She jabs me again, I'm transferred onto another gurney, and loaded like a side of beef into another meat wagon. I resist the urge to flip FFN the bird as she waves goodbye at the door.

And....we are off. There is a female paramedic driving and the guy stays back there with me. I'm locked and loaded back here, facing backwards, thankful I also got another ass-full of Phenergran so I won't get carsick. Only problem is...I can't sleep. Not in a frickin' ambulance, bouncing all over these fine Arkansas highways. Even the paramedic notices. We end up talking about useless stuff all the way to Memphis, like why the cabinet doors in this ambulance all have a sticker that says "Cabinets". Maybe it's like the freakin' BatCave from the 60's tv show. We get to the big Hernando DeSoto bridge that spans the Mississippi River and I notice that there are eight span lights out on my side of the bridge as we go under them.

Then I realise that this driver has no idea where she is going once she crosses the bridge into Tennessee. The other paramedic thinks she is kidding at first, but she's serious. He directs her around a route that I just don't understand how it could be faster than the one I use. We get to the VA, and they can't find the ambulance entrance for all the construction. She drives in the wrong way of one entrance, then backs out, running over a curb, or something. They circle the block, asking someone in the parking lot which way to go. Of course, the guy they ask is more than likely stoned, or he wouldn't be out there at 0500. We end up going in the admissions entrance. They drag me up a hall to a desk, where they ask a very large woman where the ER is. She points vaguely up the hall. We follow the overhead signage, going about a hundred yards into a darkened corridor. The signs keep pointing us in a circle. I have been in this place enough times to know this isn't right, but shit, I'm just the passenger in this circle jerk, so I shut up and let them do their two stooges routine. We wind up back in front of that same desk. She can't be arsed to give us directions the first time, but she points again to the corridor right beside her, that we passed up the first time. Though those double doors. Exit only they read. My charioteers go back and demand better explanation of how we get from point A on the outside of the door to point B on the inside. There is no signage, and the fat woman is shouting around the corner to press the button. There appears to be no damned button. She finally waddles out from behind her desk, and hits a small square near the floor and the doors swing wide...toward us. Before they can slam shut again, Mutt and Jeff push me through and present me to....a bunch of people sitting around the ER who look like they have no idea why I might be there.

I am uncerimoniously dumped off this litter onto one of the VA's, and the paramedics take leave. I assume they found their way out of the building.

~~~~

Ok, I'm tired, it's late, I'll write further adventures tomorrow. And yes, I swear all this shit is true. You can't make up a clusterf*ck like this.

Another day of infamy

I'm not old enough to remember Pearl Harbor, but that event coined the phrase we have heard countless times in old newsreels spoken so eloquently by President Roosevelt. Alas, we now have another "Day of Infamy" to add to our history books.

It's two days after the bombings in London, and I think that full realisation has just hit me. It's as if I've been somewhat in shock, just like I was after 9/11. A certain feeling of powerlessness to help, but a resolve to resume normalcy (whatever that really is) to keep the bastards from getting what they want: fear.

Neither of these cowardly events were in "my backyard". I live in the southern USA, and the last horrific event here were the Westside schoolyard shootings. That WAS in my backyard. The 'terrorists' in this case were an 11 year old and a 13 year old. How that changed the whole character of this community! Parents were afraid to send their children to school. Schools became fortresses patrolled by uniformed police. Personal belongings were searched to gain entrance to classrooms. CNN was here, camped on the doorstep. It was the end of the innocence in Northeast Arkansas.

So, I can only imagine how the bombings affected those so much closer to them. My first news about the bombings came from the internet, almost at noon Central time. I had slept late, and gone over to help sort out some new computer gear for someone, and the tv was recording movies, not on a channel. When I checked my email, Yahoo news had this headline about 37 people being killed in subway blasts. My heart fell at my feet. I have friends there! I know it's a big place, but so are New York, and D.C., and I had people in both those places I cared about on 9/11, and just like this I had to know that they were safe, and couldn't rest until I knew they were. I frantically blasted off a batch of emails, knowing full well that my friends had much more to deal with than answering them. I could only let them know that I was concerned. Concerned isn't a strong enough word here. I'm not sure what the correct one would be. To put it in crass terms, I was scared shitless for them. That's more accurate.

Like the way the populace rallied in the world for the WTC victims, the Pentagon victims, and the plane crash victims, I feel much of the same support system for the people of the UK. There is little I can do as an individual across the vast pond. I went outside a few minutes ago and tied another red/white/blue ribbon on my car antenna, next to the one that has been there since September 12, 2001 and is barely a shred. I vowed not to take it off until our troops were safely home. I will probably send this car to the scrapyard before that happens.

But I can hope. It's all I have.

All together now, let's fall apart

That was the title of a cut on one of Ronnie Milsap's early albums. The irony of it has never escaped me.

What is it about getting older? I remember my older brother talking about this phenom of older people always talking about their aches and pains, and the sudden realisation that he had started doing it, too. I guess it's that mortality thing setting in, the fact that we are "all terminal, baby!"

That recent class reunion is a good example. If I had really told people how I was, they would think I was lying. This much shit doesn't happen to one person, does it? I was taken aback by a friend who stopped over where I was staying, and almost the first thing said was, "Ok, tell me what the deal is with your license plate." I haven't seen this person in years, and that's the first question? (I have disabled plates on the car.) Little does this person know, but next time I might not even be driving myself to the reunion. Hell, who knows if either one of us will still be alive? Life doesn't exactly come with a money-back guarantee, now, does it?

Two trips to the doctor in one week gets tiring. The fact that I literally cannot take the heat doesn't help matters one bit either. I have slept more in the past two days than I have in the past two weeks. The hardest part is cutting myself some slack for doing it. I feel like I am wasting time when I sleep. But, damn, I have had some interesting dreams. That's the beauty of only sleeping a couple of hours at a stretch.

A couple of them had to do with gathering up belongings before a big disaster happened. I guess a joke about earthquakes on the New Madrid fault (not far at all from here) and tsunami warnings from the Mississippi River started all that. Who knows? Another one had to do with helping with a renovation project like the ones on Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. Whole lot of colour going on in that one, more than usual. Still another was that old favourite that haunts me...the end of school is near, and I can't remember where my locker is, or what the combination to the lock might be, because I haven't been to class all semester, and it's exam time.

Good news is that my CT scan showed nothing, and the rest is nothing that won't heal up. At least I did get a consult to opthamology with the VA. Heaven knows when I will actually get an appointment. Hopefully before they have to enroll me in O&M...heh.

Geez, after that rant, I think I feel better!