Sunday, October 19, 2008

Careless Words

Sometimes I start obsessing or thing about things from the past. You know...things you can't change or get out of your head. You forget then boom...so some reason the little niggly thought is there again. Careless words, careless thoughts, carelessness with a loved ones heart. Maybe carelessness is why I felt like my mother didn't really love me...I was just a burden, another brat...and a female one at that. Female brats are evil and untrustworthy. A mother must always be smarter, thinner, younger and sexier at all times, especially once that girl-child begins to grow female appearing breasts!

I have passed the 50 mark, the 40 mark, but the 30 mark was intimidating. Why??? My mother feared and hated 30. I can remember it like yesterday, I was 10. I don't know exactly what my mom said to make me think that 30 was so OLD, after all grandma was around 55 and was much older. Never-the-less, I thought my mother was gonna curl up and die...because she was OLD. Then, it occurred to my 10-year-old mind that not only was my mother gonna die before midnight because she was 30 and OLD, but that it was unthinkable that I would not give her a birthday present. We lived 13 miles out of town on a red-dirt road and 7 miles from the nearest store. I only had about 3 pennies, some rocks and some scraps of fabric in my Prince Albert can (yes RedDirt Woman...you reminded me of the prized Prince Albert cans!). I finally figured out something I could make for my mom. I careful used my 10-year-0ld hand to measure and borrowed grandma's "fabric" sissors to cut out my precious fabric. I carefully fashioned a loop on one corner, pot-holders! Well, not actually thick enough to pick up a pot, but remember I was 10....and didn't realize they were actually used for anything other than to hang on the wall in the kitchen. I carefully wrapped them in comic papers and tied a piece of my hoarded ribbon around the package. I was so pleased with myself. My mother would not go to her grave without a birthday present.

Mom came home from work, she was the "News Girl" on the local radio station...a job she hated...and she was tired. I remember she was resting on the divan after supper, shoes off and feet curled under her a piece of chocolate birthday cake in her hand when I presented her the package. I should have know she was pissed off from the way she sneered her lip at the package...but I was trying so hard to make her happy. Mom pulled off the comic paper and looked at the scrimpy little pieces of fabric. "What the hell is this?" she asked. "Pot-holders" I stammered. "Take this shit and get the hell out of here." Word for Word and I never forgot cursing because when somebody cussed that was a no-no in grandma's house, and there was sure to be heck to be paid! I remember flushing hot with embarrassment and running out of the room with tears filling my eyes. I could hear my grandmother admonish my mother with her full name, but didn't stay to listen to what was said. I went outside and climbed up in the chinaberry tree and satup there for hours, until it was dark and the mosquitoes were biting. I rememberthinking that I never wanted to ever be 30 if it made you be mean, ugly and OLD like that. The next day I threw my prized Prince Albert can, my scraps of fabric and all my treasures into the trash pile.

Mom never spoke to me ever about this childhood incident. One time I told her she had chicken legs when I was grown (30....grown ... not OLD) and to this day she will tell me every chance she gets to bring it up about how much I hurt her by making fun of her legs (which by the way....are still skinny), and I have said I'm sorry more times than can be counted, but she has never ever realized how much I remember the day she turned 30. I think to this day that scorned birthday present was a turning point in our relationship. A point where I knew that nothing I did would ever be good enough, but I never quit trying.

What age has brought to this experience is that I forgive her for being unkind to a child because I understand now that she was hurting. She and Daddy had just divorced, she had moved us back to Oklahoma from California. She was living with her parents in their house under their rules. She could only date if she was home by midnight. She was frustrated and horribly sad.

My mother undoubtably did many unkind things, but other times she did things that I didn't expect...like the time she gave me $50 out of the blue, I was 24, two weeks post-op from a hysterectomy and had a sick 15 month old baby and no money for medicine. I didn't ask, she just gave it to me with a hug. Then there was the time she called me and I was crying because my husband (#2) had gotten drunk, slapped me silly and called me all kinds of rotten names (curse words that don't bear repeating!) . She drove 4 hours in the middle of the night to give him a piece of her mind...after she pulled his drunken half-frozen ass out of the ditch he had passed out and rolled into. Me, I was waiting for him to freeze or drown and I wasn't helping him out of any ditches, I was actually praying to find him dead in the morning and pretending to be clueless. Come to think of it, maybe she didn't really do me a favor that time. Regardless, I appreciated her being a Lioness taking up for her cub.

So yes, careless words can be a double edged sword that can cut all the way to the heart. I make it a point to stop and think when I am angry...do I really want to loosen that sword??? Or is it better to walk away and fight another day? Me I choose to walk away, at least until I'm over my mad. I let all the poison cool, I go and write a blog and delete it. Then, I make up with who ever I was mad at, chances are it's all a misunderstanding because of careless words anyway.

Saturday, October 18, 2008

Long week

Well it's been a long week, productive in ways and non-productive in others.

I have been working ICU, which is always interesting in itself. I had a patient that had a lap choleycystectomy (gallbladder surgery). He and his wife were so appreciative of every little thing I did...it was a breath of fresh air! He wasn't really what I would call an ICU patient by the time I got there, but he had been in respiratory distress, so we were monitoring him pretty closely.

My other patient that night was a hoot. He had gotten sick working on his roof following Dolly. Now personally I don't think (especially after this week helping my hubby haul metal roofing material's up onto a roof) that an 70's something gent needs to be on a roof, but since it's very expensive to get repairs done, and the ol' boy knew what he was doing he worked on his roof. Well, the work was a little intense for him and he had a heart attack. His only complaint was that his shoulder was hurting. He had an old injury from bull-riding. BULL RIDING!!!! In his youth, of course, but man ...how interesting is that. Only in the South do you get a 70's year old complaining of his bull-riding injury!

The last night I worked I had one patient I'd already had, that had surgery (of course) and had a pacemaker, he was doing great, and I was coasting. My other patient had had major surgery several days before and had been confused off and on. The Doc had pulled his chest tubes and he was doing good, no pain, no shortness of breath. This should have made for an easy night, but due to his confusion I was having worries that he was going to fall, since he kept trying to get out of the bed. When I finally convienced him that it was 2 in the a.m. and not 2 in the p.m., he settled down to sleep...you could tell he didn't really believe me...but I lifted the shades and showed him the night sky and the street-lights. When we did his early a.m. x-ray there was indications that he was going to have to have the chest tube put back in. I had to call the doc. He was actually sleeping and doing ok, so I didn't awaken him, but I know he was going to be dissappointed to be hooked up again and not able to get around on his own. I wonder how he did? Guess I'll find out Monday night.

Me and some of my co-workers have decided to try to lose weight. I am sick of having a pot-belly that looks like I'm fixing to give birth at any second. We went to the Gym, after working our 12 hour shift. I did a punishing workout called Body Combat...I kept calling it Mortal Combat (like the game) ...then I walked a mile on the treadmill...then I did a class called Body Pump (a light-weight training class).....maybe doing two solid hours of exercise when I haven't done much in a long long long long time wasn't such a good idea. Then when I got up from my nap I helped haul metal up onto the roof and screw it down (as before mentioned). By the time it was getting dark my legs were freezing up...I could barely hobble to the truck to go to town to go out to eat. I could only eat about 1/3 of my meal (hurrah!), and this morning went back to the gym to walk on the treadmill again to try to loosen up my legs. Then I had to chase the dogs all over the two acres twice...so when I sat down again...you got it...my legs froze up again....Lord if I live through the agony maybe I can tone up again.

Why did I let myself get so flabby that a little exercise is such agony??? Oh, and poor Dave, after working on the roof all day yesterday, he got out at the store and almost couldn't get back into the truck because he started having muscle spasms in his legs. I had to shove him into the truck and drive him home and ply him with pain pills, muscle relaxants, and all kinds of analgisic balms to his muscles to get him to stop screaming. At least I'm not screaming ... yet... obviously I haven't worked hard enough yet.

Saturday, October 11, 2008

Why are People so Inconsiderate??

I worked last night, walked this morning (yesterday morning) and got woke up by Workmen on the roof...not their fault, you cannot roof a house without noise. I knew census was down, and since I only had 3 hours sleep in 24 hours, I called and got put on-call. When I was verified on call at 6 pm I laid back down and was dead to the world. So 3 hours later I get called by night shift supervisor, who is talking on another phone trying to decide whether to bring me into work or not. The whole gist of the conversation was that I would have to sit on 4th floor the rest of the night for a sleep study, and because I was on-call rather than schedule it was gonna cost the hospital time and a half instead of regular salary. So they decide to put the test off for the patient for one day to schedule somebody so it will not be as expensive (for the hospital), then she hangs up the other line, and tells me never mind...go back to sleep. What the fuck...just go back to sleep??? As you see it is now 1:46 a.m. and what am I not doing....I'm not freaking sleeping. So I've had 6 hours sleep in 38 hours...how does that compute to actual REST???? Not sure, but that time between 6 pm and 9 pm was awsome! I would love to just go back to sleep, but it's not happening, and I'm on-call for 1 hr and 19 minutes more, then I can take some Benadryl or something.

So, since I'm awake...here is my most favorite birthday memory:

My 11th birthday. My grandma baked a special cake for me. She had been practicing and practicing this new receipt for a Lemon cake (I loved lemons...but not necessarily lemon cake). She baked me a beautiful yellow Lemon cake and decorated it with those sugar characters you used to be able to buy at the grocery store, I remember it was a cowgirl, Then the candles were held by little candies. The candies actually tasted really gross on a Lemon cake, but to me it was wonderful and I bragged and bragged on the cake. My Uncle Dan (who is no longer living) was in from Oklahoma City and he brought me a bracelet with poodle dogs and every poodle dog had a pink rhinestone tail (my birthstone color). My mom bought me a book "Alice in Wonderland", which I still have...and I actually wrote in the book that I got it for my birthday...in little girl cursive. That book survived my house fire, because I had it packed at my mom's still, so I have a 40 year old copy of "Alice in Wonderland", wonder what the "Antiques Roadshow" would auction that buddy off for? LOL. Anyway I've never forgotten my cake with the cowgirl or how much I appreciated that my grandma went to all that trouble just for me...her little tom-boy grand-daughter!

This way a Birthday came...and went

Yesterday was my Birthday and it came and went without a sniffle. I was 51...now I am still 51 and one day. What did I do with my second day of 51??? I walked the American Heart Association heart walk....3 whole miles...after my 13 hour shift and before I ate breakfast. I earned myself a free cap, a pat on the back...and since I've got home a bowl of cottage cheese. Isn't life grand???

Then I get home...surprise, my hubby went to Victoria Secret and got me a pretty sexy bra set in my favorite red. Somehow he doesn't see the little jiggles and rolls I got going, but I'll pretend I don't notice them either when I test run that little set!

I wanted to blog about my favorite birthday memory...but I'm just too darned tired. So...give me some good reading. Tell my your favorite birthday memory....

Sunday, October 5, 2008

Insane Mama: A Big Old Spooky Mess

Insane Mama: A Big Old Spooky Mess

You can follow the link to Insane Mama to enter a contest for gas money or a cash prize. All you have to do is submit a scary story or a Halloween story.

I have a doozy of a story. It's not a Halloween story, but it was very scary.

When I was married to Husband #4 (Don't Ask!)....we lived in a home from the '40's. We knew it was haunted. How did we know? Hummm...something about bangs in the night, voices screaming at the husband to "get down" and "stop" while he was painting his work-out room red. I got the hysterical man call at work at 2am...wanting to know where the hell the tequilla was so he could get his hands to stop shaking, and he was not a hysterical type of guy. Other times we would watch our two dogs, one a full grown German Shepherd watching something near the ceiling in the kitchen (always in the kitchen) and following it around the ceiling barking and whining and growling...and there was NOTHING there, not even a reflection of light from the street. The only other time the dogs acted that way was when somebody was breaking into the house next door and the dogs acted the same way while trying to scratch through the window to get at the burglar!

So, we pretty much were sure the house was haunted.

It was a few weeks before Halloween. My girlfriend Reggie and her *girl-friend* / *partner* were over visiting with her two boys. The boys didn't want to stay because it was getting dark and they had heard their mom talking with Hubby #4 about the house being haunted. Hubby #4 worked nights so he went to off to work, leaving me, my two girlfriends, his two daughts and two little boys to our own devices. We convinced the kids that ghosts are probably not real, and they if they were, we had lived in this house a long time...and the ghost was like Casper the Friendly Ghost because nothing bad had ever happened, just weird things like voices and noises.

We finally had every-body settled in eatting pop-corn and watching a DVD. We were watching Tom Hanks in "The Green Mile". We had been laughing and joking and everybody was in the living room. The porch light was on, all the lights in the living room were on, and all the lights in the dining room were on. The living room and the dining room were open...where it had been expanded into one big room at some time in the past. We were near the end of the show where the big Black Inmate is getting ready to go to the electric chair. He's walking down the hallway crying and lights start blowing out in the hallway on the show. At that EXACT moment all the lights in my living room, dining room and on my porch blew out...with sparks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The television did not go off or even flicker. Kids are screaming and all the grown ups stood up and screamed. My step-daughter almost had a panic attack...just sitting and shaking and going "oh, my God" Oh, my God" over and over. My other step daughter ran to her room and turned the light on in there.

Well, no body wanted to stay for the end of the movie. I had to replace all the light bulbs. The next morning Hubby #4 checked the fuse box and all the electrical stuff he could, but we never found an explanation for the lights going out....and the timeing??? Who could ever explain that?

To this day I still tell the story of the night the lights blew out at the same time as they did on "The Green Mile". I still have lots of witnesses that the story is true and I still love watching Tom Hanks in "The Green Mile". I no longer live in the haunted house, and I have never experinced anything like this again.

Saturday, October 4, 2008

Something Drunk happened on the way to the Capitol

Well, Austin being the party town it is advertised to be, I couldn't go to a 5 star hotel and not at least taste the party life, could I???? Apparently not...so with some recommendations from the locals we hailed a Taxi and went to eat at at a place called the Belmont...which I promptly dubbed Bellview ( like the crazy farm in New York City...oops sorry...politically correct...Psychiatric Facility...) ...and Bellview it stayed the rest of the time. It had a outside upstairs patio that looked down on the local talent...which was playing guitar and singing their little hearts our. I drank Grey Goose and OJ and ate a marvelous plank grilled Salmon with grilled asperagus. It was really tasty...and of course...with a name like Bellview...expensive to boot.

Later we walked down to an old club called Antoine's. It had sheet metal walls...and the ceiling was those restored plaster ceiling type tile painted an attractive (?) rust brown. The bathroom was cool, had sheet metal stalls made for size "0" girl's. I'm a comfortable size 12 and I had to almost turn sideways to get in the stall. I actually hit my knee on the tolite paper dispenser! The door to the stall looked like the ceiling tiles distressed by a hammer, but the sinks were cool. The cabinet top was like hammered brass with brass sinks made into them and the hardware was like copper colored with the porclain (ms??) handles...very antique looking.

Anyway at Antoine's they had a two man band called "The Best of Love". The lead singer and guitarist was a white dude...that sang so smooth a cajun beat you would not even believe his race...while looking at him. The drummer was coal black and a big giant of a guy, shaved head, pierced ears and all! Like Mr. Clean in negative. Anyhow, he was playing the drums with these crazy paddles like wooden kitchen spoons. The music was out of this world. The guitarist played his guitar laid on his lap like a steel guitar and used a glass slide. It sounded almost like a harmonica...the music sounded like Cajun, bayou, and the blues all slung together. Very original and very memoriable. We bought a homemade CD they had produced of their songs...they only have about 5 original songs...but they were great!

More Grey Goose and vodka (notice I'm calling it vodka and vodka by this point???). We got a taxi back to the hotel. We went up to the roof-top hot tub and lounged around. More Grey Goose with a splash of that orange stuff in it. Then back to the room. Around about this time I suddenly notice that the set has fell out of my Opal ring Dave gave me for Christmas. I was so upset. I looked for it everywhere...but everything was a bit blurrrrrrrrrrrrrry so I wound up just going to bed to sleep everything off.

WELL the next morning bright and early my brother wakes me up with a phone call wanting to know if we want to go to breakfast before going to the graduation ceremony at the Capitol (my son is graduating from the Police Academy at the Capitol building in Austin). WELL MENTIONING FOOD WAS NOT A VERY GREAT IDEA AT THIS POINT. All the fun from the evening before came rushing up on me. Thank God, Dave slept through most of this ....ah, worshiping of the white goddess...but later....oh my lord...later wasn't good. I didn't have a headache kinda hangover. Just one of those...everytime you turned your head fast the room spun, you almost pass out, then you need to throw up and are so thirsty you think your tongue is a sponge. WELL DAVE WAS MOST CERTAINLY NOT SYMPATHETIC EITHER...HE THOUGHT I DESERVED THE REVENGE OF THE GOOSE. He forgot who poured him out of the taxi and up the stairs....and into the elevator and kept him from drowding in the hot tub. I had already thrown up 5 times before the taxi got there to take us to the Capitol.

Well you know how there are always lots of security hanging around the Captiol building on any given day, well since they are having a graduation of the Rookie Cops times that number by about 3 times and you can imagine how many policemen are hovering around the elevators. I start searching for a restroom (the taxi had to circle the Capitol twice to find the right entrance...it was about 98 degree's and he drove with the air-conditioning off)...spinning head, heat, circling taxi, quick walk to the right entrance, up lots of stairs, head spinning, head spinning, heat, ....elevator???? By this time I feel like I'm about to black-out or throw up whichever comes firts! Well, I couldn't find the bathroom. Old building, few signs...the only sign a tiny gold lettered "ladies" hidden down a hallway....with a turn. I dash acoss a slippery waxed floor on new heels praying....God God God...please God God God.....looking for....oh, a trash can.....yes...I embarrassed myself....Water in Water Out....I turn around to find out....I have been followed by multiple uniformed personnel (guess they thought I had a bomb).I was so embarrassed!!!! To tope everything off my ex-husbands new wife had just arrived in time to witness me making quite the spectical of myself. My humiliation was complete. I finally found the restroom, and with a lot of wet paper-towels to the face, was able to make the ceremony, and the picture taking session, and I didn't embarrass myself any further.

Grey Goose evil, Grey Goose evil, Grey Goose evil, Grey Goose evil (I am officially on the wagon...from Grey Goose anyway)