Ah well, the best laid plans do go awry. So the empress calls up like two days before she and the consort are to leave for Montana to let me know that her horses are lame and they're not going to Montana afterall. Well shucky darn. I had plans for that money, but happily, and unusually, I'd not pre-spent it this time. So I was able to be cheery with Shirley and agree that horses are nothing but a head ache and they'll always break your heart. In my next life I will be a country song writer and I will use all the material from this life. Something to look forward to.
So the spouse at least was happy about this turn of events as it now meant someone would cook and clean for him. And Lindsey was happy because now someone would run errands for her. And Megan and Alison were both pleased because now I could get Grumpy to pull his various strings and get us us free passes to the CA State Fair and I would be pleased because the grand-urchins would be going too. (?) Just a regular little happy fest.
Naturally the fair is the only part of that happiness which bears a recounting of. Let me start off by saying the love of my life did work his magic and not only did we get tickets for the six of us, ride tickets for four of us (babies and pregnant/intoxicated folks do not get to ride) but we also got free parking. If you have ever been to Cal Expo you will recognize that the free parking is probably the best of the best of all the freebies we got. Which is not to say that we did not spend valuable money once there. Lunch for six you say? Corn dogs? How much could that be? A little over $20? Yes, but several "I'm thirsty and I want cotton candy, I want Kettle Korn and I will not leave here without a fried Snickers." later I was down $60 bucks and I hadn't been the only one to open my wallet to the greedy fair vendors. Nevertheless we had a grand old time and two of the children are finally of an age to really want to ride the rides so we spent an unholy amount of time in little tyke world with the scary old men and like that. Those little angels got every dimes worth of the ride passes. Megan, Silas and I got to join Jack and Mila on the kiddie Tilt-A-Whirl which spun and twirled just a shade too long for yours truly. I spent the last hour and a half of the ride staring at a fixed spot on the wall so as not to share my corn dog with the world. Well it seemed like an hour and a half anyway. What happened to the days when I relished the most violent of turny, spinnie, stomach dropping rides with nary a twinge? Gone, gone away.
Since the empress was denied her trip to Montana this year and by extension denied me the opportunity to blog about house sitting for her and the critters, she threw me a bone the other day and announced that she and her consort were taking themselves off to the north coast for some R&R (wink wink). And she asked me to come house sit. And I said, "Yes, of course excellency." So here I am. I have something to say about all the critters here. But let's start with Killer. If you will recall the last time I was here, we were somewhat nervous of each other, he, because I caused the helicopter to land in his yard and me because he caused me to need the helicopter. But by the end of the stay we had come to terms and he agreed that perhaps I was the most pleasant creature ever to step foot on the place and he loved me. This was proven to be true when this afternoon I arrived and religiously went about checking the well being of my charges and Killer came tearing up to the fence nickering and oh so happy to see me. At least I think that's what he was doing, he could have mistaken me for someone who was going to feed him, but that came later. He has taken to following me as I go about my duties and comes up to me for treats and scratches of which he gets both. Such a little darling. I shall change his "Squidgy" nickname to Doogie. He reminds me now of a chocolate lab albeit one with iron shoes. My other favorite is Colin and I have no idea why. But he too nickered in hopes of a feeding when I appeared and was crestfallen when the best he got was a thorough scratching and lots of pats. There are four more horses here, but none seemed that overjoyed to see me so, in the immortal words of Cee Lo Green...Forget you.
I have the dogs of the realm here as well. They are somewhat less than thrilled that their people have gone off without them, and have treated me rather shabbily. I have decided they will come around and to that note I whistled for Trevor to come when I went down to the barn to feed tonight so he could have a romp with the ball which I threw for him with the ball tossy thing I was ordered to use for him. Evidently I am a poor ball thrower AND I don't really know where to throw the ball. Now Trevor does know where the ball is supposed to be thrown and as I mentioned, I didn't throw it "there" he became confused and felt sorry for me for being such an idiot. I did not bother to remind him that I was not chasing a nasty ass ball that had landed in horse poop nor did I carry it around in my mouth when I did catch it. hmmph At any rate we managed to lose two out of two balls and gave that up as a bad job after some um "searching". The other dog is Maxine. She is the queen of everything and doesn't mind letting you know about that. I have had a long and lovely relationship with Maxine since she was a wee pup and my own darling dog babies love their Auntie Maxine to bits, though I can't say the affection is returned. But she is stone cold weird. Always has been. Always will be. To be honest, I don't know a dog who isn't weird in some way, I mean really some of the things they do...and eat. What ever.
So this isn't as bad as I'd thought it was. I'm home from the vigil in Petaluma. Injury free to boot. The spouse has been a busy little bee. He works for a County Fair Organization and as such is concerned with carnies and rides and music acts and the like. At any rate since they stopped horse racing two years ago I have little interest in venturing to Vallejo to hang with the crim-pop. Alas darling one will be ensconsed in some seedy motel across from 6-Flags for a week while the county fair grinds on, and on, and on. What will I do? First of all I will not cook. Then I shall badger the children to entertain me as they are currently enjoying their summer holiday at Lake Tahoe...on the water...with a dock...without their mother unit. They will pay for that I assure you. Not that I'm not happy for them, but as I've always said..."No one will ever love you like your birth mother..." Guilt free living? Not a chance. :-)
I had the opportunity to visit with the horse show mom at her whine country estate a week ago. She's getting a roommate so I had to share the big bed with her. Evidently I snore. A lot. So she got up in the middle of the night to go push her boy child out of his bed so as to get some peace and quiet. I assure you I was not very aware of this move, but I was pleased to have the whole bed to my noisy self and did not concern myself with her annoyance at all. And annoyed she was. My my. Anyway like I said I was not all that concerned because I was taking a valuable day out of my valuable life to travel down to watch her school the magnificant horse..Kilo around the cross country course in Woodside. Day trips such as these are highlights in my life. And she let me tack up, untack, hose down, wrap legs, clean tack and muck out the trailer. What more could you ask for? Wait...
I have allowed myself to be the co-host of a bridal shower in September. What is wrong with me? Anyway the bride to be is lovely. If you'd like I'll provide you with a picture of her from her Young Riders experience in 2005. She on the other hand will probably not be as enchanted with that posting. At any rate we are having this shindig at a friends palatial estate on the ocean at the edge of the world in Carmel. Worth the price of admission I do say. My co-hostess has assured me the weather that time of year is spectacular on the ocean at the end of the world. How nice. I hope we can play games and eat cake. The down side being that as a hostess I probably don't get to play the games and win the valuable prizes which seems a little unfair. What ever.
What we're watching. As a new service I shall counsel you on the proper television viewing opportunities you should not be missing. Project Runway begins tonight. Tape it, then each week we'll discuss the pathetic, or truly awful, or inspiring designs put forth. As an added bonus then we shall judge the judges which is the best part really. I know you can't wait. I have recently discovered Flipping Out. If you like bitchy gay designer queens, and who doesn't, this is the show for you full stop. And on the topic of bitchy gay queens you should not be missing the A List. You go girl. I tried to like Dance Moms, but just couldn't do it. The same with Little Miss Perfect and Bridezillas, you know one viewing is pretty much all you need to ever watch, then you become annoyed. There is nothing more pathetic than catching yourself screaming at the television. Cooking shows you say? Hell's Kitchen just for the astounding stupidity of cigarette and who knows what else, smoking wanna be chefs cowering under the tutelage of a half mad English git with a foul mouth. Mondays - Fox. NCIS is our favorite and has a special and lofty non-critical status in our esteem. New season begins, and I do know this, on September 20. We also watch So You Think You Can Dance and American Idol, but never live, gotta be able to fast forward from earnest, boring, self involved, grandiloquence from the judges. A minute of fame is way too long.
Gotta run chickens. Peace Out.
Cheers,
Squidgy
Thursday, July 28, 2011
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
What? Already?
Before I forget all the gory details, I must regale all ya'll with the events that took place at the Woodland vs Vacaville Little League All Stars game last night. We were for Woodland. And the grandson, Garrett, he of the 6th grade matriculation, was on the team. Since I'd missed earlier all star games I was unprepared for the hostilities the "visitors" (Woodland) had for the "home" teams. It seems there had been some incidents involving bad sportsmanship from the "home" team involving striking opponents with balls, heckling and all the other stuff that is considered non grata. Plus it seemed the umpires, who were "for" Vacavile were a teensy bit pro home team, to the extent that district poohbahs were constantly being called in to arbitrate.
So finally everything settled down and "we" were all disgruntled and what not and the next thing that happened was one of "ours" got a base hit and may have dropped his bat a little too enthusiastically before scuttling off to first base and the kid who was on second ran to third and the umpire screeched "No Way!" and tried to throw the play out because of the tossed bat. Naturally this caused yet another riot from the "visitors", and the district poobah then had to call Alaska or something to get a ruling from someone really important and that took f.o.r.e.v.e.r. and everyone was freezing and in a really bad mood. So finally the ruling came back that the ump was out to lunch and biased so the kid got to get to first, but the guy on 2nd didn't get to get to third and the game went on. And on. And on. Did I mention that the "visitors" lost 13-1? Pretty much a slaughter, and sad and entertaining all at once. I have to pick Garrett up to go to summer school in a little while and I expect the drive will be pretty quiet.
As promised I went to Carmel Valley for a little R&R. And it was everything I could have hoped for. Met up with good friends, drank some good whine, went in to Carmel and the very posh Pebble Beach, rode horses and went to a lot of parties. This is what I was born to do in case anyone wanted to know.
I'm now at home once again, and am preparing to make an appearance of some magnitude at a baby shower on Sunday for the pregnant daughter. I also get to go be a scribe for a friend at a dressage show (read snooze fest) on Saturday, but she'll feed me and she put me up at her estate in Carmel Valley last week so it's the least I can do. I then leave for another foray to the land of Emperors and Empresses who will venture to Montana for the destination event of the horsie world. I'll be there for 10 days so I'll be changing my zip code and rearranging the furniture and all that. Quite a busy not so little bee aren't I. The spouse is somewhat torn by all these goings on since on the one hand it means he'll be eating Teriyaki Rice Bowls for the next two weeks, but one the other I'll be bringing in the payola. One must make sacrifices mustn't one?
And, dear reader, so ends another chapter in the life, and while you are all grateful it isn't a treatise of huge magnitude, you are also grateful that I've reach the end of my creative whatever. Besides I can't be late picking up our little All Star so I bid you a fond farewell, with the vague threat of future um offerings.
Cheers,
Squidgy
At any rate there we were wrapped to the eyeballs in lots of warm stuff cause the wind was blowing and it was freezing, by Vacavile standards, and minding our own business when a kid from the "home" team slid in to home and in the process took out our catcher. Literally bowled in to him, sent him flying in the air and ultimately to the dirt where he stayed all huddled up for a really long time. Naturally this was followed by tons of boos and throw the bum out and lots of catcalls from the "visitor" side. And the announcer was all ladies and gentlemen please behave and throwing vague threats of clearing the stands if we didn't behave and all that kind of drivel. So then the very next instant, the mother of the sliding criminal came running over to "our" side screaming to everyone that the kid hadn't meant to do it and telling everyone to shut up and was just intensely annoying. Of course then the hot heads from our side got in to it and the next thing you knew there was a full scale screaming riot going on complete with folks holding possible um probable batterers back and the whole thing culminated with a back parking lot brawl. ![]()
wow. I couldn't believe it and Steve was asking if there was another game tomorrow night and this was worth missing "Dual Survival" for. I was just stunned.
wow. I couldn't believe it and Steve was asking if there was another game tomorrow night and this was worth missing "Dual Survival" for. I was just stunned. So finally everything settled down and "we" were all disgruntled and what not and the next thing that happened was one of "ours" got a base hit and may have dropped his bat a little too enthusiastically before scuttling off to first base and the kid who was on second ran to third and the umpire screeched "No Way!" and tried to throw the play out because of the tossed bat. Naturally this caused yet another riot from the "visitors", and the district poobah then had to call Alaska or something to get a ruling from someone really important and that took f.o.r.e.v.e.r. and everyone was freezing and in a really bad mood. So finally the ruling came back that the ump was out to lunch and biased so the kid got to get to first, but the guy on 2nd didn't get to get to third and the game went on. And on. And on. Did I mention that the "visitors" lost 13-1? Pretty much a slaughter, and sad and entertaining all at once. I have to pick Garrett up to go to summer school in a little while and I expect the drive will be pretty quiet.
As promised I went to Carmel Valley for a little R&R. And it was everything I could have hoped for. Met up with good friends, drank some good whine, went in to Carmel and the very posh Pebble Beach, rode horses and went to a lot of parties. This is what I was born to do in case anyone wanted to know.
I'm now at home once again, and am preparing to make an appearance of some magnitude at a baby shower on Sunday for the pregnant daughter. I also get to go be a scribe for a friend at a dressage show (read snooze fest) on Saturday, but she'll feed me and she put me up at her estate in Carmel Valley last week so it's the least I can do. I then leave for another foray to the land of Emperors and Empresses who will venture to Montana for the destination event of the horsie world. I'll be there for 10 days so I'll be changing my zip code and rearranging the furniture and all that. Quite a busy not so little bee aren't I. The spouse is somewhat torn by all these goings on since on the one hand it means he'll be eating Teriyaki Rice Bowls for the next two weeks, but one the other I'll be bringing in the payola. One must make sacrifices mustn't one?
And, dear reader, so ends another chapter in the life, and while you are all grateful it isn't a treatise of huge magnitude, you are also grateful that I've reach the end of my creative whatever. Besides I can't be late picking up our little All Star so I bid you a fond farewell, with the vague threat of future um offerings.
Cheers,
Squidgy
Wednesday, July 6, 2011
Musings
I was sitting around minding my own beeswax and out of no where I was accosted by several words which blithered around in my head. They were harbinger, arbiter and musings. As you can see I've already used one and it describes my state of (out) of mind. Too the spouse has been yammering on about writing the blog. Evidently it strikes a chord somewhere in his depths, which is something polite people would never probe too deeply. Yes Malcolm, I'm talking to you.
I returned to house sitting a couple weeks ago, and rather than go day by day on the adventure I will just cut to the chase and announce I escaped unscathed. If there is any justice in the world, and sometimes there is, the horse that kicked me remembered me and we were very cautious of one another for some time. To say that I steered clear of his hind end is an understatement of epic proportions. And for his part, he kept a beady eye on me at all times. Then he came up lame. Dead lame. Crippled and hobbling. So I called Shirley and said, "Killer is lame." she said, "dammit". I said ,"whatcha want me to do about it?" she said, "I'll call Dave the shoer." I said, "ok." and waited around for a while and since I was getting paid good American fiduciary currency, I decided to earn my keep by doing as the Shirley (hereto for known as the Empress) bade me do. Well if that didn't sound awkward nothing does.
Anyway, as I was saying the Empress had bade me lunge the horses at the rancho. So there were three horses and as you know one was lame, lame, lame so doing some high falutin math, that left two to rig up in their respective devices of straps and bits and pads and boots and the myriad of other equipment one must strap, buckle and velcro to the horse and other parts thereof. First was Bugatti, now known as Bugger Gotti. Everything in the world scares this one. Flies, blue sky, wind, me, brushes, hair, life...you get the idea. Sadly in concert with his anxieties came the unfortunate episodic poopings. Like every five seconds, and don't bother trying to keep the clean up up. So anyway I eventually got him out to the ring and chased him around two minutes at the trot and eight minutes at the canter...each direction. You talk about paint drying. And of course I stared at the watch like every 15 seconds not believing at any point that that little time had passed. God I hate to lunge. And Bugger Gotti would take advantage of every lapse of attention to stop and stare at me so I would then have to expend precious energy to "git him up agin" and continue the exercise. Heavy sigh. So anyway the allotment of time finally ended and I led Bugger back and hosed him down and threw a fly/kkk sheet on him (really Empress? white hooded cloak...on a horse? What's a gal from the deep and dirty south supposed to think?) and put him away. Checked my messages from Shirley and found this, "Called Dave, left a message for him to call you, gave him your phone number, here's his phone number, what the horse doing now?" I returned the call and said, "nothing" and went out to capture victim #2 who just so happens to be the Empresses "special" horse. His name is Monte. Say no more. And so I open the lair door to Monte's realm and immediately spied his shoe, on the floor and therefore, not, on his foot. So two emotions here, one, I didn't have to lunge him and two, the empress was going to be annoyed. To put it mildly. What follows is a verbatim transcript of the conversation.
Me: Your highness, the great and wonderful Monte has ripped off his shoe and part of his foot.
Empress: @#$%^&*
Me: I haven't heard from Dave yet.
Empress: #$%^&* @#$% @#$% $%^ #$% #$%
Me: Impressive
Empress: I'll call Dave again $%$%$%^, would you go find the easy boot in the pasture, put it on and duct tape that sucka down tight?
Me: You have five acres of pasture.
Empress @#%&*()_)!(*&^%$#$%&*()!_)(*&^#$%^!&*())(*&^%$#$%!!
Me: Right then, I'll just go out and find that EZ boot, shall I?
So I did and I taped that sucker down tight, on the wrong foot. My turn !@#$%^&*()__!!!!! I tore all the !@#%^&*(tape off and took the boot off, studied both front feet, located the naked one and started all over again. I blame a long and steady diet of codeine for my uh lapses.
Anyway, over the course the day and long in to the evening I conversed, texted and messaged the Empress on all things with the lame horse, Empress: "what's he doing?" Me: "um, not eating, pawing, being weird. Looks like colic only he's not grabbing his sides and he has gut sounds." Empress: "He never eats, he's just like that I'll bet he has an abscess brewing in a foot, you have Dave take that shoe off and so on ." Me, "M'kay, heard from him then?" Empress: "@#%^&" Me: "aha". Empress: "If you really think he's colicking then give him some Banamine (horse medicine)" Me: I don't think he's colicking he's just doing some of the things horses do when they colic. I've checked him out, he's just being troublesome. Empress: "#$%^" Me: "You got that sistah." Then some discussion about Monte. Empress: "go ahead and lunge him in the EZ boot, you know he's a smart one, he knows exactly how long the lunge whip is and won't go anywhere if he's out of range. You have to throw stuff at him, it's best if you hit him with it." Me: "My but that sounds like a good time." Empress: "Tie a plastic bag to the end of the lunge whip and shake it, that ought to get him moving!" Me: "Awesome." And finally late that evening we had the word that Dave the shoer would be out the next morning about 8:30.
A note about shoers. They live in their own world and it is not in this or any close by galaxy. Ere go the next morning about 7 as I was stumbling about still in the house and in my jammies and struggling to get some coffee and get myself in some semblance of order, whom should I see rolling down the driveway? Yes the errant shoe man. So I uttered a few oaths, not mentionable, and found my way out of the house, without coffee mind you, and met Dave at the barn. I inquired as to which time zone he'd come from, grabbed Monte and motioned to the foot that now had the boot on it and muttered something about shoes, duct tape, Empress, coffee and went in search of Killer so he too could be assessed by the shoer and me without coffee at 7 in the bloody morning. I managed to collect the horse and present him and we looked at him and he stared at me, and then we moved him around on the lead line and I'll be struck dumb, but he looked about 90% sound. Which is to say he weren't hardly limping at all. So Dave scratched his head and gave me the hairy eyeball and I called the Emperor and told him the good news and he said, "I'll be go to hell" and I said, "OK, but what shall we tell Shirley?" and he said, "well let's just find out, she's right here." and I said, "OK, I'll put Dave on." and I did. So then we talked in circles for a long time and came up with nothing and Killer had a good laugh and I squinted at him and finally we decided to do nothing, but Empress was still on about abscesses and remove the shoe and the shoer was like yeah but he has not much foot to begin with and he has nothing to nail to. Let's leave it for now, and I'm thinking well that's just fine and dandy you're on your way out of town for the next six days, the empress is 600 miles away and it is Killer afterall and shouldn't we do something even if it's wrong? Well that was shot down so Killer went back to his pasture. Dave put the shoe (on the right foot, go figure) back on Monte, explained his real estate scheme to me in lengthy detail and took himself off to go fly fishing in some remote area far, far away from any annoying clients and cell reception. I gave it all up as a bad job and went back to the house for some coffee. Damn horses.
So later I lunged everyone and that took like forever - really, then to reward myself for being such a good little employee I went shopping. I got a super cute skirt and some adorable shoes. Feeling a lot more centered after that, I returned to the rancho did all the chores and then collapsed in lounger and scoured the tee vee for worthy viewing options. The royals had taped "The Game of Thrones." I immediately decided that that was going to be no good. I mean medieval fantasy? Really? Thanks guys, I was hooked from the start and thank God you had all ten episodes recorded. It was something of a real challenge to work all my other obligations around that I gotta be honest. Well anyway you will be relieved to know that I cleaned, fed, washed, wrapped, lunged, cleaned, fed, washed, lunged and carried on through out my stay and when the spouse called Monday morning and wondered if I'd be able to come by and have lunch on my way home I snapped that if I ever got through the show I'd be there. Priorities you know.
In addition to being the help in Petaluma, I also got to be the help Sunday night for Muffie, the horse show mom. Remember her? Anyway she'd found someone else to take care of the whine country estate while she too went with the royals to the bucolic countryside of Oregon to a show. Sadly, the substitute help couldn't do the horses and ponies who were left on Sunday night, enter yours truly. So I drove the 30 minutes over to whine country and in spite of never actually getting a real answer to my question of what exactly do you need me to do I arrived in all my sweaty glory. So I called Muffie on the phone and said, "I'm here what do I need to do?" and Muffie started to tell me for the umpteenth time what needed to be done, got all of like three words out before her channel changed and she said, "I gotta go, I'll call you right back." Well I badgered her for quite awhile and finally ascertained that two of the three ponies who were out needed to come in to the barn for the night. OK. Then one of the five horses who were out needed to come in too. OK. And the four pasture horses get this and the pony who was left out got that and the ponies who were in got something else and the horse who was in got something other than all of that. No problem. Except, and there always is one, there were only four horses out. There was a pasture horse in the barn and he was not supposed to be there he was supposed to be out. Not good, not good at all. Further the horse was locked in a stall with no access to the run paddock attached to the stall and this could only mean there was something wrong with it, but there was no note no nothing about why the horse was in and I decided I didn't know what to do about that and I called Muffie.
Back story. Earlier in the day I called Muffie to find out what I was supposed to do, you've heard this? Ok, well anyway while she wasn't telling me what to do she was telling me that her son, had gone missing on his bike and she needed to go find him. And I'm all yeah, good idea, hey Muffie? you will call and tell me when you find him? yes? please? ok.
She didn't call, so I had no problem interrupting her fashionable dinner out with fashionable friends while I was at her place sweating and finding strange horses where they shouldn't be with no messages left as to why trespassing horse was where he was and why. And further the other horse who was in, immediately remodeled his stall by removing a top board from his manger and tossed the offending board face up in his stall with all the lethal rusty nails laying face up for all to step on and what not. So no, I was not in the mood to be all sweet and this and that. So Muffie got all huffy about the horse being in the stall, because you know he's supposed to be out (really?) and he needs to go out right now and then you have to move the other horse in to the stall that the trespasser was in and bed it and move all the hay and feed and what not and blah blah blah. And I got all Meat Loaf on her and said, "Stop right there! Before you go any further do you love me?" No not really, but I did say, "um the horse is probably in for a reason, before we chuck it out shouldn't you call the owner and find out the details?" and she said, "ok fine, I'll call you right back" like I'd never heard that before. But she did call back and said she couldn't get hold of the owner and to do all the stuff we talked about, then she found a text from the owner that said the horse was hurt and needed to stay in and Muffie got huffy again, and I talked her in to just leaving things alone and all would be ok in the morning and besides I was tired verging on grand mal cranky. Frightened, she agreed, and I left her a tasteful bill and went on my merry way.
Finding that I am in serious need of some quality time by the sea, I shall soon take my leave of the 100+ temperatures of the valley and venture to a more genteel spot down Carmel and Carmel Valley way. I shall endear myself to one and all and wear a jacket and long trousers and comport myself in the quality country life for a spell. But first I gotta get there. So adieu dear reader,
Cheers,
Squidgy
I returned to house sitting a couple weeks ago, and rather than go day by day on the adventure I will just cut to the chase and announce I escaped unscathed. If there is any justice in the world, and sometimes there is, the horse that kicked me remembered me and we were very cautious of one another for some time. To say that I steered clear of his hind end is an understatement of epic proportions. And for his part, he kept a beady eye on me at all times. Then he came up lame. Dead lame. Crippled and hobbling. So I called Shirley and said, "Killer is lame." she said, "dammit". I said ,"whatcha want me to do about it?" she said, "I'll call Dave the shoer." I said, "ok." and waited around for a while and since I was getting paid good American fiduciary currency, I decided to earn my keep by doing as the Shirley (hereto for known as the Empress) bade me do. Well if that didn't sound awkward nothing does.
Anyway, as I was saying the Empress had bade me lunge the horses at the rancho. So there were three horses and as you know one was lame, lame, lame so doing some high falutin math, that left two to rig up in their respective devices of straps and bits and pads and boots and the myriad of other equipment one must strap, buckle and velcro to the horse and other parts thereof. First was Bugatti, now known as Bugger Gotti. Everything in the world scares this one. Flies, blue sky, wind, me, brushes, hair, life...you get the idea. Sadly in concert with his anxieties came the unfortunate episodic poopings. Like every five seconds, and don't bother trying to keep the clean up up. So anyway I eventually got him out to the ring and chased him around two minutes at the trot and eight minutes at the canter...each direction. You talk about paint drying. And of course I stared at the watch like every 15 seconds not believing at any point that that little time had passed. God I hate to lunge. And Bugger Gotti would take advantage of every lapse of attention to stop and stare at me so I would then have to expend precious energy to "git him up agin" and continue the exercise. Heavy sigh. So anyway the allotment of time finally ended and I led Bugger back and hosed him down and threw a fly/kkk sheet on him (really Empress? white hooded cloak...on a horse? What's a gal from the deep and dirty south supposed to think?) and put him away. Checked my messages from Shirley and found this, "Called Dave, left a message for him to call you, gave him your phone number, here's his phone number, what the horse doing now?" I returned the call and said, "nothing" and went out to capture victim #2 who just so happens to be the Empresses "special" horse. His name is Monte. Say no more. And so I open the lair door to Monte's realm and immediately spied his shoe, on the floor and therefore, not, on his foot. So two emotions here, one, I didn't have to lunge him and two, the empress was going to be annoyed. To put it mildly. What follows is a verbatim transcript of the conversation.
Me: Your highness, the great and wonderful Monte has ripped off his shoe and part of his foot.
Empress: @#$%^&*
Me: I haven't heard from Dave yet.
Empress: #$%^&* @#$% @#$% $%^ #$% #$%
Me: Impressive
Empress: I'll call Dave again $%$%$%^, would you go find the easy boot in the pasture, put it on and duct tape that sucka down tight?
Me: You have five acres of pasture.
Empress @#%&*()_)!(*&^%$#$%&*()!_)(*&^#$%^!&*())(*&^%$#$%!!
Me: Right then, I'll just go out and find that EZ boot, shall I?
So I did and I taped that sucker down tight, on the wrong foot. My turn !@#$%^&*()__!!!!! I tore all the !@#%^&*(tape off and took the boot off, studied both front feet, located the naked one and started all over again. I blame a long and steady diet of codeine for my uh lapses.
Anyway, over the course the day and long in to the evening I conversed, texted and messaged the Empress on all things with the lame horse, Empress: "what's he doing?" Me: "um, not eating, pawing, being weird. Looks like colic only he's not grabbing his sides and he has gut sounds." Empress: "He never eats, he's just like that I'll bet he has an abscess brewing in a foot, you have Dave take that shoe off and so on ." Me, "M'kay, heard from him then?" Empress: "@#%^&" Me: "aha". Empress: "If you really think he's colicking then give him some Banamine (horse medicine)" Me: I don't think he's colicking he's just doing some of the things horses do when they colic. I've checked him out, he's just being troublesome. Empress: "#$%^" Me: "You got that sistah." Then some discussion about Monte. Empress: "go ahead and lunge him in the EZ boot, you know he's a smart one, he knows exactly how long the lunge whip is and won't go anywhere if he's out of range. You have to throw stuff at him, it's best if you hit him with it." Me: "My but that sounds like a good time." Empress: "Tie a plastic bag to the end of the lunge whip and shake it, that ought to get him moving!" Me: "Awesome." And finally late that evening we had the word that Dave the shoer would be out the next morning about 8:30.
A note about shoers. They live in their own world and it is not in this or any close by galaxy. Ere go the next morning about 7 as I was stumbling about still in the house and in my jammies and struggling to get some coffee and get myself in some semblance of order, whom should I see rolling down the driveway? Yes the errant shoe man. So I uttered a few oaths, not mentionable, and found my way out of the house, without coffee mind you, and met Dave at the barn. I inquired as to which time zone he'd come from, grabbed Monte and motioned to the foot that now had the boot on it and muttered something about shoes, duct tape, Empress, coffee and went in search of Killer so he too could be assessed by the shoer and me without coffee at 7 in the bloody morning. I managed to collect the horse and present him and we looked at him and he stared at me, and then we moved him around on the lead line and I'll be struck dumb, but he looked about 90% sound. Which is to say he weren't hardly limping at all. So Dave scratched his head and gave me the hairy eyeball and I called the Emperor and told him the good news and he said, "I'll be go to hell" and I said, "OK, but what shall we tell Shirley?" and he said, "well let's just find out, she's right here." and I said, "OK, I'll put Dave on." and I did. So then we talked in circles for a long time and came up with nothing and Killer had a good laugh and I squinted at him and finally we decided to do nothing, but Empress was still on about abscesses and remove the shoe and the shoer was like yeah but he has not much foot to begin with and he has nothing to nail to. Let's leave it for now, and I'm thinking well that's just fine and dandy you're on your way out of town for the next six days, the empress is 600 miles away and it is Killer afterall and shouldn't we do something even if it's wrong? Well that was shot down so Killer went back to his pasture. Dave put the shoe (on the right foot, go figure) back on Monte, explained his real estate scheme to me in lengthy detail and took himself off to go fly fishing in some remote area far, far away from any annoying clients and cell reception. I gave it all up as a bad job and went back to the house for some coffee. Damn horses.
So later I lunged everyone and that took like forever - really, then to reward myself for being such a good little employee I went shopping. I got a super cute skirt and some adorable shoes. Feeling a lot more centered after that, I returned to the rancho did all the chores and then collapsed in lounger and scoured the tee vee for worthy viewing options. The royals had taped "The Game of Thrones." I immediately decided that that was going to be no good. I mean medieval fantasy? Really? Thanks guys, I was hooked from the start and thank God you had all ten episodes recorded. It was something of a real challenge to work all my other obligations around that I gotta be honest. Well anyway you will be relieved to know that I cleaned, fed, washed, wrapped, lunged, cleaned, fed, washed, lunged and carried on through out my stay and when the spouse called Monday morning and wondered if I'd be able to come by and have lunch on my way home I snapped that if I ever got through the show I'd be there. Priorities you know.
In addition to being the help in Petaluma, I also got to be the help Sunday night for Muffie, the horse show mom. Remember her? Anyway she'd found someone else to take care of the whine country estate while she too went with the royals to the bucolic countryside of Oregon to a show. Sadly, the substitute help couldn't do the horses and ponies who were left on Sunday night, enter yours truly. So I drove the 30 minutes over to whine country and in spite of never actually getting a real answer to my question of what exactly do you need me to do I arrived in all my sweaty glory. So I called Muffie on the phone and said, "I'm here what do I need to do?" and Muffie started to tell me for the umpteenth time what needed to be done, got all of like three words out before her channel changed and she said, "I gotta go, I'll call you right back." Well I badgered her for quite awhile and finally ascertained that two of the three ponies who were out needed to come in to the barn for the night. OK. Then one of the five horses who were out needed to come in too. OK. And the four pasture horses get this and the pony who was left out got that and the ponies who were in got something else and the horse who was in got something other than all of that. No problem. Except, and there always is one, there were only four horses out. There was a pasture horse in the barn and he was not supposed to be there he was supposed to be out. Not good, not good at all. Further the horse was locked in a stall with no access to the run paddock attached to the stall and this could only mean there was something wrong with it, but there was no note no nothing about why the horse was in and I decided I didn't know what to do about that and I called Muffie.
Back story. Earlier in the day I called Muffie to find out what I was supposed to do, you've heard this? Ok, well anyway while she wasn't telling me what to do she was telling me that her son, had gone missing on his bike and she needed to go find him. And I'm all yeah, good idea, hey Muffie? you will call and tell me when you find him? yes? please? ok.
She didn't call, so I had no problem interrupting her fashionable dinner out with fashionable friends while I was at her place sweating and finding strange horses where they shouldn't be with no messages left as to why trespassing horse was where he was and why. And further the other horse who was in, immediately remodeled his stall by removing a top board from his manger and tossed the offending board face up in his stall with all the lethal rusty nails laying face up for all to step on and what not. So no, I was not in the mood to be all sweet and this and that. So Muffie got all huffy about the horse being in the stall, because you know he's supposed to be out (really?) and he needs to go out right now and then you have to move the other horse in to the stall that the trespasser was in and bed it and move all the hay and feed and what not and blah blah blah. And I got all Meat Loaf on her and said, "Stop right there! Before you go any further do you love me?" No not really, but I did say, "um the horse is probably in for a reason, before we chuck it out shouldn't you call the owner and find out the details?" and she said, "ok fine, I'll call you right back" like I'd never heard that before. But she did call back and said she couldn't get hold of the owner and to do all the stuff we talked about, then she found a text from the owner that said the horse was hurt and needed to stay in and Muffie got huffy again, and I talked her in to just leaving things alone and all would be ok in the morning and besides I was tired verging on grand mal cranky. Frightened, she agreed, and I left her a tasteful bill and went on my merry way.
Finding that I am in serious need of some quality time by the sea, I shall soon take my leave of the 100+ temperatures of the valley and venture to a more genteel spot down Carmel and Carmel Valley way. I shall endear myself to one and all and wear a jacket and long trousers and comport myself in the quality country life for a spell. But first I gotta get there. So adieu dear reader,
Cheers,
Squidgy
Thursday, June 16, 2011
Happy Birthday to Me
The day we all celebrate, the day of my birth has arrived. I expected the following events to occur.
While I am far far far from my 21st birthday I do remember it well. I was living in Chico at the time. During those years, a long time ago never mind how long ago, Chico State had the highest beer consumption rate per capita of any school in Californina. A dubious honor perhaps, but nevertheless worth mentioning. At any rate my boyfriend and his best friend and I planned a raucous good time in Old Sacramento to celebrate the 21st birthday. So we hopped in to a car and drove the two hours south. We had planned to stop at every bar along the way, but that was shortened to the bar on the way due to poor navigational skills. Sooner or later we arrived in Sacramento and had a refreshing dip in the boy friends parents pool, then we gussied up and took off for our evening of debauchery. First stop...The Elegant Barn for din din. Whilst we were waiting at the bar a rat about the size of a llama went darting across the back of the bar. Nobody but we three took any notice of it. Sketch. So then we treated ourselves to a mammoth meal of meat and all the stuff and dessert which was probably mud pie. That should give some of you an idea of the vintage we are talking about here. Then it was off to Fannie Anne's in Old Sacramento. In those days it was considered de rigueur to go to Fannie Anne's on your 21st birthday. Here is why. We walked in and I presented my real drivers license, for the first time ever, the little man checked it out, did math and then all these lights and sirens and bells and all holy hell cut loose and a frothing flagon of Harvey Wallbanger was thrust in to my hands and the downward spiral began with more and more free drinks all night long. Except for one thing. Remember the heavy meal etc. we'd had earlier? Yeah, couldn't get drunk, barely even had a buzz going on. Somewhat anti-climatic wouldn't you say? Over the years I have more than made up for that, but I still remember sobriety on my 21st whoopdedoo. Cheers.
I know you will be relieved to know that next week Squidgy goes back to the scene of the crime, or rather the little accident for a respite of 5-6 days. You will also be happy to hear that "Killer" will also be there. The mangy dogs, on the other hand, will not be there. I am expecting to have an accident free visit in Petaluma. And I expect good wishes and thoughts from all ya'll. My friends are taking themselves off to Oregon for a fabulous time with the horses they are taking along. My little horse show mom will also be going to Oregon for the show. I will have no friends in the vicinity. sniff. I will have to catch up on "Women Behind Bars" on the tee vee and perhaps watch a movie or two. Riveting.
The middle daughter, who says I never mention her in the blog, and I went up the hill to watch the only grand daughter do her ballet the other day. Sadly the father parent took little ballerina and her brother to soccer camp first, then stopped at 7-11 for a giant pink frosted doughnut with the sprinkles before dance class. There was an immediate and unsatisfactory response to exhaustion and sugar which befell the prima ballerina. And it manifested itself in severe attention deficit, and inability to hear and act in a synchronized fashion. Bless her little heart. You know how you always feel sorry for the kid who's just not with it in class? Yeah that was our little ballerina and yes, I have it on video and yes, I will save it forever.
Back to the daughter who says I never mention her. That would be Lindsey and she is the middle child. Really. When she and her older sister were little tykes we read Tikki Tikki Tembo all the time. Tikki tikki tembo-no sa rembo-chari bari ruchi-pip peri pembo was the name of the eldest child in the story and the name meant "The most wonderful thing in the world". He had a little brother who was named Chang, which meant "Little or Nothing". Lindsey was our Chang. Except she wasn't. She has always been vibrant, vivacious, extravagent and outrageous. Hardly a Chang at all. I remember her teachers comments were always "Talks too much." "Needs to pay attention and stop talking." "Lindsey talks in class when she should be doing her lessons." 1-12 same thing. Then she reached the teens and be-tweens and she and her little covy of besties would be in constant trouble. Just high jinx, but it went on all the time. She was all "Momma, why do I always get caught?" and I was all "Lindsey, you are scarcely a shrinking violet, you will always get caught because you are vivacious, extravagent and outrageous." My little angel.
Our little Tikki tikki tembo-no sa rembo-chari bari ruchi-pip peri pembo, The most wonderful thing in the world is having a baby. And it is a boy. His name will be Sam. I like that and he will be a cowboy. The blessed event is expected in early October so I have informed the spouse that we should drive to Loving, New Mexico for the birth. I think I have him convinced that that would be a great adventure because while we're out there we can go to Roswell, NM and investigate the aliens. The things I have to do to get that man out of the house. Merciful Heavens as my granny used to say. I haven't had a positive answer from him yet.
I have also requested a trip to England in September for our, wait for it, 14th anniversary. This would be memorable in any case, but epic when you consider I was married to the starter spouse for 18 years. But anyway, I want to go to Burghley for the horse trials held 1-5 of September and as it happens our anniversary is the 3rd and don't you think that would be a wonderful trip? And don't you think it makes up for me having to make my own birthday cake today? If you would like to add your encouragement to him I will supply you with his phone numbers and email addresses on request. I think that ought to do it, don't you?
Some time ago I told you I would relate my first experience with an injury that required real medical attention. And I was moaning that we had Kaiser and all that. My recent experience with Kaiser was positive beyond my wildest expectations. If you have to go to the hospital and be a guest, Kaiser wins hands down for care, information, attention, medical prowess and receives an A+ in everything but meals. But lets go back my injury last year when I fell off the motorcycle. I'd gone down to Temecula with my bestie Kristi for a horse show. On cross country day I followed Kristi around the course on a little motorcycle and in my exuberence to be at the finish line for her I may have been traveling a wee bit too fast so that when the front tires got caught in a rut in the road and I put my leg out it and it spun around and tore all kinds of goodies in my knee. I had a pretty good idea what I'd done when I tried to stand up and immediately fell down. I also had an owie on my elbow. boo hoo. So I got my friend Dan to take me to urgent care, if ever there was a misnomer, that was it I tell ya. Anyway that made me wait the requisite hours, x-rayed my knee said it wasn't broken, ignored my elbow and sent me on my way. In the meantime my knee was swollen to 10 time the normal size. I finally got home the next day, and the following day I went to my primary care doc @ Kaiser and she was out, but I saw someone else who said it was probably just a strain, but gave me antiseptic for my elbow and sent me on my way. Then went to New Mexico for my daughters wedding and while I was there I fell down a few times, had some accupuncture, which was great and leaned on my son in law on my trip down the aisle as mother of the bride. Came home again and called my doc again and she was in and saw me and said that it was probably just a strain, but to wear this leg brace for a couple weeks, and if you're going to be a cry baby then go over to Sacramento for physical therapy. OK then. I made an appointment for PT and they did the ice thing to my leg and thought perhaps, just for grins, I should make an appointment with an orthopedic physicians assistant. So I did. The PA said he figured I just strained my knee, but for giggles did an MRI and a Cat Scan and said he'd call me the following week. I was feeling just a little haggard, firstly cause the damn thing hurt and I kept falling down, but also because it seemed no one wanted to believe me. I had torn the ACL and the meniscus on the other leg several years previously so I had some experience with the symptoms. Anyway, the PA called the next day and he was all in a dither and said, "my, my, my, you really did a number on your knee. You've shredded your ACL, your meniscus and you've fractured the top of your tibia." I said, "it's not a strain then?" Never miss an opportunity to be a bitch dear reader. So then I got to make another orthopedic appointment, but with a surgeon this time. OooooohAwww. So this hayseed comes in to the exam room after making me wait 20 minutes, looks at me, and says "So we won't be doing surgery on you, you're too old." To which I replied, "We most certainly are doing surgery, I can't go the rest of my life falling down!" To which he snipped back, "Well you're a little rude, aren't you?" Then it went downhill. I stormed/hobbled off complained in writing and verbally to everyone who mattered and badgered my Primary Care Doc to refer another surgeon and on it went. Eventually I met Dr. Reed, who said surgery was an option and then we discussed nail polish colors for the event and all was righteous. He has turned out to be a really great guy and we have snarky conversations about the first doctor of doom and talk about horses and all that. He's taking a screw out of my knee in a couple weeks and I have complete confidence all will be grand and I've requested the same Russian anesthesiologist because he too was amusing. You do have to work the system, but I'm a Kaiser believer.
Cheers ya'll,
Squidgy
- My spouse would shower me with unexpected and extravagent gifts for which I would weep and declare him to be husband of the century.
- My children would shower me with unexpected and extravagent gifts for which I would weep and declare them to be the best children in the world.
- I mowed the lawn.
- I shaved the dogs.
- The power in the office which runs the computer is sketchy and the breaker flips and when I reset it, it hisses at me. Sweet.
- I made my own cake...again
While I am far far far from my 21st birthday I do remember it well. I was living in Chico at the time. During those years, a long time ago never mind how long ago, Chico State had the highest beer consumption rate per capita of any school in Californina. A dubious honor perhaps, but nevertheless worth mentioning. At any rate my boyfriend and his best friend and I planned a raucous good time in Old Sacramento to celebrate the 21st birthday. So we hopped in to a car and drove the two hours south. We had planned to stop at every bar along the way, but that was shortened to the bar on the way due to poor navigational skills. Sooner or later we arrived in Sacramento and had a refreshing dip in the boy friends parents pool, then we gussied up and took off for our evening of debauchery. First stop...The Elegant Barn for din din. Whilst we were waiting at the bar a rat about the size of a llama went darting across the back of the bar. Nobody but we three took any notice of it. Sketch. So then we treated ourselves to a mammoth meal of meat and all the stuff and dessert which was probably mud pie. That should give some of you an idea of the vintage we are talking about here. Then it was off to Fannie Anne's in Old Sacramento. In those days it was considered de rigueur to go to Fannie Anne's on your 21st birthday. Here is why. We walked in and I presented my real drivers license, for the first time ever, the little man checked it out, did math and then all these lights and sirens and bells and all holy hell cut loose and a frothing flagon of Harvey Wallbanger was thrust in to my hands and the downward spiral began with more and more free drinks all night long. Except for one thing. Remember the heavy meal etc. we'd had earlier? Yeah, couldn't get drunk, barely even had a buzz going on. Somewhat anti-climatic wouldn't you say? Over the years I have more than made up for that, but I still remember sobriety on my 21st whoopdedoo. Cheers.
I know you will be relieved to know that next week Squidgy goes back to the scene of the crime, or rather the little accident for a respite of 5-6 days. You will also be happy to hear that "Killer" will also be there. The mangy dogs, on the other hand, will not be there. I am expecting to have an accident free visit in Petaluma. And I expect good wishes and thoughts from all ya'll. My friends are taking themselves off to Oregon for a fabulous time with the horses they are taking along. My little horse show mom will also be going to Oregon for the show. I will have no friends in the vicinity. sniff. I will have to catch up on "Women Behind Bars" on the tee vee and perhaps watch a movie or two. Riveting.
The middle daughter, who says I never mention her in the blog, and I went up the hill to watch the only grand daughter do her ballet the other day. Sadly the father parent took little ballerina and her brother to soccer camp first, then stopped at 7-11 for a giant pink frosted doughnut with the sprinkles before dance class. There was an immediate and unsatisfactory response to exhaustion and sugar which befell the prima ballerina. And it manifested itself in severe attention deficit, and inability to hear and act in a synchronized fashion. Bless her little heart. You know how you always feel sorry for the kid who's just not with it in class? Yeah that was our little ballerina and yes, I have it on video and yes, I will save it forever.
Back to the daughter who says I never mention her. That would be Lindsey and she is the middle child. Really. When she and her older sister were little tykes we read Tikki Tikki Tembo all the time. Tikki tikki tembo-no sa rembo-chari bari ruchi-pip peri pembo was the name of the eldest child in the story and the name meant "The most wonderful thing in the world". He had a little brother who was named Chang, which meant "Little or Nothing". Lindsey was our Chang. Except she wasn't. She has always been vibrant, vivacious, extravagent and outrageous. Hardly a Chang at all. I remember her teachers comments were always "Talks too much." "Needs to pay attention and stop talking." "Lindsey talks in class when she should be doing her lessons." 1-12 same thing. Then she reached the teens and be-tweens and she and her little covy of besties would be in constant trouble. Just high jinx, but it went on all the time. She was all "Momma, why do I always get caught?" and I was all "Lindsey, you are scarcely a shrinking violet, you will always get caught because you are vivacious, extravagent and outrageous." My little angel.
Our little Tikki tikki tembo-no sa rembo-chari bari ruchi-pip peri pembo, The most wonderful thing in the world is having a baby. And it is a boy. His name will be Sam. I like that and he will be a cowboy. The blessed event is expected in early October so I have informed the spouse that we should drive to Loving, New Mexico for the birth. I think I have him convinced that that would be a great adventure because while we're out there we can go to Roswell, NM and investigate the aliens. The things I have to do to get that man out of the house. Merciful Heavens as my granny used to say. I haven't had a positive answer from him yet.
I have also requested a trip to England in September for our, wait for it, 14th anniversary. This would be memorable in any case, but epic when you consider I was married to the starter spouse for 18 years. But anyway, I want to go to Burghley for the horse trials held 1-5 of September and as it happens our anniversary is the 3rd and don't you think that would be a wonderful trip? And don't you think it makes up for me having to make my own birthday cake today? If you would like to add your encouragement to him I will supply you with his phone numbers and email addresses on request. I think that ought to do it, don't you?
Some time ago I told you I would relate my first experience with an injury that required real medical attention. And I was moaning that we had Kaiser and all that. My recent experience with Kaiser was positive beyond my wildest expectations. If you have to go to the hospital and be a guest, Kaiser wins hands down for care, information, attention, medical prowess and receives an A+ in everything but meals. But lets go back my injury last year when I fell off the motorcycle. I'd gone down to Temecula with my bestie Kristi for a horse show. On cross country day I followed Kristi around the course on a little motorcycle and in my exuberence to be at the finish line for her I may have been traveling a wee bit too fast so that when the front tires got caught in a rut in the road and I put my leg out it and it spun around and tore all kinds of goodies in my knee. I had a pretty good idea what I'd done when I tried to stand up and immediately fell down. I also had an owie on my elbow. boo hoo. So I got my friend Dan to take me to urgent care, if ever there was a misnomer, that was it I tell ya. Anyway that made me wait the requisite hours, x-rayed my knee said it wasn't broken, ignored my elbow and sent me on my way. In the meantime my knee was swollen to 10 time the normal size. I finally got home the next day, and the following day I went to my primary care doc @ Kaiser and she was out, but I saw someone else who said it was probably just a strain, but gave me antiseptic for my elbow and sent me on my way. Then went to New Mexico for my daughters wedding and while I was there I fell down a few times, had some accupuncture, which was great and leaned on my son in law on my trip down the aisle as mother of the bride. Came home again and called my doc again and she was in and saw me and said that it was probably just a strain, but to wear this leg brace for a couple weeks, and if you're going to be a cry baby then go over to Sacramento for physical therapy. OK then. I made an appointment for PT and they did the ice thing to my leg and thought perhaps, just for grins, I should make an appointment with an orthopedic physicians assistant. So I did. The PA said he figured I just strained my knee, but for giggles did an MRI and a Cat Scan and said he'd call me the following week. I was feeling just a little haggard, firstly cause the damn thing hurt and I kept falling down, but also because it seemed no one wanted to believe me. I had torn the ACL and the meniscus on the other leg several years previously so I had some experience with the symptoms. Anyway, the PA called the next day and he was all in a dither and said, "my, my, my, you really did a number on your knee. You've shredded your ACL, your meniscus and you've fractured the top of your tibia." I said, "it's not a strain then?" Never miss an opportunity to be a bitch dear reader. So then I got to make another orthopedic appointment, but with a surgeon this time. OooooohAwww. So this hayseed comes in to the exam room after making me wait 20 minutes, looks at me, and says "So we won't be doing surgery on you, you're too old." To which I replied, "We most certainly are doing surgery, I can't go the rest of my life falling down!" To which he snipped back, "Well you're a little rude, aren't you?" Then it went downhill. I stormed/hobbled off complained in writing and verbally to everyone who mattered and badgered my Primary Care Doc to refer another surgeon and on it went. Eventually I met Dr. Reed, who said surgery was an option and then we discussed nail polish colors for the event and all was righteous. He has turned out to be a really great guy and we have snarky conversations about the first doctor of doom and talk about horses and all that. He's taking a screw out of my knee in a couple weeks and I have complete confidence all will be grand and I've requested the same Russian anesthesiologist because he too was amusing. You do have to work the system, but I'm a Kaiser believer.
Cheers ya'll,
Squidgy
Monday, June 6, 2011
Life in the Fast Lane
What's new? 13th letter of the Greek alphabet. Hysterical old fraternity joke of starter husbands band-o-brothers. Getting a very shaky start here.
So the daughter of Steve has appeared from her first year of college for a summer respite with her pappy and yours truly. She is going to move to North Carolina to go to a chi chi private liberal arts college in Asheville in the fall. In the mean time she will be hunkering down in the dirt and what not, toiling at an organic vegetable farm for some dinero. The Spanish reference here is intentional. But what it means in real life is we get healthy stuff to eat for the next eight weeks. Except for beets, they are the liver and brains of the vegetable world. I don't care what you say. That's my final word on the subject.
Along with her sweet self, the daughter brought many bags, boxes, suitcases and sacks of stuff. She has a room the size of a cardboard box and I've already taken control of half the closet. First come first served and all that. Anyway she's spent several hours pouring through the detritus deciding what she can't possibly live without for eight weeks and what can be shipped off to North Carolina to the welcoming arms of her Mammy. Naturally this gives me ample opportunity to offer my valuable insight. I am quite happy to point out that you shouldn't even think about saving anything you haven't touched for a year. Plus noting that some of those things she covets were used to begin with, and besides the obvious..."what were you thinking" there's also the "I can't believe that was ever cute." I am well on my way to making myself an indispensable asset to her life and style.
The spouse and I went to the middle daughters house for dinner the other night. This is the first time I've seen the son-in-law since my little accident. He was in last place for favorite until he fed me. He's hovering somewhere between a high two, close to one right now. Besides he tells a mean joke. And he likes my cooking, which is what I helped out with, personally overseeing a yummy seat of the pants sauce for the ham and putting my own special touch on the potatoes avec cheese and onions and other secret stuff. Sadly the spouse dragged me off before we tucked in to the box of See's that was sitting on the counter. I'm just not over that yet, nor do I intend to be.
Fully exhausted from that outing I slept all the next morning arising at 1:00p in time for Steve to say adieu and take himself off to the land of the doomed he calls work. You see there was a biker party at the fairgrounds that night and Stevie had to be the chaperon, so to speak. Not just any bikers, I believe the term "Black Hell's Angels" was used as an adjective. Swell. So I guess everything went on just fine till the ho's in the bat-room got to getting and started a little riot. Girl fights are the stuff that dread, fear and loathing come from. It also involves the po-leece. You'll be relieved to discover that my beloved was safe in his office till the Calvary arrived and he could venture forth and add his two cents worth to the mayhem. Because, the bat-room riot then became a whole sale free for all what with the gentlemen bikers taking advantage of the distractions and hopping over the various bars and grabbing the demon alcohol. What a life my beloved has. Mercifully I was unaware of any of these shenanigans being safely at home with the Norco and the dogs and the tee vee. Bliss.
I wish I hadn't thought about the See's, cause now that's all I can think about. I've discovered, belatedly, that you are not a prisoner of what Grandma See's thinks should be in a box of candy. No, no, you can select individually all those tasty tidbits that only you like for your box of candy. I recommend 2# boxes to save your self wear and tear getting over to the store and like that more than once a day. My selections always include Bordeaux, the ones with the brown sugar goodness in the middle, and I admit it, the raspberry cremes, the English Toffee, the Molasses Chips, and I could go on, but I'm drooling. Pretty visual isn't it? And yes, I had to give up my gym membership temporarily, due to breakage, but I shall start up again, maybe next week and I have plenty to work off. sigh.
Believe it or not, several days have gone by, I severely edited what I'd blathered on about. What you read above is edited. Frightening.
I had a most entertaining weak end. It started by meeting the horse show mom/snow bound mom/she of the narcotic cocktails in Sonoma in the pouring rain to go house hunting. We found a cute place and to my mind that should be the end of that. Alas, I suspect we will venturing forth on more adventures in home buying, but it's all good, cause it's like spending someone else's money, which is v. good right now.
Since we are in California where everything is over priced, we asked about the vacant lot next to the house and property we were looking at. Now this place is reasonably priced for what ever reason, so we thought why not jump in immediately and increase the holding? So on a busy road, 8 acres with nada on it and a perk test for only a three bed room house? 1. something million. Wonder why it's been on the market for a century or so?
Anyway from house hunting to Mani-Pedi's. Of course to my mind it's always better to have your feeties in a steamy foot bath with a steamy cocktail in your hand, but Starbucks had to do, and it did quite nicely. From the salon to the Casa Blanca where Muffie lives. I was quite happy to let her trundle off to clean stalls and muck about whilst I busied myself in the kitchen creating cocktails. Having imbibed the creations we then, happily buzzed, ventured off once again to whine taste. Quite a day right?
We also got to meet up with the children of the horse show mom later on and sit around and make fun of what Dim Sum really looks like. I am quite happy to go to the third and sixth grade level when it comes to making assessments about stuff. Dim Sum can get quite entertaining. By then it was waaaaaaaaay too late to go back to Vacaville, so we all snuggled up in the big bed at Casa Blanca and settled in with the Face Book and what not. Just like a slumber party. You are NEVER to old for that. promise.
Ever living on the edge, tonight I shall attend the graduation of grandson Garrett who is matriculating from sixth grade. Do I have to buy him a car? These things can get so confusing. Anyway I love Garrett. He is a very happy little man and he cracks me up. He took a big dive off his dirt bike the other day so we were able to compare scars and what not. He plays baseball and the trumpet. Truly an inspiration, except that unfortunate infatuation with guns, so I try to always try to stay on his good side.
My daughter, who is expecting in October, has discovered she is having a boy baby. This is good because I was deciding to be somewhat miffed that she had changed the middle name of a girl baby so it no longer payed homage to her mammy. Remember, no one will ever love you as much as your real mother Alison. Just remember. Anyway we have a new baby to look forward to in a few short months. I shall venture in to New Mexico cowboy country for the blessed event. And to subject the new parents to a clear picture of what child rearing is really about. And like that. I can't wait.
So happy reader, I'll sign off for now. You're welcome.
Cheers,
Squidgy
So the daughter of Steve has appeared from her first year of college for a summer respite with her pappy and yours truly. She is going to move to North Carolina to go to a chi chi private liberal arts college in Asheville in the fall. In the mean time she will be hunkering down in the dirt and what not, toiling at an organic vegetable farm for some dinero. The Spanish reference here is intentional. But what it means in real life is we get healthy stuff to eat for the next eight weeks. Except for beets, they are the liver and brains of the vegetable world. I don't care what you say. That's my final word on the subject.
Along with her sweet self, the daughter brought many bags, boxes, suitcases and sacks of stuff. She has a room the size of a cardboard box and I've already taken control of half the closet. First come first served and all that. Anyway she's spent several hours pouring through the detritus deciding what she can't possibly live without for eight weeks and what can be shipped off to North Carolina to the welcoming arms of her Mammy. Naturally this gives me ample opportunity to offer my valuable insight. I am quite happy to point out that you shouldn't even think about saving anything you haven't touched for a year. Plus noting that some of those things she covets were used to begin with, and besides the obvious..."what were you thinking" there's also the "I can't believe that was ever cute." I am well on my way to making myself an indispensable asset to her life and style.
The spouse and I went to the middle daughters house for dinner the other night. This is the first time I've seen the son-in-law since my little accident. He was in last place for favorite until he fed me. He's hovering somewhere between a high two, close to one right now. Besides he tells a mean joke. And he likes my cooking, which is what I helped out with, personally overseeing a yummy seat of the pants sauce for the ham and putting my own special touch on the potatoes avec cheese and onions and other secret stuff. Sadly the spouse dragged me off before we tucked in to the box of See's that was sitting on the counter. I'm just not over that yet, nor do I intend to be.
Fully exhausted from that outing I slept all the next morning arising at 1:00p in time for Steve to say adieu and take himself off to the land of the doomed he calls work. You see there was a biker party at the fairgrounds that night and Stevie had to be the chaperon, so to speak. Not just any bikers, I believe the term "Black Hell's Angels" was used as an adjective. Swell. So I guess everything went on just fine till the ho's in the bat-room got to getting and started a little riot. Girl fights are the stuff that dread, fear and loathing come from. It also involves the po-leece. You'll be relieved to discover that my beloved was safe in his office till the Calvary arrived and he could venture forth and add his two cents worth to the mayhem. Because, the bat-room riot then became a whole sale free for all what with the gentlemen bikers taking advantage of the distractions and hopping over the various bars and grabbing the demon alcohol. What a life my beloved has. Mercifully I was unaware of any of these shenanigans being safely at home with the Norco and the dogs and the tee vee. Bliss.
I wish I hadn't thought about the See's, cause now that's all I can think about. I've discovered, belatedly, that you are not a prisoner of what Grandma See's thinks should be in a box of candy. No, no, you can select individually all those tasty tidbits that only you like for your box of candy. I recommend 2# boxes to save your self wear and tear getting over to the store and like that more than once a day. My selections always include Bordeaux, the ones with the brown sugar goodness in the middle, and I admit it, the raspberry cremes, the English Toffee, the Molasses Chips, and I could go on, but I'm drooling. Pretty visual isn't it? And yes, I had to give up my gym membership temporarily, due to breakage, but I shall start up again, maybe next week and I have plenty to work off. sigh.
Believe it or not, several days have gone by, I severely edited what I'd blathered on about. What you read above is edited. Frightening.
I had a most entertaining weak end. It started by meeting the horse show mom/snow bound mom/she of the narcotic cocktails in Sonoma in the pouring rain to go house hunting. We found a cute place and to my mind that should be the end of that. Alas, I suspect we will venturing forth on more adventures in home buying, but it's all good, cause it's like spending someone else's money, which is v. good right now.
Since we are in California where everything is over priced, we asked about the vacant lot next to the house and property we were looking at. Now this place is reasonably priced for what ever reason, so we thought why not jump in immediately and increase the holding? So on a busy road, 8 acres with nada on it and a perk test for only a three bed room house? 1. something million. Wonder why it's been on the market for a century or so?
Anyway from house hunting to Mani-Pedi's. Of course to my mind it's always better to have your feeties in a steamy foot bath with a steamy cocktail in your hand, but Starbucks had to do, and it did quite nicely. From the salon to the Casa Blanca where Muffie lives. I was quite happy to let her trundle off to clean stalls and muck about whilst I busied myself in the kitchen creating cocktails. Having imbibed the creations we then, happily buzzed, ventured off once again to whine taste. Quite a day right?
We also got to meet up with the children of the horse show mom later on and sit around and make fun of what Dim Sum really looks like. I am quite happy to go to the third and sixth grade level when it comes to making assessments about stuff. Dim Sum can get quite entertaining. By then it was waaaaaaaaay too late to go back to Vacaville, so we all snuggled up in the big bed at Casa Blanca and settled in with the Face Book and what not. Just like a slumber party. You are NEVER to old for that. promise.
Ever living on the edge, tonight I shall attend the graduation of grandson Garrett who is matriculating from sixth grade. Do I have to buy him a car? These things can get so confusing. Anyway I love Garrett. He is a very happy little man and he cracks me up. He took a big dive off his dirt bike the other day so we were able to compare scars and what not. He plays baseball and the trumpet. Truly an inspiration, except that unfortunate infatuation with guns, so I try to always try to stay on his good side.
My daughter, who is expecting in October, has discovered she is having a boy baby. This is good because I was deciding to be somewhat miffed that she had changed the middle name of a girl baby so it no longer payed homage to her mammy. Remember, no one will ever love you as much as your real mother Alison. Just remember. Anyway we have a new baby to look forward to in a few short months. I shall venture in to New Mexico cowboy country for the blessed event. And to subject the new parents to a clear picture of what child rearing is really about. And like that. I can't wait.
So happy reader, I'll sign off for now. You're welcome.
Cheers,
Squidgy
Thursday, May 26, 2011
Week Three - Boredom, HGTV and House Cleaning
And so it goes. I'm healing. I know you all wanted to know that. I've been to my primary care doctor who is possibly the only person I know who didn't know about my accident. She said, "motorcycle?" I said, "that was last year." She said, "oh." Kind of anti climatic really.
So I've been sitting around...a lot. Depending on where I am in the pain/pain medication cycle I have also cleaned the carpet, vacuumed, groomed the #$%^& dogs, dusted, changed the slip cover on the couch, upgraded the teevee so I can watch the Horse Racing Channel, and done some laundry. I also have been cooking and sometimes do the dishes too. Yesterday I learned on the teevee that 3 parts cream of tartar to 1 part water makes an excellent "green" cleaning mixture for your stainless steel sink. I am alarmed to announce this was the most exciting thing that has happened in the past 5 days.
On Sunday the spouse and I trekked over to Petaluma to get my car. It has been living there since the helicopter whisked me away two weeks previously. We also got to celebrate Dan's birthday. This is a great occasion as Dan is now technically a year older than me. I love old people. We got him a bottle of Makers Mark "46" which I think either means Dan's "age" or IQ. It would depend on whether or not Dan is mean to me. Mostly IQ then...
The spouse keeps bugging me about blogging. I keep saying I have nothing to blog about. He keeps saying that never stopped you before. I just take whatever is handy and zone out. He is annoying.
Since I was able to upgrade the teevee subscription to include HRTV (horse racing tee vee) and that then opened a whole new vista of channels, I was able to watch the Preakness Stakes on something like four different channels. And tape each one as well. What a life. I must say though, I was pretty surprised to see the horse who was the biggest boob of all win. He looked to be using up way too much energy in the paddock bucking, spinning and rearing. I saw many grooms and grounds people high tailing it out of his way. Perhaps they had read what happens if you manage to insert yourself between a horses hooves and safety. In any case, this nag must have endurance to spare, cause he won in spite of his pre-race gymnastics. I'd put my money on him for the Belmont, if I had any. That would be the tip-o-the-day. No charge. His name is Shackleford and he is named for an island. Do you need to know any more?
Several weeks ago the spouse came home in a particularly foul mood. Never you mind how I knew, that's not what this is about. No, worse than even being told the dog could no longer come to work because of his indiscriminate attacking and biting habits and something about pinning someone to a chain link fence...details details, oh, the dog, not Steve. But I digress, anyway the boss man at the place Steve works had some kind of epiphany as to dress code for managers and therefore determined that my beloved should dress more like a manager. I took a long, thoughtful look at the man I married and marveled that it had taken this long. Steve was not sure what part of his ensemble the boss man objected to, could it be the sweatshirt with stainage? The too short pocketed t-shirt with stainage? The board shorts with stainage? Or the sandals? Hard to say. The upshot was that my spouse now had to dress his age. Damn baby, I thought this presentation was strictly reserved for mandatory holiday dinners and outings to the ballet. Nevertheless, the next morning my prince went rummaging through his side of the closet for something that was appropriate to his status. Plenty of shirts in there due to my diligent purchases of a new shirt every Christmas and birthday. Bonus: they all had the tags on them! Not so lucky in the trouser department. In the last move we made, I believe I may have thrown out every pair of slacks that hadn't been worn in say a year. So sweet cheeks was down to two pairs of slacks/trousers/not jeans. I don't think he was appreciative of the sympathetic grunts I made on his behalf as he struggled with the fastenings either. Sorry dude, just trying to be helpful. In any case I emailed his mother unit and whined pathetically that her darling only offspring was going to be fired because he had nothing to wear, and could she send clothes to him right now, oh, and here are the model numbers from the catalog, and could you go ahead and send some shirts too? Because God only knows how long it will be till the current crop goes stained, ripped, or whatever other horrors may befall them. Bless her little heart! The box arrived today and my dream machine shall be clothed in outfits befitting his station for some time to come. Thanks Mary. You're the bomb!
I have had visitors. My children and their children. The Sunday I came home from the hospital, Megan and her husband, Josh, currently #1 - you go gurl I mean guy, and the adorable grandchildren. I made sure I was heavily medicated before they got here so as to be at my best when they arrived. And they arrived bearing Jamba Juice goodness! Yeah! In turn I found a Shrek movie for the darlings and we settled in for a little visit. The next thing I knew little Mila was at my side with a fist full of coins, and she wanted to know if she could have them for her purse. I figured she had shaken "Grumpy" down for cash and approved the transaction and asked where her purse was. Sadly it was at home, so I sent her back out to "Grumpy" for an appropriate bucket to transport the coins home, which he did. Then next thing I knew all the darlings had their grubby little mitts on money that they wanted and furthermore they hadn't shaken down "Grumpy", they were pilfering from my change trophy. My bad that it was at urchin height, so I had to put down a few rules, nothing silver, nothing heavy. That game got old quite quickly.
On to the swamp in the back yard. We have a pond. It is not deep. The dogs stand in it. That's all they do is stand in it. Kind of strange. The pond is supposed to have a pump and a waterfall. Neither of those things work or even are there. The landlord was supposed to maintain all that sort of stuff, but he said he wasn't going to do that after all, and just to throw bleach in it once in awhile. Well, in the meantime we were overrun with horny frogs (not horny toads, well maybe, but I mean carnally inclined) over the winter and the upshot of that was a feverish hatching of tadpoles. Well the grandchildren were ever so excited about them. And insisted on catching a good number of them to take home with the money. It was a good day for the Kerns children booty-wise. In any case the capture of the tadpoles went something like this. Jack obtained a tadpole catching vessel from "Grumpy" and scooped the tadpoles in to it. Silas then came around and tipped them all on to the grass. Jack came in screaming that Silas murdered all the tadpoles. Silas came in grinning holding a mass of cookies and granola bars in one hand and grasping for my Jamba Juice with the other. Mila stole money. So then Jack would go back out and catch more tadpoles and Silas then returned them to their gasping brothers and sisters in the grass and Jack would screech and Mila would take more money. This went on for quite a while and I marveled that Megan could not hear any of the goings on and that Josh could, and was sleeping on the couch through the whole of it. Simply amazing. They are absolute darlings and I approve most heartily of them. Of course what I really liked was how easily they manipulated "Grumpy". Mila has ordered him to appear at her ballet class like YaYa did. Steve gravely agreed that he should indeed do that. I'll see to it that he does.
And so dear readers, I reach the limit of creativeness for this week. Hopefully something interesting will happen in my future. Oh wait, the daughter of Steve arrives for a summer homage to her pappy next week. That should prove interesting ...I'll let you know.
Cheers,
Squidgy
So I've been sitting around...a lot. Depending on where I am in the pain/pain medication cycle I have also cleaned the carpet, vacuumed, groomed the #$%^& dogs, dusted, changed the slip cover on the couch, upgraded the teevee so I can watch the Horse Racing Channel, and done some laundry. I also have been cooking and sometimes do the dishes too. Yesterday I learned on the teevee that 3 parts cream of tartar to 1 part water makes an excellent "green" cleaning mixture for your stainless steel sink. I am alarmed to announce this was the most exciting thing that has happened in the past 5 days.
On Sunday the spouse and I trekked over to Petaluma to get my car. It has been living there since the helicopter whisked me away two weeks previously. We also got to celebrate Dan's birthday. This is a great occasion as Dan is now technically a year older than me. I love old people. We got him a bottle of Makers Mark "46" which I think either means Dan's "age" or IQ. It would depend on whether or not Dan is mean to me. Mostly IQ then...
The spouse keeps bugging me about blogging. I keep saying I have nothing to blog about. He keeps saying that never stopped you before. I just take whatever is handy and zone out. He is annoying.
Since I was able to upgrade the teevee subscription to include HRTV (horse racing tee vee) and that then opened a whole new vista of channels, I was able to watch the Preakness Stakes on something like four different channels. And tape each one as well. What a life. I must say though, I was pretty surprised to see the horse who was the biggest boob of all win. He looked to be using up way too much energy in the paddock bucking, spinning and rearing. I saw many grooms and grounds people high tailing it out of his way. Perhaps they had read what happens if you manage to insert yourself between a horses hooves and safety. In any case, this nag must have endurance to spare, cause he won in spite of his pre-race gymnastics. I'd put my money on him for the Belmont, if I had any. That would be the tip-o-the-day. No charge. His name is Shackleford and he is named for an island. Do you need to know any more?
Several weeks ago the spouse came home in a particularly foul mood. Never you mind how I knew, that's not what this is about. No, worse than even being told the dog could no longer come to work because of his indiscriminate attacking and biting habits and something about pinning someone to a chain link fence...details details, oh, the dog, not Steve. But I digress, anyway the boss man at the place Steve works had some kind of epiphany as to dress code for managers and therefore determined that my beloved should dress more like a manager. I took a long, thoughtful look at the man I married and marveled that it had taken this long. Steve was not sure what part of his ensemble the boss man objected to, could it be the sweatshirt with stainage? The too short pocketed t-shirt with stainage? The board shorts with stainage? Or the sandals? Hard to say. The upshot was that my spouse now had to dress his age. Damn baby, I thought this presentation was strictly reserved for mandatory holiday dinners and outings to the ballet. Nevertheless, the next morning my prince went rummaging through his side of the closet for something that was appropriate to his status. Plenty of shirts in there due to my diligent purchases of a new shirt every Christmas and birthday. Bonus: they all had the tags on them! Not so lucky in the trouser department. In the last move we made, I believe I may have thrown out every pair of slacks that hadn't been worn in say a year. So sweet cheeks was down to two pairs of slacks/trousers/not jeans. I don't think he was appreciative of the sympathetic grunts I made on his behalf as he struggled with the fastenings either. Sorry dude, just trying to be helpful. In any case I emailed his mother unit and whined pathetically that her darling only offspring was going to be fired because he had nothing to wear, and could she send clothes to him right now, oh, and here are the model numbers from the catalog, and could you go ahead and send some shirts too? Because God only knows how long it will be till the current crop goes stained, ripped, or whatever other horrors may befall them. Bless her little heart! The box arrived today and my dream machine shall be clothed in outfits befitting his station for some time to come. Thanks Mary. You're the bomb!
I have had visitors. My children and their children. The Sunday I came home from the hospital, Megan and her husband, Josh, currently #1 - you go
On to the swamp in the back yard. We have a pond. It is not deep. The dogs stand in it. That's all they do is stand in it. Kind of strange. The pond is supposed to have a pump and a waterfall. Neither of those things work or even are there. The landlord was supposed to maintain all that sort of stuff, but he said he wasn't going to do that after all, and just to throw bleach in it once in awhile. Well, in the meantime we were overrun with horny frogs (not horny toads, well maybe, but I mean carnally inclined) over the winter and the upshot of that was a feverish hatching of tadpoles. Well the grandchildren were ever so excited about them. And insisted on catching a good number of them to take home with the money. It was a good day for the Kerns children booty-wise. In any case the capture of the tadpoles went something like this. Jack obtained a tadpole catching vessel from "Grumpy" and scooped the tadpoles in to it. Silas then came around and tipped them all on to the grass. Jack came in screaming that Silas murdered all the tadpoles. Silas came in grinning holding a mass of cookies and granola bars in one hand and grasping for my Jamba Juice with the other. Mila stole money. So then Jack would go back out and catch more tadpoles and Silas then returned them to their gasping brothers and sisters in the grass and Jack would screech and Mila would take more money. This went on for quite a while and I marveled that Megan could not hear any of the goings on and that Josh could, and was sleeping on the couch through the whole of it. Simply amazing. They are absolute darlings and I approve most heartily of them. Of course what I really liked was how easily they manipulated "Grumpy". Mila has ordered him to appear at her ballet class like YaYa did. Steve gravely agreed that he should indeed do that. I'll see to it that he does.
And so dear readers, I reach the limit of creativeness for this week. Hopefully something interesting will happen in my future. Oh wait, the daughter of Steve arrives for a summer homage to her pappy next week. That should prove interesting ...I'll let you know.
Cheers,
Squidgy
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
Part Deux
So when we last left off I was relishing having a room to my self. And drugs on demand. However this idyll was spoiled somewhat by the clear fluids diet. Let me explain. If you can see through it, I could have it. Jello? yes. Consomme'? yes. Fruit Juice? yes. Oh and make that three times a day for three days. Actually make that three days of not eating. Not that I was hungry, but I was petulant and in a lot of pain and I have to say I even got tetchy. Stop rolling your eyes right this very minute, I'm an invalid. And that's invalid with the emphasis on the "in" not the "val".
And what good would a treatise about a hospital stay be if you didn't have your own personal version of "Nurse Ratched" to moan about? (please see One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest for reference). Mine was a PhD. Nurse Practitioner named Aldrich, but for our purposes shall be known henceforth as Nurse Wretched. What a piece of work. Evidently since I was not privately insured by the rich Gods of insurance, I was assigned this gem of a medical practitioner instead of an MD. I didn't really give a whoop about any of that, but I would have preferred someone who at one point, at least, had endured pain of the sort I was experiencing. Perhaps she would have understood managing the pain through a thoughtful use of narcotics was a better idea than hers, which was basically an aspirin and the mantra to man up. Many of you will recognize that being in pain, the type which manifests itself through the very act of breathing could have the nasty side effect of, say, crankiness. So this queen of medicine with absolutely no sense of humor prescribed an oral medication that I discovered upon my investigation, had the significant side effect of agitation. This becomes important when we visit my last interaction with the angel of mercy. I was also allowed to have my choice of other IV meds at certain times during the day, I had only to express my pain level in terms of intensity of one to ten to determine the dose. Unfortunately, because I've never been a very good stoner, I kept forgetting whether 10 was no pain or a lot of pain. Evidently this was an important distinction to make.
I was hospitalized in Santa Rosa for four nights and three days. I had expected to be incarcerated over night for observation, so the length of stay was something of a surprise. But I was pretty much asleep most of the time so it didn't matter that much. I also spent some time walking around the corridors with a nurse holding me up while I grasped the back of my gown so as not to share the glory of my backside with the ward population. The exercise regime was under the orders of Nurse Wretched. However, at some point in the stay she decided I had not saturated enough oxygen and then confined me to the bed with a clip to my finger and a hose up my nose which were hard wired to central command at the nurses station, so that if, say, I had to go the bathroom I could wait till someone could come unhook me from the various breathing devices. Or I could unhook myself and tottle off alone while various bells and whistles went off. Upon returning to my sanctuary (bed) I would try to remember to reattach all the various things so I could nod off, but nine times out of ten I would forget something so a nurse would have to come in anyway and cluck cluck about this and that. Still I think they appreciated they didn't have to come for potty duty every five minutes. Clear fluid diets will do that to you. This had the added benefit of giving Nurse Wretched something to lecture me about since I wasn't getting enough exercise prowling the halls. Never mind she had confined me to the bed, she could still give me lots of dire warnings. You just can't win for losing.
At some point during my stay I gained a "room mate". She was about 110, spoke no English and had had a stroke. Neat. So she was confined to her bed full stop, the don't even think about leaving your bed kind of bed confinement. This warning did not seem to translate effectively because she got up quite often to go potty. Sadly, in her case an alarm shrieked to warn everyone, including me, that the patient in bed "A" was escaping then six or seven medical experts would have to rush in to screech at her about fall risks and instability and being sick and what not. Then two or three translators would have to re-shriek the orders to the lady. And nothing ever really got through to her. It seemed to be important to screech because thats what you do when you have to converse with someone who doesn't know what you're saying. When my little room mate wasn't trying to make a break for it she would lay in her bed/prison and chant. That unnerved me to say the least. I fully expected crossed chicken bones and dolls with pins stuck in them to appear at any time. She also had visitors. About 30 or 40 at a time all babbling in the mystery language and the errant children who liked to peek at me from around the curtains. I found that baring my teeth at them had the desired affect of discouraging their visits.
All good things must come to an end and so I was informed that at some point I would be transferred to a Kaiser hospital. It was also agreed that going to a Kaiser nearer to home was a good idea. But they teased me with that tantalizing thought for a couple days. In the meantime I was still on the clear fluids diets even though Nurse Wretched had told me I could now be on a modified diet, sadly she neglected to tell anyone but me about this revelation. Day after day, three times a day I was presented with consomme, jello and fruit juice as my only dining option. Long about day three I started to feel a little hunger. At that point I had not really eaten anything since Saturday noon. It all came to a head one morning when I was once again presented with the hell diet and I had a complete hissy fit about it. This was resolved by someone bringing me a steaming bowl of Cream of Wheat. Yum. I love Cream of Wheat. Comfort food, memories of mommy and all that. Soon after that Nurse Wretched appeared to make her daily assessment of me as an individual (found severely inadequate) and as a patient. She informed me that she personally had determined not to send me to Kaiser the day before, probably just to be mean, but I could probably go this very day, but I had to have a heart ultrasound first. Ok. Then she asked me how I was tolerating the diet (translation: have you gone #2 yet?) So I said the diet was intolerable and why was I still on clear fluids long after she'd told me I could have real food. That caught her attention. She said, "What?" So I told her that the only offerings that had come my way in the guise of food was consomme, jello and fruit juice and that I'd finally had a cow about it that very morning and I had been presented with a bowl of Cream of Wheat. She said, "What?" So I explained it all again to her, using much smaller words, and the point finally got through. Defensively she said that she had told me I could have a more significant diet. I said that was great and all, but perhaps writing that down as an order would have perhaps gotten that point across to the nursing staff and dietitian. Then I stared at her. She blinked and asked me why I was agitated. So I told her why and also brought up that agitation was one of the side effects of the medication she had prescribed. And I stared some more. She bustled off to chew some nurses butt for not reading her mind and soon after that I was ensconced in an ambulance and on my way to Kaiser Vacaville. Bon Voyage.The stay in Vacaville lasted three days and among other luxuries I was also allowed a shower. I guess I forgot to mention that I'd only had sponge baths up to that point and hair washing was not part of the service. Amazing what feeling clean can do for you. I was almost sorry to leave, but on Thursday we parted company and I was remanded to the care of my loving spouse. Some of you may think that is a cruel and unusual punishment, but I will state here and now that he is a paragon of sainthood and my care under his tutelage has been nothing short of spiritual.
So I'm home and recovering. I have pain meds to take on a schedule and they help a lot. I've caught up on all the shows I'd recorded and have watched several movies. I will be happy to give you my critiques of them if you'd like to ask me, but I won't bore you with that unless you beg. I am rapidly running out of at home amusements. I'm not allowed to lift more than five pounds nor do I have my car, and I shouldn't drive just now in any case. Wa Wa Wa. I see the light at the end of the tunnel, though the light is a few weeks off yet. I'll be fine.
I fully expect to resume my house sitting gigs. I like doing that. And it gives me lots to think about and more importantly to write about...at your expense, but there you have it. Thanks for your notes of sympathy. And your jokes and cards. I can't laugh, but will sooner or later.
Cheers,
Squidgy
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)