GetSheila

The Drunk and Stupid

As you know, mom and I spent a night the ER a week ago.

The most surprising thing to me about the ER - aside from the freezing cold temperature -was the number of cops on hand. On a trip back from the bathroom, mom asked a handsome young officer if there was “always a law enforcement presence at the hospital.” She’s so cute.

And formal.

And naive.

He smiled and said no, he was just there in case the person he brought in needed processing out. I gather that means if the person turns out to be legally drunk, he is there to escort them to the pokey.

As we maneuvered back to her room through the hallway crammed with beds, I noticed a big dude with a tattoo on his neck passed out cold. He was handcuffed to his bed rail and a woman with a clipboard stood next to him caressing his cheek with one finger saying, “Anthony, Anthony, why are you so sleepy, Anthony?”

CREEPY.

Virtually all of the remaining hallway beds had cops standing next to them from various agencies: Highway Patrol, City cops, County Sheriffs. Since they were in the hallway but not in any of the rooms I ever-so-unobtrusively peeped into as we passed by, it makes me wonder if they put the actual sick people in rooms while the suspected drunk drivers get the hallway.

Would that be Stupidity Profiling?

An EMT was setting up a 20-something girl on the bed outside mom’s room when we returned. She was still on the backboard with her head immobilized and seemed quite scared. The EMT made sure she was comfortable, told her she had been in a car accident, and let her know she was in a hospital. Though I didn’t see any blood or bruises, I felt bad for her all the same.

But then she fired up her cell phone and started sobbing into it about being at the hospital and not knowing what happened but THEY told her she hit another car on Pacheco Pass and now she was going to be arrested for drunk driving.

Um, yeah, I stopped feeling sorry for her at that point. I so hope the people in the other car are okay. Stupid, stupid girl.

I would also ask you to note Stupid Girl should be further condemned for using her cell phone right there in the ER when everyone KNOWS cell phones are verboten in hospitals but then you might ask how I was able to update my Twitter and Facebook status throughout the night.

Because texting is silent and under the radar, hence PERFECTLY FINE, that’s how.

Shut up.

The Stupid Girl saga was not over yet, though. Just as mom was dozing off, the girl yelled, “How many times do you people have to stick me!” and made a general commotion about already having given blood. She then refused to cooperate further and was surprised when the cops showed up a few minutes later. Since she was just outside our door, we had front row seats. It was delicious, except for the part where no one could sleep until she shut up.

Stupid Girl complained the cops couldn’t take her because she was in pain and needed medical treatment. The nurse explained the only reason she called the officers was because she, Stupid Girl, had refused to provide more blood or submit to x-rays so she was ready to be processed out. When there is no treatment left to provide, you must be released from the ER. When Stupid Girl whined they already drew blood so how come they had to draw more, the nurse explained the previous draw was for the DUI test.

I may have snickered ever so slightly when I heard that. Stupid Girl volunteered blood for a DUI test – granted, probably unknowingly – but then withheld it for the real medical tests. Sweet!

Two jobs I could not do: cop and nurse (or any medical personnel, for that matter.) They spoke to Stupid Girl so calmly and neutrally, explaining that she had to decide either to submit to further treatment or leave with the officers.

Guess which one she chose.

Mom was released right about then so I don’t know if Stupid Girl caused any more drama but I am pretty sure where she ended up that morning: in the pokey, and deservedly so.

Technorati Tags: dui,drunk drivers,er stories,emergency room stories,mom,betty

For JCW (and Karen)

 

Technorati Tags: getsheila masthead

The coldest place on earth

We had a health scare with mom this past week but she is a-okay so please don’t worry. Before I give you the story, let me just say this:

The Emergency Room is the coldest place on the planet.

Not Antarctica, not the Arctic, but the ER. I shit you not.

I always thought the heated blankets they provide in the ER were a nice luxury designed to make you feel better since, if you are in the ER, you must be feeling pretty crappy.

It turns out they are an insurance risk management tool designed to keep your family from suing the hospital because you froze to death waiting five hours to see a doctor.

THE SCARE

Mom, being 81 and full of piss and vinegar, still pulls weeds in her garden. On Wednesday, she put her foot in the wrong place and fell over backwards, hitting her head on a pathway paver when she hit the ground. She did not pass out but was stunned for a few minutes, then discovered she could not get up.

When she told me she lay there for a while calling “help” to no avail, it broke my heart. She finally inched along on her back until she reached the air conditioning unit and used it to lever herself up, at which point she called me.

The doctor checked her out but did not order a CT scan since she did not have any symptoms indicating an epidural hematoma:

• Headache
• Nausea
• Vomiting
• Confusion
• Dizziness
• Weakness
• Speech problems

To be cautious, I had her stay at my house that night and gleefully woke her every two hours to ask who was President to be sure she 1) had not fallen into a coma, and 2) was lucid. The “gleeful” part was retribution for all those mornings she woke me for school by ripping my covers off and exposing my scantily clad body to the cold morning air. Paybacks are a bitch.

She felt fine Friday morning so I took her home and went in to work, telling her to call me if she started to feel bad in any way. She called at 6:00pm to say she was vomiting. It turns out she felt bad most of the day after I dropped her at home but didn’t want to bother me at work so only called when she actually threw up.

BOTHER ME. The woman can be infuriatingly independent at times.

This time the doc ordered a CT scan but, hey!, none of the private places are open past 6:00pm so we got to visit the ER. The primary care physician said, “I just called the ER and spoke with the doctor. When you get there, go inside and give them your name. They will be waiting for you.”

THE EMERGENCY ROOM

Not having experienced an ER before, I believed the doctor and thought going to the ER would be much like visiting the doctor’s office, where I called to tell them about mom’s fall and they got us in right away.

Ha! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! I am so naive.

Three hours later, we finally got out of the waiting room and in to the actual ER. In the meantime:

• The wife of a man in a lot of pain yelled at the intake nurse because his doctor up in a mountain town called ahead before sending him down the hill to the ER so how could there be no beds available? (His doctor and mom’s doctor must be related.)
• The mother of a car crash victim was not allowed in to see her son because he already had too many visitors and no one would go in and tell one of them to leave so his mom could come in. Luckily, a teenage girl came out just before the mom burst into hysterics.

Once inside the actual ER, we waited another 2 hours to see the doctor. Maddening. But at least mom was in a bed and could get some rest. Picture an 81 year old woman who vomited in the parking lot then had to sit up in a chair for 3 hours in a room full of strange people with various afflictions. It was well past time for her to get horizontal.

After the doctor gave the official order for the CT scan, it was a mere 15 minutes to have it done, which includes the time it took to transport the bed to and from the scan room down the hall as well as maneuver mom onto the rolling scan bed then back into her hospital bed. (Note that 81 year old ladies who do not exercise and have been throwing up are not very maneuverable.)

Back in the room, Nurse Ron drew blood. Ouch! Mom is a notoriously hard stick. Poor thing, it was quite painful. He then started an IV drip to hydrate her because the doctor, who saw her for all of 10 seconds, said she was dehydrated. (How could he tell? Maybe doctors really are omniscient after all.)

THE RESULTS

So what has it been, 5 1/2 hours so far? Nurse Ron was incredibly nice and funny and compassionate. He said the great thing about the hospital is they do all their lab work in-house so we would get the results right there. The bad part was it takes an hour on a good day…and this was not a good day. Not only were they extremely busy that night but it was also Day 2 of the hospital’s conversion to a new computer system. Delays, delays, delays. It would be at least 2 more hours.

While mom slept, I snuck home for an hour to have some dinner – eggs on toast at 2:00am, awesome – and put on more clothing. I started the day in crop pants, sandals, and a short sleeve blouse because I didn’t get the memo warning about the glacial aspects of the ER. Neither did I get a call from Allison DuBois telling me I would actually BE in the ER later that night. I changed into jeans, socks and tennies, and a heavy sweat shirt over a long sleeve tee. I was a bit warm on the drive back to the hospital and thought I would remove the sweat shirt when I got there but, uh, no…I needed every layer I had once I reentered ER Winter Wonderland.

About 3:15-3:30ish, the doctor arrived to tell us mom’s CT scan came back clean and her blood work showed no anomalies. Hooray! We could not get out of there fast enough. He had no real explanation for the vomiting but said it was likely due to a slight concussion. My personal guess is dehydration because, once the IV drip finished, mom pronounced she felt better than she had all day. At 3:30am.

Mom has agreed to force herself to drink liquids to keep from getting dehydrated in future and to carry her cell phone on her person wherever she goes, even when gardening. Perhaps it is time to do some serious research on home medical alert services, the “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up” variety.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Total time in the ER: 8 hours
Light hearts and happy grins as we left with a clean bill of health: 2
Finally crawling into bed at 4:30am: PRICELESS

Technorati Tags: mom,betty,I've fallen and I can't get up,home medical alert service,elderly accidents

Composting Chronicles: Week 3

I am now a composter. Here is my fledgling pile:

It doesn’t look like much yet but it will soon be a mountain of decomposing matter, which sounds gross but will be awesome. I need to get some stakes and wire and build a taller structure for maximum heat inducing pileage.

Week 1-3 additions:

• Grass clippings
• Leaves
• Tea bags
• Eggshells
• Banana peels and rotten bananas
• Onion cast-offs
• Dryer lint (Yes, you can compost dryer lint! They do say it should come from natural materials, though, not synthetics. I find that amusing. As amusing as the caveat that hair is exceptionally beneficial to a compost pile but it should not be color treated.)
• Potato: I found one random potato on the back lawn after returning home from vacation. I queried my house sitter Lizzie via text, who replied, “Someone at the rave must have brought it as a snack.” God I love her.
• Old produce from the fridge, including blueberries, lettuce, bell peppers, and green onions.

I am doing it all wrong, of course, the composting. When you start, you are supposed to layer brown matter, green matter, brown matter, and so on. For a definition of brown matter vs. green matter and more information about composting check out these sites:

• Composting Fundamentals
• Compost Happens!
• 163 Things You Can Compost

I don’t have much brown matter so it is pretty much all green at this point, but I am not concerned. My mom has had a compost pile for years and she just throws things out there willy-nilly. Even if you only turn it maybe twice a year, it does break down into lovely compost eventually. Turning if more frequently and having the right proportion of green (nitrogen) to brown (carbon) ingredients just speeds up the process (and keeps the pile from getting too smelly.)

The photo above was at Week 1. Here it is at Week 3:

Notice it is slightly smaller than Week 1, yet includes 2 additional weeks of lawn clippings, leaves, and a plethora of kitchen waste. I have been turning it frequently to keep it from getting anaerobic and smelly so it is coming along nicely. I included the grapefruit in the shot since they are left over from last year and will soon be chopped up and added to the pile. I noticed new green ones on the tree and realized I never picked last year’s. Oops. I find grapefruit disgusting but the tree came with the house so what’s a girl to do?

When I had so much fun turning my sister’s huge compost pile with a tractor, she told me it was fun for her the first 10 times, too, then it became a chore. I am sure that is coming for me with putting on my plastic garden clogs and turning the pile with a hay fork, but so far I am still having fun with composting.

Technorati Tags: compost,composting,fun with composting,gardening

New Masthead

I updated my blog theme today. Check it out if you’re reading this via feed reader.

I just love TypePad’s themes. They do all the work and you just pick one you like, and change it when the mood strikes you. So easy.

I also moved the blog post column to the left and put both side columns on the right. I discovered this is a much better way to present the blog for those who read it from their mobile phones after downloading the Opera Mini web browser to my Blackberry and trying to view my website. It shows the leftmost part of the page first, or course, so one would have to scroll over to see the content in the second column. Now that the main content is already in the first column, no more scrolling! Also, I can change to Mobile View and see everything in one long column rather than having to scroll from left to right. Very cool!

I am searching for groovy apps for my Blackberry Bold. So far I have:

1. Opera Mini web browser
2. TwitterBerry
3. Facebook
4. Google Maps (and signed up with Latitude so I can track my friends’ whereabouts and they can track me, but don’t freak out: you can hide yourself any time you want)
5. Google Mobile App (though I admit I rarely us it)
6. Mobi Pocket Reader (another one I have not really used but only because I am too cheap to pay for eBooks and have not yet searched for freebies)

I found 1-4 at The Online Business Blog. Any suggestions? Have you found any apps for your Blackberry you just can’t live without?

 

Technorati Tags: blackberry bold 9000,blackberry apps,masthead

10 Things I Discovered This Weekend

1. Arnold (the town) and Big Trees (the State park) are a mere two hour drive from Merced, even though Google Maps says it will take three.
    
2. I can hike for four and a half hours without incident, aside from the occasional burning sensation in my hips and having to replace conversation with laboring-to-suck-in-air during hill ascension.
    
3. “Without incident” would almost be funny on Day Two as my shin and calf muscles scream at me, if not for the recollection that Day Three is usually worse.
    
4. There is such a thing as frozen meatballs you simply nuke in the microwave then plop on to your spaghetti. And they even taste good. Eureka!
    
5. Thanks to my friend Astrid and her Cranium Hoopla “Soundstage” clue (think: Charades,) I will never be able to watch a Pillsbury Doughboy commercial with a straight face again.
    
6. Some vacation rentals require you to bring not only your own towels (!!) but your own bed linens, too. WTF? Then you find a mysterious, locked closet you just know contains towels, bed linens, and dry goods.
    
7. I am not very quiet when I find myself wide awake and bored while other people are trying to nap before dinner after a hard day of hiking. I should have brought better reading material.
    
8. Two identical plastic laundry baskets are better than one plastic one and one wicker one that snags clothing and sheds twigs. Why I did not buy a second plastic one years ago is beyond me. Must be vestiges of growing up in a house where two of anything you had to pay cold, hard cash for was an unnecessary luxury.
    
9. The cats will not wither away and die if I leave them alone for two nights in a row, as long as I fill their food and water bowls to overflowing and leave the toilet lids up, just in case.
    
10. Laundry still does not wash itself while I am away. Dammit.
     

 

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Earl and Grace

I just figured out where I have seen Earl before, the angel on Saving Grace: Star Trek.

Of course. Anyone who is anyone has been on Star Trek.

Excellent show, by the way, Saving Grace. Do you watch? I am over my initial dislike of Grace. I don’t even find her skanky any more, perhaps because she is no longer sleeping with other women’s husbands. (Though she did cause the divorce. Hm.)

It could simply be that Holly Hunter is compelling in any role. It was a bit of a shock to see her as first of all a blond, and a wildly maned one at that. Does she not own a brush?

I do admit to braiding just a small front section of my side-parted hair to keep it off my face these days, like Grace did in some early episodes. It isn’t terribly attractive but it works oh so well.

Back to Earl: the actor who plays him, Leon Rippy, played a hard drinking musician cryogenically frozen in the 1990’s and awakened in 2364 by the ST:TNG Enterprise-D crew in the episode, “The Neutral Zone.”

You know that game Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon? I’m pretty sure it works with Star Trek, too.

_____________________

Photos from Memory-Alpha and TNT

 

Technorati Tags: saving grace,leon rippy,earl the angel,star trek the next generation

Spam emails: who writes this stuff?

I’ve been getting a lot of spam for “High-End Luxury Watches!”

As opposed to “Low-End” luxury watches?

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Day Range Chickens

My sister lets her chickens out of the coop to roam free during the day. Does that make them day-range chickens?

Yes. Yes, I believe it does.

Here are the chicken motels, where the nights are filled with debauchery and the mornings with freshly laid eggs.

The picture is a bit fuzzy because I blew this section up from a larger photo but you get the idea. The arched structure in the back is a stationary chicken coop while the blue one in front that looks like an Okie race car is a mobile coop you can drag around the pasture at will.

It is made of chicken wire (yes, chicken wire really is made for chickens – go figure) with blue tarp to provide shade. The mobile coop is propped up on a cinder block at the far end so the chickens can roam in and out. The near end is double-decker to allow a roosting area. Tip: If a chicken has the opportunity to be higher than it is right now, it will take it.

Unless there is a patch of freshly turned earth nearby, or perhaps a freshly turned compost pile. In that case, the chicken will scratch around furiously, sending dirt flying in all directions, shake its wings about, then settle down in the cool stuff and make satisfied noises.

The first evening at my sister’s, she said she had to go out and shut the chickens in for the night. I went out to help her with visions of herding clucking, panicked chickens into a tiny coop. No worries, though. Apparently, chickens really do come home to roost at dusk. They were all in the coop, up on the cross bars, ready for sleepy time. A few fell off when we knocked the cinder block away and the coop crashed closed, but there wasn’t much clucking in disapproval. They seem be used to it.

If not for the coyotes that roam at night, these would be true free-range chickens. Sis shuts them in at night for their safety. They seem quite happy and produce lovely eggs and the occasional chick. All in all, a Utopian existence.

Except for the part where they will all eventually be eaten. But try not to think about that, okay?

 

_____________________

Bonus photos: me running a tractor. Fun!

 

 

Technorati Tags: karen,coeur d'alene,tractor,chickens

Ode to a mud bog

There is a mud bog just outside my patio door:

It isn’t mud today because I caught it on a day when the sun is blazing and sucking the moisture out of everything, including my hair.

I exit this patio door when I take out the trash and recycling on the side of the house because my garage has no side exit door. Don’t ask me why. Apparently houses built during the 1970’s didn’t come with side garage doors. Or people didn’t have trash back then. Or they left their cans out by the street all the time because how else would you get to know your neighbors?

I used to place the larger of the two ugly black mats you see above directly in the dirt so I had somewhere to put my foot that was not mud. I felt white trashy every time I did so. (Possibly enhanced by my recent use of duct tape to reattach the bottom sweeps of the patio exit doors. I feel better now that I have changed out the bright silver duct tape for black, which both blends and holds. 1001 uses, no kidding.)

Today I decided to get off my ass and put down some pavers to make the bog a thing of the past. First I dug up a bunch of the bog and deposited it into my wheelbarrow, only to discover my wheelbarrow has a flat.

“Discover” is not quite the right word, though. “Rediscover” is better, since I have known the tire was flat for some time. That is why I bought this new wheel, oh, about a year ago:

It is a Universal Size Flat Free Wheelbarrow Tire! Easy to install! Comes with spacers of all kinds to ensure it fits the axle! Blah blah blah. What I neglected to take into account is that little red cross bar at the front of the wheelbarrow handles. The existing tire is only about an inch from that sucker and guess how much bigger the Universal Size Flat Free Wheelbarrow Tire is? Go on, guess. I’ll wait.

Thaaaaaat’s right, four inches.

Did I measure the old tire before buying the replacement? No. It says it is “universal.” It was the only size on the shelf. I have never owned a wheelbarrow before hence had no idea wheelbarrow maintenance was so complicated.

After pondering drilling new holes for the axle brackets, and even getting out my drill, I had a crazy thought: hey, I said to myself, why don’t I just try to inflate the old flat tire with my handy new bicycle pump?

Pretend you didn’t think of that yourself five paragraphs ago.

So here we are with a few pavers pilfered from the jacuzzi area. (Don’t be sad. It’s too damn hot to use it right now anyway.) Notice the fully inflated wheelbarrow tire. It stayed that way ALL DAY.

You know, this is a small area. I only used 15 pavers yet it took 4+ hours and my face stayed red for most of the rest of the afternoon. But it was so worth it:

Now when I roll out the bar-b-que so I don’t set the patio on fire, it won’t careen off the pavement into the mud bog. And my feet won’t get dirty when I take out the trash. And my gardener will stop asking me if I want him to plant something there.

My favorite view:

While I have you here, any idea what this is?

It is sprouting up everywhere over by the spa. A new rose bush trying to establish itself? Leftovers from the crepe myrtle I had removed because it was too close to the house? Is it just a weed? Inquiring minds want to know.

So how was your Sunday?

Technorati Tags: gardening,fun with pavers,sweat equity