Full Moon

Last night was the full moon, and it was perported to be the largest full moon in 19 years. The full moon I saw last night was not.

I walked out of the kitchen yesterday to find Ms. C lathering butt balm on Mr. M's behind. His boney arse was sticking toward the heavens as she slathered it on, its whiteness only surpassed by that of the zinc oxide that covered it in a thick layer.

This poor man has lost every shred of dignity. We have seen every nook and cranny of this man; we have wiped his ass after he takes a dump, we have held his shriveled up pecker while he pees to assure he hits the urinal. We have bathed him, dressed him/undressed him 300 times; we have wiped food off his face that has drippled out the bad side of his mouth. We have cleaned him up and bandaged him after he has fallen and knocked half the skin off of his arm, knee, finger, head....

I feel horrible for him. He is only 61, but when you look at him, you see an old man. Even though he can out-eat us all due to his appetite-inducing pills, he is still a stick-figure.

The chemo turned his hair white--what is left of it. He has a little left, and a few indignant long, stray strands. He still brushes his hair before we go out--really no need, but we silently let him skim the brush over his mostly-bald head.

The stroke has left him limited. He has very little control over his left hand. We often must fish his hand out of gravy, peas, soup, and pancake syrup. Yesterday he gently murmured: "that gravy is hot."

We have watched him drink himself into a stupor. I will not begrudge the man. I would most likely drink myself into a stupor everyday if I had to bear the indignities he has to each morning. He is usually soaked to the bone. He prefers Bud strip him and the bed, get him dressed, get him decent and get him a hot cup of coffee. We do not belittle him for being so wet. Ms. C., on the other hand, delights, I think, in being disgusted with him. She has zero patience with him. Hubby and I fear that when we leave--and it will be soon--she will not be very nice to him.

Mr. M wants to be independent. He stubbornly drove his stick-shift truck, backing it into a junker car in the yard and busting out the headlight. He almost put it in the swamp/pond out front. Every time I turn around, the old/not really old fellow is tottering somewhere, fetching himself a drink, heading out to smoke, or getting an itch to fish.

Fishing was his "thing". Being retired, there really isn't a whole lot to do that doesn't cost a lot of money. Since the strokes and the cancer, Mr. M hasn't been able to do what he loves. Ms. C got a wild hair a few weeks ago because she was sick of seeing Mr. M just sitting there. She said it was nice out and we were going fishing. At first, Mr. M objected, but with her prodding, he agreed to it. What an ordeal that was! It took half the morning to get Mr. M around and loaded into the truck. It is only a little 2-seater, so Ms. C and I followed in her car.

The lake ended up only being accessible by 4-wheel trucks and deer, but Mr. M insisted we could make it up the deeply-rutted (read "canyon-ed") dirt road access. The only option was to throw Ms. C and I in the bed of the truck and go for it. The tailgate doesn't go up, so Ms. C, with her two bad legs, sat on the tailgate and held on to the walker in her lap. (Do you see impending disaster?)

I climbed well into the truck, as I didn't want to be a part of that impending disaster. When we were all loaded, Hubby asked if we were all loaded, and I said yes. He gunned it, and I watched Ms. C being launched out the back of the truck helplessly as I screamed for Bud to stop. There was no stopping, as the access road was over a 40 degree angle, and we had to Baja just to get up to the lake. I screamed to Ms. C that wI would send Bud back for her.

When we got to the lake at the top, it was only then that Bud found out that he had bounced Ms. C out of the back of the truck. He went back down the hill to get her--a good 1/2 mile that seemed a lot longer from the bed of the truck. She had managed to walk about 500 feet up the hillside with her walker. Can you picture it?

Bud got her loaded and brought her up the hill. It wasn't over yet. Mr. M pointed to the cabin and a bank around the opposite side of the lake. "That is where we want to be," he said matter-of-factly. It is here that I must note that neither Bud nor I swim. I am afraid of water of my head. This is a man-made lake. It doesn't gradually get deep; it instantly gets deep. There are signs posted all over "no swimming" and "very deep lake". Special.

Now comes the fun part. To get to the opposite side of the lake, there is a narrow isthmus of land separating the lake from a 300-foot drop-off. Lake of Death on one side; Valley of Death on the other. Perfect!

There is a gate on the other side, and we couldn't tell if it was open or closed. Mr. M said it didn't matter. If it was closed, we would just park at the end and fish, and and then back out. NO. FUCKING. WAY. I volunteered to go walk the 1/4 mile and visually affirm whether or not the gate was open. I kept my eyes on the road or the lake--I didn't want to see the drop on the other side, or I would have been immobilized.

After confirming the gate was open, Bud drove across. I could not watch, nor could I get in the truck. I was paralyzed with fear. Bud obviously made it across in one piece, and we got all the chairs, poles, beers, bait and tackle out of the truck. We moved Mr. M three times before he found a place he felt confident that he could sit and not fall in, yet get a good cast in.

Mr. M could cast just fine, but realized that without use of his left hand, he couldn't hold the pole and reel it in. he did his best by holding the pole between his knees, though. After one cast, he declared he was just going to watch. So, the rest of of grabbed poles and cast out. After 10 minutes, Mr. M says: "We have to go. I have to pee."

Yes, yes, I know, he could have peed right there. I believe it was his way of saying he wasn't having fun and therefore fishing day was over. It took more time to load and unload the truck than was actually spent fishing. It was a beautiful lake. I was actually enjoying myself, once the terror of getting there was behind us. Sigh.

Mike got a wild hair yesterday and wanted to run to town and get Bream hooks, sinkers and fish feed. Good Lord, save us all.

A Day to Ourselves

Hubby and I had a much needed day away. We got a room at a motel in Columbus, left the house around noon, and didn't return until noon the yesterday.

We shopped, we ate a wonderful supper with about 100 other hungry people, snuggled, watch some Big Love, took long soaks in the tub, and SLEPT. Didn't get to sleep in like I wanted, but the bed was HEAVEN--soooooooo comfortable. Didn't wake up achey and stiff like I usually do on the mattress from Hell that we are sleeping on now.

Thank you, my darling, for a wonderful day away!

And more good news: the heart surgeon cut Ms. Carol loose yesterday! She is allowed to drive now, so no more toting her around to appointments. YAY! She get the stitches out tomorrow, and hopefully will be given the thumbs up to do whatever activity she wants.

Mr. Mike got toasted last night. Fell down twice, knocking off a big chunk of skin in the meantime. Mr. Mike does like his beer....

New semester started, and I am hoping that I do better this semester than I did last semester (more later when I get my official grades).

Happy Fat Tuesday, Y'all!!!!!!!

I Must Have the Plague...

Still sick. This sucks much...
The only thing that seems to quell the cough is Nyquil cough, and it made me puke last night, so no more Nyquil (snif!).

I honsestly want to just spend a day in bed and be done with this shit. But that ain't gonna happen...

Hubby, bless his heart, has been a saint. I didn't sleep for crap again yesterday (nor tonight, as the 5am post may hint at), so Bud let me go back to bed after I ran him to the doctor for his blood draw. He made breakfast, did wash, and even did shitty diaper duty. Saint Bud. I love him so!

Last week of this school semester. I had high hopes of having everything done by Friday, but that ain't gonna happen. I need to get out of the sickie fog.

Ugh!

Great Sickie Event of 2011

I wrote this on my "other" blog the last time I had a lingering illness. It seems appropriate, since I am going on day 7 of this crap.....


Ode to Phlegm
At first it was a little tickle,
and then it was a cough.
Then sniffles chasing sneezes,
but that was not enough.
My eyes gooped in the morning,
dried snot upon my face.
Rush to the bathroom hacking,
lift the toilet seat, just in case.
Kleenex by the truckloads,
and NyQuil by the keg,
My lungs have just exploded
something gross upon my leg.
Green and yellow carnage,slimy, icky goo.
Okay, okay you're right dear
I guess I have the flu.

Saturday, September 5, 2009
~D

Beautimus

Okay, so that is technically not a word, but that is what the day was like today. It is sunny and 68 degrees outside as we speak. The trees are starting to bud, and Jonquils are already popping up all over the place.

I took Ms. Carol to Tuscaloosa again today--we joked that the car should know its way by now so we could just put the seats back and nap on the ride. She had her stitches taken out, but had another section that the surgeon decided needed to be stitched up. She has become a human pin cushion. Needless to say, that means another trip back to T-town to get those stitches out.

We saw lots of baby farm animals on the drive as well: lambs, kids, calves and foals. So darned cute when they are that size.

The one thing that was not beautimus is all the litter on the sides of the roads. I have noted that in the South, they just chuck stuff out the car window, or dump unwanted stuff on the side of the road or down in a gully. It sure is an eyesore. While Ms. Carol slept on the way home, I was composing the anti-litter campaign slogan for Alabama: "Give a damn, Alabam'!"

I have watched the most genteel of ladies throw a used tissue out the car window. What is up with that? I am baffled at the attitude. Do they not see how ugly the trash looks on the side of the road? Do they not know how beautiful this state could be? It breaks my heart to see such apathy. I have spoke to a few Alabamians who were born and raised here, and it is almost like they are proud of how trashy Alabama looks. One even said it keeps the Yankees out...Wow.

I love Alabama. I really do. I just wish that those who lived here were proud enough of their state to keep it picked up...

Okay, off my soapbox. I need to run to Millport and get Mr. Mike his antibiotics.

Keepin' it real!

Aliens, revisited

As I said in an earlier post, I am convinced that I get frequent visits from aliens, and that they are having oh-so-much fun doing experiments on me. For the record, I am NOT having oh-so-much fun. I am a mostly sane person, but I am perfectly certain that those little fuckers are messing with me.

1) I sprouted two bumps on my head about 5 years ago, literally overnight. They are on top of my head, like sick little horns trying to grow. I think they are actually some kind of transmitter so the suckers can keep better track of everything I do.

2) I have three moles on my leg that form a perfect isosceles triangle. Each mole is the same size and color. They just appeared one day.

3) Bilateral "ow-ies"--I have had several instances that I will get a boo-boo on the same spot on each hand, or each arm, or each knee, etc, etc, etc. Thing is, I never remember doing anything to get the ouchies in the first place--they are just "there".

4) Crazy-ass, unexplainable dreams. I have these ALL. THE. TIME. Case in point: the recent dream that I will recount for you now...

I dreamed that my father, Bud, and a few other friends and I were going to pick up a very eccentric old lady friend of ours to take out to eat. She lived in a huge mansion with lots of turrets and skylights. She loved birds, and had many wild birds nesting in her home.

We rang the bell, and another friend answered the door. He told us that a stranger had burst in, and then ran out of the house running. Since the stranger had been there, the old woman had disappeared.

We hunted all over for her. While hunting, I noted that there was a next of baby birds up in the rafters that appeared to be orphans. My dad brought a ladder and helped me rescue the birds. While I was rescuing the birds, I heard a thump and turned to see that a huge section of pipe had fallen off of the antique wrought iron stove. We soon realized that the stranger had stuffed the poor old woman into the pipe. It was horrible.

It was at that point in my dream that the birds were now tomatoes, but in my dream, I did not take notice. My father told me to take very good care of them, as they were orphans. Evidently, in the world of my crazy ass dream, tomatoes are where people came from. At some point, all tomatoes morphed into babies. There had even been a documented case where one tomato did not morph until it was 21 years old!

For some reason, we still wanted to take the now dead and pipe-filling old lady with us out to eat, so my dad was having some of the men tie the pipe, with the little old lady still inside, to the side of our bus (our group was so big, we had to ride around in a bus). I, for reasons unknown, had cut open one of the tomatoes and was scooping out the slime and seeds as though I was going to stuff it. A piece fell off into the sink, and I thought, "uh oh, I wonder if the baby will be deformed?" (good grief, I thought about this AFTER I had sliced it wide open???)

I carefully pulled all the wedges back together into the semblance of a tomato, sans one wedge. I carried the tomatoes with me onto the bus.

When we got to our destination, one of my former bosses, BS, appeared, and offered a $1000 prize to the first person who could correctly guess what is the most common start and end time of a shift for the average employee based on a study by the (blah blah blah) personnel group. I had the correct times, but I didn't get the prize, because BS stated that I also had to note that each time correlated to a famous mountain/volcano, one being Vesuvius and the other I don't remember now. Anyhow, I didn't win...

It was then I realized that I had either lost one of the tomatoes, or it had morphed and I just didn't know it....

End of that particular dream.

Are you now thoroughly convinced that aliens are controlling my dreams and trying to drive me insane????

I sometimes dread going to sleep, afraid of what I will dream next. Damn aliens!

Please Let this be the last...

These are pictures from just three days ago. The last of it just melted. Hell, we came to Alabama to get AWAY from this shit! Instead, Alabama is getting more snow than they have in ages. We lived here for 10 years, and we didn't have any snow that actually lasted more than a day during that entire time period, and it was never more than an inch deep; this year, we have had three snows that have stuck around for two days or more. UGH!


We had just returned from taking Ms. Carol to her umpteenth appointment in T-town Wednesday when the skies opened and it began to snow like there was no tomorrow.
Well, there was a tomorrow, and this is what it looked like on Thursday morning:



Sorry for not rotating the last image, but I wanted to include it to show that there was over 4 inches of snow on the ground. Geez!

Carol and I went and got our hair cut in Columbus on Thursday afternoon. She treated as a thank you for all our help. I had the stylist lop off about 4 inches. Sure felt good to have those old dead ends off! My hair is now shoulder length again. I colored it today, so it is like a whole new head of hair!

The boys went off today. I have a ton of reading to do, and Ms. Carol didn't want to go if I wasn't going. I hope they are having fun. I know Mr. Mike can kind of be a demanding pain in the butt, but I think it is good for both of them to have some time away from their "old ladies".

Felt like taking a much needed break before my brain explodes from my statistics chapter on finding margin of error in a sample population. Do I know what that even means?

I made a yummy supper of purple hulls, cornbread, and turnip greens. Mmmmmmmmm. Also made two round white cakes: one plain for Bud, and the other I am going to fancy up with cherry pie filling and whipped cream.

Looking forward to the 70 degrees that is predicted for Thursday. Now THAT is what I am talking about!