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The more I look at the pictures of the little owl fellow that flew around in our garage, the more I think it’s a baby.  And not just because it’s small, either.  No, I have found pictures of breeds that are much smaller.  See below.

Pygmy Owl

No, I think it’s a baby just because it’s so ruffled looking.  It doesn’t have the smoothness the adult owls have in the pictures I am finding online.  But then again, it was in MY garage.  I get ruffled every time I go out there too and that obnoxious little dog barking like that…  I bet he was thinking, “If ONLY I were bigger and I could just eat that damned thing to shut it up!”  I don’t know for sure, but since I am having trouble finding a picture that looks like it, I think that it’s a youngster.

Now here’s my story about the last time I had to deal with an owl.  I mean before this.

I was 18 years old and my brother, Cam was 10.  Our dad was in hospital having some heart bypasses, so we were staying at home by ourselves while our mother was at the hospital with him.  We lived in a big ol’ two story house and he and I had never stayed by ourselves before.  (I mean, OF COURSE, right?)  I had been hearing a strange little scratching noise in the wall of my bedroom at night and had decided we must have mice and made a mental note to tell Mither about it as soon as everything calmed down and got back to a more normal routine.  The chimney to the living room fireplace shared my bedroom wall and it never occurred to me that there could be anything in there.  This went on for three nights.  Then, one evening, I was sitting on the couch in the living room reading and all of the sudden there was this gigantic WHOOSH of ashes that flew up in the fireplace.  I couldn’t see anything and then this huge white face with two enormous eyes turned around and looked at me and blinked.  It was a gigantic barn owl.  IT WAS HUGE, PEOPLE.  It just stood there in the fireplace and looked around and at me.  I just sat on the couch without moving like a scared little kitten.  I wasn’t really scared even, I just had no idea what to do.  My brother was asleep and besides that… he was 10.  I called Mom and told her and by this time I watched the owl hop up on top of the damper and sit there.  I stuck my head in the fireplace and could see two great big talons wrapped around the metal edge of it.  I counted myself lucky that I hadn’t received any owl shit in the face, wondered briefly if it really was slick, (My pop was always saying one thing or another was “slicker than owl shit”.), and pulled my head back out.  Mom had said she didn’t know what to do either and she’d be home the next day.  So we agreed that it needed water and food, as it had been there for at least three days, (that’s what I’d been hearing in the wall, actually the chimney).  So I got a little bowl of water and some lunch meat and put it in the fireplace.  I then closed the heavy metal chain link screen…and went to bed.

I have to say that except for the initial whooshing landing in the fireplace I was never really scared of it.  I felt very sorry for it and was worried it was going to die of dehydration, but I just never got the feeling it was threatening.

It never touched the food or water at all, that I could tell.  Perhaps it wanted mayo and wheat bread with pickles.  Perhaps it was a mustard kind of owl.  I don’t know why it turned up it’s…beak to my dinner selection, I only know it did.

So, that next night my dear, brave mither came home and we set about getting the owl out of the house.  It had jumped back down in the fireplace.  Mither was terrified out of her mind awed by it.   I opened the screen and we waited for it to decide to come out.  It was probably a little shy and wondered why we kept peeking around the corner at it.   Finally, it did and we ran in to try to shoo it…somewhere, and it flew straight into the sliding glass door.  No, we had not thought to open it first.  It was freakin cold outside and that’s my excuse.  Whatever.  Anyway, it smacked it’s beak pretty hard and was dazed and confused.  It was like it was competing with us… still think we won the dazed and confused contest…

The poor thing flew around the living room for a short bit and landed on things you wouldn’t think it would choose to land on and then flew through the breakfast area, kitchen, utility room and into the game room, completely avoiding the sliding glass door that stood open.  We followed.  Finally we had it somewhere we thought we could get it out easily.  There was a pair of French doors that one of us opened all the way.  I kept trying to shoo it toward the doors and it seemed oblivious.  It flew all over and finally when I was wondering if we were keeping it and could it please live in my brother’s room, it looked straight at the doors and I almost heard it say, “Ah ha!”  I saw the little light bulb go on over it’s head and it took off.  With both full size doors open it had to tilt diagonally to fit through the opening.  The doors were six feet across.  I don’t even know what the diagonal measurement was.  A lot.  Freakin’ huge-ass owl.

I have to point out that my dear mither was a squealing mess, cowering against whatever wall she could back up against and standing in doorways ready to flee, whilst making small squeaking noises.  Pretty much useless for herding owls.  Luckily, she has proven invaluable for a large multitude of other things… and we all love her dearly.

If you head on over to Psychicgeek, Witchypoo has written a very moving post about Ivy, a two year old little girl that is desperatly ill and is having a life saving treatment withheld from her.  It’s all a bunch of bureaucracy and her mother is trying to do everything possible to help her.  This is an online company that does petitions and I want you to go there and sign up.  Ivy needs all the help she can get.

Hello boys and girls.  I have been spending time doing things other than reading my blog sites and I am so sorry!  I need to get caught up, but I need to do laundry worse.  I haven’t been here much in the past few days as Henrietta got herself in hospital.  OK, really, the ambulance got her there, but still…

About 3:30 Thursday morning she rang the bell and I went in and she was shaking really, really hard.  I felt of her and she had no fever so I thought she was surely having a really bad anxiety attack.  She has before, so I got her an ativan and gave it to her and told her not to worry she’d feel better soon and she did and fell asleep within about 10 to 15 minutes.  I left her bedside table lamp on and went back to bed.  Next morning I went in and looked at her and turned off the lamp and tiptoed out.  The anxiety attacks really take it out of her, though she doesn’t have them often, so I wasn’t surprised when she slept in late.  I went by her room about 11:30 and she was sleeping but the lamp was on.  Strange.  So she had been up, but why had she turned the lamp on, it’s daylight and there was plenty of light in the room.  I walked over and looked at her and fliped off the lamp and opened the blinds a bit and she opened her eyes and looked at me and started trying to talk.  It was like something out of a nightmare.  I couldn’t make out what she was saying at first, her words were slurred and she couldn’t talk loud enough at all either.  I got down and listened and asked her questions and she said things that made no sense at all.  So I started calling people and ended with 911.  They came and got her and while they were here assessing her, the hot, young cutie that was doing most of the talking said that yes, she could be having a stroke, but the fact that I was treating her for yet another UTI, (urinary tract infection), told him that she could possibly be septic and the symptoms mimic those of a stroke very closely.  I, personally, thought it wasn’t possible, just because her previous UTI had gotten much worse than this one.  With this one she didn’t even  have any symptoms.  I would have never known she had one without the urinalysis they did as a follow up from the previous UTI.  In hind site I can see that it was all the same one and the antibiotics from the first one didn’t completely get rid of it.

So H gets hauled off to the hospital and I went with her.  My friend, Lisa followed in her car.  This was about noon and she went straight to an ER room and stayed there for a few hours and was put in a room by about 9:30.  They have, by now run every test under the sun and determined that:

A) She freaks out when in the MRI machine.

B) She did not have a stroke.

C) “She’s a pistol.”

D) When she misses her dose of Miralax she can’t poo.

E) When she gets two doses of Miralax too close together she has diarrhea.

F) When I find out they are running all kinds of stupid tests that don’t make a hill of beans difference, just stress her out,  I get pissed off.

G) When I call and have them leave a note on her chart for the Dr. to call me, I mean it and will call and chew out everybody else in the nurse’s station if he doesn’t.  (He makes rounds at 6:00AM.)

The night before she had these problems at home, when I changed her diaper and put her to bed, I noticed she had a strange line of diaper rash kinda down on her thigh a little bit.  I was telling Lisa about it in the hospital after we got her in a room.  I looked down at H and asked her if she’d mind if I showed Lisa her diaper rash. (At this point I should point out that Lisa’s mom died of multiplemyloma and Lisa took care of her up until her death, so she knows at least some, and usually a lot, about every aspect of care giving.)  Immediately after I asked her if she’d mind me showing Lisa her rash, without pausing, she looked at Lisa, pulled a deadpan face, and said, “It’ll cost you $20.00.”  Lightning fast wit, that one.  The nurse came in and she looked at her and said “It’ll cost you 20, too!”  She died laughing and we were all giggling uncontrollably.   She also told us to tell the EMT that she’s single.  My gawd, I’ve got to watch her like a hawk!

H) She charges for a peek at her hooch.

Would you believe me if I said that I’ve been cooking, baking, and cleaning non-stop for the past few days?  No?  Well, that makes you a smart little cookie, doesn’t it?  If I had a gun to my head and some yo-yo telling me he’d shoot if I didn’t account for my time, I’d be a dead, domestic failure…rather than just a domestic failure.  I guess I’m saying things could always be worse.

I did manage to get a few things done today.  Sweeping the kitchen, breakfast area and utility room and doing my version of mopping to all of those freshly swept areas.  This entails walking around with a spray bottle of one sort of cleaner or another and a handy wipe, bending over spots, squirting, wiping, and moving on to the next spot.  Hey, don’t laugh.  My floor is clean…er.  I put things away left and right that have been slowly piling up for ages and cleaned the kitchen, and did several loads of laundry.

Got H on the bedpan not once, but two times for a grand total of two poos.  This normally throws her into a tailspin.  As I have discussed here before an unscheduled poo, or U. P. is a force of nature to contend with in this house.  She was reciting some panicky sounding prayers the second time I put her on, but other than that she handled it well.

John worked a “close” today and will be home about 11:00 or midnight.  He is enjoying his new boss and things are going smoothly so far.

Yesterday I asked him if he had chased any shoplifters through the parking lot lately and he replied, “No, I’m too fat and old for that.”  To which I immediately responded, “Your not fat.”  He groaned at me.  Seriously though, he’s getting older everyday, but he has lost a lot of weight lately.  He says he’s getting down to his “fighting weight”.  heh, heh, heh.

Pop is going into the hospital next Tuesday to have a defibrillator implanted just under the skin in his chest.  It is a battery operated thing that has two little wires that will be attached to his heart and if it stops beating or falters it will shock it into rhythm.  I don’t know much more than that about it.  Mom will ask more questions, I am sure.  I am wondering how long the batteries last and what changing them entails.

I guess that is all I’ve got to report at the moment.  I haven’t been doing much of anything or feeling like doing anything.  Very blah.  I haven’t even been Plurking.  I have also been neglecting reading the blogs!  And that is very bad of me, for shame and all that stuff!

I’m gonna try to get my shit together and get back here sooner!  Promise.  And I’ll try to have something to say.

Greetings all.  I am up early this morning with many things on my mind and I am quite sure that it will be this evening before I can make sense of it all enough to get it down in a post.  Then I will re-read it and think, “So why was that so hard to say and why did I think I had so much to say?”  I suppose just because it’s been a while since I was good about keeping up here.  I’m not apologizing, cause shit’s been happening.  And I don’t even meant he bedpan variety.  No.  Real, documented and undocumented, shizzle.

Where to start….?

Pop is in the hospital and, actually, is scheduled to get out today.  He told me on the phone yesterday that they told him he could leave this morning so he said he was going to get up at about 3:00am and go.  I told my mom he said that and she laughed and said she hoped he had a ride cause she wasn’t going to get him at 3:00am. He is such a character.

He has emphysema and COPD problems that got a bit of fluid in his lung.  “Pneumonia”, I thought.  “No”, the doctors said, “just some fluid in his lung”.  Huh?  Oh well, my understanding is not pivotal to his outcome, anyway, thank you God.

John got a new boss to work with and it is a vast improvement over the last one.  Oops, he isn’t supposed to be there until Monday, so I suppose that’s jumping the gun.  No it isn’t, cause anything would be an improvement.  Plus he’s worked with this guy before and he’s a pretty good one.  So that’s all good.

Henrietta is getting a new caregiver provider and she starts Tuesday.  They called and asked me if we would mind someone who mostly speaks Spanish and I said no, I didn’t mind and so did H so that’s a go.  As far as I know the hand gestures for indicating you have to poo are a fairly universal thing.  Well, that and H throws in some really good facial expressions leaving no doubt as to the amount of urgency/amount of poo ratio.

Got the first semester bill for older child’s college tuition and that was a nasty little shock.  It was something like $2400.  OK.  Well that sucks.  And that is after her scholarship was deducted.  Shit.  Then a day or two later we got an email saying that there had been an error and everyone had been charged $345. for a…something, can’t remember what they called it, but anyway that was an error and they were going to remove it.  So, OK great.  We looked at her bill and they had deducted the $345. for each of her 4 classes  so that just about halved her bill.  Yea.  Can you say “good news”?  We are college tuition bill virgins, (in this millennium) and had no idea what to expect so we were really anticipating having to spend about two and a half thou on it twice a year.  Next, text books.

And then there is the discussion of the younger daughter moving to Decatur, Texas to live with Nana and Pop for her last year in high school.  Strangely, she wants to do this.  She is disillusioned with her friends right now and hates her job and is worried about Pop and Nana both, mostly because they just plain need help.  Young, limber, strong backed help.  Family help.  Adorable, beloved, grandchild help.  The only thing keeping her from jumping at the first chance of going?  New school.  I really can’t say that I blame her.  I was always adamant that she and her sister never have to change schools if there was anyway we could help it and they never did.  K-12, same school.  I guess I wanted this so badly for them because I have attended 6 different schools in my life.  I didn’t know I was crippling them with an inability to flex and change.   No, I can’t blame her for not wanting to do it.  Very scary stuff, walking into a new school for the first time and trying to find your way around feeling like everyone is staring at you.  The New Kid.

Of course one of the friends she is disillusioned with is out with her right now and they are getting spray tans, eyebrow waxing and manicures.  How really bad could it possible be?

Besides, I am pretty sure she would miss me too much to stay gone for months at a time from me.  Yeah.  That’s the way I am hoping thinking it would go down.

We’re trying to die in this heat.  And not because it’s hot, but because we refuse to be and our light bill is run up to a whopping $600 last month.  NOW we’re being hot because that thermostat is turned way up.  This house is like an oven in the rooms Henrietta is in without the ceiling fans on.  When we are all in the living room and we are getting hot I stand up and turn it on and she looks a bit frantic for a second, (she’s convinced the, “wind will make me sick”), but she doesn’t say anything cause I am fanning my shirt and saying how hot it is.  If I get her a light throw or something to wrap up in she says no, it’s too hot for that, so I know she’s not cold.  Just weird and full of old wives tales.  What can I say, she’s an old wife.

I haven’t been to a movie in years and then about a month or so ago John and I saw the Indiana Jones movie.  Really neat.  Then again, when he was on vacation last week we went to see the new Batman.  Well, Wednesday a good friend of mine came over and we watched The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants #1 on DVD, and made plans to go and see #2 at theater yesterday.  We really enjoyed it, also.  So I have seen three movies in the past couple of months and before that I bet I hadn’t been in 4 or 5 years.  How weird is that?

While John was on vacation, my brother was home from Italy to visit and finalize the adoption of my brand spanking new nephew.  Older child had to work and could not attend the family reunion, as it were, but younger girl, John and I met up with Nana, Pop and Cam in in a park in the small town of Buffalo, Texas.  We hung out and ate at a near by resturant.  It was good to see him and I never know how long it will be until I can see him again.

Here he is with Keelan.

On April 23, 2006 my father-in-law, Marcos, passed away after being on hospice for a few months.  He had lived with us for about a year and seven months.  It all started when Henrietta fell in their home on the way back from the bathroom in the middle of the night.  We got a call from Marcos saying she couldn’t get up and we jumped in the car and raced over there.  Their house is about 30 minutes away.  I called the ambulance on the way there and we made it in about 15 minutes.  This is mainly due to no traffic in the middle of the night! *Mental note: have catastrophes  in the middle of night, ALWAYS.*  So we got there and H had, basically, broken everything.  Well, it seemed like it.  Tibia, hip, humerus, she was in bad shape.  So the little old lady with the severe osteoporosis went off to the hospital and Marcos came home to live with us.  John and I and our two teenage daughters in a three bedroom, one bath house.  With Marcos.  Together.

We got the hell out of that house as soon as we could and moved into a 4 bedroom 3 bath ASAP.  This helped a lot, but Marcos was starting to slide into a depression that he never really came out of.  I fed him an antidepressant everyday and we tried to keep his spirits up.  H stayed in the hospital for months.  Marcos went more and more downhill and his mental state deteriorated.  He couldn’t be left alone for any length of time.  He started falling.  He had a walker and refused to use it for the longest time.  The things that he determined were his duties, such as making coffee or going out to get the newspaper, became impossible for him to master.  He totally screwed up, I don’t know how many coffee makers.  Made HUGE messes in the kitchen attempting to make it multiple times a day and at various odd moments all night long.  He’d get up during the night over and over and attempt to make it outside to “get the paper”.  When I’d point out that it was dark out and night time, he was always very surprised and in the beginning he would voluntarily return to bed.  But, eventually, it became harder and harder to convince him of anything.

I got one of the cowbells that H uses to ring for me and and tied it to his walker with a plastic cable tie wrap.  That way, combined with the baby monitor there was absolutely no way he could make it out of his room with out me knowing at night.  I started jumping out of bed when when I heard him get up and running down the hall and closing the door at the end of it and holding it closed so it would seem locked when he got there after he had used the bathroom and was trying to make it to the front door or kitchen.  I remember him standing there kicking the door and fussing, while I was on the other side just praying for him to go back to bed.  At first he would.  Then it became a matter of he was going to find a way out and do what he wants.  The ruckus became bigger and bigger and John would come and try to convince him to go to bed too.

We had always just kept the front door keys in the door, (on the inside, of course),  and he would just head out anytime he wanted day or night.  So I took the keys out and we started keeping the door locked.  All. the. time.  He searched the house and even went through my purse until he found the keys.  It was like trying to deal with a highly intelligent toddler.  The scariest thing going and SO tiring.

The truly strange thing is he didn’t have Alzheimer’s.  Just old age senility combined with a HUGE overdose of old fashioned Mexican machismo.  That poor little old man had stubbornness in spades.  He was slowly dying and it was just not nearly fast enough for him.  He got to the point that he refused to take a bath and was only doing so about once every 10 days to two weeks under duress.  At some point John was the only one who could convince him.  This wouldn’t have been SO bad except he had become totally inept in the bathroom and would end up with shit everywhere.  Including on him.  He really did try, bless his heart, but he just didn’t have the strength to do anything more than just barely get there.  The commode seat and numerous other things in there were routinely smeared with poo.  I cannot tell you the amount of latex gloves, paper towels and spray bleach I went through.

By the time he died he was a little dried up husk of a man and I could pick him up in my arms like a baby and carry him to bed.  I did this the last time we changed his bed.  H was in the hospital with a broken hip from a totally unrelated incident and the continuous care hospice nurse suggested we put him in her hospital bed.  It was a good idea and we were changing his sheets anyway.  So I just picked him up and put him in her bed.  It was the strangest sensation.  This larger than life man that had always seemed so dominant was no where in there.  I think he died two days later and he had been so ready for so long.

Poor Henrietta was in the hospital and even missed his funeral.  When we told her she took it very well.  She said she knew he wasn’t going to make it much longer, and I’m sure that’s true.  He had a 21 gun salute and honor guard as he was a decorated WWII veteran who was wounded and permanently crippled in the rush on Iwo Jima.  He was someone to contend with…even before things were going downhill.

Well, there is more excitement here at the Nut House.  Last night when I put Henrietta to bed, her diaper was wet.  Not just a little, but soaked,   Great.  The catheter had failed during the day sometime.  Just a little bit of pee in the bag.  Sometimes moving her around and repositioning her gets it to start working again so I was keeping my fingers crossed that it would fix itself over night.  No.  This morning she woke up swathed in wet sheets and nightgown.  FREEZING, of course.  Everything was soaking wet including a diaper full of shit.  I ran in and threw a towel in the dryer and got John to call the nurse while I started trying to strip the bed with her in it and get a dry hospital chux under her.  Got the sheets, blanket and mattress protector off the bed and another chux under her, ran and got the towel out of the dryer and put it over her while I went and ran water in a basin and got washcloths and then bathed her off.  I was answering questions from John for him to answer the nurse on the phone.  He hung up and shouted down the hall that she would be coming at 3:00ish.  M’kay, fine.  She showed up and DID NOT BRING A NEW CATHER WITH HER.  This was a new one for me.  She said she thought she’d just wiggle around the old one and see if she could get it to work.  She explained that she would need to go back to the office to get one.  Well, I had already deflated the old one and removed it, I mean it was just in the way and doing nothing whatsoever.  So no way it was going back in.  She went out and rummaged around in her car and finally found a kit.  I happened to have an extra catheter.  So we poked around and never got any urine back and had no more to try with.  She left and I scheduled Paula to come and give it a shot after she left the office at the home health care place.  She brought 4 catheters and several kits for me to have on stock and we used all but one of them and never got any urine back in the tube.  She said it was time to let H have a rest and she’s coming back tomorrow.  woo-hoo…

Aren’t you glad I don’t have pictures with my post today?

John wanted me to call this diaper incident F.L.  Full Load.

Hello, people!  It’s been a while!  I am happy to report that I am still alive, only just barely it seems.  I am having a hard time shaking this funk I’m in and it really makes it hard to post.  Ideas that seem good to me late at night while watching Ferguson or trying to go to sleep, seem ridiculous the next day.  I am being a little depressed and my mind doesn’t want to work fast or freely anymore, just like the rest of me, I suppose!  Haha.

John was only off one day this week and it was yesterday.  We frantically ran around for three hours while the caregiver provider person was here and managed to take in lunch at a nearby Chinese restaurant, which I felt like was splurging because everything is so expensive now.  And I don’t just mean at the Chinese Restaurant, I mean everything.  At this point I am thinking the only way we can help pay for college is if we rent out the daughter in servitude.  I know what you’re thinking.  If she is in servitude, how will she go to school that is getting paid for?  Vicious circle.  I guess we could sell the younger daughter into servitude and she could support her sister’s need for knowledge, but I am thinking that would create a good deal of resentment and bitterness.  Just guessing.

That leaves us with Henrietta and I just can’t see anyone paying me for taking her off my hands.  Correct me if you know something I don’t.

I was soooo gonna do a post on Wednesday.  Things stewing around in my little head, fingers itching to type them out… whatev.  H. woke up that morning distressed that she was having stomach cramps, “all night”.

me: Why didn’t you ring the bell?

H: Oh, I didn’t want to bother you!

me: (teasing) Well, when you need to use the potty you have to tell me.  I can’t read your mind….!

H: (Smiling) Oh I don’t want to bother you at night, Krissa.

So all this happened BEFORE breakfast.  This is important because it is an UNSCHEDULED POOP, or a “U.P.”  This set the tone for the day.  She ate half her oatmeal very slowly and did the characteristic whiny and sing-song voice.  I knew she wouldn’t eat all of her food just because that is what she automatically does if anything is amiss in her life.  Unscheduled Poo, hangnail, cramp in her calf, cold chill while getting a bed-bath, coughing due to allergies/sinus drainage, whatever.  But, when I brought her the egg and little piece of sausage with a roll and jelly she, ate everything but about a bite and a half of the egg and a little tiny piece of the bread.  It’s like she was thinking, “I have to leave something on the plate, I’m sick!”

So when I picked up the tray and saw she hadn’t finished everything I knew it was going to be a day of pitifullness and staying in bed.  Which really does suit me fine.  She discovered other problems during the day and had a bout with indigestion and we did Malox and Sprite and a teaspoon of baking soda in water and everything we could think of, I don’t know how bad it really was, she was teary eyed all day and acting ready to cash in her chips cause he couldn’t burp.

Thursday she decided she needed to stay in bed because, “Maybe I had better just stay here… you know, to make sure.”  Make sure of what, I have no idea.  Make sure she can burp?  Make sure she only poops between the hours of 1:00 and 2:00PM?  Make sure I can still run up and down that long ass hall, (and getting longer all the time), 400 times a day?  Make sure the clapper on the cowbell she rings isn’t worn out from the day before?  These are questions I now wish I’d asked her.

So that’s it people.  That’s all I got.  Sorry I don’t feel the least bit like trying to produce anything remotely amusing.  I am hoping this will eventually pass.  I am sure it will.

How uneventful could this possibly be?  Well, let’s see.

John worked the late shift today and left for work shortly before 1:00PM.  Henrietta was up and fed, pooped, diapered, dressed and in the wheelchair by 1:45ish.  You’ve got to remember that she stays in bed until she is done on the bedpan for the day. (Hopefully.)  The “Big B.M.” is almost always around 1:00 to 1:30.

I just re-read that last paragraph and can see where there are some problems.  I used the term, “You’ve got to remember…”.  Actually, you don’t have to remember anything having to do with H’s poops.  I do, though.  *sigh*

OK, back on track!  I was attempting to communicate how uneventful this day has been.  After I got her dressed she asked if I could cut her hair for her as it was below her collar and bugging her a good deal.  So I got her in the chair and rolled her in the kitchen, threw a sheet around her and stopped to make the child a sandwich before she left for work.  Done. Back to H.  I sprayed her hair and chopped it off around the bottom, just as always and she was good to go.  About that time, the phone rang and the Housecall Dr. said she would be here in about 20 minutes.  So I muted the TV and gently swiveled H’s little head around so that she was looking at me, knelt down and screamed into her face that the new doctor was coming out to visit her.  This was met with the expected amount of horror and panic, as she simultaneously crossed herself, started muttering a hail Mary and felt for her own pulse.  I explained to her three or four times that, “She is just coming to meet you and get acquainted with your case so she can be your doctor!”  All at a decibel level approaching sonic boom.  I swear, this wears me out.  It is so hard to be constantly reassuring her about… everything, and having to scream it over and over and answer her questions because she is so panicked she isn’t paying attention.  And she is SO freakin paranoid.  Oh. My. Gawd.  You cannot begin to believe all the paranoia that we deal with on a regular basis.  When she first came to live with us, we went round and round with her about all the windows being locked.  There was just about no way to convince her that this was all done except show her that you were checking them.  The front door needed to stay locked all the time and she was just hoping and praying that the back one was.  It wasn’t quite as important as the front to her because we had a huge family dog.  In reality we never locked it and Hailee, (huge dog) slept at the back door and would have eaten anybody that came in the yard.  Very nearly did, several stupid meter readers that disregarded the warning sign.

She has slowly gotten better and now does not insist I lock the front door when John is at work.  However she pays entirely too much attention to the news on TV and the newspaper.  EVERYTHING is threatened by the evil somebodyoranother.  She is forever telling me that the reason the nurses ask her all the questions they do is because people try to “trick them and defraud the Medicare.  They have to make sure we’re not trying to trick them, so they ask us questions to see if we know how to answer.”  I swear, there is nothing tricky at all about the nurses visits or their questions.  “Appetite OK?”  “Blood pressure good?”  “Bowels moving?”  Oh, hell yeah.

Yeah.  Wonder what’s on TV tonight…

The electricity went out for a bit tonight and we all found ourselves outside with the neighbors.  Everyone came over and re-introduced themselves to H.  The general attitude is that she is so incredibly old she MUST not remember who anyone is.  Sometimes she doesn’t.  They are all just being very nice, and I know it.  Anyway, she kept saying how hot it is and seemed amazed that you could “feel the heat rising up…”.  Keep in mind that she is extremely agoraphobic.  It is very hard to get her to go outside the door, either front or back.  I bet it has been three months since she has left the house.  But with no light or TV she really had very little choice.

Keelan was showing me a message she got from someone on her Myspace page and telling me what she was saying back to him.  She is kinda excited about this kid and hasn’t seen him since school was out.  So she is telling me what she is typing and she said, “…and a smiley face.  You know about that don’t you?  Smiley faces?  You know, semi-colon for a wink and then close parentheses?”  I thought I was being uber cool and said, “Smiley faces? Yeah…been around since the dawn of the typewriter.  Only you forgot the dash for a nose.”  She had the audacity to just bust out laughing hysterically and tell me that I am soooo old and ‘out of it’, “NOBODY puts a nose, Mom!”

WHATEVER!

How do they take the tiniest things and try to make you feel so stupid with them?  Lucky for me, I have rino-hide and it is impossible at this point.

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Henrietta did a poo in the bedpan earlier and I took it over to the cedar chest to set it down by the door to be taken out in a minute to dump in the potty, while I put the diaper on her.  However, this time when I set the bedpan down there was so much crap in the way on the cedar chest it didn’t get completely on there and fell off,  The poo is quite soft and a bit runny and it…splattered out and hit my thong clad foot.  Besides being extremely grossed out I was immediately furious with all of her relatives who keep bringing her STUFFED ANIMALS.  They are all over the place now and there is little room for anything else.  Her room has gone from being a lovely haven to looking like a nursery.  WHY do people think children’s toys are good to give to old people?  I mean when they clearly don’t have the minds of children.  They don’t play with dolls, don’t throw balls, don’t play make believe in any form, shape or manner.  She won’t let go of any of it, either, because it was given to her.  Spoken just like someone raised in the depression era.

Anyway, I did some rearranging and made enough room on the cedar chest to sit the bedpan while I finish up with the diaper and dressing and whatnot.  But, the next time the people in her family that show up, (about twice a year, they come to visit),  and bring something ridiculous to her I am seriously considering saying something like, “Oh!  A child’s bear?”  OH!, for Henrietta!  Well, I don’t know how much she’ll play with it, but it’s really cute….”  Would I be a horrible person?

Yes.  I would.

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I just saw a Twitter from Ree over at Hotfessional that reminded me of a conference call that I sat in on with John, Tuesday on his day off.  On of his buddies he used to work for called him and told him he might want to get in on it just because it was a pretty big deal.  The grocery store chain he works for was recalling ALL the ground meat that wasn’t sold in prepackaged tubes.  THREE DAYS BEFORE JULY 4th.

So I sat there and listened to all these different speakers talk about exactly what was being recalled and what wasn’t and how to handle it and sanitize the meat cases, coolers, floors, walls, ceilings, armpits, what have you.  These people aren’t fooling around.  Then there was endless questions from people that had to be the STUPIDEST people I can imagine knowing how to form a question.  “Err, yeah, this is Bob Schmob over at store 998.  When we sanitize the coolers and the knives, and the grinder and the blades and the prep tables and sink do we also clean the counter tops where the meat is cut up?”  Yes, you dumbass.  You clean everything the meat has ever touched in the history of the store.

I don’t know how many times this particular kind of question was asked and how many times the, either incredibly patient, or unbelievably stupid upper management people would once again tell them that, yes, they needed to clean and sanitize everything.

After the conference call had gone on for 65 minutes it ended and would you believe NO ONE EVER SAID WHAT THE PROBLEM WITH THE MEAT WAS.  I mean, you can guess it is probably e coli, but, for gawd’s sake, it seems like the managment yo-yo’s would have used the word ONCE.  Or someone would have asked.  No.  Of course it was on the recall site on the internet and it IS e coli, but I think it is PRETTY funny that the corporate big wigs can talk on and on for over an hour and not ever come out and say what the problem actually IS!  Typical. At least for this company.

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Earlier tonight I came in here and Keelan was on the computer doing, Gawd knows what.  I sat and waited for a bit and watched her and my eyes have gotten so bad that I could have sworn she typed “racial farts” into the googlie search thing.  No.  It was Rascal Flatts.  Do I need to get my eyes checked out?

I am sorry there was no post for “Fecal Friday”. I was not here and, truth be told, I dealt with no poo yesterday. How did I escape the poo? I will tell you.

I left with my daughter about 6:00AM to drive to downtown Houston for the second day of Orientation. AND I am happy to report that I didn’t get separated from the herd. However things didn’t go smoothly to start off. We were running on schedule and Kes went out to start the car while I collected my purse or put on earrings or some such thing. She came back in looking stricken and said, “My car won’t start. MOM, MY CAR WON’T START!” At this point John, (who was sleeping in and trying hard to get over the virus I gave him), woke up and came outside. “Kes, are you sure it’s in park?” Check. She tried to start it and it was evident it was either the battery, the starter or alternator. You know that noise…errrrrerrrrerrrrrerrrrr, nothing. So we looked under the hood and saw that one post on her battery was completely covered with corrosion. I ran in the garage and got a wire brush and came out and attacked it. With the first stroke of the brush a tiny, evil particle of…corrosion? battery acid? whatever, flicked straight into my right eye. OH MY GAWD! I have never felt anything burn that bad in my life. Not in my eye. Anyway, while I am in the house rinsing my eye out, Kes and John come to the conclusion that Kes will drive us there in John’s car and he will take our pickup to work. We were running a tad behind at this point and Kes was having an apoplectic fit to leave. (Have I ever mentioned that she is a bit… high strung? Tightly wound? Oh hell, she’s a stereotypical, type A personality. Not a lot of fun to live with sometimes.) So I run out and climb in the car with ALL the eye makeup missing from my right eye. I swear, she glanced at me, started to comment, made this microscopic head shake and started the car and backed out almost all in one move. I waited until we were almost there and the burning had subsided somewhat, to reapply some mascara. The red, swollen eye combined with my chapped red nose from the SINUS INFECTION FROM HELL, had me looking particularly…what…hungover? disgusting? I am not sure, but it was bad.

I should have taken a box of Puffs Plus with me because I sat through hours of one professor after another stress THE EXACT SAME THINGS, OVER AND OVER, while I repeatedly blew my nose into a red paper cocktail napkin. (UH Cougars, colors-red and white.) By the end of the day there was no way to tell if my nose was red from constantly blowing it into sandpaper a paper napkin, or if the color on said napkin ran and stained my nose. I lived though. Maybe because I knew that by the time I got home John would be at work as would younger child and H would have already been pooped and diapered, washed and dressed, drug into wheelchair and rolled into living room. OH! And fed!

That’s right, people. Behold. The power of the federal government, finally put to use for good and not evil. It is paying for a company named Home Health Providers, or HHP, to send a “Caregiver Provider” to our house TWO, (2) times a week! Note the title says “caregiver provider” as in providing ME, the caregiver with help. LOVE the concept. This lady does the same thing the aide for Home Health Care did as far as the bath and dressing, twice a week, BUT! WILL STAY FOR THREE, (3!) HOURS WHILE I LEAVE AND GO WHERE EVER THE HELL I WANT. WOO-HOOOOOO. So don’t call me on Tuesdays or Fridays between the hours of 1:00PM and 4:00PM. I WILL BE GONE. Probably. At the very least I will be in the bathtub. FOR 3 HOURS!