summer days driftin away...

I was just reading some old blogs and laughing to myself how I have not become any less random than I always have been.  This summer has been pretty good.  I started a blog about my wonderful cruise and then I got side tracked (imagine that) and just didn’t finish it.  The quick and dirty (my new way of say short and sweet… but then why would it be dirty?!?! Hmmm gotta look that one up.  It has its base in programming hmmm) of my cruise was it was freaking AWESOME!! And I spent it with 2 wonderful friends.  I had a great spa treatment, I went to some great beaches, drank some good likka, danced to some great music and... yeah it was GREAT!! I had a family fun weekend in Rehoboth Beach where they had a nightly wine and cheese so you know I liked that.  And then I putzied around the house for the remainder of the summer.  I did get some things done but to the naked eye I did just about nothing!  So the week before I was to go back to work I intended to cram everything into it that I hadn’t done.  One of those things was I went to DC to visit the Martin Luther tha King Memorial.  First off, taking the metro and then walking to the actual memorial showed me just how out of shape I really am.  They had these little bikes that I could have rented, but somewhere in my crazy brain I thought it would be better to walk.  I stopped and rested more times than I care to admit and I also stopped at the World War II Memorial as well.  There is so much rich history that people from other states and countries come to absorb.  I’m only 45 minutes away and I still don’t visit and enjoy these sites like I should or could. Because I went on a random Monday, it really wasn’t busy and I got a few pics that I need to post.  In addition to that I went to see ‘Finding Fela’ which was a limited release documentary on the like of Fela Kuti.  I had seen the play a few years ago, so this kinda supplemented that play, but it still left me wanting more and throughout the movie they kept teasing with the music but they never really played much.  But it was good.  After all of that walking and metro taking I was good and ret to come home.  So I’m on the metro, I took the green line from Greenbelt and I had my music blasting.  A woman with her family, I think it was her and 2 kids maybe like 9 and 11 gets up as the train is about to stop and says ‘I need to get to Branch Ave’.  The man who got on with the suit case said ‘You went the wrong way, Branch Ave is the complete other end of the line’.  She proceeds to get hysterical and the man who is some random man says ‘Miss it’s really ok, just get off this train and get on the other side and it will take you to Branch Ave’.  By this point I have pulled off my headphones because I’m like well can I help?  And really no I couldn’t she just needed to go the other direction.  She says to the man about 3 times ‘SO I NEED TO GET OFF AND GET ON THE OTHER SIDE?!?!’  He says yes all three times. But then… I started to say, she might not have to get off, but she did because this was a ‘you aint gotta go home but you gotta get the heck off this train’ moment.  And I didn’t want to confuse her.  I get off and get on the elevator with suitcase man and a random Indian lady and I start laughing!!  WHO DOES THIS?!?!  Well me!  That’s who, but I wouldn’t have waited until the last possible stop to discover my ass was going the wrong way.  And I get it. The DC Metro is not for the faint of heart.  They arm you with that little map and you think you can conquer the world but you are from Iowa so really you and your fanny pack need to ask questions as often as possible.  The man and the woman start laughing too because we all know it could have been us.

So that was Monday. Tuesday it rained like God was about to send Noah and the arc back to earth so I didn’t leave the house.  Wednesday I was chilling in my room and I hear a loud thud.  I rush downstairs to see the roommate on the bathroom floor and the little CNA trying to lift her up.  The floor was wet; I’m pissed because I just want to chill that day but no, not in the cards for me.  So what had happened is the little girl went to the bathroom (she took a dump), sprayed Febreeze fabric spray (which means the liquid not the mist) as an air freshner. My mom (aka the roommate) went in in a rush (because even though she moves about as fast as a snail, she had to use the bathroom right that second) slipped and fell and landed on her right foot and was in a lot of pain.  We finally get her up and into my office chair which rolls, she can’t put any weight on her foot and I’m standing there like WELL SHIT!!! NOW WHAT AM I GONNA DO?!?!? I wait for about a ½ hour to let the Tylenol kick in and my mom is still in pain, I mean I have never seen her in pain like this.  SO I call 911.  While I’m on the phone I’m saying my mom fell and I can’t pick her up to get in the car; she is commentating in the background THIS IS AN EMERGENCY!! I say yes I know but can you please let me finish this call?  About 3 minutes later I hear the ambulance and the roommate goes into a straight pitiful mode.  Is that siren for ME!?!?  She definitely has a flair for the dramatic and I know she is in pain but I was like Really lady!?!?!? The EMT’s hop out and WHY are they both women?  I’m like I know we fought for equal rights and to do what the men do, but I really would have preferred a big beefy man right then.  They get her situated on the bed and then inside the truck and I follow them in my car.  Long story short, after waiting for freaking ever, it’s a sprained ankle and they put an air cast on her and a low dose of Oxy followed by the regular dose of Oxy and she was still yelling herself silly! The doctor says she can walk on it immediately and she looks at him and we (my sister and I) look at him like he has 2 heads.  Oh no sir you don’t understand, she is not just gonna walk outta here!!  Her pain is excruciating, she’s  has MS and dementia and even if she isn’t in as much pain as you think she is, SHE thinks she is in too much pain to cope with anything, so go ahead and send the social worker in here so we can figure out what to do with her.  We put her in an assisted living facility short term so she can get her pain under control and will be doing some OT and PT and have round the clock care.  If she went back home with me at 2 in the morning, what was I gonna do with her?  I still can’t lift her.  So this is the best course of action. A few days later on a 3 way call with the sibs, a woman knocks on my sister’s door and says Hello my name is whatever it is and I do home care and I’m licensed.  We were stunned at the timing of this!  She has already been out to see my mom and will be able to help with her shoulder and her foot.  So even though this has been a very VERY trying week, things are falling into place and this chick can breathe a few sighs of relief!!

I just started back to work and I have a sweet little cube in the corner.  The onliest problem is I can’t see behind me and my music is usually blasting in my headphones.  I just bought a mirror from the good ole Dollar Store, but it’s from the Dollar Store so the suction doesn’t seem to want to work. There really isn’t anyone who will be sneaking up on me but I do seem a little paranoid.  My ‘team’ is in a whole different building and because of how these building are arranged you can’t really find folks unless you know the exact quadrant they sit and even then, you will get lost. So it really is all good.  The chick is hella tired though.  I need to be going to bed at 9 instead of 11-ish.  I need to break up with Conan!