Busy Day

So, yesterday I went to my friend's house. Her dad is more or less an invalid and spends most of his time in his hospital bed set up in the back bedroom. My friend, Weezy, bought her parents house several years ago and they all live there. Which turned out to be a good thing because:

a) Her dad's health has gone downhill fast and her mom can't care for him alone

b) Weezy went through a bout of breast cancer several years ago. For some reason, the chemo really messed with her system and she has developed neuropathy in her hands and feet. Not good for someone who works as a physical therapist. She was put on leave from work because of this-she nearly had a wreck returning from a patient's house b/c her foot had slipped off the brake & she didn't know it. Yes, the neuropathy is THAT bad. So, in addition to losing her ability to drive, she is looking at having to go on permanent disability. She's very depressed and worried about her future.

So, she had bought her dad a VCR so he could watch movies back in his room. She couldn't get it set up and I looked at it last week and saw that she needed more cables to hook it up correctly. I had to work over the weekend, but told her I'd come over on Tues to help her set it up. I went to pick her up, we went to Best Buy to get the cables, then went to lunch. We stopped at the AT&T store and she talked to them about the crappy router they have, which only allows her to sign on if she in the same room. She wound up buying a router/modem combo and I told her I could set it up for her. I feel so bad for her. It's not that she can't do it but she no longer has any fine motor skills, so handling the cables, phone plugs..etc..is impossible for her to do. After meeting my niece at the shelter to help her choose a new kitten, we headed to Weezy's house to get this all set up. The VCR was relatively simple and I had it up in no time. I tried to program the Direct TV remote so he didn't have to keep track of another one, but it wouldn't work. Bummer, but he was OK with having 2 remotes.

Now, on to the router/modem combo. We went back in her dad's office to get it all set up. First thing tho was to get the filters on all the phone lines. 2 were simple, but for the 3rd, the plug was behind the cali king bed in the master bedroom. Ay-yi-yi, that thing was a bit@# to move. We only got it a few inches from the wall, but it was enough so that I could reach between the headboard slats and get it switched. 4th plug....I just thought the 3rd was a bit@#. OMG...First, we traced his phone line to the wall to the right of his desk.....behind a bunch of folding chairs and 2 card tables that we had to move. We did that, then got the filter plugged in and the phone in the correct side of that, leaving the other side for the DSL line. I then go over to where all his hook-ups are for the computer and tried to trace the line going from the computer to the wall. It actually traced to behind the desk...?? I wondered if he'd had a splitter on the extra long phone cord and went back to trace the phone line from where I had just put it to the desk phone, but no.....? Ok, I'll admit here I'm not a whiz at this, I'm just someone with (usually) some common sense in this area who can figure this out. I went back to the desk and took a second look. The desk is actually bolted to the floor and can't be moved, so I got on the floor and climbed under it. Eureka, there's a 2nd phone jack where the DSL comes in. Problem is, there's a 2x4 standing upright about 4-5 inches parallel to the baseboard. The jack is one of those with the guard that flips down...so that to change it, you have to hold the guard open with one hand and change the line with the other. I got the old line unplugged no prob, by holding it open with one finger and pressing the tab & pulling it out quickly. It was awkward, but I did it. Getting the filter plugged back in tho was a pain. I'm under the desk, on my stomach b/c it's not tall enough for me to be on my knees. There is very limited space between that 2x4 & the wall and no matter how hard I tried, I could not hold the guard open and plug the filter back in. Weezy handed me a flashlight and I propped that on the 2x4 and leaned it on the wall so that most of the light shone on the jack. I attempted for another few minutes and could not get it. I was hot, sweaty and frustrated. I thought for a minute and ask Weezy for some heavy duty tape, such as duct or masking. She found some masking and I taped that guard open and got the plug in..YEA!! Setting up the new router/modem was easy, just pop in the CD & follow the directions. Weezy was behind me the whole time and I swear I could feel how anxious she was about this. She wants to be able to use her laptop anywhere in the house, instead of just in her dad's office or right outside it. I finished up there, then we took the CD to her laptop. She wanted to try that herself, with me supervising. We followed the instructions and as we are going through the steps, her "You're connected" icon came on. She was so excited! We got to the last step and I dunno what happened. The icon indicated that she no longer had a connection and the last step on the screen was for us to connect to the internet. It took us to that step, but would not connect. She got up and let me take over. I went through everything I knew to do and could not figure it out. She was so disappointed and I determined that she would have wireless connection before I left!! I decided to close everything, eject the CD, restart the comp and then start from scratch. I was so frustrated! I sat there and it restarted. I was reaching around to open the CD drive and the connection icon indicated she was connected. She sat down and logged on, got on with no problem!!!! I guess it just needed a restart to finish loading the new software. We took it into the living room and tried and it worked!! I asked her to take it to her bedroom & try. I stayed in the living room with her mom and in a second, we heard her squeal. It worked there too! When I left, Weezy was one happy lady!! It made me feel good that I could get this done for them. They all kept thanking me over and over and talking about how much they "owed" me for doing this, but they don't understand how much I like doing this kind of stuff, even if it does get frustrating. I told them that this was like one of the word puzzles I used to love so much, and that it was fun to figure out how to put it all together. They think it was work, I think it was fun. Besides, I love them all so much and like being able to do what I can to bring a little.....joy (?) to folks who haven't had a lot of joy in the last few years. Doing this is better than sitting around bored at home!   

Merry Christmas

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On Overdoses and Meanies

I once accidently overdosed myself. At that point in time, I didn't know you could do that with over the counter meds. I had worked sick all weekend. I work at a hospital and sick or not, you do not miss work on a weekend. It wasn't my weekend to work, but I was doing it for a co-worker who was out of town at a wedding...but I digress. Once I got off work that Sunday morning, I stayed up to call my boss to call in for Sunday night--didn't want to call and wake her too early. I had gone by the drug store and picked up some tylenol and cough syrup. I ached all over, was running a fever, was coughing and my throat was raw. My roommate was home and in her room studying for an upcoming test. She had told me to call her if I needed anything. I went to bed after taking a normal dose of my meds and tried to go to sleep. Everytime I started to doze, I would start coughing, which made my chest and throat hurt so bad..! I was totally miserable, tired, sleepy, sick but couldn't stop coughing long enough to sleep. Finally, after an hour or two of this, everytime the cough started, I'd just grab the cough syrup off the nightstand and take a swig. I did this quite a few times and finally the cough settled enough and I was able to drift off to sleep. I have no idea how long I was asleep, although it was less than an hour. I was asleep, then suddenly, my eyes popped open and I felt as if someone had just suddenly woke me up. I laid there kinda confused for a few seconds, then I realized that my skin felt as if millions of tiny little bugs were crawling all over me. I kicked all the covers off, but there was nothing there, it was just my skin crawling, head to toe skin crawling. I looked around, but nothing seemed real, like I was dreaming, although I knew I was awake. I started panicking, scared, then the thought hit me....How much of the cough syrup did I drink??. I picked up the bottle and over 3/4ths of the bottle was gone. I had drank nearly a whole bottle in about an hours time. I knew I had to get up and to my roommate, just to see and speak to another person would help me lose the dreamlike-unreal feeling, I hoped. I got up and opened my bedroom door. I had to walk across a small entryway, then the living room and her room was on the other side of the living room. I started across the living room, then-I swear(!!)-the living room walls moved forward and touched right in front of me, then went back into place. I started running and as I got into Sandy's room, I tripped and fell across the foot of her bed. I was hysterical! I starting trying to tell her about the walls moving, how much my chest hurt and that I drank too much syrup. She calmed me down and had me stay there while she went and got the bottle. She came back in and told me to get dressed--I was in my jammies--she was taking me to the E.R. to have my stomach pumped cause I had OD'ed.

Now, the problem with this is that we worked in labs at the hospital. We both actually worked in the E.R. lab, she full time and I as a fill in person. We know those people, we have to work with those people. Not to mention the people in the main lab, where they would be sending the sample they would collect from me for a drug screen. I told her I would not go, she could not make me. Besides, it had been at least an hour since I took the last dose, so it was already in my system. She thought about it for a moment, but told me if there were any changes in my behaviour, or if I became unresponsive, she was calling an ambulance. I agreed to these conditons. She went and got a blanket and a pillow. She pitched the pillow onto the couch, then told me to stand up straight. I tried to tell her about the meanies...you know, the ones from the Beatles "Yellow Submarine"..that were in the kitchen peeking around the wall at us. I'd see them out of the corner of my eye, only when I looked, they would hide behind the wall again. She looked at me and asked....What really stupid thing did you do today?? I mumbled that I drank to much cough syrup. Are there really any meanies in the kitchen?? No, I told her, there probably aren't. She had me raise my right arm straight up, then she put the blanket under my arm and had me drop my arm back down to hold it in place. She then mummy wrapped me up in the blanket. She helped me lie down on the couch and put the pillow under my head. She told me she would be studying for her test, but she would be talking to me every few minutes and unless I wanted to be carted off in an ambulance, I'd better answer. She went back to her studying. I laid there for a few minutes, then someone way far off started calling my name. I asked her to listen and help me figure out who it was and what they wanted. She again asked...What really stupid thing did you do today?? I mumbled my answer and she went back to her studying. I was lying there wishing my skin would quit crawling and those $#@% meanies started popping up from behind the couch, from under the couch and over the arms and they were laughing at me. They'd pop up and laugh, then when I'd turn my head to look, they'd duck back down out of sight. I called Sandy again and told her to check behind the couch and she said....What really stupid thing did you do today?? I, of course, answered, very ashamed of myself. I kept seeing those stupid things and hearing my name being called, but eventualy drifted off to sleep. My poor roommate, who had to study that Sunday, then had a date planned for that evening, wound up cancelling her date to stay with and keep an eye on me. She said she needed to study more than she needed the date anyway, but I still think this was very nice of her. She did go and rent the Beatles "Yellow Submarine" for us to watch the next weekend. She seemed to think that was really funny.

Lesson here: Always follow dosing instructions on all meds, even the OTC stuff. It can hurt you, or at least give you a weird, interesting afternoon.

BTW...I wrote down the ingredients in the cough syrup and read about them in the Physician's Desk Reference at work. Turns out 2 of the 3 of the main ingredients when taken in excess can cause auditory and visual hallucinations, the 3rd in excess causes the skin crawling sensation.

True dat!

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Keep this in mind all you posers

Apples

Hendersonville Apple Festival.
I went.
I saw.
I brought home Honey-Crisp apples.
I am happy.

Celebrities & stalking & stuff

I once stalked a celebrity. I didn't mean to and didn't realize how it must have seemed to him at the time. Let me start at the beginning...

A number of years ago, my friend Tim (in Atlanta) & I made plans to surprise our friend Weezie for her birthday. "Annie" was playing at the Fox Theater in Atlanta and the plan was for me to get Weezie down to see Tim in Atlanta (have I written Atlanta enough?? Atlanta, Atlanta, Atlanta), then we would surprise her with tickets to the play. She knew we had a big surprise for her, but neither of us were going to tell her until we arrived at The Fox on Sat evening.

So, bright & early Sat morning, with many hours to kill before our big plans, Weez decided she wanted to go to the mall. Now, being stuck inside a mall in Atlanta on a saturday is probably the last place on earth I'd choose to be, but it was her birthday weekend/celebration, so I decided to suck it up and go with her. After a couple of hours of mindnumbingly looking at everything I cared nothing about in multiple dept stores, I spotted a bookstore and suggested we go there next. Weez knows that being in a mall is pretty close to hell on earth for me, so she graciously agreed. So in we go.

At that point in time John Schuck was traveling with the play in the role of Daddy Warbucks. For those of you who may not know, John Schuck was the guy who played Rock Hudson's sidekick, Sgt Enwright, on the TV series McMillan & Wife.

So in we go to Waldenbooks....at last, a little heaven in the midst of hell. I headed down the first aisle and who's standing at the end but Mr. John Schuck himself??!! He was taller than I expected he would be and his head was shaved for the part, but it was him!

My first instinct was to run to Weezie & tell her...but if I did that, it might give away the birthday surprise. So I chose to follow him around the store, one aisle from him, and try to screw up my courage enough to ask for an autograph and tell him that my friends and I would be seeing the show later that night. I tried very hard to not be obvious about following him around. I suspect that in trying not to be obvious, I became all the more obvious. I stayed one aisle either behind or in front of him, watching him and trying to calm my nerves enough to approach him. I would watch, and everytime he looked up, I'd pretend to be looking at a book. This went on for at least 30 minutes, if not more. I'm a fairly shy person and not versed in approaching total strangers for any reason, much less for an autograph from an genuine TV ACTOR!! So, after a few minutes, he would look up and I'd quickly look down, then when I looked back up, he'd quickly look down. As the minutes ticked by, I began to realize that he had an almost fearful look on his face, that his eyes were darting around as if he was looking for the quickest exit. I mean, when you're walking around a bookstore and everytime you look up the same woman is staring at you over the aisle...well I can see how that might make someone a little nervous. The poor man kept switching aisles, trying to lose me, but I stayed on his tail like a bad memory. Finally, while standing directly across from him and making an effort to look inconspicuous, I actually grabbed a book and randomly opened it and a name on the page jumped out at me, I knew someone by that name. I flipped the book over and looked at the cover and as fate would have it, it was written about one of the old mill villages in the little town I grew up in. In the time it took for me to take this all in, Mr Schuck had seized his opportunity and made a break for the door. I glanced back up and he was hoofing it through the mall. I've never seen a person move that fast through that kind of crowd. He was throwing nervous glances back towards the bookstore, no doubt looking for that crazy eyed woman stalking him through Waldenbooks. I thought it was best just to let him leave and be thankful he got away. Wonder if he still tells the story of his narrow escape from the Atlanta Waldenbooks stalker? By this point, I was laughing so hard I couldn't have chased him down anyway. Weez came up to me and wanted to know what was so funny, but I couldn't tell her until after we saw the play that night. An excellent play it was too. Mr. Schuck played his part to perfection and as far as I know, never spotted me in the audience.

By the way, I bought the book and read a hilarious collection of stories by a man who grew up in the same small town I did. And he mentions many people in this book that I also know. How funny is that?!

Moods

Lots of things on my mind lately, lots of jumbled emotions. Dunno why I feel so much internal conflict, feel like things are spiraling out of control. I'm just not happy lately. It's been a busy few weeks, maybe all I need is a day trip....out of town....alone. Never enough, it's never enough. Maybe I'm just tired...? I need changes.....