Here We Go Again

Well, we're back to square one again. The Conservatives have fallen back in line, Bush is underhandedly saying "Come on, you guys, this one's actually qualified." It's time to nominate someone to the Supreme Court!

"Pimpin' ain't easy."
This time, el Busho went with Sam Alito, a nice old Conservative boy who enjoys presenting cases before the Supreme Court (he's won 10 in 12 in the halls of justice) and supporting spousal consent in an abortion. Mandatory spousal consent. Yeah. While I had no problems with Meirs because the woman had no history, I have many problems with Alito's history with getting all up in a woman's womb. Game on, bitches.

Sick Bastards

Imagine my glee when I saw Pete Bouchard's smiling face on boston.com just now, in an article comparing the plight of Nicholas Cage in the new movie The Weatherman to local meterologists'. Imagine how sad I got when I read this:

And pity poor Pete Bouchard, who says he's gotten two death threats in the 3 1/2 years he's worked at WHDH-TV (Channel 7) because of faulty forecasts. One was the result of Bouchard's getting the timing of some spring showers wrong. The winter had been brutal, Bouchard recalls, ''and everyone was looking for a ray of sun or some warmth." Bouchard told his viewers that the approaching showers would arrive in the afternoon. Instead they came at 10 a.m. The e-mail he received as a result was brutal, says Bouchard, a meteorologist for 13 years: ''I'm going to beat you until you don't walk, and then I'm going to beat you some more."

What the hell? How can you hate Pete Bouchard? How can you say you'll beat the everloving snot out of a white guy from New Hampshire who predicts the weather? Maybe you'd want to beat up Todd Gross, but only because he sucks. Pete Bouchard does not suck. Pete Bouchard loves fun and sunshine and nature. Sure, you may want to yell at him for his poor grammar, but he's human. I would never throw anything at Pete Bouchard. Except maybe my phone number.
So, Pete, if you're sad and want to see that new movie, drop me a line and we'll go see it next week. I don't much care for Nicholas Cage, nor the high price of admission, but I'll even buy you a popcorn. And if anybody throws anything at you, I'll be your human sheild.

Old Lady

So I just got around to reading the indomitable Sarah Bunting's weekly Tomato Nation post, and this week she writes about stuff she likes. The yogurt Cheerios sound good (if cereal wasn't $6 a box I'd buy some and try it) but the one thing that caught my eye was this:

And now, a weird segue into socks. (Or maybe not so weird, depending on how you feel about hard cheeses.) I have spent a month searching high and low for a proper knee sock -- not a sock that calls itself a knee sock, but only by dint of not being an ankle sock. An actual, touches-my-knee knee sock. I would not call myself freakishly tall, either, but every time I thought I'd found the perfect sock, the picture would tell the truth, namely: calf sock. Come on, world of hosiery. Then I thought of the Lands' End catalog, and hallelujah, knee socks that come up to my knee, stay there, and aren't going to fall apart after two wearings. Which reminds me: does it happen to anyone else that, when one pair of socks goes, they all go? Socks and underwear? Because I sprang a hole in my favorite pair of Old Navy stripy socks last week, and the next thing I know it's the Heaven's Gate cult and I'm the crime scene unit standing over my sock drawer all, "What happened here?" Toes bursting out, heels giving way, it's madness, and never mind the knee-height element, it is really hard to find a non-argyle sock lately. Anyway: Lands' End knee socks. Best $22 I've spent in a while.

Now I know I am not alone. The Whatever looked at me with great concern when I stopped at my apartment one day to get my mail, and a slew of Land's End catalogs were in my pile. "Land's End?" He asked. "Wow, look at this fetching number," he said, pointing to a dress that resembled a red cotton potato sack with holes for the arms. He then showed me a pair of high-waisted jeans paired with a frumpy cardigan set on the MILFish model. I listened to him and laughed, but I pointed out the coats and shoes. I'm glad that Ms. Bunting has made it okay for me to come out of my closet-- I buy things from Land's End. Okay? I'm not a mom, I'm not a woman of a certain age, but I like well-made clothes. Their sweaters last forever, unlike the shitty ones at Old Navy that shrink the first time through the wash. I used to buy my swimsuits from Land's End when I was heavier, because their tankinis actually cover a midsection. And now, I find their knee socks actually cover a knee. For Halloween, I bought thigh-highs at Victoria's Secret, and I fear they will slide down all night since they were sold out of garter belts. If Land's End sold anything sexy, I'd have gotten them there.
Maybe I'm too practical. But I hate when I shell out nearly $50 for a pair of jeans (Gap, I'm looking at you) and they commence unraveling as soon as I wash them. I hate when my sweaters shrink when I follow the label directions. I hate when my new bra from Victoria's Secret that cost $45 unravels. I've taken to buying my bras at Target so when they inevitably sprout elastic fuzz I don't feel bad giving them the heave-ho. So, yes, I like things that last, so I will continue to buy some things from Land's End. I also love my LL Bean red wool coat and purple vest. I don't care if it's something my grandmother would buy-- it's warm and not fug, dammit. I know it's not trendy, but it'll last. I can supplement my good clothes with things from Old Navy and Gap (I'd say H&M here too, but I have good luck with their stuff lasting) to stay au courant. If you need me, I'll be shopping for a minivan.

Odd Headline

A visit to my local NBC affiliate's web site brings this sad story, but with a morbidly funny headline:
Car crashes into church; bursts into flames
Wow. Now, if I drove into a church and damaged it, I think that blasphemy would probably tip the Almighty's scales out of my favor and the car would burst into flames, beginning my trip to the fires that burn but do not consume in the afterlife. Or, perhaps the Almighty would spare me, and I would give up this life of booze and handsome men (if by "men" you mean "man") and dedicate myself to helping my fellow mankind. I'd torch my "enhancing" bras, stop shaving, and live a purely spiritual life.
Maybe I'll take the fiery crash.

"That sinner? Let the motherfucker burn, father. Let the motherfucker burn."

Where is the Love?

From the Pete Bouchard files:

Since I've been home, I haven't remembered to enjoy my Pete Bouchard weather write-up unless my friend gives me the heads-up that he's been especially funny. I'm also missing the fine series of reports titled "Leaf it to Pete." I sincerely hope that it's released on DVD for the holidays, with the bonus feature of his apple-picking report from about a month ago. "Cup, and twist."
Since the weather is such a huge news item today, I remembered to check up on ol' Petey over at channel 7. Either my love is waning, or he's off his game. For example, his introduction:

I've seen busy weather maps in my time, but I ain't seen anything like this since winter. Lows, highs, fronts, cold, warmth, wind, waves - pure weather erotica.

Um, ew. Perhaps "fan fic"? I don't want to think about... oh God. Ew. EW!
But, Pete redeems himself slightly in the meaty part of the write-up:

But with Wilma scooting close to the storm, we may be in for more than we bargained for. If the storm is strong enough, it MAY absorb Wilma, giving us possible nor'cane (new word I made up) where snow is flying on one side of the Commonweath (Berkshires), and the wind and rain are pummeling the other side.

He invented a new word which is actually pretty apt. Well done, Mr. Bouchard. Minus two for the mention of "snow" while only in the tenth month of the year, though. I will throw myself off the roof if I see any white shit flying this week.
And then, there's this abomination. It's a horrible travesty. Brace yourselves. It ain't pretty.

It's tough to keep up, but we'll do our best...
...or you can help yourself with the links below.
I hope your with me when it's over. (Loverboy)

OH HOLY JESUS. I thought he was literate. I thought that the whole "Red Sox will be the AL West champs" slip was brought about by too many cow farts in foliage land. But maybe he's not the budding literary luminary stuck in a large-market weatherman gig I hoped he was. I hate when my faith is challenged, when I must question everything I hold dear. I can only offer my services as a fact-checker and copyeditor for the fine Mr. Bouchard. I wouldn't even charge channel 7 for it-- perhaps just ask for press passes when Sting's in town or something. But this is why people read boston.com for information and not whdh.com-- the content is managed better because they hire people to copyedit it before it goes up. I only want the best for you, Pete. Drop me a line if you want my services. And not like that, you pervs.

Rudimentary

Confidential to Hollywood: Nobody goes to see movies because they suck. No one is going to pay $10.75 to watch a piece of shit movie in a piece of shit theater with astronomically overpriced snack items. Nobody wants to sit through bloody commercials after paying $10.75 plus at least $15 in snacks. People who really care about a great theater experience buy home theater equipment and stay the hell at home.
Take me, for instance. A normal, twenty-something woman who enjoys the arts. I like to watch plays, television, and funny little movies on the internet. I know lots of artsy people (or, people with artsy degrees). There are several movies I'd like to see that are out right now. In Her Shoes, Elizabethtown, North Country, Wallace and Gromit, Good Night and Good Luck, and probably a couple others. Now, the only way I can afford to do this is if I buy a ticket to one showing and spend the rest of the day theater-hopping within the multiplex. I dropped five titles, which, at $10.75 each, is $53.75. If I bring/drag my boyfriend to these movies, it would be $107.50. And we like to eat, so factor that in. For seeing all the movies I want to see, we're well on our way to taking a nice trip somewhere up north for a weekend.
And then there's the problem of other people in the theater. For a while I was on a real bad stretch of wanting badly to kill the moviegoing public. Kristen and I saw Closer last year. A few rows behind us, a girl translated the dialogue-heavy film into Spanish for her boyfriend. The entire movie. By the time the movie was over, I had only half the hair on my head left. Then we went to see Hitch. Behind us sat a cabal of high school girls who would screech their predictions of the plot at the screen. What do people do when they watch programs/movies at home? Do they talk over the whole thing? Shut the fuck up.
So, all told, I'd much rather watch movies at home with people who I feel comfortable telling to shut up. If I need to pee, I can pause the DVD. If I decide life is short and I'd like to go for a walk, I can. If I want to eat a sandwich from Real Deal, I can do so without guilt. None of the movies I see really require a Dolby surround sound setup. Just a screen and some speakers will do.
Maybe if some movies come out with some actual interesting, artistic content and not to function as only a star-builder/-rebulilder/-vehicle/-tabloid-fodder, then we'll talk. Hollywood needs to stop charging theaters so much for the films, theaters need to stop charging so much for snacks and begin a "how not to be an asshole at the movies" education program. Then, gradually, people will come back. But until then, my fellow misanthropes and I will be at home.

Hi, Hello, How Are You?

It's been a while since I've holla'd at you all, so I figured I'd drop in.
I really wish I had something exciting to report, but I don't. I get up early in the morning. I cook my Mom and I breakfast (my brother sleeps as late as possible). I help put water in a bucket so my Mom can take a "shower." I open the door for the blood letter and the physical therapist. I try to make something for lunch. I check my email. Paula's Home Cooking comes on. I help my Mom do exercises. I plan dinner. I watch some primetime TV. The Whatever calls and I fall asleep while talking to him.
Occasionally something fun happens, like a trip to the grocery store or to pick up some Vicodin for my Mom at CVS. I was hoping to get out tonight to go to Target and buy some impulse inexpensive couture, but my brother wants to go out with his friends tonight. I'm picking the Whatever up at the airport and paying bills at my apartment tomorrow night, so I'm sticking around home tonight so he can venture out into the world. Last week I had drinks with my friend S, which was great. She filled me in on the story of a kid who attends my high school alma mater who decided it would be wise to argue the price of an illegal gun he was trying to purchase in Providence, got himself into a heated argument, and got shot. As far as I know, the kid is okay, but still in the hospital. It's sad how kids in this town think they're hip and street, but they live amongst the cows and trees. Any town with a 4-H chapter does NOT have kids with much street sense.
I am going to the walk-in clinic to get my nerdle checked out in a few minutes. Since mid-August, I've had this wart/callous/something on my "ring toe" on my right foot. It hurts to walk on it, and I've let it go too long. I tried to remove it with a callous remover, but it only removed the skin around the nerdle. I hate going to the walk-in place; I think I'll probably end up with avian flu in there. A catch-all of disease and germs. A Petri dish with a killer magazine selection.
Mom's doing well. She walked up the stairs to her bedroom today (quite a feat-- there's about 16 steps) and sat in the car for the first time in two weeks. Hopefully she'll get off the walker and onto crutches, then onto a cane, then fully on both legs at the end of November. It's amazing how the body can heal so fast after such a huge trauma. Her spirits are lifting again too-- last week she was depressed and weepy which wasn't good for me either. Next week she meets with the surgeon for her post-surgery checkup.
I hope all is well out in the world. I hear there's some kind of World Series happening Saturday, no kind of New England football happening this weekend and something called hockey is back. I kind of hope I can get to a P-Bruins game before I come back. Nothing like celebrating athletics in a place named after a donut chain.

Merit

The Parent's Television Council is my sworn enemy.
Their annual list, only marginally more relevant than Mr. Blackwell's worst dressed, congratulates the "family friendly" programs and clutches its pearls when presented with actual amusing content. According to these folks, the best programming on television is Extreme Makeover: Home Edition and Three Wishes. Let that sink in.
These shows have all the trappings of nice. Attractive rich people come in and help out semi-attractive poor people, with the help of the corporations that pay to have lingering shots of their logos marching around the property. Famous people come in to advertise how nice they are. At the end, someone has a new house, or a new leg, or something. But when you think about it, it's kind of a shitty way to treat people. I saw a preview for Three Wishes where the team fixed up one family's house in Louisiana. One family's house. The entire neighborhood is in a shambles and this one family deserves a house? To be fair, Three Wishes avoided the ostentatious McMansion home styling that Extreme Makeover does in impoverished areas. But shouldn't most of the neighborhood get some new houses? What kind of wish-granter only helps one person? Christ, even Jeanie would have blinked up a few trailers without mold for the other people. These programs don't teach great morals. They teach product placement and jealousy.
You should not be watching Family Guy or Arrested Development. Yes, the shows are crude and yes, young kids probably shouldn't be watching them. But they're well written. They're funny. Life is not a sweet candy. Life is a turd coated with candy-- you think it's good until you get to the meat of it. It's messy and crude and full of unsavory situations. I'd much rather my kids (theoretical kids!) watch something witty and crude than a thinly veiled advertisement in the guise of philanthropy.
I'm going to start a group that rates television show on artistic merit. And to those of you who are privy to my television choices, I'd argue that the bitch fights of America's Next Top Model are pure art. Shut up.

Your Own Grande Jesus

Oh Starbucks. In an attempt to be hip, you make yourself dated to people like me.
Jesus belongs in the coffeehouse, per Starbucks. Normally, I'd get all uppity about this, but let's face it. Starbucks lost all credibility with the genuine thinkers when they annihilated most local coffee places (RIP, Curious Liquids) so they may as well continue their takeover of our coffee supply. I'd threaten to boycott Starbucks, but I don't go there much anyway since it's expensive and I largely hate the "gimmegimmemycoffeeNOWcollegestudentIambusyonmyheadsetcellphone" clientele. And, to be honest, I'm used to drinking coffee from a holy vessel.
Those of you from Rhode Island and Connecticut may remember a great chain by the name of Bess Eaton. Ol' Bess was known for being the bastard Dunkin. Inexpensive coffee, pastries and plastic seating. The only differences were Bess' watered-down coffee coming in an awe-inspiring 22oz THE TANK if it struck your fancy. Also, all of Bess Eaton's coffee cups came with a little quote.
See?

Now if anybody was about to get her knickers in a knot about Jesus being everywhere, it's me circa 1999. But, at some point, you've got to weigh your priorities. 22oz of coffee (sweet, delicious, nectar-of-the-gods coffee) or disliking the preaching of religion in a setting where it didn't really matter? Turns out, I'll take coffee, every time.
So when I get bored at work and need a walk, I'll take a stroll to Starbucks and shell out $5 for a gingerbread latte and take my corporate ass-fuck with a little Christian-inspired morality.

Nail, Meet Coffin

There's been lots of good news lately. If you lose weight, you'll have better sex. Diet and exercise will become more popular since gastric bypass surgery is much riskier than we'd thought. (By "we'd" I mean "most people" because the idea of having my stomach cut into bits and being sewn back up does sound fairly serious and risky.) But, in the face of Atkins going bankrupt a few months back, we've got this news:

Nintendo of America is expected to announce today that it will offer free wireless Internet access for its Nintendo DS portable game system at McDonald's restaurants. Customers will be able to play select DS games with other players around the world.

Oh my yes! Please put lazy people together in a place where french fries and soda cost a dollar a pop and allow them to play video games. Encourage people to put on some shoes and walk/drive to their nearest Mickey D's to engage in some Mario Kart. If the signal is strong enough, some of these people will probably just do drive-through and park near the building.
Listen, I know I'm stereotyping video game afficinados. I've been known to engage in the occasional Grand Theft Auto or Mario Kart (which I kick ass in). But I play for about an hour, get bored, and go for a walk. There are some people (my brother) who can sit in front of that thing for hours and never speak to anyone. I think adding greasy and sugary food into the equation with those people, and encouraging them to sit and be sedintary isn't the way to go.

Oh Bother

Harriet, Harriet, Harriet.
I guess I shouldn't criticize you. I should take it up with the man who nominated you, figuring because you're a girl with limited experience no one would find out that you don't like abortion. I should have seen it coming, I suppose. But it still saddens me. I'd like to think AS A WOMAN you'd understand that it's a very personal choice to make. But, AS A FUNDAMENTALIST WHACKJOB I guess you've been parted from your sense of empathy.

No Kidding

Thanks, news, for reporting this bit of essential information. Of course losing weight makes you have more fun in the bedroom. Doy. It is also more likely to get someone in the bed with you. When you feel good, people notice. This is why I need to go for a run, stat.

Veto

If I had a voice, I'd much prefer my coworker's name for the I-195 project in Providence: the Diglet.

Could it Be... Bullshit!?

Are you fucking kidding me with this? We're seriously considering a candidate for the Supreme Court because she's a nice, church-going woman who has only tangential judicial experience? And, for the most part, we're okay with the President openly stating that Miers' evangelical views influenced his decision? Maybe not.

"Read 'em and weep, bitch."
Since I've watched more television in the past week than I have in the past month, I managed to catch an interesting report on NBC Nightly News about the latest MSNBC poll about the President's approval ratings. Tim Russert gleefully reported that the President's approval rating is now below forty percent, the lowest of his five-year (ugh) presidency. Not only that, but in long-overdue evidence that the Republicans have overstayed their welcome, regard the following:

In addition, with 13 months until the 2006 congressional elections, 48 percent say they prefer a Democratic-controlled Congress, compared with 39 percent who want the Republicans to control Capitol Hill. In fact, that nine-point difference is the largest margin between the parties in the 11 years the NBC/Journal poll has been tracking this question.

I don't know who I want in control of Congress. Generally, I agree with the Democrats more, but I'd like both parties to stay the hell out of my personal affairs. I want to have the government running at its most efficient, which it is not. Watching the ineptitude in the face of the Katrina response has only highlighted the fact that our money we send to the federal government isn't being wisely spent. I want the "small government" Republicans to be shown as the pork-barrel project whores they are, and I want the Democrats to grow some balls and call them out on their shit. Hillary Clinton has more balls than the rest of the Democrats, and she's a chick. I think.
Hopefully we can bring some fresh water into the swampish, mosquito-breeding atmosphere that is Capitol Hill. People are getting angry with the government, finally. If only we could have had this response last year during the election. Oh well. Better late than never, I suppose.

Rainy

Is it raining there? It's raining here, too.
Good God, why is it every time my Mom has surgery (and it sucks to write "every time") it pours for the week after when I'm stuck in the house most hours of the day. You can't throw me a ray of freakin' sunshine so I can take a pleasant constitutional around the perimeter of the house? Instead, you make it so I need to cut down some trees and build a freakin' ark?
My mother wants me to write about how much the medical care system sucks. I know that most of you young whippersnappers couldn't care less, but it does suck. My mother had her leg cut open (it's about a footlong incision, y'all), her bones removed and metal ones hammered in. Big stuff. She stayed in the hospital for four days, received physical therapy a grand total of four times (she should have had it about five or six times), was told several different things would happen, none of which did. She had her veins collapse because the blood nurse didn't have the right size needle for her veins. In one shift, my Mom was told she's too short for the walker and that she has veins that are too small for the needles. By the time she got into the rescue (an hour and a half late since a resident couldn't be found to rewrite her prescription) she was nutty. A team of five guys got her in the house, where she plopped into her recliner and napped.
The hospital bed (her bed is on the second floor-- she won't see that for a while) didn't arrive until 9pm because the hospital never called for it. Which wouldn't have been so bad if my Mom hadn't made arrangements with the company before, and if the secretary hadn't assured me the hospital bed was on it's way at 2:30. When I called back at 6pm, they said they had no record of my Mom's order anywhere. I was livid. Then the guy who set up the bed hadn't set up a hospital bed before. He looked like me when confronted by an Ikea bookshelf-- confused and staring at the directions. My Mom slept in fear last night, my brother by her side, afraid the bed would collapse as she rested.
Thankfully, somebody came out today and fixed the bed for my Mom, so she's resting on it now. The physical therapist came and went, saying my Mom looked pretty good. But the trees are swaying, and it looks like it's about to pour. She may be on the mend, but I'm about to lose my mind. Also, I think the battery on my laptop is dying. Again.
I was glad to hear the Yankees got stomped yesterday, sent back to play golf. Yeah yeah, the Sox went a few days earlier without much of a fight. But it was worth seeing Regis Philbin's smug expression dialed down a few notches when he talked about the Yankees loss. He was positively gleeful when the Sox lost. I hate that I know what Regis Philbin thinks about anything.
President Bush was on the Today show, but I was barely conscious when that was on so I have no idea what he said. All I registered was my extreme hatred for Katie Couric.
So, that's about it for now. Hopefully when the sun comes out I'll manage to be more entertaining. Right now, I just want to go back to bed.

Paying Mind to the Woman Behind the Curtain

It is like the entire mafia lives next door to my mother. Women with big hair and patterned shoes parade through our half of the room, tossing either nasty or sympathetic looks to my mother's less glamorous entourage-- my grandfather in his Dickies and worn workshirt, my brother in his "Keep it Real" Nintendo shirt, the Whatever toting his heavy laptop bag, and me, a girl wearing a purple vest and a wan face. When we first arrived there were no chairs for any of my Mom's visitors. We gathered around her, and I teared up at the sight of my mother in her Johnnie, her hair sticking up like a punk-rock halo on the pillow, her face pale, oxygen tubes still in her nose. I collected myself and woke my Mom up, and she smiled as broadly as she could from under the anesthesia. My brother and grandfather patted my Mom's arm while I kissed her forehead. The Whatever said hello, and began to examine the various bags of liquid entering my mother's arm.
This operation didn't take nearly as long as the previous hip. From the time we tearfully bid my mother good luck in the elevator on her way to the OR to when my Mom's socially awkward surgeon came down to the waiting room was about four hours, and she was in her room two hours after that. Last time she spent ten hours parked in the recovery ward on a hard stretcher.
Eventually my feet got sore from standing, and my grandfather was leaning against a wall to hold himself up so I went across the hall and grabbed a chair from another room. There was supposed to be a recliner in my Mom's side of the room, but the woman next to my mother had taken it to her side. I was too tired to argue with the big-haired woman who I assumed was the patient's daughter. My brother and I stood (the Whatever had to return back to Boston for a meeting) and my grandfather sat in the plastic chair until the nurse came in and grabbed the chair away from the other woman, B. My grandfather took the recliner, my brother took the plastic chair, and I sat on the edge of the bed opposite my Mom's operated leg. B's maybe-daughter kept shooting us looks when I could see her from behind the curtain.
My mother was in and out of consciousness as we kept her company, waking up only to ask if it was time for her to press her PCA and inject more morphine into her IV. The display on the machine would display three asterisks when the machine would allow her to take it-- otherwise, it wouldn't do anything. My brother would tell her, but he didn't get much sleep before her operation and he nodded off from time to time. My grandfather watched CNN (he doesn't have cable) and would occasionally sleep too. I was the only one who was still awake, so I kept watching and eavesdropping on B's activities.
In our first day in the room, B's phone rang no less than fifteen times. She had her cell phone and the room phone, both of which rang as she did physical therapy. Both rang as she tried to nap. B's maybe-daughter, who I learned was named Jan, started answering the phone with a stern "she's not available to talk right now, why don't you call back in an hour?" Women with big hair came and went. A young woman, maybe a couple years younger than me, walked in with her backpack on. A great-granddaughter, I thought.
"Hi, B, I'm Dr. F's daughter and he sent me to come in and say hello."
"Oh, hello, dear. You look great. Did you get those oranges I sent you?"
"Yes, I did. They were excellent. It's great living in Florida. Dad's away on vacation right now himself... let me give you my new address at college."
My Mom, in one of her more lucid moments, heard B answer the phone and talk to a woman who's apparently a big-name political commentator in Rhode Island. I assumed B had connections with bigwigs on all levels. I told my Mom to make nice with her.
But Jan kept shooting us looks. She came over as I asked the nurse to bring my Mom some more water (her throat was sore from the trachea tube she'd had during the operation) and took the small pink pitcher from me.
"Come with me. I'll show you where the nurses get the water."
Jan walked briskly in front of me, not looking at any of the nurses. We walked into a door marked "staff only" and a nurse asked if she could help me.
"She's showing me where the water is," I mumbled in reply, afraid any bad behavior from me would make the nurses less willing to help my Mom. The nurse just shrugged and let me go.
"This is the machine," Jan said, dumping ice into the pitcher. "If your Mom wants anything else tonight while you're here, come here. She's probably just on liquids tonight, but if she wants there's ginger ale, diet ginger ale and cranberry juice. I don't know if she's diabetic or not, but there's other stuff to. Like this punch."
I tried to answer Jan's statements, but she handed me the pink pitcher and started to walk out. "I'm a private duty nurse," Jan said, "so I know about all these things. Let me know if you need anything."
I thanked her, and took the water back to my Mom. She smiled and sipped her water slowly, afraid to drink too quickly and get nauseous. We watched the news, lamented the fact it's apparently going to rain for the next five days, and my Mom passed in and out. I heard B talking to Jan about B's daughter's honeymoon.
What a shitty kid, I thought. Who plans a honeymoon for when her Mom has surgery?
Turns out I was wrong. Friday, when I went to see my Mom on her first full day in the room, Jan went out while B slept, so my Mom whispered what she knew about B to me.
"Jan's a hired nurse. B's had a fall or something, so it wasn't planned far in advance and her daughter had already planned the honeymoon, so she told her to go. There's nothing she can really do here. B's been widowed. Her husband was a doctor. Some kind of obstetrician. B had horrible nightmares about being out of bed and falling. I had to call the nurses she was crying so much."
I looked around the room. There's a small closet, a semi-private bathroom, a recliner, a TV, tray table and a bed. I'd visit my Mom wherever she may be, but sitting in the room for even four or five hours is maddening. I can't imagine being stuck in bed, at the mercy of a weekend crew, needing to ask in advance to be helped to the bathroom. It's one thing when you're older like Barbara, who's forty-eight year-old daughter just got married. It must be terrible for my Mom, who's just met her twenty-four year-old daughter's first proper boyfriend this summer and expected to have a few years before she needed to go back again for another hip. The surgeon said this one was completely shot.
B left this afternoon, after waiting all morning with Jan for the resident to read B's x-ray and make sure she was safe to travel to a rehab place for a few days. Jan sat on the edge of the bed as B sat in the plastic La-Z-Boy. Occasionally, Jan would get up and check at the nurses' station to see if the resident had read the x-ray yet, when the rescue would be there to take B to the rehab place. While she was running around, I saw that the sixty-something Jan was wearing pink G-Unit low-top sneakers. I snickered.
A while after I came, a couple of nice guys came in with a stretcher to help B into the rescue. Jan gathered B's stuff up, and B smiled at us as she was wheeled away. She was a frail woman, tall and thin and probably was once a beautiful young woman, and she smiled broadly at my Mom.
"You take care now. It was nice to meet you."
"You take care too," my Mom replied, waving weakly from her bed. "I may be seeing you in a few days if I keep having trouble moving."
"Hopefully not. Good luck to you."
So things go on. I watch crappy cable TV with my Mom (she bemoans the loss of both Food Network and HGTV in the hospital-- she wants to keep up with Paula Deen's antics) and she smiles at me between naps. This hip is more sore than her first replacement-- she just walked to the bathroom tonight, which she did in the morning last time. Before they send her home, she needs to be able to walk up small flights of stairs and use the bathroom without help. Hopefully she'll be able to do this tomorrow, or else we may see B and Jan at rehab. Thanks for all your thoughts-- I'm sure they're helping out. Hopefully when my Mom's back home, I'll be able to write more about interesting things and not hospital-related events. Or, perhaps write more clearly about hospital-events. Because the resident's characterization of the surgeon as "really smart-- he'd rather be operating than home with his wife. Although, I'm sure he loves his wife" was hilarious.
Also, the same Yankees-fan RNA as last time is helping my Mom. I almost requested someone else.
I watched the last few innings of the Sox Squared game with my Mom, who kept waking up and asking "Did they lose yet? Did they come back? They do that sometimes." Unfortunately not. I am in a sense glad that my leaving Boston did not tip the sports karma scale to "awesome, now that Amy's gone."

Gansett

Add this to your list of favorite ghetto beers right now.

How can you say no? The cute can. It's king size, for the love of Pete. And, you'll be supporting a Rhode Island institution (even if the brewery is elsewhere, boo). Also, if you've ever taken the Green Line to Kenmore, you'll see the familiar Narragansett logo as the "artwork" over the benches, slightly obscured to avoid copyright infringement. If it's good enough for long-suffering Sox fans, it's good enough for me.
I actually had one of these beers this summer while sitting on the deck of George's of Galilee, another Rhode Island institution. I wanted something cheap to start the night off, and went with the local favorite. It tasted cheap, but the gold can and plastic cup the waitress gave me didn't lead me to have any lofty expectations. My friend, another native, reminisced about her uncles drinking Narragansett beer at family gatherings. Support your fellow New Englanders, y'all.

File Under "No Shit"

Well, as much as I'd like him to, I highly doubt Joe Torre enters the postseason feeling light as a feather about the whole affair. I just like the headline "always feels pressure." By "pressure" the writer obviously means "Steinbrenner's shit-covered shoe on his neck."
Sadly, today is my only postseason game that I'll watch in Boston, since I'll be making the trip home later tonight to take care of my Mom. But this evening I'll be at the bar, drinking lots for the last time this month (so as not to have my Mom calling and requesting AA pamphlets from her bed) and cursing at the television in public. But I'll be watching (probably from my Mom's tiny television in her room since she doesn't like baseball) from Rhode Island and rooting the boys on. And reading the fabulous sports blogs linked here.

Our little friend doesn't like the Yankees' chances.


Red Sox, let's play so we can earn this trophy again. And make those hotties happy.


Johnny Pesky would like to remind you NOT to suck.


Some of our fiercest warriors prepare for battle.

Enjoy the game tonight, everybody.

I Don't Want No Dead End Job

Monster.com should totally be on this shit. It is now possible to apply for a job that you have no experience with. Not only are you applying for the job, you are applying for the highest position someone in the field can hope for. It's like running for President with little to no experience in politics. Oh, wait...
I guess the White House's trick (I don't think the President himself is clever enough to resort to such chicanery) of nominating someone with a limited paper trail on the issues has worked. I'm not set against her, but it seems that she's going to have a much harder time of getting to sit on a bench in a cool black robe than newbie John Roberts did. Perhaps we can use Miers on a trial basis? Kind of a Supreme Court internship? I'd feel much more confident if Miers would file some papers and take a freshman level Constitutional history final before we give her the okay.
In other Supreme Court news, John Roberts had his first day on the court today. His wife packed his lunch in a Bratz lunchbox, patted him, assured him that that "mean man" Scalia would be nice to him, but she totally gave Scalia some ammo by including a note that read "I love you, honey-pie. Have a great day and remember to say your affirmations."