Welcome to my happily ever after...
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Fourth of July weekend 2004
So much to write, so little time to write it all down. I enjoyed my 3 day weekend for sure, however I felt like I needed to come back to work today to get some rest. Anyone else ever feel like that?
Friday afternoon I got home around 3:30, and I popped in bed and took a big fat nap. Carlos wasn't going to be home from work until about 10 PM that night, so after I ate dinner I decided to kick back with a few beers and relax. A few turned into a lot, and when I woke up the next morning, I counted 17 beer cans in the trash. I somehow managed to drink 17 beers in 5 hours. Needless to say, I didn't feel very good Saturday morning. Also, those of you that were online and got drunken IMs/e-mails, I sincerely apologize. Ugh. I really do need some sort of breathalyzer on my computer. Carlos was happy about it though....we had more sex that night that we've had in the last 6 months. Heck, Carlos will buy the beer for me if I'll put out like that. I have read so much that says that Zoloft can cause side effects such as delayed ejaculation or impotence, however I am having the complete opposite effect. Saturday morning, I had to sit down to pee because otherwise I was going to piss all over the wall behind the toilet. My dong simply would not get soft!
Anywho, we both slept until about 11 AM on Saturday, and after eating lunch, I felt better. Carlos and I then cleaned house and ran errands. One of my favorite things to do is go to Barnes and Noble and just wander around, so we did that for a couple of hours and then went to the grocery store to pick up dinner. After eating, we went to bed at 8:20. On a Saturday night!
Sunday we went to see Carlos's family. They live in an itsy, bitsy little town about 100 miles from San Antonio, and I must say that it is beautiful out there. They live on a working ranch, and I always find it fun to look at all the various animals such as the goats and the cows. There's a guest house that sits next to a big pond, and I enjoy just sitting there on the deck and watching the water. They also have a really great pool with a built in slide and a cave, so his nieces and nephews, along with Carlos and I, swam for hours. I had just buzzed my head that morning, and my scalp is really sunburned right now. Extra crispy.
We then had a big barbecue and ate like pigs. There were ribs, steaks, hot dogs, hamburgers...I was in heaven. About 5 PM, my phone rang and it was my mother calling to say that my grandmother had a stroke. My mother was going to have to drive to the hospital about 200 miles away to see about her, and I would then need to drive my dad to the hospital the next day in my mother's absence. My dad was supposed to be admitted to the hospital for his stem cell transplant now that they were done collecting specimens, and someone had to go with him to help him with admissions and the various tests they would be running. The whole hospital thing is so different than what I originally had thought it was like. For example, you don't just check in and then the nurses take you from place to place. Instead they print you out a schedule and you are responsible for getting yourself from place to place. In my dad's case, his first appointment was at 7:45 AM, then others at 11 AM, 2:30 PM, and 4 PM. My dad is so spacy from all the chemo and radiation that he needs help getting from place to place otherwise no telling where he will end up. Chemo brain. Plus obviously, he doesn't need to go through this by himself.
So to make a short story long, after I got that call from my mom, Carlos and I jumped in the car and made the 2 hour drive back to Houston, where I gathered up some clothes and jumped back in the car and drove to Kingwood to spend the night at the folk's house since the first appointment was so early the next day. I slept like crap that night thinking of everything that is going on right now. Why does everything happen at once?
It did not even register that it was about 9 PM on the 4th of July and I was about to drive through downtown Houston. Right when the city was about to shoot all the fireworks. About 10 minutes into my drive, the cars completely stopped moving, and keep in mind that Interstate 10 is like an 8 lane freeway. So we crawl, and we crawl, and crawl, and all these cars are just stopped in the freeway. When I get to the front of the brouhaha, I see that cars are parked 3 and 4 deep with people having tailgate parties watching the fireworks. On the freeway! I haven't never seen anything like it before and probably never will again (because I never intend to drive on the freeway during the fireworks again). I felt like I was in the fucking "Everybody Hurts" video. All I have to say is that people must be pretty damn desperate for some free fun if they will load up the family and then park in the family car in the middle of Interstate 10, one of the biggest freeways in the world. It took 2 hours to get 40 miles. I was not amused.
So Monday morning, my dad I got up at 5:45 AM and headed for the hospital to begin our super long day. He goes for his appointment while I gather up a ton of good reading material and make my nest. He's done with that first appointment around 10 AM, and we headed to the cafeteria to get something to eat. They have a Chik-Fil-A there! Who knew? So I gorge myself of chicken nuggets and fries and call my mother. Turns out that she won't be coming home that day, that my grandmother is worse than they originally thought. That being the case, someone has got to keep an eye on my parents house/gather the mail/pick up the paper/etc, and we hadn't made plans because my mother was supposed to be coming back that day. We decide that the next door neighbor can do it, so I call him and ask him to do this for a couple of days until my mom gets back. So cut to me saying:
"Umm....you mean you don't have a key to their house? What happened?"
Turns out that my dad had locked himself out of the house and had gotten the spare from the neighbor and had never given it back. So no one has a key to get in. So I hop in the car and make the 40 mile drive back out there, give the key to the neighbor, jump back in the car and drive to the hospital, and get my dad to the next appointment. Somehow I do this all in less than an hour and a half.
So while he's in there, I read. And I read. And I read. And I sleep. And I read. Then I sleep some more. They are supposed to admit my dad to his room at 6:00, and after he is settled I can go home. My dad comes into the waiting room at 6 and tells me that they have told him that there are no rooms for him that night. They underestimated how many people would be checking in the hospital, and unfortunately he would have to go home and then come back the next day (which is today). So we get back in the car, I drive him back home to the house, then get back in the car and drive back to my house. That whole trip to take the key to the neighbors was for nothing.
I finally got home around 7:30 last night, and I must say, I was exhausted. Nothing is more tiring that WAITING for something and DRIVING, and that pretty much is what I did the whole weekend.
So my grandmother is okay. They are testing to see what exactly happened and we should find out later today. My mother is still there with her.
My dad is having to drive himself to the hospital today to admit himself for his stem cell transplant. He'll be there for at least 2 months, and somehow or another my mother and I are going to have to figure out how to get the car home out of the parking garage there. That's the least of our concerns though, but at $20 a day for parking, we need to keep it in mind.
Carlos is beside himself happy that his family liked me and how well I got along with all the kids. I've never been around children and was somewhat apprehensive, however I learned that although I myself never allowed myself to be a child, I do let that down when I'm around kids. I had just as much fun sliding down that big slide as they did.
If you are curious, here are some photos from this weekend.
10:27 a.m. - 2004-07-06
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