Day 4

All of your comments have been really overwhelming. Thank you so much for taking the time to write and think of us. It's 4:30am again, and while the house sleeps, I'm getting ready to go back down into the city.

We had a large snowstorm on Sunday night, so Hubby and I had to drive into the city together yesterday. Luckily the sun melted it all off the roads, so I'm going to leave soon and spend the morning up there, and Hubby is going to take over in the afternoon.

I have a fear---as irrational as it is---that if we're not there, he's going to get worse. Who am I kidding, right? We're not doctors. We're helpless. But I can't shake it.

They have Big Kid heavily sedated so he won't fight the ventilator and try to breathe on his own. On Sunday he didn't respond to us, although the nurse said that when they lowered the sedation, he was responding appropriately.

When we first got there, his respiratory therapist, who I'll call Frank, was finishing up. He's a cranky no-nonsense cuss, but has been amazingly gentle in working with our son, and amazingly gentle with two semi-hysterical parents. "He had a good night", he told us. "He's still a very sick young man, but he's stable."

We learned that they had been able to dial back his oxygen support to 70%. On Saturday, Big Kid had been on 85%, on Sunday 80%, so this is good, right? They won't be able to take him off the ventilator until he is around 35%, but it's a step forward.

His heart rate was down in a normal range too. On Sunday it was 125. Now it is 79. He's maintaining a temperature of a little over 100.

Baby steps.

Big Kid and I have a silly thing between us. If he's calling to check in, or I'm calling him, and we don't reach each other, we don't leave messages. If everything is going ok, we leave something that is a mixture of ululating and a raspberry.

So Hubby and I gloved and masked up, and when I leaned over him to tell him we were here, it just came out.

Blublublubluablua!

His eyes flew open and he struggled to focus. We're here, Sweetie, I told him and he squeezed my hand.

Baby steps.

Every time we come to his room, Fox News is on the TV. It's not bad, just odd. The sound isn't on, so he isn't aware of it, but Hubby and I wonder who the channel changer is. I moved my chair next to the bed so I could hold his hand, while Hubby flipped through channels---trying to find something that wouldn't warp his twilight dreams if we turned the volume up. We settled on TV land and watched Leave it to Beaver and the Beverly Hillbillies (what were we thinking?).

Hubby and I took a break and went to the family room to get a drink. Those masks really dry your throat up. He went off down the hall to make some business calls and I sat on the couch and closed my eyes.

A few minutes later, a small woman came and wordlessly dropped into the chair next to me. In moments she started rocking back and forth and keening. "Oh God, save her! Save my baby! Please God!" Then she started praying in Spanish.

I got her some kleenexes (short supply in the family room) and asked her if I could get her something to drink. She told me that her daughter, who has lupus, recently had a baby and her kidneys had completely failed. She and her husband and children had driven in at 3am from a town which is several hours away.

We held hands and cried together. Two mommies terrified for our babies.

Later the doctor who is on this week came out to update us. He sat in a chair opposite and just looked at us. "How is he doing?" Hubby finally asked.

"He isn't any better." the doctor said flatly.

I felt like he had reached in and ripped my guts out. What?? What are you talking about?

"Well what is his prognosis?" Hubby asked. I wanted to reach out and clap my hand over his mouth.

"It's bad," the doctor said.

But what about his temperature, and his blood pressure, and the oxygen levels? I blabbered. He was at 85andnowheisat70andthathastobegoodright?

"It won't mean much until he is under 50".

I started to cry. Again. "Can't you give us something? Something to hang our hope on?"

We were stunned. Later Hubby said that he sure hoped this doctor is some kind of medical genius, because his bedside manner sucks. I leaned my head against him and said, "go kick his ass for making your wife cry."

"You want me to?" My hero. He's my hero.

Late in the afternoon, I leaned over Big Kid and touched his face. "We're leaving now, but we'll be back soon."

His eyes flew open again and he tried to talk. He started getting agitated. "Do you want us to stay?" I asked, and he nodded his head. The nurse gave him some more sedatives so he wouldn't fight the ventilator, and we held his hands until he went back to sleep.

I didn't mean to go on for so long, but once I started, it keeps pouring out.

Critical, but stable. Stable is good. Stable is good.

Thanks again for all your words of support and love.

Update...

Thank you all so much for all your kind words and prayers.

I have been a half of an inch away from absolute hysteria for the past two days.

He's a strong young man. He's a strong young man. I have to keep telling myself that.

Now that we're home and not at the hospital, each time the phone rings, my heart jumps into my throat in case it's the hospital saying he's worse. Or worse than worse.

He's a strong young man. He's a strong young man.

Another young man from our town was down in the city in the same ICU unit. They had to remove part of one of his lungs. We passed his parents and sister in the elevator, and I thought---OMG, I know them. Typically, the daughter was one of the passel of girls who had been calling the house when The Happening Dude first came to be with us.

Another strong young man.

Our boy had a bad night. The xray on his left lung showed that it was worse. They switched him to another type of ventilator to give him more support. Unfortunately, they had to sedate him more, so I don't know if he even knew we were with him all day. Yesterday, he was able to squeeze my hand. Today he wasn't.

The good news is that his fever was down from 104 to 100. His heart rate was down to a better level as well. The Xrays showed that his heart was enlarged, but it was a portable Xray machine, so they weren't positive. An echocardiogram showed that it wasn't and there wasn't fluid around his heart either, which is what they were fearing. His blood pressure bottomed out after he was admitted, and they've been keeping it up with fluids and medication.

He's a strong young man. He's a strong young man.

His kidneys are working fine. His blood gases were very good today. He has color in his face, which is hopeful. He's on three strong antibiotics.

He's not breathing on his own, but the machines are keeping his oxygen levels where they should be. He just needs time to maintain and heal.

He's a strong young man.

I debated about whether or not to write about this, but there is a scream---a violent, overwhelming, primal scream---trapped in my chest. It's so big that I don't think it will fit through my throat or my mouth without tearing me apart from the inside out. This is something that we never imagined would happen to us, no matter what we saw on the TV, because the kid really just never goes anywhere. Or hasn't in the last couple of weeks.

We thought it was JUST A COLD----on Tuesday we bought him cold medicine and he said he was feeling better, and three days later---it just happened SO FAST!

The doctor said that the virus can live up to 5 hours on surfaces such as steel, like on shopping carts and things like that.

Be vigilant. Wash your hands. Carry sanitizing wipes or gel or whatever you can get your hands on, and wipe down public surfaces before you touch them. This flu is truly a raging inferno that is attacking our young people with an insatiable hunger.

My boy, my precious boy...

Thank you again for all of your kind wishes and prayers, my friends. Please keep them coming.

He's a strong young man. Please pray that he is strong enough.

Prayers

It's 4:30 A.M., and I'm getting ready to go back into the city.

Big Kid had a cold earlier this week, I bought him some cold medicine, and he said he was feeling better.

His girlfriend found him unresponsive when she came home from work the night before last.

He's in septic shock and respitory failure due to complications from H1N1. He has pneumonia in both lungs and is on a ventilator.

The only places he's been in the last two weeks is our house, the grocery store, and out to dinner one night. The doctor said there are 10 young people in his unit with the same thing. It's extremely virilent.

We thought it was just a freaking cold, dammit!

If your child has a cold, or flu-like symptoms, take him or her to the doctor right away. And again, and again, if you have to.

Please send prayers and healing thoughts to our boy.

Real Men Don't Speak Armani

Sorry I've been MIA, but my old monitor went to the place where dead monitors go. Then of course, we had to do some comparison shopping down in the big city, and dang, who has the time?

Being computerless, I was able to catch up on all the shows I DVR'd. The commercial campaign for Giorgio Armani's new fragrance Idole just stuck in my brain. Have you seen it?

Some sappy disembodied male voice drools all over a vacuous model who replies with vague (I think they were trying for enigmatic) statements that make no sense at all.

Who the f*ck talks like that? Seriously?

I watched it with Hubby and said, "Just out of curiosity, how come you never say things like that to me?"

He looked at me like I had just sprouted a third foot. On my head.

"Uh---real men don't speak Armani."

And he's right. In our house, the conversation would probably go like this:

Hubby (As Armani Guy): I have been searching all my life for a woman like you!
Me: You mean a woman who admires your unique ability to snore and fart at the same time?

Hubby: You fascinate me.
Me: No. I will never be drunk enough to do that thing with the handcuffs and the big hairbrush ever again. Stop asking. I mean it.

Hubby: You are my idol.
Me: Yeah, Buddy. Get your idol some iced tea.

Tres sexy, no? LOL

Guess Who's Feeling Right at Home?

Seems like Little Missy has gotten over her "new girl" issues. ;-)

Gak!

I know I just did a WTF post, but it seems like lately the world is just full of WTFs.

The other day, I read an article about the world's record holder for the longest fingernails. Before she was in a car crash this past February (which apparently broke some of her nails), each nail was almost 3 feet long. The 68-year-old great-grandmother had been growing them for thirty years.

The first thought that went through my mind when I saw her picture was "GAH! MY EYES! MY EYES!"

The second was, "How in the heck did she drive a car like that? It's a wonder she didn't have LOTS of accidents!"

Well, the article didn't actually say if she was driving or not, so I guess maybe we could infer that she was a passenger in the vehicle.

And of course---being me---the next question I had was, "How in the world did she wipe her own ass?"

Even with one of those long wipey-stick things you can get from a medical supply store, her nails would still get in the way, and unless she had 5-foot-long arms, I can't see how she could maneuver it.

So did she have someone wipe her butt for her like Henry VIII or did she just sit in her own fug all the time?

Was the wiper a relative? A paid companion? How much would a professional butt-wiper make these days, considering that medical insurance or medicare prolly wouldn't cover a home health-aide worker for someone who is willfully disabled?

How did she bathe? Dress? Or even sleep, for Pete's sakes? Did she hang off the rafters like a bat at night? Is she married? Could you imagine crawling into bed with those at the end of the day?

Since the article said she had been growing her nails for 30 years, and they were almost 3-feet long each, I did an off-the-cuff calculation of nail growth of around 12 inches every 10 years. So at age 48, her nails would have been a foot long (Can you smell a Mythbusters experiment coming on?).

On Sunday, I decided to try it out. Just for a little while to see what it would be like. We had company coming Monday for a cookout, and I needed to get cracking with the cleaning.

But first I needed to gather some information.

Honey, I asked. If I broke both my arms, would you be willing to wipe my butt for me for 6 weeks or so?

"I don't see how I'd have much of a choice".

That's my man. He's put up with me, my kids, miscellaneous spot-welding in the middle of the night, my nose-hose and other downright annoying habits for the last 17 years.

What if I was uh---disabled on purpose? Would you wipe my butt for twenty or thirty years?

He gave me the hairy eyeball. "Only if you were getting a million dollars annually and I got special seats at the Superbowl every year."

Well yeah, I get it. True love only goes so far. I wouldn't wipe HIS butt for 30 years either.

So I duct-taped wooden skewers to my fingers. I felt like Attila Scissorhands. It lasted about 3 hours.

Could I wash dishes? Not really. I had to "palm" the glasses, turn them over, and try to grip them from the bottom to put them in the washer. Then I had to kind of grab the scrub brush in the joint between my thumb and first finger to scrub plates, and damn, that hurt!

Could I wipe the counters? Took at LEAST twice the time it would normally take. Had to wipe sideways to try to get the edges, and I could only go as far as 10-inches from the wall and between the microwave, etc.

Could I make the bed? Forget it. Then again, I rarely make the bed, so I guess it doesn't matter.

Could I vacuum? Ok, I was able to get that under control. But if my "nails" were any longer, I don't think it would happen.
Could I do Laundry? No. Could I empty the garbage cans? No. Could I pick up dog poop? No (and amazingly enough, the dookie wasn't from Little Missy, but from our OTHER little yorkie, who is misbehaving in protest for bringing the interloper into HER home).

Could I skewer a poopy little dog and roast her over an open flame?

Absolutely.

Could I poke the men in my household to do the stuff I couldn't do? Yep.

Now came the bathroom test. I was able to slide my pants down with my palms. But when it came time to wipe? Gah!

Tried to wipe down the front way. The "nails" ran into the side of the bowl. Tried the back way. Same problem.

I ended up standing up, kicking off one pant leg and putting my foot on the stool.

Yeah, that worked. I also stabbed myself in the thigh.

Then I couldn't figure out how to put my pants back on again. I shuffled over to the bathroom door, cracked it and called, "Honey? Sweetie? Could you come here and help me for a minute?"

Hubby poked his head in the door. Took in me with my "nails", my pants down around an ankle---and zeroed in on the box of Tampons that happened to be sitting on the counter (just got them from the store and hadn't put them away yet).

"No." he said. "Oh HELL no!" And slammed the door.

So I tore those suckers off and called it a day. How in the heck could a person function with 1-foot fingernails, not to mention 3-FOOT fingernails?

Fingernail Woman says that the car crash (and subsequent nail breakage) "robbed her of her identity".

I'd say it more or less "robbed" her of being waited on hand and foot like she's been for the last 20 or so years. I can't believe the level of self-indulgence it would take to have this kind of hobby or how a family could enable it by decades of servitude.

Guess it's time to pull yourself up by those bootstraps, Lady.

All on your own, this time.

Oops, I Did it Again...

Became a mommy, that is. ;-)

Have to introduce the newest member of our household...Little Missy.

A business acquaintance of Hubby's knew we had a couple of Yorkies and asked if we knew of someone who would be willing to take on an elderly dog. The dog's current owners didn't think they could handle her any more and were thinking of putting her to sleep if they couldn't find her a new home.

"Is she sick?" asked Hubby.

No.

"Vicious?"

No.

"Why in the hell would they put her to sleep then?"

Turns out, Little Missy had some peculiar habits ingrained by her original owner, and just wasn't fitting into the household, even after 8 months. The current owners had tried real hard, but they were miserable, the dog was miserable and they knew it would be hard to place her.

For the first 12 years of her life, Little Missy was the sole companion of an elderly woman. Not only did the woman HAND feed her, but apparently never allowed her to go outside. For anything. Ever. She allowed her to void whenever and wherever, and just cleaned up after her.

Maybe the dog's name was really Little Messy.

After the woman died, her niece, who is a neighbor of the current owner, took Little Missy in until they could find her a new owner. The dog, never having been trained to eat from a bowl (or it could have been grief), wasted away to 2 1/2 pounds.

The children of the current owner had lost their dog when it got hit by a car. They heard that the niece was looking for a home for Little Missy and offered theirs. How much trouble could a little Yorkie be?

LOL.

They were able to train her to eat from a bowl, and fattened her up. They were able to partially potty train her, but the poor dog is half-blind and kept getting lost in their backyard. She'd get scared and hide when they called her, so they'd have to do a lot of hunting.

They couldn't crate her at night, because she howled all night long. They couldn't leave her out of the crate, because she pooped and peed all over the house in the middle of the night. They finally came to a compromise...when she was in the house, they put her in diapers.

And let her sleep on their bed.

Above all, they had small children running around, and it scared the dog. Plus they both worked full-time, so they'd crate her for most of the day. They just didn't feel that they could handle her another winter, and being crated up most of the time was no life for her.

So we got a new baby.

Boy, is she a sweetie. After a lot of butt-sniffing, our dogs welcomed her to the pack. Maybe a little too enthusiastically at first---she was a little standoffish the first day.

We were worried a bit about the night thing, because we crate our dogs at night. But we put her carrier over in dogtown, and there hasn't been a peep out of her at all. I think she was just lonely.

As for the pooping and peeing thing...she isn't incontinent, and she doesn't soil her crate. She's had a couple of small accidents, but we let the little yorkies out every hour, and she has easily found the "potty place" outside and goes. We all just have to get used to the schedule, and she needs to let us know when she has to go, as do the other dogs.

The only real issue is that she is not a lap-sharer. While the other Yorkies are more than willing to share the "prime" snuggle spot with her (which happens to be Daddy's crotch), she isn't willing to share with them. If she gets there first, then she wants it all to herself.

The other dogs sense this, so it has become a battle over the crotch. Bet Hubby is just loving it---all these females fighting over the manly parts. ;-)

The other quirky habit is that she has a stuffed pink elephant that she drags around and humps quite frequently. Kitty (Big Kid's girlfriend) forgot a small stuffed animal she carries around in her purse (it's a mini-Tigger), and Little Missy got a hold of it last night. Tigger was completely and thoroughly assaulted.

If she wasn't already attached to her name, I think we'd call her Nova. Oddly, her hind legs are a little longer than her front, and her butt is jacked up like a '72 Chevy Nova.

All in all, I think she's going to fit right in!

Sometimes You Just Gotta Say...

So a guy gets drunk, goes home, gets nekkid and passes out in bed.

Except it isn't his bed.

He's in the wrong house. He actually lives a block or so over.

The bed's occupant, a 6-year-old boy, goes into his parents' room and wakes them up.

"Mommy, Daddy! There's a man in my bed!"

When police arrive, the homeowners are screaming at them from their second-story bedroom window.

As they enter the house, the police find items of clothing on the floor, smelling of booze and urine as they make their way to the second floor. And yes, they also found drunken guy passed out in the kid's bed. So they arrested him.

Now comes the WTF part.

Nekkid guy's defense?

First one is out of the "These aren't my pants!" playbook (where a suspect on Cops gets patted down and the cops find dope in his pocket. He screams, "These aren't my pants! I've never seen these pants before in my life!").

He denies that he went to the wrong house.

You mean like that whole family snuck into HIS house and set up shop while he was at the bar to play a prank on him?

His other defense is that the cops only arrested him because they were racially profiling him.

Arrested while Irish? snarf.

Dude, you messed up. Take it like a man. Sheesh!

Collectors are Weird, Part 1

Ok, we're done, we're finally done with all the records!!

Well, the 10-inch 78's at least. Everything is paid for and shipped, and I'm free! I'm free!

There's still a couple of hundred 12-inch 78s, vinyl 45s and vinyl 33s to go through. That's for another month, because I'm damn tired and going to take some time off.

We ended up selling about 450 10-inch 78s in around 7 weeks. Most were on eBay, quite a few were private sales to collectors from around the world.

Now mind you, for those who haven't been following this---my step-dad collected records for most of his life. He left a collection that numbered around 700 records when he passed away several years ago. My mom hung on to them for awhile and waffled about how to dispose of them. Pops had several large collections---along with the records, there were stamps and antique photography equipment. And other miscellaneous crap---er stuff.

Through a member of her church, she was steered towards a "reputable" dealer (apparently a relative of the member) who looked the collection over and told her they were worth a dime a piece and offered her 70 bucks for the whole shebang. I protested, and ended up with the entire collection (30+ boxes) in my living room.

Well, although it was a lot of work, I'm freaking glad I did.

The grand total on about 450 records that were "supposedly" worth a dime a piece, ie: 45 bucks?

Drumroll please...

Over eleven thousand dollars.

Isn't that amazing?

It's like those stories you read where somebody finds an undiscovered Picasso in their attic. My mom is quickly spreading the word throughout her senior citizen community not to automatically trust a "trusted relative" of someone to give an accurate assessment of their belongings. Especially when they offer to buy them at that price.

I thought originally maybe we could get a couple of thousand. I knew nothing about records, but did some internet research and recognized some of the artists. Like Charlie Parker and Martha Copeland. Thought they might be worth well more than a dime.

And of course, there was a ton of artists I'd never heard of, but were apparently quite collectible. Tub thumping, jug blowing, doctor syncopating, jazz flowing, skillet-licking, plaza orchestrating stuff. Who knew Pops was so hip in his younger years?

So back to the "Collectors Are Weird" part.

About the third week in, I listed a bunch of country records on eBay early one evening.

Hubby was at a late meeting, was due home about 6pm, the boys were otherwise occupied until late (domino's pizza and the late show), I figured we could have an intimate dinner for two with some serious nooky included. I had a seafood dinner ready to stick under the broiler, had showered and smoothed and foofed (and consumed a couple of glasses of wine in the meantime).

Hey, you gotta steal those moments when you can!

The Love of My Life wasn't home yet after all the preparations, so I went downstairs to the office to check on the auctions.

I had a message in my ebay "inbox".

A very lovely man named George wrote to me and said, "I've been following your auctions and I just wanted to let you know that this particular record you just listed for a 6.99 starting price is very collectable. I'm not trying to buy it from you, because I happen to have an outstanding copy of it, but I think that soon you will have several people writing to you and asking you to end the auction for their offer. If it's in the condition you have described, this record is worth between 100-300 dollars."

There was more, and he was very friendly, so I wrote him a thankful note back (not thinking that anything was going to really come from it). When I exited out, I noticed that my inbox has increased by 3 emails.

One offered 70 dollars if I ended the auction and sold to them. The next offered 100 dollars. The final one said, "if you end the auction, I'll make you a very good offer".

Now I was intrigued. Hmmm. I wrote back and coyly asked, "How good is a very good offer?" He responded with "Call me. Now." And left his number.

If this sounds all cloak and daggery, I have to explain something about eBay. If you're not familiar with the rules it goes like this: When you list an item for sale, you can pretty much do what you want with it (pull it off and sell it on the side, change the terms of the auction etc) UNTIL you get a first bid. Then you are contractually obligated to follow through to the end. Unless of course, the item breaks or something and you can't sell it. Otherwise, you have to follow through.

Obviously eBay frowns on people using their site to hook up and sell off of it, because they don't get their fees. So if someone makes you an offer, and you don't already have bids on the item, you can manually go in, add a "Buy it Now for xxxxx (the agreed price)" to the auction, the collector then can swoop in and purchase it through eBay and everybody is happy.

But time is of the essence and you have to do it fast before someone realizes what a treasure you have there and makes the first bid. ;-)

So I call the guy, and he offers 80 bucks for the record. I said, no thanks, I've already got an offer for 100.00.

Interested Buyer: "You say in your listing that there's only one small wear spot on the record. Could you describe it to me?"

Me: Wha? Describe it?

Interested Buyer: "Is it gray? Is it dull and black? Is it black and shiny?"

Me: Hang on a sec. I have to go look. After cleaning and grading a couple of hundred records they all tend to be one big blur after awhile.

So I took phone and wine glass and toddle up to the first floor to find the record.

Pulled the record, had the phone between my shoulder and ear and held the record up to the light. I couldn't find the wear mark. So I took off my glasses and looked close.

The guy kept telling me to hurry, and I was a LITTLE tipsy. I kept up a running commentary.

Oh! I found it! Well, it's not gray, it's not dull and black or even shiny and black.

Interested Buyer: (impatiently) "What does it look like?"

It looks like a sparkly fingerprint.

Interested buyer: "A what?"

A sparkly fingerprint. And there's another. How weird.

Interested Buyer (who is at this point quite bewildered): "What in the world are you talking about?"

Suddenly it dawned on me. Those were MY sparkly fingerprints. Oh my God, it must be my lotion!

I started babbling. It's my lotion. My hubby is due home and my kids are gone, and I was hoping to get lucky tonight so I put on sparkly lotion. It must be on my hands. Nevermind---I found the wear spot. It's smaller than the head of an eraser and it's shiny and black.

So he made me a generous offer, I ran downstairs and amended my auction to his offer, he purchased and I sent him an email promising to ship immediately and thanked him. Then hubby came home, I crowed about the incident, and I thought that was the end of it.

The very next day, Interested Buyer called ME. Several times while I was out. I guess he took my number off his caller ID from the night before. That kind of annoyed me, because I certainly didn't extend to him an invitation to call me after our transaction.

I called him back. "Do you have a pen and paper?" was the first thing he said after I identified myself. And proceeded to abruptly rattle off a bunch of record numbers and label names.

"Do you have Okeh?"

No.

"Champion?"

No.

"Gennet?"

No.

"You sound awfully sure."

I AM sure. I might not know of the top of my head the artists' names, but I'm sure on the labels.

"Vocalion?"

Yes, I had a couple, but I sold them.

"What were they?"

I told him.

He made a little whimpering sound. Yes folks, he actually whimpered.

At this point I was a getting a bit impatient. I'm just about to walk out the door to go to the post office to mail your records, I informed him.

"Ok Bye." He hung up. Just like that.

He called me the next day. And the next. Did I have a chance to go through the rest of the records? Did I mail his parcel priority mail? Oh, he has more numbers to put on his wish list.

WTF is up with this guy? I asked my husband.

"Maybe he's hoping for more sparkly lotion talk," he snickered.

I finally went through all the records and found a few that were potentially on his wish list. I called him and asked him if he was interested. They weren't artists he collected.

He thanked me politely and that was the end of that. He got his record and left me wonderful feedback on eBay.

I wrote to George, the eBayer who had originally wrote to me about the value of the record. I thanked him for his "head's up" and described the whole encounter.

He wrote back and said, "Is his name xxxxxxx?"

Why yes. Yes it was!

Turns out, the collecting world is pretty small. Many of the serious collectors know each other, because they go after the same stuff. And my buyer was a rather eccentric man known for once dropping 5 figures for an obscure record.

Before he signed off on that email, George added a final line.

"Collectors are weird".

'nuff said. LOL

Karma Will Get You Every Time!

Ok this is a roundabout adventure we had in the last couple of months and boy, did it teach ME a lesson. It's a little long and convoluted, so bear with me!

Before I disappeared at the beginning of summer, I wrote about two things regarding The Happening Dude, my nephew who is now living with us. You can scroll back to read it if you like.

One was about how we had him completely evaluated psychologically and physically. He has monthly psychiatrist appointments, although it's basically a med check for the one remaining medication he has to take. The doctor doesn't provide therapy, just monitors how he feels physically on the med. But the appointment is way down in the city, over an hour drive each way, and doesn't last more than 5 minutes.

"How are you feeling?" Doc asks.

"I'm ok", says THD.

We've been trying to set up "phone appointments", but apparently Medicaid (he has Medicaid because he is a foster/adopt child) frowns on that.

The second time I wrote about him was regarding an ethical situation---the difference between stealing and "borrowing". We talked about Karma and the variations on that.

"You reap what you sow", we've warned him. "What comes around goes around".

Before we did our "Extreme Makeover" (which I blogged about) of kitchen and bath a couple of years ago, we bought new appliances and had our kitchen counters raised 3 inches because we are a tall tribe.

When I first met Hubby, he owned a successful restaurant/bar. Once in a while he had to fill in as souse chef, prep worker, whatever, if people didn't show up, quit, were fired, etc. Eventually he learned enough from the head chef, so that he filled in as co-chef when they got slammed.

In our home, when we did the appliance makeover, he was the "expert", and went to some scratch and dent/discontinued item discount floor show and brought home HIS fantasy fridge, stove and dishwasher.

None of them are particularly practical for day-to-day use with a busy family. Like they're going to stay looking great forever. There's a reason they've been discontinued---doh!

The dishwasher works great. Except when it's Hubby's turn to wash the dishes. He thinks that for the amount of money we spent that it should automatically clean the baked-in crap on lasagne dishes, the rock-hard congealed melted cheese between fork tines and on spatulas.

He just loads whatever is in the sink and gets mad when after they don't come out clean, I put them back in the sink with instructions to "use a little elbow grease" since it's all been baked back in like concrete during the hot dry cycle.

Really. I'm a busy woman, and I'm nobody's housebitch. One day a week Hubby does the dishes, and dammit, he better get them right! I've trained the other guys to apply the scrubber on tough stuff when it's their turn, but between you and me, I believe Hubby prolly thinks the dishwasher should fold his clothes and give him a blow-job as well. ;-)

The flat top stove is well----a flat top stove. You can't keep it pristine unless you do all the cooking and automatic mess cleaning yourself. And I don't and I won't. It gets used by other people in the household. Sometimes things boil over and/or get burned.

The worse thing is the fridge. I understand why it's been discontinued, because it's a logistical nightmare.

The picture above is representative to the style we have. It's not the same brand, however. For the last couple of years, this fabulous stainless steel fridge has been a humongous thorn in my butt.

First off, any time ANYONE touches it---it gets fingerprints on it. You can't polish it up with a spritz of Windex, because that will ruin the finish. You have to use water, Dawn and an extra dry polishing towel, or a special Stainless Steel cleaner.

The top half is the fridge, the bottom is the freezer.

The fruit and veggie crisper drawers are on the bottom of the fridge section. Which is placed on the very top of the automatic ice maker in the freezer section, so all the fresh fruit and veggies freeze. No matter how we tried to adjust the temperature controls located in the top half of the fridge, any salads or fruits would freeze and then limp around when we tried to defrost them.

So ultimately, the drawers have been used to store things that could get frosty without care.

Like Bacon. And beer. Which practically never moves because Hubby drinks like 3 beers a month.

I resent it. Hell yes, I do. The rest of the fridge is cluttered up with bags of fruit, heads of lettuce, etc.

The freezer has a pull-out drawer on the top. The ice-maker is attached at the top on the left hand side. It has one of those wirey lever things that is supposed to move up with the accumulation of ice and stop when it is moved up to the top.

Except that every time you pull the drawer out, unless you consciously reach way in and make sure the lever is in the top position first, the very act snaps that little lever off and it flies to wherever in the freezer section.

And until you open the freezer again and notice it, it continues to make ice. Overflowing ice. Ice everywhere. Filling every nook and cranny.

My guys aren't terribly conscientious and forget constantly. So frequently when I open the freezer drawer, gallons of ice comes pouring out.

So back to my story. Yes, yes, I digress!

Early in the summer, the refrigerator seemed to stop being cold. We called the repairman, who came and said that the defroster in the main part of the motor in the freezer section had stopped working, and the vents got covered in ice, so that the cold air couldn't flow to the fridge part. He defrosted it, so the cold would flow until he ordered the part and came and fixed it in a week. No biggie. Just a 200 dollar repair bill. Heh. One of many.

I've been all caught up in getting rid of my step-dad's record collection. I had a buttload of records to clean, grade, scan, list and specially pack to ship when we got a call on a Tuesday reminding us of The Happening Dude's appointment down in the city for a med check on Thursday.

Now mind you, it wasn't urgent. He had 5 freaking refills. I was really tired and not looking forward to packing and shipping about a hundred records in the next few days. I rarely miss or reschedule appointments for any of our guys, but the thought of wasting 2 hours to drive down to the city for basically a BS appointment just got the better of me.

Ok, yes I was justifying my bad behavior. I admit it.

So I said, "something's come up, can we reschedule?"

The receptionist said, "well what's come up?"

Gah! That threw me for a loop. Didn't think she'd actually ask.

Mindful of Karma, I didn't say---well, my mom's sick, or I'm sick, or my kid's sick, or my car's broken down, etc....didn't want to wish harm on any of us.

So I blurted out, "My fridge is on the fritz and the repairman can't come until Thursday morning."

And we rescheduled. The Happening Dude was there during the conversation, and he said, "Why did you lie?"

I was on my justifying streak and replied, "Well.....I figured that since I didn't ever have to use the excuse to cancel anything when the fridge broke down a few weeks ago, maybe Karma would be on my side."

Ha.

Friday morning, it was apparent that there was no cold to the fridge OR the freezer. The lights worked, but nobody was home.

I called the repairman's office. "He was just out here a couple of weeks ago,", I wailed. "Now NOTHING is working!!"

He didn't service our area until the following Wednesday. Luckily, we could put all of our freezables out into the freezer in the garage. Everything else went into coolers with a lot of ice.

And The Happening Dude gave me crap all weekend..."see! it's Karma!"

I bribed him to keep his mouth shut, and Hubby and I spent the next few days trying to jigger our budget to figure out if we could just buy a new fridge, because this one has been more trouble than it is worth. Who knows how much the new repair bill would be? Would it be worth it?

So the repairman comes up on Wednesday, looks it all over and says, "well, everything's turned off."

What? No it's not. I showed him the control dial in the fridge. It was set on high. Nothing. No game.

"Oh those aren't the controls," he said. "Look here".

He pulled out the bottom freezer part, and got down on his hands and knees. I got down there too.

"See?" he said. "These are the controls." And pointed deep into the freezer.

No sh*t. There was an actual control dial down there that regulated the temperature of the entire unit. You have to get down on your hands and knees to even see it. Apparently not only did pulling the top freezer drawer in and out snap off the ice maker lever, but whatever we had stored in there bumped against that control over time and finally turned the whole thing off!

What about the control dial in the top of the fridge that seemed to be the "obvious" control? That's to regulate the amount of "cold" that passes through the top half of the freezer to the veggie and fruit boxes. We had it set at a medium-high level all this time and THAT'S what made them freeze.

After I paid the repairman (60 bucks for the visit), I pulled out the manual that came with the fridge. We apparently got a general one for the "type" of model we purchased. Nowhere does it say that the temperature control is way back in the bottom of the freezer. grrr.

So Karma got me, for good or for bad. On one hand, now we know how to make this monstrosity work. It just took 4 years of repair bills and spoiled produce to figure it all out. On the other hand, it saved us from spending another thousand plus for a better unit.

Gah!

Oh Dear...

Howdy! I'm back!

And I missed you guys. I'll come and visit you all and catch up over the weekend.

I've been saving up all kinds of snarkies to share while I was gone.

One that has just been KILLING me involves AOL.

Now you know I have a hate/hate relationship with AOL, but I've had it for over 10 years, and I have all kinds of things saved on it.

And I fear change.

Plus TLPWSFB (The League of People with Sh*t for Brains) provides so much snark fodder.

The latest has to do with the comments sections on their "news" reader. Forget reading the article---just skip straight to the comments. Almost every single one is a freakfest of extraordinary proportions.

It doesn't matter what the article is about----say, Beyonce's bodacious booty, how to filet and grill your own road kill, ways to get 10 more miles a gallon in your car, or even the latest medical miracle----it ALWAYS devolves into comments like these:

The self-righteous blaming the world's ills on the godless hordes
10 ads for Colon Cleanse
How the U.S. is going to hell in a handbasket because we have a (insert various racial slurs) man in the White House.

I can't figure it out.

Is it the same 10 commenters---bigoted christers with incredibly clean buttholes who spend their days commenting on EVERY SINGLE FREAKING ARTICLE---or are all the futjobs just attracted to AOHell?

The funniest, maybe saddest, but certainly the snarkiest part of it is the content of the comments.

For example (and YES! this is real!):

"The solidity of family is all but about gone. Pretty soon humans will be procrastinating like apes each jumping from one sex partner to thenext having children whenever and whomever . It's really sad. My own son is having a baby with a gal who has two other boys with two different fathers. Hollywood seems to be everyone jumping in bed with homever they co-star with, married or not, so when kids have roll models like this, is it any surprise?"

"Roll" models? Like the Pillsbury Dough Boy, perhaps?

And how exactly does one "procrastinate" like an ape?

Heh.

My Mom Ain't in Prison Either

Continuing my country song (see previous post)

Da Da Da Dum
I need me some coffee
Da Da Da Dum
To give me some zip
Da Da Da Dum
I've hauled many records
Da Da Da Dum
screaming back and hips

Da Da Da Dum
Post office guy hides
Da Da Da Dum
When I come through the door
Da Da Da Dum
My Mom ain't in prison
Da Da Da Dum
But she passed out on the floor

Da Da Da Dum
Thought she might buy new glasses
Da Da Da Dum
If sales were enough
Da Da Da Dum
Those things are expensive
Da Da Da Dum
And times are financially tough

Da Da Da Dum
Sold a couple hundred more records
Da Da Da Dum
To folks across the land
Da Da Da Dum
We're all sh*tting twinkies
Da Da Da Dum
Got 7K in my hand!

Can you freaking believe it? These things have been going like hotcakes to buyers from Japan, Australia, the UK, the Netherlands, Belgium and even Brazil. Not just collectors have been purchasing them, but music libraries and historical archival companies from across the planet.

I am STOPPING totally for the summer in about 10 days, so I can enjoy the rest of vacation. Got lots of funny stories to tell about some of these characters I've met when I get back.

Miss you!

ATM

My Dog Ain't Dead

I KNOW I've been a bad, bad blogger. I wrote a couple of weeks ago about how my mom finally decided to let go of all the 78rpm records my step-dad collected and how a dealer offered her a dime a piece for the 700 piece lot for a total of 70.00 (he told her the collection wasn't worth any more). I protested, and she handed them over to me, so I've been ass-deep in shellac and vinyl for the last 3 weeks.

And taking a crash course in record values.

The dealer was at least partially correct. About 80% of this stuff is worth very little. On the other hand, I think he was trying to take my mom for a ride.

I could write a country song about this. Especially since Pops apparently had a somewhat valuable and rare Country/Blues/Jazz collection.

So here's my country song (with lots of bass):

Da da da dum
My dog ain't dead
Da da da dum
My truck works fine
Da da da dum
I've been finding out
da da da dum
These discs are worth more than a dime

(banjo riff here)

Da da da dum
Been selling these records
Da da da dum
There are seven hundred or more
Da da da dum
There have been one hundred and fifty
Da da da dum
Shipped out my door

(little violin riff here)

Da da da dum
The dealer said they were worthless
Da da da dum
But as of today
Da da da dum
I totaled it up
Da da da dum
And my mom made 3K

I am WEARY, to quote some of these titles.

I love you all, and I'm sorry I've been a bad blogger. Got another 550 records to sell. ;-)

Gah!

Yeah, that's enough to give me nightmares....

Nobody Likes an A-Hole