1000 Ideas

I have so many things in my brain that need to come out and I'm too much of a lump to write about them.

We went to John Day over the holiday.
My dad isn't feeling well and has had a terrible time with his BP and heart, he's been sick since summer. He had an appointment with his regular cardiologist in mid-July but was seen by a different one due to a scheduling conflict at the office. This new doctor totally changed all the medications and instead of questioning it or saying NO, Dad took the new medication.

He had been doing well. Stable. After the sudden switch (WTAF???) went into A-fib and was hospitalized (ICU) for more than a week. My mom had to call an ambulance for him,he woke up early early one morning and his heart 'felt funny' he said. It was down to 30 beats per minute. When they got him to the hospital, they had a very hard time stabilizing everything. It took days. His regular doctor spent the night at the hospital, checking on him every half hour or so. The ambulance drivers told Mom that there was no way he should have been able to have a coherent conversation with them, but he was able to tell them about his symptoms and condition.

After more than a week in the ICU, he pulled through, but it wasn't good for him.

Coupled with a knee that doesn't work and causes him an extreme amount of pain, he's been more or less confined to his recliner since then. He has only been out of the house for physical therapy and doctor appointments, although Mom says he rides along in the car while she runs errands.

He isn't a good candidate for knee surgery. His heart condition precludes general anesthesia.

So Eric and I decided separately that going to visit my parents would be a good idea this year, then when we discussed it were already in agreement. He brought it up, actually. I have mixed feelings about spending time there, but this isn't the time to write it all up.

It's a long drive (five hours) when there is no ice or snow, even longer when there is.

Three years ago we went over and there was a LOT of snow.
We went over Mt.Hood, and although Eric had to chain up the car on the way over, it wasn't horrible. We came back the same way.
A mistake. We got most of the way up and sat in the ridiculous traffic of people returning home from their ski trips. The six hours it should have taken ended up being NINE. Ughhh. I still get frustrated thinking of it.

Very poorly managed up there during ski season... traffic was down to one lane for a large portion of the trip over the mountain.

And when I say one lane, I mean one lane for traffic going in BOTH directions. We sat in one place for over two hours while tow trucks helped a couple large semi trucks up the hill. It was such a clusterfuck. Infuriating. It could be managed much better, perhaps some goddamn snowplows. And there are mountain passes that are closed to truck traffic when the roads are bad in many states. There should be a damn plan.

It's just that in Oregon, there's a great amount of stupidity in road 'planning', a term I use loosely where Oregonisms are concerned. They keep raising our taxes and vehicle fees and the roads don't get fixed. But they always have plenty of money for fucking bicycle lanes and mass transit and studies about adding tolls to roads. And plenty of money to pay the shitbags who are looking into those things. Multi-millions for that... but they keep stealing from us.

Assbags.

Ah, but say it with me, I digress.

When we did our Thanksgiving shopping in November, the store had a 'buy $150 groceries, get a free turkey' thing going on.

So we grabbed a frozen turkey to go with the fresh one we'd picked out and tossed it into the freezer for later. When we decided to go to John Day for Christmas, we added that turkey to the meal plans. We brought everything we needed for meals for Sunday, Monday, Tuesday because groceries in that little town are astronomically priced and it pisses me off to enrich those nasty, small people who are ripping off their friends and neighbors and have been for many,many years.

We had the turkey in the ice chest, figuring that keeping a little ice on it would help it defrost but on Monday evening, Christmas eve, the thing was nothing but a
fowl brick. Haha, see what I did there? FOWL.

Stupid jokes are one of the things I do best, ask almost any kid who knows me.

So in keeping with the theme of Redneck Christmas (too much to list right now) we stuck the turkey inside a trash bag and threw it in the bathtub with cold water. Went in about every 15 minutes or so,added more cold water because it kept slowly draining out, flipped the bird brick over and went back out into the living room. It was 90 degrees in that living room. I wish I were exaggerating, but I'm not. OMGGGGGGGGGG.

My dad is cold all the time. My mom is, too. Not as much as Dad, but she likes it hot in the house. It was a real treat trying to do all the cooking in the heat. Eric did quite a bit of the work,too. He is always saying, "I'm an outdoor dog." He is,too. We drove through the 20 degree chill with his window cracked about 2 inches at the top. This isn't a thrill for me. I've complained about it for a long time. But it was a little easier this time, I bought a blanket that plugs into the lighter in the car. Except for a little breeze around my right shoulder, I was toasty for most of the journey.

I had ordered a larger version of the blanket from Amazon on December 6th. Chose to have it shipped to a package locker rather than delivered to my house since I'm in and out so much.

Three days in a row I got an email saying that the locker was full and the package could not be delivered. Then I got an email telling me that the package had been mysteriously 'damaged' and was being returned. It wasn't damaged, of course. They just fucked up on delivery.

So I ordered another one. And goddamn if it didn't happen AGAIN.

Long story. It might even show up here. But in case it doesn't, I want to make sure to tell you that their customer service SUCKS. I got transferred around eleven times, each time the person would say that some other department would be better able to help. And each time, I got no help at all.

I find it amusing that Amazon has a large presence on social media. When I looked at their FB page, it was absolutely filled with people who are angry at the crappy service.

So anyway.

There's a lot more going on. We have had some power difficulties, still have one circuit out, Eric is apparently going to try to fix that this weekend. Meanwhile, our refrig/freezer are plugged into a heavy duty extension cord, we have no lights in the kitchen or our bedroom, and it's aggravating.

But the other night, the power went out completely. When the power company came out about 11:45, they found that the cable delivering power to our house had been rubbed by our tree and had sparked and scorched the tree. Eric says that if it had been a different type of tree, we would probably have had a fire.

Meanwhile, I am scheduled to work at a regular program site, my school is still closed for the holidaze but this program is in Portland, and since I wasn't working they thought it would be a great idea for me to go there. I can't say I agree, but I managed to get a couple projects together to take in and keep hands busy.

I already know I'll hate the program, it will be chaotic and bear no resemblance to the program I run.

::sigh::

And how are YOU doing??