I was having a great day at ACS last week, happy to be inside an air conditioned place instead of melting and leaving puddles in my wake, when I suddenly received a frantic text message from My Andy.
See if you can figure out what happened.
"Illustration" by Bee
I was walking down the hallway at the Asylum last week, on my way to get a refill on sweet sweet coffee, when Glynda stopped me to ask how much weight I'd lost so far. I let her know I was yo-yoing between 22 and 24 because the weekend usually had me stuffing my face with yummy things so I'd gain 2 pounds and then I'd lose them during the week.
While we were talking, Toto and Scarecrow had gathered around me and each one was commenting on how great I looked. I told them that it was because I was wearing jeans, rare casual days at the Asylum are one of the few perks we have, and that I happened to find a great fit.
We talked some more about my plans to keep losing weight.
Me: I haven't been working out but hopefully Andy will join the gym and we can go together. The only thing is that I have to make him wear blinders so that he doesn't drool over the hot chicks in their tiny spandex outfits. [I said jokingly]
Glynda [looking completely surprised]: Why would he look at other women when he has you?
. . . I have received many compliments and encouraging words from my brothers and their wives, my sister, my mom and coworkers and I have appreciated every single one of them but that, by far, was one of the nicest things anybody has ever said to me.
Me: Thank you! But my husband is like every other husband. He wouldn't notice if I grew a second nose. I can reenact that scene in Fried Green Tomatoes where Kathy Bates makes an outfit for herself out of plastic saran wrap and wears nothing underneath because she's hoping to spice things up with her husband and all he says is "What's for dinner?" as he walks away. Only, in my case, he would ask, "Did you feed the dogs?".
We all laugh.
Glynda: I find that hard to believe! You remind me of one of those curvy pin up girls! Andy better watch out or some guy is gonna come up and swoop you away!
Bee: ::blushes:: Uh thanks. I really don't think he feels any threat whatsoever, though. I think he'd be more shocked like "Huh? Does that guy need glasses?"
Glynda: Well that's not very nice.
Me: I'm kidding! I'm sure he'd be upset. I mean, who would help him pay the mortgage? ::winks::
Toto: My husband once said that the only way he wouldn't look at other woman is if he was blind or dead.
Scarecrow: I can't take mine to the pool without having to tell him to stop staring! I don't do that with the young men in the pool!
Me: ::shrugs:: Listen, we're wired different. Our men can lose their hair and have barrel beer-bellies but for some reason we view them the same way as when we dated. I think it's because we don't have that appendage that sticks straight up that acts like a homing device when we see something we like.
We all nod.
Glynda: My husband keeps talking about that woman who was in the news? The one that was video taped in her hotel room (Erin Andrews) and says he'd like to see that video. Men are pigs.
Me: In all honesty, we have to give them a break. It used to bother me too but then (after an epiphany) I thought about it logically. When I go to the movies, do I drool over this guy:
or this guy?:
Glynda [nodding]: That makes sense. You know who I think is really cute? Mathew McConaughey.
Me [thumbs up]: Great taste! I know Scarecrow has a thing for Zac Effron.
Scarecrow: He has some nice abs!
Me: Very very nice abs!
Toto: ::rolls her eyes:: I need another man like I need another hole in the head! I really like Paul Newman, though.
Scarecrow: Paul Newman is dead!
Toto: I know that! I didn't say I was attracted to him in his current state! [thinks] I guess Brad Pitt isn't too hard to look at.
Me: You see? We're not blind or dead either! The difference is that we are not vocal about who we find attractive and they are.
Glynda [still upset that my marriage isn't any different than hers]: Well, I know for a fact my husband would be ogling you.
Scarecrow & Toto: Mine too!
Me [looking for the exit]: Awww that's sweet! Weird, but sweet. Don't worry about me though because I have people like you guys boosting my ego every day.
::sigh:: Marriage doesn't get any easier, I guess. This is discouraging because it seems like their husbands are no longer being discreet in their fascination with women and make their wives all too aware of what they "lack". I don't understand why they wouldn't want to make the women they "love" happy by simply saying something nice about them. It doesn't take too much of an effort to compliment your significant other, so why is it such a chore? I can guaran-damn-tee that if one of their husbands were to say something simple like "Your eyes look really blue* today!" or "I love your smile" they would have these women feeding them grapes while fanning them with palm leaves!
I don't know about you, ladies, but I'm constantly telling Andy how good he looks. I don't do it because I want him to return the favor. I do it because I want him to feel good about himself and know that after all these years, I still think he's a hottie. On the flip side, maybe I'm just wasting my time because he may think it's weird since men obviously do not need that type of everyday encouragement.
Oh well! Too much thinking for one day!
I take satisfaction in the fact that I helped release 3 cougars to the wild because if you can't beat 'em, join 'em!
Want to touch. THE HINEY!!
*Blue only works if their eyes are actually blue. If they're brown don't say blue m'mkay?
P.S.
Lycanthropy is in She Wolf's lyrics and when I was singing the song, in my head because people would die otherwise, I was like "Apocatherapy? Lycratherapy?" so I googled the lyrics and now I'm shocked by Shakira's smarts.
One of the hardest parts of my job at Arkham are my translating duties. Not because I have difficulty finding word equivalents in both languages because I'm fluent in both equally. Well, I'm sure we can find other people who can out-Spanish me but, for the most part, I can handle any translating emergency. The hard part is actually having to witness the level of poverty some people live in. Not to say poverty is exclusive in Hispanic homes but those are the ones I see.
I've had to translate for little kids whose parents are too afraid of being deported to agree to necessary surgeries that may prevent future handicaps or deformities for their children. I've had to translate for parents who are kids themselves and try to make them understand why it's so important to keep gashes clean or casts dry or even keep their children from re-injuring their barely healing bones. I've had to translate for workers who were being taken advantage of by employers and being forced to do inhumanly things even after they severed fingers or even feet. On the flip side, I've also had my share of translating for people that are trying to screw the system.
In the grand scheme of things, I'm nobody, but I do my best to get the doctors' warnings or recommendations across. Most of the time, I can walk away and pray they follow the instructions they were given closely.
Sometimes, though, I find myself completely swept over by grief for people who are complete strangers. Sometimes, I wonder why, how people can be so evil.
A few weeks ago, the other Doctor, Mr. Rogers semi retired, in our practice came to the office late. It was his birthday and he was unusually crabby. When we went in with his birthday cake to sing to him, he thanked us and wanted to explain his foul mood. He said the reason he was late was because he had to do a consult at the hospital.
This wasn't an unusual thing since he often handles the ER calls when OZ is off. This time, he said, he was not prepared for what he saw. That statement in itself surprised us because the man has been a doctor for about 50 years.
He said there was a young woman who came into the ER with multiple stab wounds. After he was able to locate an interpreter, he found out her husband had been drinking and had wanted to have sex. When she denied him because he was drunk, he waited for her to fall asleep then got up to get a knife and proceeded to stab her repeatedly. When she got to the ER, they performed life saving surgery to wounds on her abdomen, arms, wrists and vaginal area. The reason Mister Rogers was called was because she was having issues moving her hands so the hospital staff wanted her examined before they discharged her. What Mister Rogers discovered is that her husband had also severed tendons, nerves, muscles in both her hands. He immediately called OZ to come back from his fishing trip and then had to fight the hospital staff to keep her in the hospital. As he put it, he could not be a part of the consult and sign her release if she wasn't taken care of. He said he knew the staff was under pressure form higher ups to discharge the woman but he could not, in good conscience, say the patient was stable enough to leave and then come back. His worry was that, due to her poverty, she would neglect to follow up with an Orthopaedic Surgeon and therefore lose mobility in her hands. Mister Rogers is well respected in that hospital. Before his semi retirement, he was an excellent surgeon and now teaches classes at a university. When he talks, people tend to listen which they did in this case.
He explained that he was just a bit disillusioned with the politics in hospitals, even though he understood them, because it really should only be about healing and helping people. After he finished his story, we made sure to thank him for fighting for this poor woman who had suffered such a horrible tragedy.
The reason I'm talking about it now is because I met her today. I really don't know what I was expecting. Maybe someone who resembled more of an indigenous Mexican woman, maybe I was expecting someone with a meeker demeanor? I don't know. What I encountered was a woman like me. That is to say, there wasn't anything about her that made you think "victim". And really, that was my own fault for having preconceived notions about what a "victim" would look like.
She spoke in a regular voice. Not timid or shy. She held eye contact when I asked her about the incident while I filled out her forms and answered all of them without hesitation. She wasn't demanding or bitter, she was just... normal. She was also the same age as my sister Nancy. So young.
She brought her dad with her. He silently paced the interview room while I asked for the intimate details of her attack. She kept glancing at him as she answered, his anger and sadness was palpable. She was trying to keep her voice even, probably so he wouldn't worry, and he was looking away as he winced, probably to keep her from worrying. I felt like an intruder.
Once in the exam room with OZ, I realized what the damage to her hands could have been. Her arms and wrists had horrible scars that made me think of a shark attack and had me wondering how she would be able to live her life with that constant reminder. I was also witness again to OZ's compassionate side. We, as his employees, never get to see it but the man genuinely cares about his patients so I should respect him for that. She brought up the subject of payment and he joked that he knew she didn't keep a drawer full of money for surgeries like this so her concern should only be about her therapy and getting better.
I'm hoping that she would have gotten the same care wherever she would have gone but the fact that she had kind Mister Rogers and obstinate OZ as her care takers will hopefully eliminate one concern from her traumatic experience.
More than ever I fear for humankind. What kind of a beast would turn on the person they swore to love forever with such brutality?
I was watching So You Think You Can Dance a few weeks ago and their guest singer was Usher singing OMG. I like Usher. Some of his songs have my rhythm challenged body twitching like a caffeine addict after drinking a whole "Box" of coffee from Dunkin Donuts. This performance, however, had me wondering if he left his voice in the studio. But anyway, I'm happy to report that his new song would make all legendary songwriters, dead and alive, proud. I mean, a song shouldn't just be about shadow men.
Fancy hat tricks.
Dudes with fake cigarettes/cigars.
A stripper wantta be.
Windmills.
Spiders.
Ninjas Surgeons.
Or, well, crawling women.
Nope, it's all about lyrics like:
♫♪ I fell in love with shawty when i seen her on the dance floor ♫♪
♫♪ honey got a booty like
pow,
pow,
pow ♫♪
And the way those booties came up on cue? Well that was just icing on the cake. And yes, I did go to iTunes ASAP to download it to my power playlist because, I don't know if you know this about me but, I'm a shawty with a booty and this is now my theme song.
♫♪ it make me want to say
oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh ♫♪
So my sister landed at the hospital on Saturday. Something about rocks in her head which doesn't come as much of a surprise since I've known her to be a lot on the crazy side. Oh, Andy just said she has stones in her gall. Me? I just think she wanted a mini vacation since her room looks something like this:
Man! I'm seriously thinking about swallowing the pebbles in the fish tank so that I can have some peace and quiet too! Okay, I know one of the side effects is extreme pain but you've got to break some eggs if you wantta make an omelette, right?
It turns out she's going to need her gallbladder taken out either Monday or Tuesday so in the meantime I've had to ferry my niece Natalia to her luxury suite so that she could have a nice visit with her mommy. While they were bonding, I went to the hospital cafeteria to get a little snack and maybe a juice. Little did I know that the rise of the machines was going to be taking place on a quiet Sunday afternoon.
It all started when I had to make a mad dash for the elevators because it just so happenes that the floor my sister is on, is also the Ortho floor where OZ has his patients. The last thing I wanted to do was bump into him while wearing my "daisy duke" shorts (as Andy called them) and my gardening shirt (I'm all about class, you guys). I found the vending machines and carefully made my decision. Chocolate chip cookies and powdered donuts. Mmmmm!
I put in Nancy's first paper dollar, yeah that's right, she gave me money for snacks, and the donut transaction went through without a hitch. I then put another dollar in and hit C8 which is code for *chocolate chip cookies* but nothing happened. I did it again because I thought maybe I had entered my social security number by mistake but nothing happened. I carefully read the machine's instructions, just in case they stated to push the buttons with a 10 second pause or some shit and they said "COINS ONLY" but I was like "uhhhh I just put in a dollar and got donuts YOU STUPID MACHINE Now give me my cookies!!" so I pressed C and then 8 again but the thing just flashed "COINS ONLY!!!" at me over and over again. ::sigh:: Now I had to make a decision, on the one hand, my sister would be out an extra dollar if I put another one in to get the cookies. On the other hand, my sister would be out an extra dollar if I out another one in to get the cookies. But! I wasn't stupid enough to put another paper dollar in the machine so I moseyed over to the soda machine to get an Orange Fanta. Dontcha wanna wanna.
According to my math, the Orange Fanta was $1.25 and the cookies were $0.75, pay attention now because math is confusing, so I figured that the machine would spit out $.075 in change and I'd get those damn cookies. I smoothed out 2 one dollar bills and carefully inserted them into the soda machine. It read one and said I had *One dollar credit* it read the second one and said I had *Two dollar credit* so I entered D 0 (zero) and waited. And waited. AND WAITED! In the meantime, the machine is going like this PUFFTMUSHPFFTPUUUUUCKKKK! And I'm like "Shhhhh! You are in a freaking hospital!" but it continued its noise and so I gently gave it a whack and it stopped. I was instantly relieved because there was this one old guy on the phone and I think he was calling security. Unfortunately for me, my relief was short lived because the machine then started spitting out dimes at me with the same intensity the people in olden times would stone whores.
I ran for cover and stood on the other side of a nicely padded chair while this thing just kept pinging dimes at me! When it was done, I started picking up dimes that had landed everywhere. I counted $.10, .20, .40, .80, 1.20, 1.60 and 1.80. I crawled all over the place looking for the last remaining 2 dimes (after I counted 3 times and figured out I was missing 2 dimes) and nothing! I stuck my finger in the machine's change hole and found one standing up against the hole's wall. I found the last one stuck in a crevice on the side of the machine. I tried my hardest to pull it out but my nails were useless! Then! Then I remembered all my years training for this specific moment! I took another dime and used it to tiddlywinks it out of the crevice!
Success! I now had 20 little dimes in my hands! Woohoo! I did a little celebration dance and then I realized I had no Orange Fanta and no cookies! Damn. Not all was lost though because I was able to put 8 dimes into the *COINS ONLY* machine, get the cookies, get a nickel back in change and be on my way before security tackled me.
And so my adventure at the hospital ended with me walking into the sunset with a bag of cookies and my donuts, sure I was still thirsty but you can't have everything. ::shrug::
P.S.
I forgot to mention that my bad ass sister drove herself to the emergency room after she dropped off her daughters at my mom's house. I know only one other woman who has her strength and that is my momma. I keep telling them how alike they are but they never believe me.
P.P.S
Thanks for the emails supporting the cause in the previous post. Your names are entered to win the Huge Bag of Peanuts and the journal.
So... I know what you're thinking. Where the hell have I been? Well, I've been here and over there and right next to you in the shower. I'm the one that laughed when you dropped the soap! But really I have been working and cleaning and doing other fun things like working some more. A million things have happened that I've wanted to blog about but then I get home and I sit in front of my laptop and then the words just do not come out. No, let me rephrase. They come out but not in the way I want them to. I really don't know what's going on and I'm hoping I'll get my mojo back because the shit has finally hit the fan at The Asylum and I need to tell those stories so that they can live on in infamy.
For now, I have a favor to ask but it's a favor that could potentially bring you a little sumthin' sumthin.
I know this dude named Always Home and Uncool who submitted a video to Pepsi. He needs people to vote for his video because it awards $250,000 to fund research for curing Juvenile Myositis. I know most of you have children and those that don't, like yours truly, have some other little person in their lives who they would give them their left kidney, eye, nostril and earlobe if they needed it so I ask that you please click on the button below and vote for his video. That's all you have to do- vote, I mean. It's currently number 13 and I know we can get it to number ONE.
As a thanks, I will be giving away a gimungo bag of peanuts and this very snazzy journal that comes with a key so you can write B ♥s A 4-EVER without anybody reading your secret thoughts!
All you have to do is comment that you voted or send me an email that you voted (beesmusings@gmail.com) and I will put your name in my cowgirl hat and then let everyone know who won once the voting ends on July 31st.
Now you're probably wondering why I'm giving away peanuts and a journal. You're like "what kinda random shit is that, Bee?" Weeeeell what else would you expect me to give away? I mean, I love peanuts and I love journals. Granted, Andy will probably be pissed when he finds out I'm giving away his peanuts... I said PEANUTS! but hey, it's better to ask for forgiveness than permission, right?
Please vote and thanks!
