And then...

It was Saturday morning.

• Dirty Larry woke up and walked to the window to look outside, and then...
• He said, "HEY...this carpet is wet!", and then...
• I woke up with a very bad feeling, and then...
• He went to check the back door and discovered that water had come under the door during the night and flooded the laundry room, and about 2 feet from the wall in all the rooms along the back of the house, and then...
• He got a shower and left for work, and then...
• (No seriously...he left me) And then...
• (Do you get that I was alone now?) And then...
• I cried a bunch and had a mini nervous breakdown, and then...
• I worked on cleaning up the laundry room and accidentally messed up the vent hose in the back of the dryer, and then...
• I dried some stuff in the messed up dryer because I didn't know I had messed it up. When I discovered the mistake I'd make, the whole laundry room was sweating, and it was freakin' hot in there (like a sauna), and then...
• I was trying to fix it and the phone rang. It was Coco. I think she wanted to tell me some bad stuff about her life, but I told her I didn't want to hear it right then but I still loved her, and then...
• I moved furniture and ripped up carpet and carpet padding, and then...
• I cut the wet pad out and wrung it out with my hands and threw it all in the dryer, and then...
• I worried about how dumb that might possibly be, and then...
• LUCKILY, it worked, and then...
• My mama came over and I can't even SAY some of the stuff I'd like to say right here, and then...
• I made myself a sandwich and she ate it, and then...
• I made another one and Dirty Larry came home for lunch and ate it, and then...
• I was ok because I made a third sandwich and got to eat that one, PLUS, Dirty Larry brought home an industrial type carpet dryer which helped, and then...
• I put the padding puzzle back together and taped it all in place, and then...
• I let the fans and the carpet dryers do their thing, and then...
• We all just listened to fans for the rest of the night and some of the next day.

I think everything is okay now. We'll know in a few days I guess since the AIR CONDITIONER IS BROKEN and if mold and mildew is gonna happen, it shouldn't take long to start smelling under these conditions.

What can I say? When it rains, it pours (right underneath your back door, wetting your Raggedy Ann doll you made in the 6th grade).

Pretty sure I'm cognitively impaired

As most Beejites know, I am a medical transcriptionist who works at home. Most of the patients that I'm typing about are nursing home residents, and I'd say a whopping 99.9% of them have seen better days. In a large number of cases, these patients have some degree of dementia, and the degree of their cognitive impairment is a factor in determining the correct treatment. One way health professionals chart this is by giving an MMSE. The doctors and nurse practitioners that I work for call it a Mini Mental Status Exam, but I think it's actually an acronym for Mini Mental State Exam. At any rate, the test is just a series of 11 questions and only takes about 5 or 10 minutes to administer. The highest you can score is a 30 and any score under 23 is a red flag. Patients are tested routinely, so if one week their score drops suddenly, the facility is alerted that action may need to be taken.

Now that you're all up on the system, I'm here to say I'm pretty sure I'd flunk that test. The very first question is worth 5 points and asks for the year, season, date, day and month. I know I'd miss at LEAST 2 of those. I NEVER, no never, know the day or the date.

The part of the test where you have to remember three things and be able to recall them later in the exam would make me lose 3 more points. I have no room in my brain to store any unnecessary clutter, much less pull up that same unnecessary clutter from the vast amount of information already hanging around in there.

The part where you have to add 7 + 7 and then keep adding 7 to your answer made my head hurt. I lose at least 4 points there because after the initial answer of 14, I'm really just not interested in playing that game any more. (It didn't occur to me right away that I could just use my multiplication table knowledge to answer, which in itself is a serious concern, don't you agree?)

The language portion of the test where you have to follow a three step command requires you to 1. Take a paper in your hand 2. Fold it in half and 3. put it on the floor. Is that not littering? Do you know how hard I try to keep my kids from just tossing stuff on the floor? I refuse. Minus 1.

By my calculations, my score would be somewhere around 20, which puts me right under that acceptable score where people don't really worry about you or your ability to get your shoes on by yourself in the morning. So, I think people should worry about me more and maybe cook the dinner for me so I don't burn the house down or run the errands and drive the kids to and from school so I don't make some crazy traffic mistake because of my impairment. I don't think enough people are concerned about my mental health. I'm just an accident waiting to happen.

At least I can spell "world" backwards.

I think.

Things I heard my children say tonight

Litkia and I attended the honor band concert that Pateriko was performing in tonight. Here are some random things I heard before, during and after said concert.

I don't know. (answer given when Pateriko was asked if money was required for us to get into the concert)

Mama, that guy looks like a big old leprechaun. (he really did and I nearly swallowed my gum)

Look at that girl over there with the string bass. (before he went to sit down with the band, he had to point out this girl that he'd been telling me about for two days)

kinda.hungry (texted to me by Pateriko DURING the concert)

Mama, that man is looking at you. Are you gonna say hey? (also DURING the concert....turns out it was my cousin)

a.saxophone.is.smelling.his.money (also texted during the concert....he explained later the a sax player was actually SMELLING a twenty dollar bill....no idea why)

I'm really cold and I need to go to the bathroom. ( I told her to hang tight because it was almost over)

*shrugging shoulders* (visual answer to my question when I texted him and asked him what that instrument was right behind the bass drum in the other band)

Everybody is standing up and clapping now because they're just so glad it's over. (I shushed her but I kinda agreed)

Did you see the string bass player? Wasn't she pretty? Her name is Megan. She goes to Causey Middle School. She was really pretty. Every time she came into the room I told my friend, Shane, "hey...look...she's still pretty". She is really pretty.

The tiger's name is Koala Bear and the koala bear's name is Tiger. Tiger ate Koala Bear.....think about it. (She then proceeded to try to explain it to me while laughing. I told her to go away)

Mama, did you see that string bass player? (right before he closed his eyes)

*sigh*

Pateriko's Poetry Take 2 *snap*

My brilliant 14 year old came home with more poetry the other day. I thought I would share.

Lunch

Choices affect you
Day by day
Even the small ones
Can leave you in dismay
Chips and grilled cheese
Or a PB & J
I can never tell
Where my heart lies
Sometimes it’s so much
It makes me want to cry
Ice cream sundaes
Or key lime pie
Sometimes you think
Oh this will suffice
But I say to you now
Always think twice
Hawaiian punch
Or sweet tea with ice
I chose the pie
My heart lied
I look back at the tasty array
In dismay…


And one more...This one you must read with feeling and longing (according to the author).

Ode To My Right Arm

Oh right arm
Oh my right arm
I love you
Never broken
Not once
No, never given me
any real pain
You give me strength when I need it
but very skilled and adept fingers
to weave
type
plant
click
paint
grab
write
We have lived 14 years together
I have always loved you
You have always loved me
That is the way it will be

Pateriko

Read more of Pateriko's poetry -->HERE<--

They'll fight over it when you're dead

I was at the magic website today and ran across an ad for a place where they sell leather stuff. Now, I tend to ignore most of those ads. They all pretty much say the same thing over and over ad nauseam. It's either acacia berries or losing belly fat or getting a free High School Musical cell phone ring tone...you know stuff like that. But today, there was this NEW ad that I hadn't seen before. It caught my attention just as I was clicking the little x to close the window. I actually hit the back button on the browser hoping to see it again. Alas, it was gone, but I did a little facebook ad research and found it. The thing that caught my eye was the very catchy phrase "they'll fight over it when you're dead". BRILLIANT!

Kudos to the person who came up with this ad campaign. They deserve a raise. And just so you know, I visited the website and I agree that I would absolutely fight somebody (with my teeth) for one of those lovely leather bags, right directly over the dead body of the person who once owned it.

So, the moral of the story is...make sure you have a will? (and if you have one of those bags you should will it to me)

At least my shoes have rubber soles

In my newly found devotion to exercise and all things healthy, I came across a website where you can enter your address and find out the "walking score" for your area. I knew mine wouldn't be very high because of how spread out everything is here, but I was curious, so I entered my information. My score was 9/100 and I was told that I was "car dependent". I knew this, but I was somehow disappointed that I couldn't even make it into double digits. I would love to live in a "walkable" town at this point in my life, but I don't see that happening anytime in my near future. Following a few links here and there, I also read that people who live in these walkable towns do a lot of bike riding too and there's a big problem with bike theft. The solution? A nifty CARDBOARD bike.

I personally think that the novelty of this bike makes it a sure target for theft, but apparently, since it only costs about $30 to produce one of these things, you would feel better having lost a cardboard version of a much more expensive product.

But....what happens when I get caught in a torrential downpour? I envision it melting underneath me and then flash forward to me entering my front door holding only the chain and the pedals. I also admit that the picture in my head includes my dripping wet hair stuck to a face that has less than a happy look on it, but that's a story for another day.

I think Abby should check this out for us.

Find your walkscore here!

Hic sunt dracones

Here be dragons. I was told today that this Latin phrase was found written on the edges of many historical maps where the world was still unexplored and mysterious. I did a little research and only found one or two instances where this was the case, but it seems to be such a widely known fact that I'm unsure what to believe. It's not like I have access to a lot of historical maps. At any rate, it stirs up in me the desire to see some dragons. There is so much world that I have not seen. There are so many things that I have yet to experience. If "hic sunt dracones" was meant to scare me, it failed miserably. I admit that a handful of years ago I wouldn't have felt the same way. I was afraid of all things new and of everything I didn't understand. I feel quite a bit differently today, and I guess I can honestly say that the thing that scares me now is the possibility that I will never get to meet those dragons. My concerns are justifiable for reasons that I won't go into here, but justifiable nonetheless. I think in light of the circumstances I may have to let sleeping dragons lie, even though waking them would be immensely more fun in my way of thinking. I need to find a way to be okay and even fulfilled while skating on the edges of the unknown without ever actually making my way over the border to uncharted territory. How does one go about doing that? If I could figure that out, then I could sell the solution for a bankload of money. I could then choose to use my newfound knowledge to be okay with things the way they were or use my windfall to buy a ticket to dragonland. Who wants to guess which one I'd pick?