One year later..........

It was Thanksgiving night last night when I got The Speech: "I don't love you, I never loved you, I never wanted to get married, and I never wanted all these responsibilities." Hmmmm......
The next day, it became, "I'm so sorry, I didn't mean it, can you ever forgive me." Hmmm.......
So yeah, the holiday season sucked last year, till the last weekend in January, when he moved out for good. The divorce was final October 24th, at which point I fairly shouted "Free at last, free at last.......thank God Almighty, I'm free at last."

After almost a year of hurt (a lot), healing (a good start), and hilarity (at times), let's fast forward to this Thanksviging week. I've kind of been talking to someone -- as in a man -- and it's been nice. So, we are having an honest to God official date this weekend. As in, dinner. Yeah, 26 years off the market, and Mama's going out. So, what to do? Tell the kids, don't tell the kids? Heck, I don't know, cause it's just dinner, after all. They've certainly been through their share of drama and lies and stupidity this year, and I surely don't want to add anything to their plate, but it became apparent that I couldn't evade it this afternoon.

Jill asked if I wanted to go to the movies with her, her boyfriend and his family tomorrow. Just by happenstance, they are going out at the exact same time as I set up said going-out-with-a-man, so I said no, I was gonna go with my mom later this week (which, by the way, is completely true). She kept asking me why I didn't want to go, and why I didn't want to meet his family, and on and on and on, till I finally looked at her and said "what makes you think I don't have other plans?" She looked a little incredulous and said "what kind of plans?" "As in, plans." A few interrogations later, and very little information given to her, she pronounced that she was ok with it if Seth was ok with it, and how did he feel? He doesn't know, I told her, because I was debating if and when to tell them, because it's just dinner.

So tonight, Seth and I were out, and I mentioned that I wasn't going to be home for dinner tomorrow.
"How come" he said.
"I have plans."
"What kind of plans?"
"Dinner plans."
"With who?"
"A person."
"What person?"
"A person." ::gave him the look::
"Oooooh....." he said. "Who is he? What's his name?"
"You wouldn't believe me if I told you."
"What is he, Yugoslavian?"

That's my boy. Who apparently seems to be just fine with his mother going out on the town. I think.

How I know God exists

There are some who doubt the existence of God. I don't, and I will tell you a recent example of why.

I am a homecare nurse. I have a patient who lives alone and is confined to her bed. We will call her Pat (not her real name). I visit her nearly every day. She's a treasure -- a woman with serious health issues who has steadfast faith in God. She's amazing, and I just love her. We tease and harass each other all the time, but I really love her.

Last week, I went to see Pat. I walked in and the lights were off, her covers thrown off the bed, and the phone on the floor. Remember, she is bedbound, so she had no way to communicate with the outside world if that phone isn't within reach of her one good arm. It wasn't. I took one look at her and knew something was not right. "What's wrong," I asked her. Her reply was a weak "I'm sick." She looked like hell, quite frankly. We ended up sending her to the hospital, and within an hour, she was unresponsive. It's been a touch and go few days, but she's improving slowly, and it looks like she will make it. Thank God.

But you ask, why does this prove the existence of God? Let me tell you. Pat had called the agency that day to cancel my visit, as well as her aide's visit. She thought that she had caught a GI bug from her grandkids, and didn't want to expose us. I told her to never cancel your nurse when you're sick -- that's what we're here for. In either event, she tried to cancel me, but I never got the message. I even checked my voicemail later -- nothing.

I am watching over another patient -- we'll call her Amber -- while her nurse has a couple of weeks off. Amber gets a nurse visit one time every month, so I had her on my schedule for the next week, a month from her last visit. On the day this all happened, I was on my way to the other patient's house, when Amber's mom called, wondering where I was. Turned out that the regular nurse sets up the monthly appointment in advance but she didn't tell me, so mom was waiting for me, and I didn't know it. I asked the mom if she wanted me to go ahead and come -- hoping she'd say no, because I was almost to Pat's house, which is close to home for me. Going back would've meant a half hour drive one way, then the visit, the return trip to my patient's house, and me being late getting home. No, the mom decided to wait till the next day for the visit, so I went ahead to Pat's home. I ended up calling 911 for her.

What are the odds that I would not get the first message? Add to it that I didn't get the second message about Amber's prescheduled appointment, then add that the mom declined me coming late, and that's three strikes. If I had made that visit, I would've been at least an hour late to see Pat -- rememberm an hour after I got to her house on time, she was unresponsive in the ER. If I hadn't come in when I did, she would've been alone all evening, and who knows how it would've ended.

God works in mysterious ways, they say. I firmly believe that God put me Pat's house to save her life. Don't get me wrong -- this is not about anything I did. Not at all. It's about God using me for that patient, on that day. I am just a vessel. That's why I love being a nurse. And that's why I believe in God.

A day in the life of Utter Chaos.

So here is how my day went.

First, I got up and got dressed for my meeting. The irony of the fact that I'm scheduled for a two day seminar about Relationship Development the day after my divorce became final does not escape me. Anyway, I get up, get dressed, and man, do I look cute. Dress, accessories, tights, boots -- I feel great. So I drive up to Community North -- about 20 minutes away -- park, walk into the Professional Building, and make my way up to the room where the meeting is.

But the room is occupied by a bunch of corporate types. Not peons like me. I walk in, they all stare at me, and I realize I must be in the wrong room. Walk out. No, not wrong room. Wrong DAY. Turned out it's tomorrow, not today. Oh man.............

So I drive home, walk in, and Mom is there doing laundry. She's surprised to see me, but even more surprised to see that I walk straight into my room, still looking cute, and walk out wearing khakis and a polo -- my work uniform. "Why did you change," says Mom. "You looked so cute." ::sigh:: (I told you I looked cute.)

So, I text the co-workers, cause now I need to get a lineup of patients to see, since no one gave me anyone for today, since I was in a meeting all day. I get a quick list of four patients, and start making calls. Keep in mind that I get paid mileage when I arrive at the first house, so when you're a homecare nurse, you want to have at least one visit close to home. Only none of these are -- they're all over 15 miles away. Oh MAN! So, I start making calls, and no one answers. As in, three of four people don't answer. The fourth one answers, but doesn't want to be seen till late afternoon. What the heck am I gonna do till then?

So I call scheduling, and they give me two more patients. I call and get them scheduled -- they're 15 miles away too, so forget the mileage for today. I drive down the hospital and get a call about yet another patient, so I call that one and schedule. Her daughter is mad, cause she apparently wanted her mom to be seen at 9am, but the message was never received. I didn't find out about her mom till after 10, so there was nothing I could do but listen to her unload on me, with frequent "but I know it's not your fault but......" Yeah, I'm looking forward to seeing HER, cause she is on fire. Let's just say there were more miscommunications that were going to make this a potentially powderkeg of a visit. Went right along with my day thus far.

I go do the first visit and it goes well. Second visit, ok. I go see the one with the crabby daughter, and it even goes well. The daughter had given up the ghost and went to bed, so I was in and out. I was supposed to pick up some of our equipment, and I didn't realize till later that I had forgotten one piece. Greeeeaaaaat.

So off I go to Martinsville, which took about 45 minutes. Go to the address that's in the patient's profile, and see the name on the mailbox, as well as the number. I go to the door and knock, all while being madly barked at by their dog. No answer at the door. Knock knock again. No answer. I've now made peace with the dog. I go back to my car and call the patient and tell him "I'm here." He says ok, with an odd tone to his voice. Tells me not to park behind the physical therapist's car, cause she's just finishing up. At that point, I realize that there is no other car in the driveway. How can I be at the wrong house? The name is the same, and the number is the same. What the heck?

I pull out of the driveway, totally confused, and drive a bit further down the road, only to realize that there is ANOTHER mailbox next door with the same number and name on it. WHAT THE HECK? How can that be? Well, I pulled in and parked next to the PT's car. I never told the people that I'd been knocking on the neighbor's door. I wonder if the dog will tell them..........

About that time, I got a call telling me that the last of the patients I'd been trying to reach had finally called back and wanted to be seen. I thought I'd be done around 4, but this added another hour on to the already whacky day. Walk in, find out that the patient is a nurse who is trying to apply for a job in a department where a friend of mine is the manager. Small world. At least we had a nice visit, and everything went ok.

All in all, six patients, four dogs, two cats, a few vials of blood, and no lunch later, I came home and raked leaves. And tomorrow, I will be at Community North, looking cute. Hopefully all day this time.

Things you need to know as a result of Our Vacation

1. We have discovered that Thomas is the Fish God. Every time he gets into the water, schools of fishes swarm around him, and follow him wherever he goes. Every time. It's crazy.
2. Something about The King of all Chickens in a game of pseudo-pictionary is still cracking these kids up, two days later. I, however, slept thru it.
3. Raccoons climb palm trees. Who knew?
4. When Michael falls off a bed, he does NOT bounce.
5. Cell phones demagnetize hotel keys. This was a lesson not learned the first two or three times it happened.
6. Waffle House at 4:30am is a pretty funny place to be.
7. In Florida, liquor can't be sold in grocery stores. It can, however, be sold in a store with the same name as the grocery store, attached to the grocery store, but with a different entrance. And you thought Indiana had weird liquor laws.
9. . There is a store here called Condom Knowledge that I really wanted to investigate, but never did. ::sad face::
9. Avoid Nashville in rush hour at all costs. Seriously.
10. It is possible to have someone draw a huge penis in the sand -- along with HAHA -- on the beach front of a hotel balcony, and it will not be removed quickly. Note: this was NOT our artwork.
11. A dolphin sculpture created in the sand, with a huge wall around it, will be destroyed. The wall, however, will not. People are dumb.
12. No matter where you are in the water, the waves break about 15 feet away from where you are.
13. There must be, at all times, a man on the beach in a Speedo. And he is always too old and too heavy to even think of truly being able to carry it off.
14. You could be wakened in the morning and find that your hotel door is open. And people have been going to the elevator across from said door for over an hour. Probably all laughing at the people sleeping inside. Oh well, life is short.
15. Young children should be given bathroom rights first, lest they wake up the neighbors yelling "let me IN, I gotta POOP!" Repeatedly.
16. Give the parents the secret password to the alarm system before you leave, or the police WILL show up and try to arrest them. NOTE: this could make vacation infinitely more interesting, should you choose not to do it.
17. Colllege students WILL do homework on vacation. High school students will talk about it, then never do it.

I'm sure there are more, but I can't remember them at the moment, so perhaps I will add some later.

Also heard..........

Seth: "Why are fast food workers alwasy so lazy?"

Thomas: "Maybe because they are working fast food."

Seth: "Yeah, they all are so annoying."

::Michael, in back seat, is silent. With wide eyes::

Me: "You do realize that Michael worked fast food all last summer."

::Michael bursts out laughing::

Me: "Michael, are you planning to..."

Michael: "NO!"

Me: "You seem pretty emphatic about that."

::Michael nods::

Me: "So you guys had better be nicer about fast food workers, or Michael is gonna go all ninja on you."

Thomas: "I'm not seein' that."

Seth: "Yeah, I'm not seein' that at all."

Michael: "You can't see me cause I'm a ninja."

Touche, good sir. Touche.

He fits right in.

Michael, Jill's boyfriend, is wonderful. I tell her all the time that she is never allowed to hurt him, because it would be like killing a puppy, he's so sweet. And he fits right in with us -- not that we're sweet, mind you, but the sense of humor is killer. Take this conversation, heard on the way to Panama City. Caution: it is partially in Nerdspeak.

Thomas: "Did you know that they have gotten particles to move faster than the speed of light? That's crazy."
Seth: "How did they do that?"
Thomas: "That particle accelerator they built."
Seth: "What's that?"
Thomas: "It accelerates particles, stupid."
Seth: "What for?"
Thomas: "So they can make things move really fast."
Michael: "So kinda like Nascar, only cool."

I love that boy.

Sethanese, thus far.

So yeah, we are on our way to a short fall break getaway that basically involves my feet, the Gulf and a beach chair. We have thus far made it to Evansville, where we are picking up The Girl and her main squeeze, and take off tomorrow after class.

Seth will be going to class with her. University of Southern Indiana may never be the same.

If you've done much reading about our past car trips, or about Seth in General, you should know that Seth is our main form of entertainment in the car, and tonight was no exception. I plugged in my iPod, and along came Michael Buble's "All I Do Is Dream of You." Here was the conversation that followed.

Me: "This song makes me smile."
Seth: "I like this guy, but he sounds so much like Barry Manilow."
Me: "Barry Manilow? What the heck?"
Seth: "Yeah. Or that other guy. I don't remember his name."
Me: "Frank Sinatra?"
Seth: "Yeah, him. I never remember his name."

After we got to Jill's apartment, a conversation about Hank Williams, Jr. ensued, which involved the word cattle calling.

Seth: "Cattle calling. Isn't that what construction workers do?"
::blank looks pointed at Seth from all four of us in the room::
Me: "Uh, I think you are thinking of cat calls, not cattle calls."

::sigh:: Apparently my child confuses hot women with cows. My chances of becoming a grandmother some day just dropped substantially.

We also discovered that Thomas didn't understand that the word "scarecrow" was derived from the idea that particular item Scares Crows. And when asked by his sister what "germane" means, The Heir to the Throne responded "it's what people from Germany are called." WOW. In all fairness, he ultimately pointed out that he meant Germanic, but I prefer the realization that Sethanese may have a cousin, as yet to be named.

As usual, this will be another interesting trip.