Idiot Central Medical Group

Mysterious phone message last week:

Unknown Female: Hi, this is Idiot Central Medical Group, calling to let you know that your referral is ready. If you have any questions, please call 1-800-WE-SUCK.

Me:Ignore.

Mysterious phone call yesterday, around 2:00 p.m.:

Same Unknown Female: Hi, this is Idiot Central Medical Group, calling to let you know that your referral is ready.
Me:What is this about, please? What referral?
Same Unknown Female:I don’t know, but you can make your appointment.
Me:With who? For what?
Same Unknown Female:I don’t know, but we have your paper here.
Me:What paper? What is on the paper? Can I see the paper, please?
Same Unknown Female:I don’t know where it is or what is on it.
Me:Can someone please provide some clarification?
Same Unknown Female:~heavy sigh~ I’ll have someone give you a call after they get off their break.
Me:Thank you.

Me, calling Idiot Central Medical Group yesterday, around 4:00 p.m.

Me: Hello, someone called about a referral and could not provide any information regarding it. Someone was supposed to call back but hasn’t done so yet.
Person on Phone: Let me transfer you to someone who cares because I obviously don’t.
~pause~
Person on Phone: Someone who cares is not available and I really don’t want to deal with you. How about I get your name and number and have someone who cares call you back?
Me: Fine, thank you so much.

Me, calling Idiot Central Medical Group this morning, around 9:00 a.m.

Me: Hello, someone called about a referral and could not provide any information, and someone was supposed to call me back.
Person on Phone: Yes, that was me, I talked to you. But I don’t have any information. Let me see if someone who cares is available.
~transfer beeps~
Someone who Cares: Hi, yes, we have your referral available. You can make your appointment.
Me: Referral for what? Appointment with who? Can I see the paper? Please?
Someone who Cares: A copy was sent to the patient. In the mail.
Me: I never received one.
Someone who Cares: The referrals we have here for you are for the MRI on your knee and for a follow up with the Ortho.
Me: Yes, I’ve already seen the Ortho. And the MRI on the knee is an obvious mistake, so I’m ignoring that. Was anything at all regarding my ankle surgery? Is any of this interfering in that process?
Someone who Cares: We don’t know anything about an ankle surgery. We have a referral for the MRI on your knee and for your follow up with the Ortho. You can make an appointment now.
Me: Nothing about the ankle surgery?
Someone who Cares: No, ma’am, just the…
Me: Thank you.
~click~

Me, calling Ortho doctor’s office today, around 10:00 a.m.

Me (speaking to the vm of the third person I was transferred to): Please, can someone tell me my surgery date? It’s been two weeks since my visit, and I already did my EKG that day and the results were faxed to you at that time. I’m cleared for surgery and just waiting for a date. But it has to be this specific date or week, or I have to wait another year for the opportunity, and I don’t think I should. The referring doctor’s office knows nothing about any surgery. Thank you.

My mother, calling today, around 11:10 a.m.

Mom: Hi, I’m calling because I’m helping the person you called because she lost her voice.
Me: Who is this?
Mom: Your mother.
Me: (grumbling under breath) Oh. Hello.
Mom: Yes, so, we faxed the auth to the referring doctor on May 20.
Me: They don’t have it.
Mom: Yes, I know. We faxed it again just now. Why didn’t you do your EKG yet?
Me: I did it on May 14. It was faxed to you that day.
Mom: We don’t have it. I’ll have to request it again.
Me: Great. Thanks.
Mom: So, you need to come in for pre-op.
Me: Yeah, what is that, and what exactly happens then?
Mom: I don’t know, I think it’s a mini-physical.
Me: I need to know EXACTLY what happens. Are needles involved? I need to know so I can prepare in advance. And I need to know about any appointment after the surgery so I can make nearly impossible plans to come back. I was shocked to hear that I have to come back two weeks after surgery to have the cast put on. That will be VERY difficult to finagle.
Mom: I’m surprised they don’t have you coming back two DAYS after surgery.
Me: If they need that, they’d better tell me NOW, or it is NOT going to happen.
Mom: I will have the nurse call you.
Me: Thank you. And by the way, all this incompetence and lack of communication between the doctor’s offices and even with me is completely unprofessional and unacceptable. Somebody needs to get their act together and stop playing fun little games with my LIFE. I am really angry and upset and I am NOT HAPPY about this entire situation, so if you could please make sure that things are DONE RIGHT THIS TIME, I would appreciate it!
Mom: Okay.
Me: Thanks, Mom.
~click~


And now I’m off to lunch. Maybe I will have some primal scream therapy somewhere.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!

Sugar for the Ham

Last night was AJ's school's spring musical, where all the kids in the elementary portion of the school dress up and sing, along with some choreography, while a few of the older children perform a skit. AJ dressed up from biblical times, like everyone else, and stood in the front row, hamming it up before the acts, during the acts, between the acts, and after the acts. He was wonderful. I took a lot of video. Not so many still shots. And I don't want to post pictures of any of the other students without their permission. But I can be a mom for a few minutes right now and post him as a ham and as a relaxing ham.

Here he is in the beginning:

From 09 April May

Resting between acts:

From 09 April May

I really don't think the music teacher knew that the 4th grade boys turned one of the songs into a cabaret act. And that one of the soloists center stage thinks she's J.Lo from the Fly Girls days. One of those boys thinks he's Fred Estaire minus the top hat and cane. I wish I could have joined them!

For one song, the lights were low, and they all had glow in the dark hearts that they uncovered. Of course, AJ made his beat out of his chest. After the show, he showed it to me and it was in a plastic baggie. I asked him why, and he said it was oozing yellow goo.

I told him his heart was overflowing. And he said, yes, with yellow goo.

And the moral of the story is: Nothing says love like yellow goo.

Oh, and they took my cookie pops and broke them into little pieces and presented them as slivers of their original creations. I didn't know this, because it was not communicated to me by the school, but the plan was to charge admission to the dessert room (the chapel) and then everyone can have as many sample-sized portions of the various desserts as they wish. I wish I had known that. I would have made the applesauce cranberry cookies, without the sticks, wrappers and ribbons.

But there was a lot of good sugar available. AJ's teacher made a couple good desserts in there, too, and there was just about anything you might ever want.

Yum.

Cookie Pops

Last night, I sacrificed some sleep so I could turn out these cookie pops for the bake sale at AJ's school today. I know, I could have baked them and assembled them and then froze them ahead of time, but there's no time like the last minute. Deadlines make life that much more thrilling. Woohoo!

AJ picked out the cookies he wanted me to make from The Cake Mix Doctor cookbook that I love. They look like lollipops, but are really cookies doctored from cake mix on a stick. And we all know that everything tastes better on a stick. AJ picked out green apple sprinkles, some nonpareils, and I found some sprinkles in the cabinet.

The first batch was sweet and sour because of the apple flavored topping, and the sticks didn't want to stay. By the second batch, we had the hang of sticking in the sticks, and the third batch went perfectly.

From 09 April May

From 09 April May

Of course, the kid went to bed, and I didn't. I stayed up late wrapping them all in cellophane and tying curly ribbons around them.

From 09 April May

As AJ brought them in to daycare this morning before school, the other kids crowded around him and tried to finagle some free cookie pops.

He said no. They would have to wait and pay for them later.

We kept some small ones for ourselves.

From 09 April May

Next time, I will make them larger, and try to put together a theme, like red, white and blue, or psychedelic, and use them for special occasions. I figure I can Kool-Aid dye the sticks and coordinate the toppings.

I'll do it earlier in the day, though.

Apple Chicken

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, known as Fontana, there once lived a fair maiden and her ex-hb and several zoo-like creatures and a very little boy, who we shall refer to as "Little Baby," because he likes it so much when we call him that.

The fair maiden liked to cook. She cooked and cooked and cooked. And everyone around her ate and ate and ate. They all became plump, fluffy, paunchy, over-stuffed, and possibly even overweight.

The fair maiden decided that she couldn't stop cooking. After all, they needed to eat or they would starve. Eventually. They were pretty fluffy, after all.

So she thought and she thought and she thought and she came up with several healthy alternatives to the recipes she had been preparing. One of her favorites was apple chicken, but it was best baked in a special clay pot. She bought the clay pot with the apple-shaped knob and treasured it, baking chicken layered with red apples, onions and celery once a week.

The fair maiden and her family lost some of their fluff. But the best part was they kept all the taste they had come to love.

Well, years went by, and Little Baby grew older, and the fair maiden found herself and the zoo animals and Not-So-Little Baby living in a different land, and without as much time to cook as before because she was always working or in school. And with no one to help her, she and LB started gaining back the lbs because they ate fast food an awful lot.

She searched and searched and searched and could not find her clay apple baker. For years, she looked around, in boxes, in the garage, even in stores and online. One day, someone posted an auction on ebay for exactly the apple baker she lost or broke in her many moves.

And after she bought it and let it sit and collect dust for several weeks, she finally made apple chicken again for herself and LB.

And it was very good.

(Thanks for bearing with me through that, LOL)

Breast Friends T-Shirts

It's good cause time again here at Anna's playhouse. If you are a student, past or present, of Spalding University, chances are good that you received an e-mail regarding the 40-year-old single mother battling breast cancer. Seeing as how I am an inch away from 40 and a single mother, myself, this really hit home. This could oh so easily be me--or you or you or YOU!

If you would like to help Melisa, the brave woman fighting cancer to stay alive and raise her children, you can purchase one of these really neat t-shirts that say "Breast Friends" on them for $10 plus shipping. I did!

Every cent goes directly to Melisa for assistance with her recovery.

If you would like more information, please contact Jessica at jmuth@spalding.edu.

The only thing that feels better than helping yourself is helping someone else. Thank you!

Days of Friskies and Bonkers

Chessie and Toby, circa 2006. Together again, 2009.

Goodbye to Pretty Girl

Tomorrow is Chessie's last day on the planet. All that money to have her teeth pulled and try to make her comfortable didn't buy her much time at all. Her diagnosis is that she has a fast-moving, aggressive, painful cancer spreading throughout her jaw. It's in her bones and it's relentless. Her quality of life is much minimized, and I can't afford to give her pain meds round the clock for the next two to three months, which is all that is predicted for her. No radiation, no surgery, just pain until she goes. So I'm going to help her out by relieving her of the pain. I will be there and I will hold her. Just like I did for Tobias last summer. Last year, it was on my brother's birthday. This year, it will be on Cindi's birthday. I know I would never forget the dates regardless of who shares them.

When Toby passed, I wrote a lengthy blog with all the pet names (pun intended) I had for him, and the song I used to sing for him, and pictures, and heartbreak, and I still sometimes cry at night when I can't sleep. I'll admit it. I invested far too much of myself in his 13 years. He was there for me through a farce of a marriage and a difficult pregnancy and a tough few years where I tried to pretend nothing was wrong and that I wasn't doing it all by myself before the divorce actually began. He was my rock, one of the only sources of love in my entire life.

And Chessie was right there beside him. Before him, actually. She was one year older, and paved the way for all the other animals that arrived after her. Without her, I wouldn't have had any animals at all. One Christmas, when my ex still liked me and could stand the sight of me, he had a neighbor dress as Santa Claus and bring a tiny silver kitten to me in my house. He previously had said we could never have animals. He turned out to be responsible for most of the animals I have today.

Chessie looked just like the kitten in the ads for the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway, where their motto is "You'll Sleep Like a Kitten on the Chessie System," for passenger rail. She was so smart, right from the beginning. She learned her name and sat on my shoulder like a bird. She loved it when I smoked (yes, I used to smoke) and if I ate bananas, she would groom my fingers clean. She learned how to pop open the screen and go outside and she would turn on the water from the faucet. She knew that Bonkers were snacks, and if I said, "Kiss mama," she would lick my face. I made up a song just for her, and I think she liked it. It's personal. I'm going to keep between the two of us.

The thing Chessie did best was take away the pain. Any kind of pain. Whenever I was hurt, she was there. I would feel a paw on my arm or leg or foot, and I would look down and there she was, just laying there, absorbing all my pain, telling me she loves me and she always will.

Now it's my turn.

Wham Wham Wham

That's my head against the wall. The brick wall. Wait, I can still feel pain. Wham! Good, now I'm nice and numb. Why would I want this numbness, you ask?

1. My work week has been reduced by four hours for the entire fiscal year, beginning June 20, 2009.

2. The stupid idiot doctor's office ordered an MRI for the wrong body part, which I cancelled. Idiots.

3. Yes, the cat has cancer.

And that is the order I received the news in over an approximate two-hour period this afternoon.

Wham wham wham wham wham wham wham...into oblivion.

Literature Map

I found this link on the current Spalding MFA Alumni newsletter also found at www.spaldingmfaalum.com.

www.literature-map.com

"What else do readers of Douglas Adams read?

The closer two writers are, the more likely someone will like both of them.

Click on a name to travel along."

If you enter an author's name, a cloud of related authors will appear. Some of the names are surprising. Others are pretty predictable.

Interesting, because I have a huge Umberto Eco novel awaiting my recovery from surgery.

P.S. I just visited the alumni site to have a look around again since I posted a link to it, and thanks, Terry, for the pic on this page: http://www.spaldingmfaalum.com/Photos_2.html. I remember that afternoon! Raspberry mead at the BBC with great company--who could possibly ask for more?

Venn Diagram

I have three cats. 'Nuff said.


see more Funny Graphs

I don't know why "don't" wants to fade off the page, but it does.

Poor Chessie

Poor Chessie, my 15-year-old cat. Thursday night, I discovered a golf-ball-sized lump under her right cheek that was squinting her eye shut and causing pink discharge to puddle next to her nose. It had sprouted apparently overnight. She smelled like trash left out in the sun for over a week. She obviously had not eaten for a day and a half, if the vomit on my treadmill was any indication, and she really wanted to hide under the bed indefinitely.

Instead, I dragged her out and to the emergency vet, where they informed me that she had a possible abscess caused by a rotting tooth. They gave her antibiotics and a pain injection, and told me to watch it for drainage or bursting, and to bring her back on Saturday.

I took her to a vet I was better acquainted with on Saturday, where I heard even worse news: this was possibly a tumor. Sunday, she went under and two teeth were pulled, and several x-rays were taken of the tumor itself. A biopsy was sent to the lab. I’m still waiting for the results. Her jawbone is hollow in places due to the cancer. That much I know from the report on the x-rays.

I think I bought her some time with my $700 that I don’t really have. But if another abscess forms, I am going to have to consider letting her go. Or if the tumor spreads and causes her pain of any type, I will have to make that decision sooner.

But after last summer, when I had to put Toby down, I just don’t have the heart to do that to Chessie right now. She still has some life left in her. Every time we ride in the car, we all say, “Let,” and Chessie says, “ME OUT!!” Others might say she is simply meowing. But not me. I know my Chessie.

When we picked her up at the vet after her surgery, the tech came out and showed us the Reiki doll that they place over each animal they work on. The Reiki doll’s name is Chessie! I guess I took her to the right place. This veterinary hospital has really helped with the snakes lately, so I felt comfortable taking my pretty girl there. I know that if they can save her, they will. There’s some talk of removing the part of the jaw affected, but that sounds expensive.

Here’s the Reiki doll.

From 09 April May

From 09 April May

Here are the teeth that were pulled.

From 09 April May

And here is the unhappy girl leaving the vet.

From 09 April May

Here she is hiding under the bed after I gave her some medicine. She didn’t think it tasted tuna-like at ALL.

From 09 April May

Here she is last night, with a much smaller golf ball under her lip.

From 09 April May

I hugged her a lot after that. I’m going to keep doing that as long as I can.

Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day to all mothers out there. I'm relaxing and waiting to hear back from the vet again about Chessie, my oldest cat. She has some sort of tumor that caused two teeth to abscess. I'll know more about the tumor later in the week. And then I can make some tough decisions. She is 15 years old, so I'm not sure what her chances of survival are, even without a tumor in her jaw.

On a happy note, we saw the new Star Trek movie last night, and it was really well done, entertaining, and a must-see even if you're not a die-hard fan. They created an alternate reality and let the writers loose. Nice! And Zachary Quinto plays a convincingly half-human Spock. I want young Jim Kirk's car, but if I had it, I would keep it away from cliffsides.

I just wanted to blog today because I haven't blogged in a long time, and if Silly Moments comes out soon, like I hope it does, with a new illustrator as yet unnamed, then this blog can become a much more official author's blog.

Right now, it's just me. I kind of like it like that, anyway.

Silence is Platinum (because that's better than gold)

Quiet.

No zipper clicking in the dryer. No child slurping from a bowl of cereal. No video game screaming the latest fantasy hockey score.

Only now I ruined it by tapping on the keys of my laptop. I guess I'll have to stop.

For now.