Updates Galore...

Short: Grandma's had a miraculous recovery.
My mother recapped Wednesday night's episode on Thursday morning. My parents went during evening visiting hours to say "good-night." Apparently, my grandma was in the hallway, in a chair, screaming "Lyon's Store! Lyon's Store! Manager! Privelidged!" over and over again & screaming at the top of her lungs. They had no idea what any of it meant. (Hell, I don't remember when I last saw a Lyon's Store). My mother decided to throw her off the track by yelling "Elder Berman's!" back at her but she just yelled "Lyon's Store!" louder. She ripped out her breathing tube (in her nose) and her feeding tubes. She flipped out and it took them hours to calm her down.
My mom said it was all horrible.
Enter Thursday afternoon. Grandma is sitting up in bed eating turkey with stuffing, gravy, potatoes and dessert. She says "Hello" and apologizes for being a -quote- "bad girl last night." And she seems perfectly sane. Holy shit.
The doctors can't get a feeding tube in her if they had too - the woman is so frail plus she'd just fight it all off again. The doctor is chanting "Eat! Eat! Eat!" and they are discussing a nursing home with rehab.
By Friday evening - she's STANDING. Nurses hold her up and get her on her feet. She's still paralyzed on her entire left side from the first post-op stroke... but if she improves today (Saturday) they will begin rehab. I talked to her on the phone for maybe 4 or 5 brief exchanges... she sounded exhausted. Her voice is scary, it dropped a few octives and she almost sounds like a baratone. I wasn't prepared for any of this. She sounded down but she sounded like she wasn't crazy - which I took as a good sign.
My God this week has been incredible.

On stand-by

I was sitting in my cube looking out over the parking lot, listening to Christmas music and became just wrought over what my grandmother is enduring. At last check she had 2 strokes (one paralyzing her entire left side) and 2 heart attacks with a DNR request. All of this 6 days post-operation for colon cancer. I should have seen this coming. I didn't. I never actually considered her dying - we joked that she'd live forever. Part of me began to think she would.
I started crying to "I'll Be Home for Christmas". I had this elaborate fuzzy-lensed dream of my grandma dancing with Bob (the grandfather I never met after dying of cancer in the 1960's) during sometime in the 1940's. A sepia toned day dream, really.
She had recently showed us these portraits she had taken very close to the time she was just married or just about to get married. I recognized how old she was since I had a photo of her in the same dress with Bob standing behind her, embraced from behind. She was so upset at the fact that she was old and wrinkled. It must be difficult to feel old, and potentially "ugly" when the portrait of your late husband sits on his side of the bed... a portrait from when he was in the army during WW2. She aged... he never did. But in my day dream, they are the same age and enjoying the fact that its now her time to come home.
I hope it all ends just like this.

Chocolate roulette

On Monday I brought in a huge platter of mixed cookies (every year I have more than my fair share of cookies leftover from our cookie-exchange). I don't need the temptation of 5 (yes 5) tins & tupperware containers filled with batches of butter & sugar goodness.
I wasn't the only one.
Someone else brought in a rum cake... 2 boxes of generic Krispy Kreme donuts... a breakfast pizza (despite how it sounds, it truly is good)... and 2 boxes of chocolates.
I resisted all urges knowing damn well this was the first of many office days leading up to Christmas.
But when I passed the box of chocolates - I gave in.
It was filled with paper cups and one upside down chocolate - one obviously turned down by the previous risk taker. I had already decided to have a chocolate - so I popped it in my mouth anticipating some jellied raspberry monstrosity.
Dark chocolate and chewy caramel... hmmm, I couldn't have picked a better one.

Yup.

yup.

Weekend Wrap-Up

In a nutshell - visiting family in Ohio is like doing your tour of duty for the army. You don't want to do it - you just have to. Its most like being enlisted during Vietnam considering you never signed up to be a part of this family but rather - you were drafted.
Ok, yes. That's all a rather bleek and mean thing to say, but really. If you had a chance to take a vacation from work (unpaid, mind you, since I'm a new hire and have not earned vacation time yet) would you really race to the car for a 10 hour drive to extended family-ville? Probably, cause you have to do the same tour-of-duty like the rest of us, but, ...would you want to?
So, the first day (Thursday) was an easy drive. Of course, I didn't do one leg of it. Late start, a few stops and we were here by 7PM. That night, I stayed up a wee bit too late talking and catching up, became really cranky and crashed out.
Friday was Susan's Coffee and Tea for Rob to do work, then Jay & Meg's house for the new baby tour (I'll post pics later). Once again, they organized a massive get together involving Kendra & Kenny (and their new baby), Galen, Craig and Wayne... complete with a full spread of filling snacks. We then grab dinner at the famous Swenson's before heading to Nicole & Jon's house (Rob's sister) to see the new house and visit with the 3 year-old nieces. Later, Andy (Rob's brother) and his girlfriend (whom we hadn't met yet) joined us. Phew! That's what? 11 hours of straight talking and catching up? I was beat.
Saturday was yet another kam-packed day. Grabbing lunch with Andy and Natalie for a few hours. Seeing Andy's apartment. Then running through Gabriel Brothers (a local Kent State University area dive much like that of TJMaxx or Marshall's). Later, heading over to Eileen Burg's place to see Bill & Laura Burg (and for me to finally meet Adeline who is now 2 years old!). We stayed for dinner which was fixed entirely for the 4 of us by Eileen. She served salads, homemade mac n' cheese, wine, homemade cherry cobbler... and didn't eat a bite of it herself. We were there for at least 5 hours.
Sunday was "wake-up and head out to Toledo (Toodly-doo!)" day. We hit Skyline Chili on the way out (*gag*!) and made it there by 1:30PM. We picked up grandma (my dad's mom) and went to my uncle Jeff & Aunt Patty's place... a place known for loud talkers who speak over one another while chain smoking and sucking down beers. My mom's family is a bunch of auto workers who all work for Jeep. there's a lot of talk about assembly lines, long hours, who's doing what (it could be really good news or really bad - in either case, its always a more extrememe version of YOUR news. These people are rarely impressed with anything you bring to the table. They've either seen it, been there or have done it). I saw family members I saw last year and one I hadn't seen for 12 years. We then split to go back to my dad's mom's apartment where my brother (yes, I have a half brother who I maybe see an average of every 6 years) and his wife were waiting. Here's where I tell funny stories of my grandmother heating up a frozen pizza WITH the cardboard on the bottom. We stayed over and left early (but not as early as we should) the next morning... which is today (Monday).
Now I am sitting in Susan's Coffee Shop again after returning/ replacing items purchased from Gabriel's earlier this weekend. ("Gabriel Brothers! You gotta love it!"). I'm cursing an obnoxious russian who insists on yelling in FULL VOLUME at his friend sitting across from him... fantastic, now he's even louder cause he is on his cell phone (and to think, I thought he couldn't get any louder). Rob's finishing up a sketch to send off tonight.
Tomorrow we leave at the crack-of-ass to get home at a decent hour (or at least try to). I have to work on Wednesday and really want some Down time" after all of this.
I think Rob and I have earned our gold wings after this weekend wrap-up. ;-)

New! New! New!

We just got the dining room light installed today (after having it here for a month). I'd been talking about a new light since we moved in. MUCH improved from before. The dining room can almost be considered "done" now!
I bought this light originally for the kitchen but later decided to put it in the hallway. Our kitchen hasn't had an once of "updating" since we moved in. I plan to get a new stove (stainless steel), put in a fake slate floor, paint the walls, get an island/bar and then I'll worry about the lighting in there. ;-)

Sick

The thing about working in a sterile environment is that it really isn't sterile at all. Sterile looking, yes. Sterile/corporate, yes. Sterile, as in free of germs, NO! I've been listening to this major head cold making the rounds. I can hear people sniffing, hacking, clearing throughts, sneezing, coughing through my padded cube walls. And then... all was silent for about a week. And then there's me, *sniff*.
I feel like total ass today.
Damned recycled corporate air!