Regan White's Ranting and Raving

Color me happy

Members of the UMAR ARTS Program read the cover story about them in this week's Charlotte Weekly.

 

 

 

Turns out that Rite Aid painting wasn't sold after all. It is now. I bought it this afternoon. I'm super excited. It looks like the artist Carol Davis is too.

Me and my crush Danny.

Be sure to mark your calendars for the UMAR ARTS Program's open studio on Friday, May 1, from 4 to 7 p.m. at their art center, 1025 E. 36th St. Artwork from $1 to $50 will be sold to benefit the program and its students. Stop by before the NoDa Gallery Crawl!

Some students of the UMAR ARTS Program celebrate after receiving a $2,000 check from the St. Matthew Knights of Columbus's LAMB Foundation funds. The money will be used for more art supplies to help support the artists in the program.  

On overload

I just finished the cover story for this week, and after having my lights out for a bit decided I can't fall asleep yet. All I can think about is how in a recent interview with a chronic pain specialist, she talked about how stress induces hormones that are needed for a fight-or-flight response. When we don't do anything with it and don't work those hormones off, they turn on the body and start attacking it. 

I think I'm there.

Because there's too much to recount, I'll leave it to bulleted points in rough time line order.

It all started in February...

• I decided I'd address an outstanding chipped filling in a bottom molar before my birthday. An extensive dental appointment revealed a filling wouldn't cut it since the filling had been too large and too close to the nerve, so off to the endodontist I went - but not before my birthday which featured my mouth healing from the gouging of the molar crown preparation and a filling on another tooth. Yay, 28!
•  It took two root canal appointments totaling five hours to resolve the molar. I wont' get into all of it, save to say it was time consuming and angst inducing. Apparently I had a canal that was s shaped and included a difficult u bend. 
• Around the time of my second root canal attempt, I had my car serviced. It needed an expensive 90,000 mile service and also needed the weird burning smell investigated. I got a call that I needed new rotors at $70 a piece, in addition to my more than $800 service. I agreed, having already consulted with the mechanic that after this service I should be able to eke another 100,000 to 200,000 miles out of the car. then I got a call that the burning smell was coming from my broken head oil gasket, as well as some other gaskets. They had already completed the other services and we were already $1,500 in the hole with completed work. It all totaled nearly $3,000. 
• This meant that in the month of February alone I spent $5,000 or so on crap. Necessary crap, mind you, but crap just the same. And in my birthday month. I was not happy. 
• Toward the end of February, my family started getting calls about my grandfather's heart attack symptoms - which subsequently also lead to the reveal of his kidney cancer. Stress, stress, stress. 
• March 13 my grandfather had his triple bypass. No sleep. Stress, worry, stress. 
• March 16 I finally received my gold crown. I cried in the parking lot as I looked at it in my car mirror. It's way in the back, but I know it's there and I feel like a worthless Robo Cop at 28. I grind too much to even make it halfway worth it to have a porcelain or half porcelain crown on a molar. In logic, I don't mind. In practicality, I felt old and unwanted. 
• *WARNING UNEXPECTED HIGH NOTE* On the evening of March 16 I DID receive an unexpected invite to the Bobcats game where Dwayne and I DID make it onto the Jumbotron twice drawing admirers of our dancing from far and wide. OK, so they liked his dancing. 
• March 17 I awoke and everything tasted like crushed aspirin. Everything I ate, drank, everything - bitter, bitter, bitter, no taste, crushed aspirin. Nothing made it go away. I start to suspect the crown cement, some leaking decaying tooth I don't know about - anything that might have recently occurred. 
• By March 22 the bitterness is getting a little better. 
• On the evening of March 22 my mom's stomach goes, as it occasionally does and has more and more with increasing frequency. After dinner I snag her from the house that now contains all of my living grandparents - all in varying stages of needy disrepair - and whisk her away for a 20-minute respite. We have to sidetrack at a Harris Teeter to use the bathroom. She gets home and isn't much better and winds up on the floor. Then passes out. I've never seen my mother pass out before, and could live a happy life if I never see it again. She was out for about a minute while my sister held her up and I called 911. 
• We have the worst experience of our lives at Presbyterian Matthews. Three hours after arriving by ambulance my mother still hasn't been seen by anyone. She is bleeding and in great pain and doesn't have an IV for fluids she desperately needs, no morphine, squat. We then find out her gastro - who we explicitly went to Presby Matthews for - doesn't visit patients there although his practice is located in the same building and he had instructed my mother to go there if this should happen to her again. We load my mother into a wheelchair and leave with her citing inept staff among other things on her chart. There are five discarded wheelchairs and an oxygen tank blocking the entrance to the ER when we exit. 
• She goes home, sleeps, and presents at CMC main's ER March 23 at the recommendation of her primary care. She's formally diagnosed with ischemic colitis, something that's quite rare, especially for someone like her that doesn't have other hallmarks such as clotting disorders, heart disease, high cholesterol, etc.
• March 23 the bitterness returns in full force. I freak out and am sure I have a rare disease. 
• March 23/24 I Google around for one last time and discover the likely root cause of the bitter taste I can't shake: pine nuts. Unbelievable. Google it. Seriously. Some, and they don't know why some and not others, cause gross taste perversions that last for days or weeks with no real known health threat. The onset is one to three days after consumption. I had had some in a salad three days before the crown was placed and had some more this past Saturday and Sunday - hence the recurrence. Again, unbelievable. 
• Regan, keri & Co. are in charge in the absence of Mama White. It's insanity. Three barking dogs, two grandmothers and one grandfather with a triple bypass and shot kidney. It's all I can do to get my work done, and even work is a dreadfully busy week. I want to cry.
• The dogs get colitis March 24. 
• After getting my grandmother dressed and ready and fed, getting lunch arranged, beds made, wash put in etc., I leave for work March 24 and my check engine light is on. I pull off the road and make sure it's not my gas cap - which I knew it wasn't. I check under the hood to check for anything obvious a girl might spot, and slam the hood down. I almost cry. Instead I call the mechanic and warn him I'm coming and that I'll haunt his ass if I blow up on my way over there. 
• My O2 sensor is shot. It's replaced for $225. I'm there less than an hour, which I'm thankful for, but it's the quickest $225 I've spent in a while. 
• After a lengthy procedure, mom's released March 24.
• I'm behind on work, and stay up until, well, now, to write this week's cover story which I'm praying isn't riddled with errors.

And I think that successfully brings us to today, March 25. 

Let's hope that from here on out I'll only have good things to bullet.

It's been a lot. I know it could be worse - far worse. But I'm not going to lie - it's been a lot.

a storm is going to come

Black crows circling up above

Crying out, do you hear that sound? 

I never thought it'd come to this

Paradise raised to the ground

Sometimes I don't sleep at night

I hear the wind in the moaning trees

I wonder how my child will fair

With wars and bombs and thieves

A thunder has begun

Some are blind but choose to see

Lies into the truth they weave

Some put their trust in faith

Some say I don't believe

But each man unto himself

Is an island in a raging sea

With a boat to anchor sail

All but two, which will it leave?

The thunder has begun

A thunder has begun

The thunder has begun

A storm is going to come... Piers Faccini

I must sleep. Can't believe it's 1 a.m. already.

I had the creepiest, most vivid dream last night.

In short, I wound up in an isolated, freestanding, athletic field bathroom in a hurricane/tornado. I wasn't really sure which. The storm and wind lifted the building off the ground and threw it around. As it was caught up in the tornado, I had a vivid feeling of weightlessness and free falling, as the wind tossed the building about and jostled me and a friend inside the bathroom with its two sinks and stalls and things.

I don't remember the building crashing to the ground, but it must have. Somehow, we knew we couldn't leave the building right away. Like the storm was followed by pestilence and plague and flooding. All of these decomposition insects flooded the floor of the bathroom. I assumed at that point that they were swarming the dead bodies outside my crash-landed bathroom.

When I emerged and found a teacher at my school (weird), he told me that I hadn't survived like I thought I had. I looked around and there were all these signs saying "Remember Regan" and garbage like that. I realized I had died and didn't even realize it. 

Now, why the teacher could see me, I'm not too sure.

The dream stuck with me all day. It's really freaking me out.

Pa is still faring decently, although he seems far frailer than he ever did before. He seems 20 years older. I hope he recovers OK. I'm worried about him.

p.s. Anyone who was at the Bobcats game might have seen me on the Jumbotron dancing with my friend Dwayne. We very nearly won a Mama Ricotta's dinner for two and (after that) $100 of groceries in the VIC Card challenge. We were on the big screens every time. After the game, we had all these people come up to us for the rest of the night saying that we should've won. It seems we had the popular vote. Just not the vote of the loser cameramen. (I can say loser cameramen because they were up in the grill of the dumbest cheerleader on the team. And it wasn't because she was hot. I'm assuming she has to be easy because she was both mediocre pretty and dumb as a box of rocks. During every dance number she looked around at what everyone else was doing. It was insane.)

Anyway, I was proud of Dwayne and me.

time for bed. and very nearly time for the fuzzy bunny ears. Hooray!!!! 

xo

Best painting ever

Today I went to the UMAR Arts Center to do interviews for the Charlotte Weekly cover next week about their arts program for people with various developmental disabilities. It was awesome. The artwork was amazing.

But nothing topped the following painting, created after artist Carol was laid off from a local Rite Aid. She was so upset, the director suggested she paint what she was feeling. The picture is worth more than I could ever say to describe it. My absolute favorite part is at the bottom where it reads: "CAROL YOU ARE LAID OFF."

Unbelievable.

UMAR has an open studio art sale coming up May 1. You should go. I hear the Rite Aid painting is already sold. Or else I would've bought it already. Read more in next week's CW.

Thank you for the prayers

 

Thank you all for the prayers and well wishing regarding my grandfather, William James White. He had a triple bypass on Friday morning and is doing beautifully. He was released from the ICU yesterday and has been doing great. A few weeks of recovery, the removal of a kidney and a hernia repair, and he should be primed and ready for his 80th birthday in June. Hooray!

Above is one of my favorite photos of my grandfather and me. And yes, despite the fact that I look exactly the same today (maybe a tad bit taller but not much), this was taken quite some time ago. I love how it looks like we're sizing each other up. Hell, we are.

Much love and happy Monday to all. It's St. Patrick's Day Eve!

xo 

Quick update

Thank you for all your prayers. Please continue them! My grandfather needs open heart surgery on Friday morning. In the interim, my dad's siblings are en route here. After his cardiac cath this morning, my grandfather was admitted to the hospital since he'd have to report back to the hospital on Thursday anyway for pre-op preparations. I went and visited him late this evening until around 12:15 a.m. I gather I got a different reception from him than my dad and sister received earlier. 

He was subdued, reflective and grateful, I think, to see me. He said more than once he was surprised since he knew my family had gone home and figured he wouldn't have any other visitors. I sat with him and he just started talking. I commented here and there but mostly let him talk. He said he had been really bitchy and nasty lately. He said he had really upset my dad and sister when they were at the hospital because he refused to take his heart medicine, reasoning that it really wouldn't do him much good at this point. He said that after they left he paged the nurse so he could take the medicine, but the nurse never came. I rooted her out while I was there and he took it - then asked me five times if I'd reiterate to my dad that he'd taken it. He talked about how surprised he was to be facing open heart surgery. He reasoned that the surgery has improved since the days when many of his friends had bypasses done as younger men. 

It was really, really nice. I felt bad he wasn't that way for my father. Perhaps he will be tomorrow. 

In the meantime, I leave in the morning to pick up an uncle in Raleigh. I also continue to pray that my grandfather ("Pa" as I call him because when I was little I truncated grandpa to pa) is at peace. That he won't stay up worrying. That he'll stay strong. That he'll survive to see me marry and more.

I hope everyone sleeps well. I'm going to try to. Thank you again for the prayers and kind thoughts. They mean more than you know. xo R

Paint me worried

It's been a crazy couple weeks. They've been the kind of weeks where nothing is surprising anymore because crazy things keep happening, end on end, overlapping, hedging and edging each other.

The most recent turn of events has had me worried for my grandfather who, with the exception of this past weekend when he returned to the Outer Banks with my grandmother, has been with my family in Charlotte having various health problems investigated. What began as heart attack worries a few weeks ago soon became clouded by UTI issues. In a matter of days last week we discovered he has kidney cancer but needs to have his heart addressed before his kidney can be removed. His cardiology appointment was Monday; his oncology appointment Tuesday. His cardiac catheterization will take place today.

I'll admit I'm not as good about praying as I used to be. In high school and college, and even for a time after college, prayer was a constant thread in my life. Not in a creepy way, I don't think, just in a constant, under-my-breath conversation kind of way. While I still pray it's not as frequent, I know, and it's not in the way it used to be. I most often pray in my car on the way to work in the morning. It's the time when I'm most keyed up. My mind races and mulls in turn. I pray to calm down - to sort my thoughts - to approach the day in the most positive way I can - to start the day thankful. While my prayers previously used to be more conscious thoughts, these days they're more inner workings of my mind that I offer up - as if in my acceptance that God knows what I'm thinking, perhaps in a way we can be one in prayer. That perhaps by knowing that God hears my worries, my thoughts, my hopes, my fears, he's sharing in them. It's a selfish thought, but these days it's all I can do sometimes. 

Anyway, with things happening so rapidly and so much going on at work and otherwise, it's these flashes of prayer in fragmented thoughts, words and utterances that I've been offering up for my grandfather. I know he's scared. I know that despite his often stubborn, thick-as-a-nutshell exterior, he's soft on the inside. It only struck me this week that he'll be 80 this June - an age that by all accounts is old. I think I sometimes forget how old 80 is because my maternal grandmother will be 95. The idea of old age is a little skewed in our house.

But I realized, too, that I probably don't think he's old because he doesn't seem so. He and my grandmother are still self sufficient. They're with it, they care for themselves and the youthfulness in my grandfather's German face belies his age.

My family doesn't do well when any of its members are ailing. My mother excels at handling it usually. My sister is much like her and fares well. I'm not as good handling it. My father is more like me.

I cried for the first time about it all returning from the gym last night. It was unexpected. I was in my car, closing in on a stoplight and just burst out crying. Fat tears rolled down my cheeks. I couldn't stop. I thought about my grandfather and how he coached my soccer teams when I was little. I thought about how my mom told me recently he was the first family member to show up at the hospital when I was born. I thought about how he calls me "Regan Baby." I thought about how he's a writer, just like me. I thought about his sparkling blue eyes and how these days there are no prezzies or gifts or tokens of affection I can get him that will ease the worry in them - or the stress or the stubbornness.

I regretted not making more of an effort to see him more often. Or telling him I love him more often. And all the other little things that cross ones mind when it becomes crystal clear there are no guarantees we'll be given tomorrow.

And so, tonight - despite my best efforts - I lay awake and I worry. And I pray, in my way. And I hope that somehow it's enough. And I hope that when my grandfather looks in my eyes in the morning he doesn't see the worry. I hope he'll only see the love.

Listening

to the new U2 album. It's not bad. It's no Joshua Tree or Achtung Baby but I wasn't holding my breath for such. I'm not far enough along in it to know if I hate it or not. I'll let you know.

So... the bachelor is an a-hole, eh? I only watched bits and pieces of this year's season but saw enough of last night's The Final Rose, After The Final Rose and Tonight's "The Final, Final Rose - No Really, It's Over" to know he's a flaming jerk. I wish someone had punched him. If only to put a stop to all the crying.

And Molly is 24!?! I was shocked. That's one hard living 24. She looks like she's 35. And her eyes scare me.

So I had the worst headache that I've had in a really long time today. It started yesterday but I've had hormonal headaches off and on all week so I figured I'd just wake up and it would go away. No such luck. Driving to work it felt like I had an ice pick in my head. There was nothing left to do after taking my migraine medicine but to take my Hello Kitty ice pack out of the freezer at work and put it on my head. Hello Kitty is a life saver I'll tell you.

But in the throes of the headache, I could barely function. I set out to get a birthday cake for a co-worker and he requested either a red velvet cake or a cheesecake with cherries on top. I haven't had time to bake lately so I headed to Sam's, knowing they usually have pretty big, tasty cakes. Not so today. No red velvet and no cherries for cheesecake. And the Cheesecake Factory cheesecake would've taken eight to 12 hours to defrost - time I didn't have.

I went to Harris Teeter to get a red velvet cake. By that point, I was lucky I was still able to drive. I stood in front of the cakes for what seemed like forever with some dude who was standing way in my personal space. Like our shoulders were kind of touching. This and the fact that when I went to examine a cheesecake I got some kind of weird chocolate icing on my hand. I didn't realize it until I went to check out at the U-Scan. It was like I had poop on my hand. I knew it was chocolate icing, but because I hadn't seen it and didn't really know exactly where I had picked it up from, it grossed me out. I stood there holding my hand out disgusted, like a little kid.

I nearly had a meltdown at the U-Scan. It would've been interesting.

My co-workers and I frequently call this location "the Harris Teeter that time forgot." I don't think it's ever been renovated. We all half suspect that corporate Harris Teeter doesn't know that the location exists any more. I like to think it exists in some kind of black hole and that it literally is 1976 in there. I need to start paying better attention to the store music.

Today as I entered I was right behind the Wells Fargo dude. I thought, "Great. You're going to get killed in some kind of desperate money heist crossfire at the Harris Teeter that time forgot. Nice." Every time I tried to get past the dude, I was thwarted. Numerous dudes walked past the guy saying, "Heyyyyy!!! It's the money guy!" 

No good. I imagined how if I had enough warning I'd have to throw myself on the floor by the produce to save myself. Once inside, I got away from him as quickly as I possibly could.

To touch on the weather, since I haven't in this post yet, I'm really, really, really over the cold. Even though the million-degree shift to 70 degrees on Friday and in the 80s by the weekend will cause my head to explode, I'm grateful for it. I'd like to burn my down jacket at this point. I wore more wool than the average sheep today. I'm not proud of that.

And I need to get my car serviced. Badly. I think a belt that is some kind of defroster blower is askew because I've noticed a faint burning smell toward the front of my car for a while now. People kept saying it was the brakes but now I really don't think so. The last time I idled my car and had it on defrost, the inside of the car filled with the burning rubber type smell. It gets worse when I idle or have the defrost on. Regardless, it can't be good. 

And tonight I realized that my left headlight is out. Hooray! I don't know what they actually do to my car when I put it in to be serviced.

Must sleep. More soon. Happy Wednesday!!! xo R

Will we ever see the sun again?

Well, it's been raining for what seems like forever - a forecast that some time this afternoon/evening is supposed to turn to snow. 

Bring on the Southern hysteria.

Seriously, though, I don't know if we'll ever see the sun again. Such convictions are why I live in the South in the first place - an area that guarantees I'll rarely have to worry about such things.

I napped almost all day yesterday - something that was long overdue. If I don't get crackin' today, I feel my Sunday fate might be the same.

Hmm...updates. Please keep my grandfather in your prayers. He hasn't been doing well and has been stranded out on the Outer Banks where he and my grandmother live. My father and sister are picking them up as we speak so he can make some doctor's appointments here this week. 

My mother had a minor surgical procedure performed on Friday that left her uncontrollably vomiting from the anesthesia, snowed most of Friday and into Saturday morning and now in pain. Awesome. 

Gma's holding up but only speaks to say she wants to sleep in or to request more cookies - not in any particular order. 

I'm holding up well and have remarkably escaped the grungy cold/flu funk that is making the rounds at record pace and felled my sister last week. I'm pretty impressed with myself. Knock on wood.

My pinky finger on my right hand continues to defect and hold itself aloft a la British fashion whenever I'm drinking something - whether it's a glass of water, a beer, a Diet Coke. It just keeps happening. Either my pinky has an attitude or it doesn't want anything to do with the rest of my hand. 

I'm grateful that I took some time with friends this weekend, which was much needed. I'm blessed to know such wonderful people. And have them like me back.

I can't believe it's March! My birthday month is over ;( and yet I feel it was a solid run. I've met more people this year with February birthdays than I think I ever have so it's really extended the birthday month for me and meant cake for extended weeks on end - which I heartily support. 

On Friday I was at Howl at the Moon because a friend had won a free party for 100 people. I had never been before and while the atmosphere was festive, I wasn't particularly impressed by the piano players I saw. I think I could do better, and I don't even play the piano. Rather, the piano playing was decent, the singing was so so. The company was fabulous although I was yawning by 9:30 p.m. My request for them to play "Toxic" was ignored, as was my friend's request to play "Good Vibrations" (the Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch version). I'd think they overlooked us on purpose, except that they played Pink's "So What?" so maybe they just didn't get around to us.

Or maybe they ignored us.

The atmosphere featured one of the best male mullets I've seen in a long time (I had to get up close to ascertain whether it was natural long hair paired with a short mullet bang toupee because it was unnaturally long in the back, sparse in the middle and yet the bangs were close cropped in a straight line and glossy. It was glorious. I think it was all real, too.) and a bartender with a condom tie (rather a row of packaged condoms tucked into his shirt like a tie. He seemed pretty proud of himself and didn't realize our questioning about said tie wasn't meant as flattery or flirting). 

Afterward a friend and I headed back to south Charlotte to mark her brother's 30th birthday - a celebration that continued into last evening with a sausage party (I missed that part and thus can't speak to it except to say that grilled preserved meats were featured prominently) and caking (I made it for the cake).

As much as I love having hilariously funny friends, it's even better when I find that my friends have hilariously funny families - as in this case.

I should head to the gym today, but always find it difficult to do so in a downpour. I desperately need to make it to a Pilates class - my legs and shoulders are cramping like no one's business. 

Guess I'll have to head back to bed. :)

Hope all of you are well. Rant in the paper this week, I promise. I had to ditch it last week for space. I've already had a few e-mails asking what the heck is going on. I like that no column equates to Armageddon. No worries, loves. 

R