Regan White's Ranting and Raving

Strange things I've seen these days

1. I was in Starbucks at Cotswold the other day and noticed that a woman with a baby in stroller was reprimanding a couple of heavy-set, female hippies. Tuning in my "go-go gadget" ears a bit further, I heard the mother inform the hippies the couldn't smoke inside the establishment. One hippie turned and said, "Oh no. This is a fake cigarette. See it has a battery pack and lights up and everything. It looks real, but it's not. I'm trying to quit." The mother looked baffled.

2. The other night I had spur-of-the-moment dinner with friends at their house. Returning home around midnight a cop had pulled over a driver WELL into part of my neighborhood. I didn't know the man, but he was well into a breathalizer. I've never seen a breathalizer conducted. It was interesting to drive past.

3. My co-worker Debbie is raising sea monkeys. The plastic, water-filled case appeared on her desk a week or so ago. I got really excited and explained my mom never allowed my sister and I to have sea monkeys. We discussed the process of sterilizing the water, then adding the eggs days later and allowing them to hatch in five days. After the weekend we all returned to find microscopic-looking shrimps swimming around. Looking through one of the magnified bubble viewers I said, "Wow. My mom was right. They really are dirty little animals." Days later, something tragic occurred. Only four sea monkeys were left, despite the green algae food pellet floating on the top of the tank's water. By afternoon, there was no tank movement.

"Something very bad has happened," Debbie said ominously.

Later, she confided that in reviewing the directions she might have forgotten to stir the tank for five days to add oxygen to the water. "They all suffocated," she said simply.

"What a bad God you'd make, Debbie," commented our co-worker Michael. "Where would we be if God had forgotten to stir our tank, eh?"

How true.

4. Gma Hazel had a TIA on Sunday that made her left side paralyzed for at least three hours. Fire and medic, everyone came. At this point, we're nearly on a first-name basis with our fire company. Whoever seemed to be the fire captain on duty (since they arrived first, per usual), seemed confused and more interested in our family and house than my grandmother. While a young guy took my grandmother's vitals, the older guy interspersed it all with comments like, "hey! is that a laundry shoot!" and "What kind of dogs do you have? I can't tell from the barking." And, "who plays the harp in this house? That not an instrument you just pick up."

It was strange.

So was gma's behavior while in the hospital and lately in general. I escaped much of the usual talk that my mom and sister had to deal with during this hospital stay - the 24-hour arguments every two minutes (quite literally) about how even if my grandmother THINKS she has to go the bathroom, she can just go since she has a catheter. And while a week ago I had to deal with a full day of my grandmother nonstop asking where the purse is she hasn't carried in 15 years, how she wished she had "dough" on her to pay for lunch and ice cream etc., my sister received the brunt of it all, staying with her nearly a full 24 hours straight and fielding 4 a.m. conversations about how it was a holy day of obligation (it wasn't), how if my grandmother found "a bag of dough" in church she'd give it right to the priest and - most amusingly - taking off her underwear saying she was looking for money to give to the priest since someone had the nerve to take her purse downstairs.

And all that entertainment is free!

5. To unwind, Keri and I watched "Adventures in Babysitting" last night, a movie I haven't seen since I was maybe 10. It's our kind of movie. At the end, my sister announced, "Now THAT'S how you make a movie!" Truer words were never spoken. We like cheesy - what can I say?

Hazy shade of winter

Sooo... it's pretty cold out, eh?

I went with my sister and a friend to the Knights game against the Mud Hens tonight. We had a blast. We sat in the first row next to the Mud Hens' dugout. Even though it was a small crowd (greater than I expected for a Monday night), it was a great time. The beer was tasty, the crowd watching was riveting and we were handed practice balls from the field to boot. You can't beat that on a Monday.

I got my hair cut a week ago. Because it's still long in the back, some haven't noticed. I'm not someone who needs people to notice when I get my hair chopped, but considering a good seven inches or so was lopped off, I expected more people to notice. I have these side-swept bangs now that I love but also might grow to hate under certain conditions. LIke wind. All in all, a wise decision. I'm toying with going back and just having it lopped into a bob with actual bangs but then pulling it all back out of my face might become an issue. We'll have to see. 

Gma Hazel's birthday was a blast. My sister took pictures. I'll have to post them on here when I get my hands on them. For her actual 95th on Friday we had a few people over, including her nurse/friend Evon. We made Italian pasta dishes and salad and flatbread and Gma quite enjoyed all of it, as well as her rose wine. 

Her tastes have changed over the years and around the past year or so she hasn't liked the taste of beer and wine - even beverages she used to adore. But on Friday she couldn't get enough. We had to start watering it down with tonic water after she polished off her first glass. 

For dessert, I made sure to stop by the Polka Dot Bake Shop. They make fresh, all-natural ingredient cupcakes every day and on Fridays they always make some of their strawberry cupcakes, which have real strawberry pureed into the icing and the cupcakes themselves. They're heavenly. Seeing as Hazel's favorite desserts involve strawberries, I knew it would be a perfect dessert. 

I even found candles whose flames lit as the same color of the wax of the candle. (Orange candles had orange flames, red candles red flames, blue candles blue flames etc.) I didn't know how they'd actually look but they came out beautifully. I need to get my hands on some more.

Thank you to all my friends who stopped by and make grandma's day. The fact that you'd spend your Friday with her, and bring her wine, dessert, birthday cards etc., meant so much. She talked the entire next day about what a great time she had.

And that brings me to Saturday - the day from hell. I don't know if gma had a stroke on Friday night or what but she woke up on Saturday morning a new woman. I haven't seen her that good since she was 75. She was walking better than I've seen in decades - and FAST. And she was talking NONSTOP. Even scarier - she was RETAINING.

I spent most of the day with her as Keri had a ton of errands (Keri has assumed the lion's share of Gma watch lately when my mom is otherwise occupied with doctor's appointments etc. etc.). We went to Five Guys and had cheeseburgers (gma's fave), then strawberry ice cream and then we went to a Handpicked and she picked out another new bracelet. (we found the perfect one, festooned with hearts and roses.) I've never heard her talk so much in my life. She was absolutely adorable. We had the best time.

Then Keri, gma and I went to church and afterward Keri and I were just wiped out. Between a late Friday running around and then exhausting Gma all day Saturday, we came home from church and took to bed. I heard my grandmother rummaging in the kitchen and ran downstairs. She was hungry again and rummaging through the fruit basket saying she was starving. 

After eating, it seemed like the night would never end. She talked NONSTOP while I entreated her to go to bed. She wasn't tired - something she reiterated repeatedly to me. I don't think I got her into bed until midnight, and even that was begrudgingly. 

Sunday was a complete 180, as so often happens. Whereas I couldn't keep up with her the day before, on Sunday she wasn't talking and was walking into walls and barely keeping her eyes open. 

The brain is a scary thing.

Speaking of, I best get to bed. More soon. Regan has started house hunting. Yippee!

May 15, 1914

It's Grandma Hazel's 95th birthday today!!!

My sister and I picked up one of Gma's prescriptions at the pharmacy yesterday. It's so weird to give 5/15/14 as a date of birth - though I guess in no time 2014 will be an option. That's even weirder.

Grandma's birthday festivities began this past weekend when we had a nice dinner out for her, complete with a specially made strawberry cake. It was absolutely out of this world. We've been celebrating in small ways throughout the week and tonight we'll have some friends over to celebrate.

Photos from this weekend are below.

   

       

You're the chocolate at the end of my Cornetto

Happy Thursday, everyone! It took me a bit to even recall what day it is.

I love most of the people I work with. This is a priceless gift. Particularly when you spend as much time at work as I do. In talking with some co-workers tonight about how hard we all are on each other at times, someone remarked that it's only natural since we spend so much ridiculous time together it's almost like we're all roommates. And it's true. 

What I'm most thankful for is that not only do most of my co-workers laugh, but these days I have a few awesome co-workers who turn my mood around. Not many people are able to do that. I can head into work like a dark storm cloud and a few people are able to turn me around rather quickly by Regan standards. It's astounding. I don't think I thank them enough for it.

I could do without this weird weather lately. The flooding, the sideways slanty rain. The tornado warnings.

A day ago, when torrential rains started slamming the area and mass flooding just began, we had a co-worker call into the office and say she was stranded on Independence due to the flooding. We then heard that there was a tornado warning in the area and that meteorologists were saying that swirling clouds had attempted to form. 

A brief discussion followed about where might be safest (in our meager building) in the event of a tornado. We arrived at the bathroom but I adamantly stated numerous times that literally over my dead body would I die at work - let alone in the work bathroom.

During the discussion, Gary - our distribution manager and former career military man extraordinaire, walked down the hallway to leave. I asked where he was going. He said he was going home. I asked who would lift the refrigerator off of my lifeless body in the event of a tornado. He advised I not stand by the fridge. He then added I should sidle away from the windows too. He again suggested the bathroom - starting my loud protests about dying in the work bathroom all over again.

The odds of a tornado hitting our office are slim, I know. Then again, it's been that kind of week.

Regardless, someone came into the room and announced that clouds were slowly spinning in circular fashion in the sky. Like lemmings we all went out into the parking lot. 

The rain had subsided for a while and the air was skin temperature. It was that kind of calm between storms when you want to run out and play when you're little even though you know that another storm is on its way and the calm is only a momentary reprieve. The sky was a weird color and the clouds were indeed swirling - albeit slowly - in a circular pattern. I've never seen anything like it. We all stood clustered together in an otherwise small, deserted parking lot, staring at the clouds. 

I wish I had a picture of it.

At some point I shouted, "My GOD! It's the slowest tornado EVER!" 

It still makes me laugh to think of it and how we all must've looked. Again, I wish I had a picture.

My life has been a weird mixture of doubt and faith lately.

On the home front there's been a lot going on. To be honest, I really don't know how my family has been keeping it together. The height of the absolute insanity was probably about two weeks ago when my mother, grandmother and I wound up at the same general practice doctor at the exact same time. I was diagnosed with pneumonia and my grandmother (the wife of my grandfather who just had the triple bypass and extensive kidney removal - which didn't go as smoothly as planned) was wheeled off in a wheelchair to the same hospital my grandfather was still at under the suspicion of a suspected stroke. (Turns out she's had hundreds of mini strokes. If she learns to keep her diabetes, blood pressure etc. under control she might avoid a huge one. We'll see.)

My mom gave me a wry smile in the hallway as they wheeled on past and headed BACK to the hospital. My sister, meantime, was watching my grandmother (my mom's mom) who turns 95 in a matter of days.

My poor mother was hobbling around only to discover this week that her partial knee replacement is likely not doing well and her body is rejecting it. (Something they're discovering is more and more prevalent with her partial which is only two years old. Totally awesome.) And so it's only a matter of time before she'll need it replaced because she can only do so much at this point before it swells up and she's immobile. Add that to the ischemic colitis that's increasing in frequency and dangerously shutting off blood flow to her colon (much to the mystification of all doctors), and with the number of ill and elderly people here it's been a real trip lately.

I have no idea how my mother has been keeping it together.

So all of that said, at times I have very great faith. At times I can see in the very minutiae of the world just how some things fit together. Or, as I remarked to another co-worker today, "See? Look how well all these stories worked out. I didn't know how it would all shake out this week. But it looks like God did at least. Thank goodness for that."

I'm sure my version was laced with an expletive or two (which I've managed to largely eradicate from my vocabulary lately despite the exponential increase in stress).

At other times, things seem bleak. Some days it seems like my family will always be plagued by illness, elderly care, overwhelming responsibility and the like. Sometimes it feels like my parents will never have the true break they so deserve. Hell, to make it to the beach as just my father, mother, sister and I this summer would be a dream come true.

Some days most things make sense. Other days, everything is an utter mystery and I'm left shaking my head at the number of times that supremely shitty things happen to good people. 

Don't get me wrong. Life isn't fair. I get it. It's just I know too many people who can't catch a break. And too many shitty people who seem to get nothing but.

Anyway ... how are we already almost in the middle of May? Where has this year gone? It's unbelievable. And yet, despite the craziness of the weather, it's largely been lovely. 

I didn't leave work until around 10 p.m. or so tonight. It was a little earlier than last night, sadly. As I drove home, I rolled down my windows and the air was balmy but still refreshing. And while it was still just warm enough to enjoy, it didn't cloud my car with humidity as so often happens in the height of summer on the odd, cool Southern evening. It was perfect. I wished I had had farther to drive.

OK - I'm going to shoot for some shut eye. I know I had some funny stories to relate, I just can't recall them right now and clearly I'm hitting my weird, reflective hour. (never optimal). Sleep well, everyone. xoxo

Over the pneu

Hi, all! A quick early Monday morning post to let you know I'm actually alive and that as of my last antibiotic yesterday I've so far kicked pneumonia's butt. Finally. So much for actually going through with my Charleston beach plans a couple weekends ago and banking on getting better in the process. I didn't - much to the chagrin of my friends and everyone around me on the beach.

Many apologies to anyone I may have texted while in a feverish state. It's been a long time since I've had a fever, let alone one I couldn't kick easily. It was an experience.

Lots going on - much to update.

But first - I sleep.

I hope all of you are well and escaping the perils of swine flu/Mexican flu/really bad shit/whatever the country you're in wants to call it. It seems everyone has been touched by "the funk" in one way or another these days.

I want to give a shout out to my friends at UMAR ARTS Center for putting on a kicking open studio on Friday - which also, coincidentally, was the birthday of Ms. Debbie Archer and Ms. Kimberly Uffman. And a happy, happy May 3 birthday to Mrs. Anna Dykema. I have a feeling it's going to be a fabulous birthday month.

Sleep well and more soon. xo me.