Adventures in Hospital Stays

I’m back! Did you miss me? I felt bad about missing our weekly date, but sadly my body decided to wage a war with itself. According to what my doctors think, my gallbladder launched a gall stone through a bile duct towards my pancreas. Apparently my pancreas decided to throw a temper tantrum that even Kanye West couldn’t pull off, and I found myself diagnosed with acute pancreatitis. Just yesterday I was released from the hospital, and warning upon warning was given to make sure my diet was very low fat, and to make sure no alcohol passed my lips. With the removal of all things delicious, I find myself lost in the culinary world. Not to mention my Friday night drinks with my sister now has to be of the teetotaler variety.

Five days in the hospital makes you appreciate things like, not having strangers pop into your room at 3am while you are in a morphine stupor trying to take your “vitals”. I think I even scared one guy by asking him if he had a brother named Michael. Poor fella. I don’t have a clue why I asked. I was on morphine, and it was 3 am! He never came to my room again. Sorry Kevin, the nurse’s aide. Didn’t mean to freak you out! But the worst part is repeating your life’s story over and over again. To the point that my brain would check out and just let my mouth do the spiel. Next time I plan on having a statement recorded, and just hit the replay button for each doctor.

But I did lose an additional 13 lbs in the hospital. Score for me! Although, I didn’t have anything to eat or drink for the first 2 days, after that was given jello and apple juice. Apparently IV fluids do a body good. If I were to be readmitted, I will have the distinct displeasure of having my gallbladder removed, and we all know, organ removal does count towards weight loss goals.  It all sounds so light hearted, I know. There are bad parts, trust me on this. The most noticeable is the pain, the severe, white hot poker through your upper left side of your abdomen, strait through your back pain. Also, your family and spouse are worried out of their minds, your animals at home freak out because you aren’t there, and I’m pretty sure the Diet Coke factory held a moment of silence for me.

All in all it was an adventure, that doesn’t seem to be over quite yet. Hopefully this Beebs is on the road to recovery, and soon enough I can get back to a normal that doesn’t include fat free cream of chicken soup and jello for dinner. Thanks for all the well wishes, encouragement, and love over the past few days. I have the best support a girl could ask for. Much love right back at ‘cha!

Soon We Will Be Taking Offensive Driving Instead of Defensive Driving

Is this book being distributed in my town?

 I avoided no less than 4 accidents on my way to work this morning. In 13 short miles, 4 separate idiots  seemed bound and determined to wreck my car, and my day. Of course, with great reflexes and breaks, I avoided them, but I still looked over at the person who could have flushed my day down the toilet like last night's tacos. If they don't flip me off, (as if I did anything to them) they either glare back, or just don't look. It made me think of how many people do this, and act like I am the reason they had to cut me off and then make me slam on my breaks. Does this person just not know that they are driving like an oxygen depraved idiot? Do they realize that I am not racing them to the finish line, but just trying to get to work without eating airbag? The obvious answer is no.

Take this home to your baby mama! Maybe she can serve you and your 50 kids dinner with it!!!

As if I had come to his house, pissed in his Post Toasties, and told the long string of cars in front of us to drive slowly. But there lies the issue. No one has to take responsibility for their actions. No one has to have manners on the road anymore, because sadly the honor is gone. But I have an idea that will help us few left in Corpus that realize when someone has a blinker on, they are trying to move over, and 9 times out of 10, you are going to have to be the one that allows the break, and waves them over. Common courtesy is dead. My idea is simple. Start a website where people can post pictures of shitty drivers, their stories of shitty drivers, and list license plates, and other identifying information for the people who seem to have a knack for turning our streets into a defensive driving nightmare.

Yes, you are King Jerk of The Road! But you don't have to be!

The more people that post, and the more popular the website, the more people that see it. My hope is that one day, those shitty drivers will go to this website, and see how many times they have almost killed their fellow drivers, and stop. Maybe, the cops can use it as a tool too. My goal is hopefully to drive to and from work daily with less risk of people bending my Honda Element and I into a Beebs stuffed pretzel. If it works for us, maybe it can work for other towns too. At least until rocket launchers and machine guns can be mounted and used legally. Until then, lets call those jerks out of your parking spot and get them onto the road to recovery!

My dream car. I bet I can get to work with a smile on my face with this baby!

True Hollywood Story: Easter

You didn't honestly think boiling eggs and dying them had anything to do with Jesus' death and resurrection did you? Well, it kind of does, but the tradition/meaning was added later. It all starts with a Goddess named Eostre. She was the Anglo-Saxon Goddess of "spring" (aka fertility, new life, sunrise). Her name was roughly translated to Easter, and with time, and the adaptation to Christianity, she was all but forgotten.

Behold, the Goddess of Chocolate Eggs!!

This lovely lady was supposedly responsible for spring, and the Easter bunny. The story says that Eostre, was a big fan of bunnies. She was in a meadow one day with her posse of cherub-like babies chillin' when a song bird landed on her shoulder. Wanting to impress the babies, she decided to turn the bird into her favorite animal, a rabbit. I know what you are thinking. A posse of babies? Harry Potter style transfiguration? Mhmm. Hey, these people were gifted with fabulous imaginations! You can't deny that! Well, the babies were impressed, but the bird wasn't. He was upset that he couldn't fly or sing anymore. Apparently, any good pagan knows that rule number one is to live how you want to live, as long as you do no harm to others. Well, the bird was very unhappy with the new fur coat and floppy ears. The consequence of Eostre ruining the bird's life was for her powers to be almost completely removed. She couldn't change the bunny back!

Which came first, the bunny or the egg??

Long story short, Eostre's powers come back to full bloom at the very beginning of spring. This allows her to change the bunny back to a bird long enough to lay her eggs, and viola! So the bird, after laying it's billions of dollars of foil wrapped chocolate eggs, turns back into a bunny, and hops around the world giving eggs to the kiddos, to remind them of Eostre's screw up. Moral of the story, don't hurt people, be good, and nice. The bunny, the eggs, and the spring, it's all there. Makes sense in a weird way. That at least explains why the Cadbury bunny lays eggs.

This puts my egg dipped in 1/2 blue and purple to shame!

Now, on the subject of the hard boiled and dyed eggs, of course these were what kids got before there were Cadbury eggs.  But we can thank Christianity and lent for the boiling and dying part. Apparently chickens didn't get the memo that during lent, eggs cannot be eaten!! So of course our ancestors decided to boil the eggs to keep them edible longer. Dying eggs has always been around, people used to think a colored egg was worth more. But during Easter, Christians died them red to symbolize the blood of Christ. Well then the rest of us heathens decided to go all out and color them in all colors, glitterfy them, and make plastic ones to fill with candy instead of yolk.

Drop the baskets and hop away creepo!!

 The history of Easter is similar to almost all of our widely observed holidays. Our ancestors started out with a story and a moral to help teach the kids right and wrong. Then Christianity took those traditions, and made them their own, and then those of us that aren't religious decided to take all the best parts, and mass produce it, and flood the aisles of our supermarkets with bunnies and egg shaped chocolates the day after Valentine's day. I have a feeling that if I tried explaining this all to my 6 year old nephew I would get about 2 words into my story and he would hop off into the sunset with his basket filled with chocolatey goodness. He isn't ready to understand the intricacies of holiday evolution. But that's okay. He knows that Easter means the family will be together, we will eat fabulous food, and do some odd things like hide eggs and hunt them. We will be doing what we always do, celebrating our family, spring, and good things to come.