The Left Side of the Moon

The $5,000 Bathtub Drain

The drain in one of our tubs is missing the piece that actually allows you to close the drain. I've been wanting to get it fixed for some time. We had the plumber out months ago and he had told us we needed a special part you can only get at one place. He was going to order it and we didn't hear back from him. I asked Blackstone to call him again and get him back out to the house. We're using a plug for the tub and have a little piece we put in to keep stuff from going down the drain, but it's way too easy for one of the kids to stick something down the drain and clog it. I don't want to worry about that, figure it's cheaper to fix the drain than fix the tub when it get blocked up later.

So we finally get the part and get the plumber to the house today. He starts taking the tub apart and discovers that the tub is leaking and rotting out the floor. Fixing it will require ripping out the rotting floor which now has mildew problems. There are wires that run under there, so he says we're lucky we haven't been electrocuted. And it would probably be a good idea to get a new tub while we're at it, seeing this one has some faulty lip or something that caused the floor to rot out. So we're looking at around $5,000 or so now to fix the drain in the tub. I suppose it's a good thing I didn't drop the issue of getting the drain fixed, because who knew that could lead to potential electrocution?

The plan for the moment is to just use the other two bathrooms. Because while we could go get a home equity loan and start ripping out the bathroom, I'm thinking we wait until we get the dining room and living room painted, my mom has recovered from her surgery (which is tomorrow, please keep her in your thoughts, prayers or whatever), and we figure out how much it's going to cost to fix the noise my car's engine is making which sounds like a helicopter (it went to the garage today). Call me crazy, but I'm just not ready to deal with the bathroom yet.

And Still, There's More

Thursday night, during my class when I was dragging, I made the dumb decision to have coffee. It kept me awake until two in the morning. Needless to say, I was exhausted at work on Friday. Blackstone called me around three to tell me he'd gotten poked in the eye while he was working and was in a lot of pain. He tried to drive home, made it half way and had to call the nanny and the girl who works for him to pick him up on the side of the highway. The nanny brought the kids home and had a twelve hour day with them on her first day back from China while I met Blackstone at the Emergency room. Somehow it seems most of the time we end up at the hospital, it's on a Friday night. And Friday night seems to be the worst night to be at the ER. I was hoping he'd be able to make it to the eye doctor's before they closed, but he was too far away and it was too late in the day.

We waited for two hours and then discovered they'd never put us in the computer. Blackstone is writhing in pain this entire time. FInally, they make sure there's nothing in his eye, put us in a room and give him some drops for the pain. An hour later the drops have worn off and we're still waiting. You can hear people fighting and yelling at the people at the desk. The people at the desk are fighting with the people in admissions because they're not registering people (like us) properly and patients are getting lost. It's absolute bedlam. I go out to the desk and ask for more pain medication. Half an hour later, he gets more drops and we're still waiting. The nurses close down Fast Track care because they can't handle any more patients. I am tired and bored. I took pictures of clock, of Blackstone's feet hanging off the table and texted them to people. Thanks for those of you keep me company while I struggled not to lose my mind.

Finally, they take him to a room where they can examine his eye and determine he has a scratched cornea, but nothing more serious. It's an extremely painful injury that heals in two days. They send us home with prescriptions for antibiotics, vicodin and motrin. I swing by the 24-hour pharmacy to drop off the prescriptions, so they'll be ready in the morning. It takes 20 minutes.  There's a woman trying to get medication filled for her father who has just been released from a nursing home. The nursing home should have sent him home with his diabetes medication, but they can't even find his clothes. The prescription they faxed over the pharmacists suspects is incorrect. The insurance won't cover another prescription because it's too soon. In the mean time I interrupt, because I just want to drop off these damn prescriptions and get home. She takes them, asks if he's in the computer, which I'm not sure because we only use this one when the other is closed and gets on the phone with the nursing home and insurance company. Five minutes later I interrupt again, because, can I leave now? She needs to check if he's in the computer, which he is and takes 30 seconds. Jesus, you couldn't have done that five minutes ago and I can finally get us home.

Saturday morning I'm up and ready to go pick up the prescriptions befor I bring the boys to dance class at 9:30. I come home and my parents visit for a while, then I need to get Trouble and myself packed for the sleep over at the Boston Museum of Science with the Boy Scouts. Blackstone was supposed to go, but that's not going to happen now. My neices are over to help with LT and help strip wall paper. The sleep over went well, but now I'm working on three nights of sleep shortages. Lights out is at midnight. We are unfortunately sleeping next to Jabba the Hut. At one, I get us up and move across the room where you can still hear the guy snoring but at least the floor is not reverberating. I have no idea what time it was, I'll guess around two, I look over and Trouble's not in his sleeping bag. I get up and walk over to where we were before and he's sitting in the middle of a dark room on a stool while everyone is sleeping. I don't even say anything, just grab his hand and walk him back to his sleeping bag. I was pretty much awake by six, but still, when they woke us up and put the lights on at 6:45, it was painful.

We spent the morning at the museum and then headed back home. I crashed for a few hours and then got back in the car and drove my neices home to MA. I'm at work today, since I'm headed to the Cape tomorrow for a few days with the family and I don't know what to expect once my mom has her surgery next week. I wouldn't expect too much from me blog-wise in the coming weeks. I'll keep you posted, but there will be no intelligent or thoughtful posts.

Yes people, I know it's been a week

Curls just sent me the following email. Sounds like her week has been almost as much fun as mine. Almost, but not quite. I'll give you the details, at least some details . . . later. After I've caught my breath, or have just managed to freaking collapse from the stress.

-----Original Message-----
From: Curls
Sent: Tuesday, February 12, 2008 2:38 PM
To: Diosa
Subject: What no new blog since Feb 5th! Today is the worst day ever!

Ok Diosa!

So two weeks ago I was out because my son was sick for 3 days then I have been out of work since Wednesday with sick daughter…then I get totally deathly ill and can’t get up from bed yesterday. At 2pm yesterday I get a call that son has temp! Please come get him and oh yeah 24 hour rule no day care tomorrow! Son driven from Rhode Island to Connecticut for care today! 

Anyway, I am soooo behind at work so I have been working non stop from 8:30 am to 2:30 pm to start to catch up! Finally at 2:30 pm I need a break and think hurray…I will read interesting blog for pick me up!

What no new blog since Feb 5^th! Today is the worst day ever!

Super Tuesday

Super Tuesday, hurray! One step closer to getting a new President elected. You people out in NY and CA are all hitting the polls today, right? Dol, so sorry Edwards dropped out before you got a chance to vote in the primaries. Maybe we'll get to see him as a running mate? Liz, looks like we get to vote together on March 4th. I know you don't share my enthusiasm for the Democratic candidates, but I know you can't wait to get Bush out of office either.

If you need to find out when you vote, check here. This one looked pretty official.

Drop by and make my day a little brighter and tell me you voted. You needn't tell me who you voted for, unless you want to. And if you voted in the Republican primary, kindly keep that information to yourself. Unless, you're registered Independent and you chose to vote in the Republican primary to skew the odds in favor of the Democrats. Blackstone has considered doing that in the past. That will still make me smile.

Sad Day in NE

I don't follow sports, and I especially don't follow football, but you can't escape the black cloud that's hanging over NE, whether you watched the game or not. I didn't watch the game, it was on in my house, there were half a dozen or so people watching it. I took care of the kids, cleaned house and did homework. I did manage to see the Giants score their winning touchdown. I haven't paid much attention, but I can't believe the Pats lost this game. To take a perfect season and lose it in the Super Bowl, yeah, I can kind of see why everyone's so upset. It took two Xanax and sex to get Blackstone to sleep last night. Well, I think he went to sleep. I know I did.

STRESS!

This week has been STRESSFUL! My boss has been on vacation since last week and won't be back until next week, which always means some added stress for me. I had two work crises this week and it has taken every moment of my work day swith me working at hyper-speed under hyper-critique to get them righted. I'm still waiting for the final okay on one of them. When I got the dreaded phone call from the client whose project I had not been able to complete for a myriad of reasons, I was not surprised. I assured him I was working on it and though it had turned into quite a more time consuming debacle than I had first anticipated, I would have it done this week. I had no sooner hung up the phone than I got a call that my son was sick at school and needed to go home. Fabulous! Just the phone call I needed. And my nanny left for China yesterday. She'll be gone for two weeks, yes, overlapping my boss's vacation. Equally Fabulous! I also started my Calculus course last week and, wonder of wonders, haven't found the time to finish my homework this week. Blackstone's work week has been hectic and he's been leaving early and coming home late around 10 pm. Doesn't exactly leave a girl much time for Calculus.

I guess it's not surprising that I haven't been sleeping terribly well with all of this stress. I normally NEVER remember my dreams. I know I dream, because everybody does, but I rarely remember anything. This week I had two vivid and disturbing dreams. The first was about caterpillars. There were caterpillars everywhere, on the walls, on the ceilings. And I kept half-waking up not sure if the caterpillars were real. That was not a peaceful night's sleep. The second dream, while not quite so scary, was equally disturbing. I dreamed I was making out with Jeremy Irons. Now, I suppose it's not unusual to dream about making out with an actor, and I wouldn't find it unusual if I was dreaming about John Cusack, Wil Smith, Christian Bale or Joaquin Phoenix. But Jeremy Irons is a little old for me, and I'm rather surprised I recognized him. And the dream was a bit unsettling with weird tattoos.

Anyway, I've never been so glad to see Friday come. I need a rest, and a few drinks, and maybe some Atavan.