Pumpkin Intervention Needed

'nuff said!

So, regards my post about the Shoedini...

What do all of these feebs do about sox???

Just askin'...

Until next time....

So I am having lunch with The Grimm Reaper...

Well...not really. Was more like a quick snack.

SIDETRACK: I am in excruciating back pain today....3 days in a row. What better way to get me to sit and finish up on my heart attack thingie.

I used to watch this show called "The Grimm Adventures Of Billy And Mandy" that I thought was quite funny and very well written. The premise was that Mandy won a contest against Grimm over a sick hamster, by doing the Limbo, and now he has to be her and Billy's friend to do all of her bidding for all eternity. Click the title above and see Grimm face his own hospital adventure!

Neat premise.

Well..I had no sick hamster with me while being tended to by the very professional staff trying to keep me alive. The talents and experience of the team's members were certainly a formidable barrier to Grimm. So...even if I had a hamster, I would not have needed it to deny him my soul. And, no, if I did have a hamster with me it would not have been kept where you all are thinking!

Tsk, tsk....

UPDATE: Since his show has been canceled on Cartoon Network, Grimm has reached out to his pals in the Obama Administration, offering his insights and experiences as a consultant on The Public Option for National Health Care Reform . He also wants to be the "Death Panel Czar". He calls that "Job Security".


But I digress....

So I am now wheeled into the CCU and told not to move at all, especially my right leg, for hours. And I complied quite willingly. What I did miss was my laptop and cell phone. The phone was with me, but very little power left.

SIDETRACK: When I tried to dial 911 while on my back in the throes of agony, my phone kept asking me to push some other buttons. Well..with my glasses somewhere in my vicinity but not on my face, and because said buttons could not become apparent to me, I could not connect with the police. And until I pressed either of those buttons, the phone was locked from making any other calls.

Really slick there, Sprint! Maybe I should switch to where they can "hear me now"!

While I am trying to call my son to ask him to bring me certain items from the van....as well as get my lottery tickets (hey, I just survived a heart attack!! I figured I was lucky.)...in walks Nurse Ratcheted. Well, that really isn't her name and she certainly was not as passive/aggressive sinister as the one in the movie, but the nick name mostly fits.

First words out of her mouth..

"NO CELL PHONES!!!!"

The next words..

"NO LAPTOPS!!!!!"

Ummmm...sure...yeah...ok...

She wires me up...does the basics...BP....temp....color of my skin and feet....and then leaves.

I call my son on my cell, and ask him to bring the charger for the phone and my laptop.

All the while keeping perfectly still. Especially my right leg.

I tried using the laptop while in a 99% horizontal position, but it was not easily done. So I just amused myself by surfing around. Patiently waiting until I could resume an upright position and not have to be so still.

Nurse Ratched leaves for the night and I am typing away like nobody's business. I think it was at that time, I posted the video of my stent insertion...

(The hamster just popped into your heads when you read "insertion...I just know it did!)

...but with different music than I ultimately used. And found my way on to the various websites and chat spots I haunt.

(You all just thought of Grimm, huh?)

And over the course of the evening, I was checked on..poked for blood....BP done...and no one scolded me for using the laptop.

Cool!


That is until "she" arrived back at work. One of the overnighters snitched on me. And she again told me NO USING THOSE ITEMS.

Check

I said, "Sign me out, NOW" and got up to leave...

She said I was threatening. I said I was promising...please hand me my pants.

She left in a huff.

Checkmate!

I also immediately took notice of the change in my proscribed diet when lunch came. Real coffee, salt...meat...butter. I began to suspect that I was in much better shape than I thought.

I would be moved out of CCU....much to her and my mutual relief. But not until she got to poke me one last time. I offered to let her make it hurt to make up for my confrontation with her.

She said that wouldn't be enough to make up for me breaking the rules. I think her thing is more obeying period, rather than the rules themselves.

I didn't even feel the needle going in.

Next.....moving into the PCU....

This Is Another Reason Why President Obama Has To..

...apologize for us all over the world:

(Play Video)



Isn't that the same AsSeenOnTV-ette that needs some kind of earworm to play BINGO?

I mean...just how pathetic and stupid do you need to be to not know to SIT DOWN to do stuff with footwear ?!?!?!

So, please..if you love me...like me..even if you can only tolerate me...and I get to the point I need the shoedini in order to be able to walk outside..

Get in your car...drive..find me..kill me.

Thanks!

Edited To Add 10/27/09: That old guy. 2 things....

He is the same old guy with a back problem in the Topsy Turvy Tomato Plant Thing...and has that same ..."...ooh.." back thing while kneeling in a garden pretty much doing nothing.

And in this commercial...with the young blonde.....

Looks like he hired her as a hooker and while pulling her shoe off is saying, "For a hundred bucks, I want you naked...NAKED..."

Just sayin'....

Next post back on topic.

Until next time...

My First Home(less) Cooked Meal

I would not call it the most "heart healthy" meal I could have made, but is was certainly in the old school tradition of The Hobo..riders of the rail...kings of the campfire! Dollar store Beef Stew cooked over a camping grill in the can.

I have had this grill some 15 years, but never used it before. Worked flawlessly. I did burn some of the stew in the bottom of the can, but it's all a learning experience. The stew was so-so. Next time I'll try a different brand.

Another day, another milestone.



Oh, the pics are a tad fuzzy because I didn't notice that the lens was in macro setting. and since I wanted to maintain my journalistic integrity, I resisted the urge to re-shoot...re-enact...said first geo-flexible meal, I simply used the original pics.

Enjoy....

Until next time...

I Am Placing My "Global Warming Carbon Footprint"...

...right up Al Gore's ass!!!


Full Bore Storm!



SNOW IN THE MIDDLE OF OCTOBER!!!!



Stuck in NJ still until my cardiologist sees me.



And it just get's heavier...

Lucky Me Part Deux

Sometimes I have odd thoughts. Sometimes those odd thoughts become odd questions. Sometimes I would post the odd question birthed by the odd thought online. Some people thought I was odd..but a chosen few "got it"

In a past life, I was a very active member of a Home Theater website. It was just before the last Star Wars movie was to be released and I oddly thought to myself.."What if I die before it comes out?" So I asked on aforementioned website if anyone there ever fretted that they would die before seeing the season finale of their favorite TV shows. In particular..."24".

Odd question..but some of them got it!

"24" is one a very few shows I have never missed a single episode of. Jack Bauer is the man!

So on Monday, October 5th 2009 as I was struggling with pain and wondering if I would live though this, I can honestly say the season opener of "24" this coming January was no where to be found in my brain.

Odd, isn't it?

Now....back to my story.

SIDETRACK: The reason it took so long to continue writing is that I had to come to grips with what respect the severity of what happened to me deserved. I mean, I have no real scars...overall feel fine.

The stent is installed and I now have a new part of my body not generated by cell division. It was an odd thought. As I watched life return to that quadrant of my heart, I could feel the pain subside...the level of intensity in the room diminish...and I could calm down.

I was alive...I was saved...wasn't going to die that day.

With my camcorder neatly tucked back into hiding, I was wheeled to the Cardiac Care Unit to be re-wired and tended to by the staff there. I was out of the cardiologists hands. I was told do NOT move my right leg at all for hours. At that point, one of the attentive ladies from surgery would come and remove the hardware and press on the wound to allow it to close. Thing is, my blood was so thinned out, it would not simply clot on it's own. Fortunately for my self respect, I was so full of different substances at that point, that I was not...stimulated...by an attractive red head pressing for so long "down there".

I was told to NOT move that leg for upwards of 6 or more hours. And I didn't. But that's pretty much where my compliance begins and ends.

Enter Nurse Ratcheted!

To be continued....

Watch My Heart...My Life....Being Saved!

This is actual footage of blood flow being returned to my heart after insertion of the stent that saved me. The heart, itself, is invisible, but watching the flow return you can make out it's shape.

I am, indeed, blessed!

In Actuality, I Should Be Dead

As you, my faithful droogies know from earlier this week, I had a significant event via my cardiac system. I experienced a Myocardial Infarction. Ok..I saw that on "E.R." and heard that radioed in during my siren laden trip in the meat wagon on the way to the Cardiac Unit at the hospital. And most times on "E.R.", the patient survived and would appear on the following week's "C.S.I." as that episode's killer.

Damn those defibrillator crash carts!

Anyhow....

That doesn't appear to be what's real, at least in my case. I will not be killing anyone, anytime soon.

Fortunately as of today, that's by my choice. However, it could have been much different if the fates had an alternate chosen course of events.

From what I was told today, most who suffer what I did on Monday do not make it to the Cardiac Unit at the hospital...breathing. And those who do make it will, over all, face a time where they get to be in a "The Scooter Store" ad acting all frisky while doing doughnuts on the hardwood floors of their active community condo while holding on to their mobile oxygen tanks.

I would at least have a designer nose piece on mine. Make it look like Snidely Whiplashes' mustache. (60's cartoon pop culture reference)

So I arrive at the Cardiac Unit at the hospital feet first, but breathing on my own and no one using their hands on my chest, counting out the pumps before we kiss. I am surrounded by a team, each one taking turns asking me the same questions over and over doing stuff to my body. Finally I meet the cardiologist who tells me he is going to send a sensation up my leg, but quite unlike the one Chris Matthews expressed feeling upon hearing Barack Hussein Obama's name. To get my sensations, the thing I most wanted to sprout "down there" at an age when my voice was cracking would be shaven and a tube inserted inside me going up to me ticker. And no..NOT inserted "there"..but through a new man made hole in my skin.

It was that or pretty much die.

SIDETRACK: In the ambulance I was in a fair amount of pain that ranged from a 5 to a 7 to a 9, and back again, over and over. I was asked if I wanted morphine for the pain, but in so much as my MP3 Player chock full of Heavy Metal music was left at home, I declined said treatment. Also, I wanted to be fully aware of the levels of pain as well all of what was going on around and to me. That paid off in me not passing out when said hole was created and I was able to video some of what was going on with and inside me.

Into a new room I go, surrounded by three or four very attentive professional young ladies prepping me for said new hole. Lo and behold, there was one young lady in particular who grew up across the street from my sister that I have known since she was little, REALLY little. Since I was being pumped full of a variety of substance, I can't recall if she was the one who shaved me "down there" or not. But I could have sworn that just as the disposable electric razor began doing it's thing, I heard a male voice say..

"Well..you should know. My name is Chris Hansen and I am doing a show about..."

But I digress....

I notice a rack of flat screen monitors in an array not dis-similar to a TV studio control room. And in my haze I can see that it's the fluoroscoped images of what was happening and about to happen to me. I feel around, find my tiny camcorder and shoot the best I can.

SIDETRACK REDUX: Earlier that day at the site of said cardiac event, I was at a storage facility provided to me by the generous folks who handled the lock out at my former residence. This is where they so graciously trashed many of my possessions. I decided to sell most of the metal objects to a scrap metal dealer guy and as we made our way through the storage bin, I would video or photograph the "especially well" taken care of items for posterity...and use in litigation. BTW..the scrap metal guy was really a great guy. I would deal with him again in a heartbeat. And fortunately, I currently have spare heartbeats.

It was shortly after the scrap guy left and my oldest came to help me with the last details, that my heart decided to let me know it was displeased. Thus...the camcorder being in my pocket when at the Cardiac Unit at the hospital while my stuff "down there" was being made old (elementary) school.

More Tomorrow...

Part Two: How I Avoided Meeting With Obama's "Death Panels"

Until then....

Still Stuck In The Hospital...

..and I SOOOOOOOOOO want out of here.

It's odd, I guess. Here I have heat, a bed, lights, etc. But I want out. I want to wear clothes. I want my van. I want to get going on my trip. I am feeling really down... I mean really, deeply down. And that level of anxiety and depression can not be a good thing, given the reasons I am here. I need to skip town and just isolate for a while.

The internet I have at the hospital is really fast. But it doesn't allow me to go to certain kinds of sites. So, to my new friends at TikiLive, that's why I haven't been over to you. I was really enjoying myself there. And I miss my Glenn Beck in the afternoon.

I find myself having to deal with crap I shouldn't have to while I am trying to figure out and understand just how close to being dead I was. That my current addressless situation as well suffering a Myocardial Infarction in the parking lot of a self storage place is more of a problem for someone else and not me. Stifling feelings while trying to get through an evening and pushing the lump in my throat down as far as I can get it. I find these create their own unique kind of hangover the following day.

I am just not in a position to deal with these kind of hangovers. It is not healing or healthy for me right now. Probably never at all, but certainly not right now.

And giving up a 40+ year relationship with cigarettes, if only for the time being, isn't moving things along at all.

I'll post more later. For the record, I am delaying posting this immediately, letting me digest what I wrote here. I started the base of a different thread over a month ago called "It's One Of Those Days"...that I did not want to publish when in the midst of living in .." that kind of day. " I wanted to have a little distance to gain more perspective and less emotion. Well..I would have "one of those days" in an ongoing, but infrequent, basis. Thus, if this post does see the light of the cyber sunshine, it's because I got fed up and am going to need to disappear for a while.

Or not...


We'll see.....

Best Laid Plans And All That...

Your humble correspondent had a real heart attack yesterday, Oct. 5th 2009. Now have a stent in an artery. Thus...will be a while before I post again.


Until Next Time....

Welll...What Did You Get Me??? Huh...Huh...???

2 month anniversary of being addressless.

Gonna need a bigger cupcake and 2 candles.

DEFINITELY hitting the road Monday evening. Got infused with a Bit-O-Cash and Monday morning I have a guy buying some of my stuff for scrap. Copper wire (I have miles of that), aluminum, and other metal. Won't make me rich, but gelt is gelt!

Anyhow....what did you get me?!?!?!?!

Until next time....

I MAY HAVE A HOME!!!!!

This is perfect for my current situation. Spoke with the seller this morning....everything works...low mileage for it's age. No leaks...yadda, yadda, yadda!

Now I need to raise $1,500.00. I have stuff up for sale, just no buyers. Actually been up for sale for some time now.

See that Donate Button.... ;)

UPDATE: With taxes..license and all brings it to 2k. Still a great deal!

UPDATE: 10/4 Lost the deal. Could not fund this in time. Oh well....there will be another.


Until Next time....

Cookin' With Chilly!

I got DAMN cold last night. Frankly, quite chilly today. Typical Autumn cloudy and chilly day.

Great time to cook....with the chariot's engine!

I run the motor while parked to get heat, and use the heat under the hood to cook.

Thus...cookin' with chilly!

Not saying any of you should do that. I am merely letting you know how I multitask while addressless.



A can of pasta, I just cook in the can. Anything not in a can, I use aluminum foil. Placement can be tricky so as not to allow said meal to fall into the fan belt. Also, I keep the hood open just a little.



I am careful to wear gloves when I take the cooked items out to eat.

Thus two birds, one engine.

Until next time....