Grinders Island: Doodlebobs on Vicodin

Just so you know - if you take too much Vicodin this is where you will end up - these three had one too many!! THIS could be YOUR mom.

And now - the REST of the story.
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OH MAN!!! What a nightmare! It was like evil dominoes.

Elwood and I are on beer #4 of landscaping Saturday planting 3 more Red Chokeberry's and a Forsythia . DJ is at Josh and Jenny's house babysitting for the weekend as J&J have their first weekend off in 4 years and are in Iowa at a wedding.   All is going well until . . . . .

ring ring - It's a stranger saying she is a friend of my moms and my mom has fallen and will not go to the hospital.   SHIT!!

OK OK - I call mom and talk her into taking an ambulance to Fort Memorial Hospital (why do they call hospitals "memorial" seems foreboding). WELL - I put coffee on and I need to take Elwood back to Madison so while I'm preparing coffee Elwood is picking up the yard mess.

We get all loaded and I'm driving Elwood to MadCity and I need to get gas and then drive to Fort Atkinson. I get to the Fort emergency room and mom is laying well and smiling and we wait (moms friend and I). I boot up my iPad and check in and then TEXT DJ to tell her what is happening and all this while I'm being told by moms friend how much she really hates computers and as I find out she hates basically any technology that does not have a dial on it.

I'm I'm not too sure she likes ME (well, I was looking at my fantasy baseball team) and I also realize that I have not shaved in 4 days.

Here is the thing. I was going to shave but thought I would keep the stubble for warmth while landscaping outside. I also decided that I might as well wear the same clothes I had on FRIDAY working outside and since I was outside AGAIN who cares about any odors and dirt.

I quickly realized this is why the nurses looked at me sort of weird and ask my mom "if this "gentlemen" was disturbing you" knowing that they were calling me a "gentlemen" hoping I would not like flip out or something. All I was worried about was security coming to get me.

MEANWHILE, my moms friend, Jan, who won't shut up is explaining about how dry heaves and how they work and why it is so bad and then demonstrates dry heaving as a nurse walks in. Of course the nurse is worried and I explain it's just a demonstration of dry heaving. I KNOW this whole conversation will come back to haunt me later as my mom says she has never had to dry heave and is now concerned.

By this time TEXTING is taking off with my phone ding dinging all over the place and anti-techno Jan is giving me dirty looks because I'm communicating non-verbally (Texting is the 2nd lowest form of communication I found out. Facebook is the lowest form of communication it seems, I'm doing both). I believe Jan does not own a toaster as it has too much technology.

Xrays are negative and all organs are in shape and it seems mom has a super bad bruise in the back. They say she can go home as soon as the pain killers come and a Doctor comes to talk to her and Jan gives out a moan about Doctors and how she hates them AND computers so much and how they just want to make more money.

Pain killers come and mom takes one and within 10 minutes her and Jan are holding hands and singing songs like we're in The Sound of Music or something and I find out they gave her a Vicodin, a opioid pain relievers, also called a narcotic. Now I know where the songs are coming from.

I'm told somebody should stay with her Saturday night to make sure she does not get too loopy (too late) . . . hmmmm . . . I was not actually prepared to stay overnight. For one thing Blake and the cats are at home and DJ is at J&Js house. Well, Blake will have to fend for himself, what could possibly go wrong . . . or at least MORE wrong.

I get mom home and comfortable and go to Sentry to get contact solution and since it's now 10pm and I have not eaten since 11am (unless you call beer food which I do at times but not when I'm really hungry) I get a big slice of frozen Red Barron Pizza.

I get home and mom is in bed snoring but wakes up enough to tell me she was dry heaving and I start the oven but realize that this oven will take an hour to heat up. So . . microwave here we come.

The microwave technology is like 30 years old but we all know there has never been a good piece of pizza made in a microwave. I have no choice. I read the instructions (specially made for microwaves it seems) and put it in the oven. OH OH. Moms microwave is too small for the slice. Instead of spinning happily around as it is suppose to to make "a perfect slice of pizza" it just bumps along the side randomly.

After 3 minutes the cheese is all melted and the whole thing is sort of a soggy wet piece of bread with goopy cheese-like substance. I still eat it.

It's bed time so I find a bowl to put my contacts in (luckily both eyes are identical so I don't have to worry about what lens goes with what eye).

And I fall into a dirty smelly sleep.

2 hours later I wake up with pains in my stomach and my insides are sort of liquifying and I Red Baron-it to the bathroom.

Morning comes at 6:00 and mom is doing well. She gets up with pain, sits in the living room for a bit and then goes back to bed. I wait until Tuttles Pharmacy opens at 8:00 and realize that I have had the same clothes on for 3 days, a 4 day old scruff of beard, smell and am dirty with 2 days of hat hair and now I must go to a pharmacy and get narcotics for someone that is not me.   Sweet!!

Luckily the pharmacists is a brother of a friend so I'm all good on that one.

It's now 10:00 in the morning and I need to get back to Columbus to rescue my dog. I do mom things and she says she dry heaved again (not REAL dry heaves I bet you, the kind where you swear your stomach will come out your nose). All is well so I take off after talking to neighbors.

I get to Cbus about 11:00 and walk in to Armageddon. There is poop everywhere, both cats are crying and . . . . I can't find Blake. After looking all over he is in the basement and I need to carry him up the steps and he seems oddly non-stable. Bumping into walls and stumbling. I look and he is out of water. I wonder how ling he has been with no water. I fill up his water stepping in a puddle of pee and he inhales 2 cups of water. I fill it up again and he drinks 2 more cups.

I go about the house de-pooping and finding "spots" and cleaning with the steam cleaner and filling up cat food and cleaning more.

FINALLY - I can get to the shower and can clean myself. I get all squeaky clean and walk out and there is vomit all over and 4 cups of pee in 3 different spots!!! OH MAN!!!! This is like a nightmare!

So that is my story. The house is near spotless FINALLY and I can relax!!

END!!
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I took a large number of photos from our backyard Saturday.

FINALLY, after 3 years it's coming together. When you see someones rock wall garden I hope you appreciate how much work goes into it. They don't happen naturally. Rock walls are tough to plant.

Sierra's out!!!   The six pound Tiger.