Mamamontezz's Mental Rumpus Room

A brief Update.

I spoke to the nurse on my dad's unit today and got good news. It seems that he has stopped bringing up the "flu-gook" and is improving. Oh, yes, in case you didn't see that on the Spousal Unit's blog, he has Type A Influenza. He and I contracted it at about the same time, probably from the same person, but his underlying health issues caused all of these problems for him.

But he is genuinely improving with each day. One of his doctors wants to move him out of CVCC and into a regular room today. The other one, much more prudently and in line with my thinking on this, wants him to remain in his current bed for a few more days before being moved.

Apparently the nurses want him to stay where he is as well. And no, not because they think he needs the higher level of care they can provide for him in that unit, but because they WANT him to receive the higher level of care they can provide on that unit.

You see, Dad's a charmer. He doesn't know a stranger, treats everyone well, smiles and tells funny stories, sees humor in some pretty un-funny things in a way that can defuse situations. And the nurses have just fallen in love with him. More than one has said so, calling him "Sweety" and "Cutie" and other such little endearments. I honestly believe they put him in the particular isolation room they did because they wanted him close enough to the desk to be able to peek in on him without being far from that desk.

Anyway, the very nice young nurse I spoke to this morning was informative and kind. You could hear in her voice that she truly cares about what she does and about her patients. It was good to hear, very reassuring, and helped greatly to relieve some of the worry.

Thank you all for your prayers, each and every one. They truly help us, each of us, with each improvement in his condition. And for that, we are all so very grateful.

Mistress Lila,
Mamamontezz

Oh! I do have to share this with you...

The other night, after the Progeny and I had our day of girlie-girl shopping and lattes, I called the hospital. I asked what the chances were of his being able to see his granddaughters, since they were both under age 14.

Well, this nurse was really sweet and stated that as long as they didn't look less than 14, no one would say a thing. Just make sure they look old enough, and no one will stop them.

This was a bad thing for me to have repeated within earshot of the Progeny. Now she is at home trying all manner of things to pad her little training bras and render herself more curvacious and "older" for a trip to the hospital. She's also practicing her "Grown-up Speak" in case she has to talk. It's been a riot to watch, believe me.

Me and my big mouth. Thought you'd get a chuckle out of that.

Please.

Please keep Ret. Master Sgt Wesley John Albert, USAF, veteran of the Italian occupation force, the Korean war, and non-combat vet of the Viet Nam war era in your prayers.

He is a good father, better than any other I have ever met, and I claim him as my own. He is currently in Methodist Hospital in Indianapolis in the cardiac unit with what sounds at the moment to be some beginning stage of congestive heart failure brought on by his advancing COPD. I do not know what the exact diagnosis or prognosis are. All we can do is hope the course of treatment is successful. Given his extended battle with COPD, we are lucky this is the first time he has had difficulties of this kind.

Don't waste your prayers on me. I'm a big girl. Broad shoulders and bad attitude work well under these circumstances. Keep them for him. Keep them for my mother.

What good is it?

As most of you know, I answer phones for a living. Yes, I get paid for doing something where many women can compete only at the amateur level. And no, these calls do not involve a 900 number or the requirement of a valid credit card.

Most nights, between 2:30 and 10:30 I take between 250 and 300 calls from people trying to reach friends and family in the hospital, people within the hospital trying to call home, doctors seeking doctors, nurses seeking doctors, medical personnel seeking techs of all sorts... Well, you get the picture.

Often we get calls from people who are trying to return a call that they received earlier in the day from someone at the hospital. They know they got a call, it's on their caller ID, and they want to know exactly who called them and for what purpose.

Let me let you in on a little secret: caller ID is worthless when the call you receive is from a business or concern with a large phone system. And I do mean completely, totally, unrepentingly, non-negotiably and utterly worthless. The only thing that will show up on your caller ID is a "trunk number." It will never, ever, in a million years show you the number of the extension that called you. You can call that trunk number as many times as you like, make it your life's holy and G-d given mission from now until the end of time as we know it and it will never miraculously change into the extension you desire. Never. Give it up, please.

Caller ID is not a suitable replacement for voicemail. Caller ID is not a reasonable facsimile for an answering machine. Caller ID does not absolve you from prying your ample and underworked bottom from the confines of your vinyl clad Lazy-boy with the duct tape repairs and the off-color afghan, ambling clumsily across the room while the crumbly remains of your last several hours of snacking tumble from the portion of your anatomy formerly recognizable as a lap, turning down the volume of your television where Jerry Springer is once again staging a malignant and disgusting tableau of social fraud and abject inhumanity, picking up the receiver and actually taking your calls.

If you're not at home all day and arrive to find a strange number on your caller ID that shows itself to be from a business or hospital or other such source, don't wait until 9:00 at night to call and demand to know who called you. No one is able to tell you if your outpatient MRI appointment in February has been cancelled, whether or not your doctor's office needed to give you the results of your drug screening, that Aunt Mable was in the ER at noon after she fell over an unattended pallet in the aisle at walmart and needed a ride home in time for lunch, or that "Lost and Found" finally found your lower plate. None of these departments works at 9:00 at night and your Aunt Mable has been gone for hours, as have the overworked and exhausted ER staff that listened to her grumble and complain for hours that you never answered your calls.

*takes a deep breath*

I feel much better. Now answer your phone.

Christmas Influenza

Flu is bad. Let there be no mistake. Here it is, two days before Christmas Eve and the Spousal Unit's familial seasonal frolic, three days from Christmas and My familial seasonal frolic, and I have come down with what I can only believe is the flu. No birds about, only ratties and cats and the dog, so it certainly isn't avian, but it is punifying none the less.

Sad thing is, my dad has COPD (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease) in a rather advanced stage. He has been on oxygen for years now. The last time I spoke to him, it was like listening to someone speak from the bottom of a swimming pool filled with glue. His lungs are filling, his condition is weakening, and any exposure to respiratory illness could easily kill him. If this truly is the flu, I will be missing Christmas with the Parental Units again this year, even though I was lucky enough to actually get the day off.

So, in the interest of getting well, I stayed home from work today, slept as much as possible, took aspirins for the fever and aches, drank hot chai, ate a little bit, cut back on the smokes... You know the drill. I have apple juice for later, and some green and echinacea teas to break this up. The Spousal Unit even bought a bottle of brandy with which to spike my honey green tea so I would sleep well tonight. Yes, yes, I know. A little brandy in the tea, not a little tea in the brandy.

I do hope all of you are well this weekend so that you can enjoy Christmas with your families. Have a joyous one.

Mama SHOULD have changed her password...

I just thought that I'd drop in with a fun little item....thats what you get when you don't change the locks when a boarder leaves....Delftsman3

Bad Frosty

Talk about your Holly Jolly Christmas. Where on earth did the Spousal Unit get that snowman suit anyway? Hmmmm... And no sign of frostbite on his "Frosted Buns" either.

Public Service Announcement #53

In the public interest, no risque and semi-clad photos of the blogger, aka Mamamontezz, aka Mistress Lila, aka That Crazy Woman, will be posted on this site, in spite of the fact that they looked Great when the Spousal unit took them with my brand new Christmas present, a Lumix 8megapixel digital camera with a reall Leica lens and more bells and whistles than a Lexus.

Move along, now. Nothing to see. No nudity here. You're wasting your time.

Go Google™ up some kittens and puppies instead. Or maybe just read on...

Okay, okay. I couldn't resist. Not like it's going to cause any riots or anything. And at least I didn't show you where the mistletoe was.

Making Online Payments

I don't know about most of you, but I am a devote of online auctions. I adore them. The very idea of being able to select items, new and used, of countless variety, from the sanctity of my own home is more than just appealing. It has become a habit.

And I buy all manner of things. Recently, I have purchased such things as a "Korean Mink" blanket (simply beautiful, by the way), restraints, braided whips, beautiful long and detailed skirts, a DVD of Queen Live from Wembly Stadium, some runes for a friend's Christmas that are compatible to the online Diablo 2 game, the coolest corset in the world... Well, you get the picture. And overall my experience has been exceedingly good with the exception of my dealings with Paypal. And then...

...It started with my order for some clothing from ebay online seller HolyClothing. I ordered four items. I attempted to pay. Paypal refused to pass along the payment, giving me a message invoking some sort of "Temporary Technical" problem with a 4001 tag at the bottom. This went on for days. I even tried Bidpay, which I admit I screwed up on my own. But the Paypal payments... that was quite another matter.

During this episode, I continued to purchase items and paid for them successfully through my Paypal account. Still, each and every time I tried to pay for those clothes I was thwarted cruelly. And cruel thwarting is a "Hard Limit" for me.

Eventually, I managed to get Bidpay to cooperate, primarily by virtue of the fact that I pulled my cranium from my anal pore and did it correctly for once, and payment was extended and received for my HolyClothing items. This all, of course, after a payment dispute and an extended exchange of emails, not to mention more damage than I care to imagine to my poor little Ebay reputation.

Now, it seems, it is happening again. I only recently was able to clear up the HolyClothing situation, and now Paypal is denying payment to a gentleman in the UK for three whips, and another for a harness. And each of these vendors has active Paypal accounts in good standing.

Frustrated? That does not even begin to cover what I feel at this moment. I was forced to go Western Union to pay for the whips at an exhorbitant fee in order to resolve that situation. I will bet you that I end up having to do the same for the harness, and I so wanted it to arrive in California in time for Christmas. So much for shopping early on Ebay and using Paypal for payment.

What concerns me most, however, is the fact that I am in the process of working up a small online business and had been counting on Paypal to take care of payments for it. After this fiasco, I have several concerns about that. Most of the problems I have had were with vendors who sell items "outside of the mainstream" which is exactly how I would classify what I intend to sell. Artwork, one of a kind items... And not necessarily of the vanilla variety.

I hate to think of the problems I may have because of the sort of merchandise I plan on selling. It's all perfectly legal, above board, hand made items. Drawings, cards, perhaps some sculptures if I find the time to do a few, my leather crafts...

*sigh*

At this point I'd be happy to pay for the items I've bought. Everything else would be gravy.

On Being Santa's Helper

You know from the past, it's rare for me to put up a post with one of those internet stories that we all get in email on a daily basis. This one, however, touched me so much because the progeny and I had the same conversation yesterday.

Little AnnaMontezz, the apple of my eye, was having Santa Verification issues. Yes, she's 11 years old, and yes, she's probably the only child in her school beyond the second grade that still believes, but she believes so strongly. I tried to explain to her that Santa was in all of us, and that we were all responsible for being Santa for someone.

She didn't quite get the idea, but she took comfort in the fact that yes, there is a Santa.

Then I came to work and received this tender little story from one of the nursing administrators whom I just adore. It was perfect. It was just what I had wanted to explain to Anna yesterday.

And so now, in a break from the norm, I'm going to reprint this sweet little email. I hope that all of you has a Santa moment this year.

________________________________

I remember my first Christmas adventure with Grandma. I was just a kid. I remember tearing across town on my bike to visit her on the day my big sister dropped the bomb: "There is no Santa Claus," she jeered. "Even dummies know that!"

My Grandma was not the gushy kind, never had been. I fled to her that day because I knew she would be straight with me. I knew Grandma always told the truth, and I knew that the truth always went down a whole lot easier when swallowed with one of her "world-famous" cinnamon buns. I knew they were world-famous, because Grandma said so. It had to be true.

Grandma was home, and the buns were still warm. Between bites, I told her everything. She was ready for me.

"No Santa Claus?" she snorted. "Ridiculous! Don't believe it . That rumor has been going around for years, and it makes me mad, plain mad!! Now, put on your coat, and let's go."

"Go? Go where, Grandma?" I asked. I hadn't even finished my second world-famous cinnamon bun.

"Where" turned out to be Kerby's General Store, the one store in town that had a little bit of just about everything. As we walked through it's doors, Grandma handed me ten dollars. That was a bundle in those days. "Take this money," she said, "and buy something for someone who needs it. I'll wait for you in the car."

Then she turned and walked out of Kerby's. I was only nine years old.

I'd often gone shopping with my mother, but never had I shopped for anything all by myself. The store seemed big and crowded, full of people scrambling to finish their Christmas shopping. For a few moments I just stood there, confused, clutching that ten-dollar bill, wondering what to buy, and who on earth to buy it for.

I thought of everybody I knew: my family, my friends, my neighbors, the kids at school, the people who went to my church. I was just about thought out, when I suddenly thought of Bobby Decker. He was a kid with bad breath and messy hair, and he sat right behind me in Mrs. Pollock's grade-4 class. Bobby Decker didn't have a coat. I knew that because he never went out to recess during the winter. His mother always wrote a note, telling the teacher that he had a cough, but all we kids knew that Bobby Decker didn't have a cough; he had no good coat.

I fingered the ten-dollar bill with growing excitement. I would buy Bobby Decker a coat! I settled on a red corduroy one that had a hood to it. It looked real warm, and he would like that.

"Is this a Christmas present for someone?" the lady behind the counter asked kindly, as I laid my ten dollars down. "Yes, ma'am," I replied shyly. "It's for Bobby."

The nice lady smiled at me, as I told her about how Bobby really needed a good winter coat. I didn't get any change, but she put the coat in a bag , smiled again, and wished me a Merry Christmas.

That evening, Grandma helped me wrap the coat in Christmas paper and ribbons (a little tag fell out of the coat, and Grandma tucked it in her Bible) and wrote, "To Bobby, From Santa Claus" on it.

Grandma said that Santa always insisted on secrecy. Then she drove me over to Bobby Decker's house, explaining as we went that I was now and forever officially, one of Santa's helpers. Grandma parked down the street from Bobby's house, and she and I crept noiselessly and hid in the bushes by his front walk. Then Grandma gave me a nudge. "All right, Santa Claus," she whispered, "get going."

I took a deep breath, dashed for his front door, threw the present down on his step, pounded his doorbell and flew back to the safety of the bushes and Grandma. Together we waited breathlessly in the darkness for the front door to open. Finally it did, and there stood Bobby.

Fifty years haven't dimmed the thrill of those moments spent shivering, beside my Grandma, in Bobby Decker's bushes. That night, I realized that those awful rumors about Santa Claus were just what Grandma said they were: ridiculous. Santa was alive and well, and we were on his team.

I still have the Bible, with the coat tag tucked inside:.....

$19.95

Author unknown

December 11, 2005

December 07, 2005