That's My Bix!

This is truly going to break your heart. Really, it is. This is some serious shit.

So I come back from Key West (no, not the break your heart bit) and I’m a tad upset, because I realize that as I was sucking down Conch Coolers on Sunset Pier, turning my nose up at Conch Fritters (still makes me want to go gack at the thought), it was the death anniversary of my wonderful dear great grandmother. Not only that, but she died on Saturday, January 13, 1996 and while I was sitting on the Sunset Pier, having a grand old time, it was Saturday, January 13, 2001. I’m not sure why this makes such a big deal, but for whatever reason, it does. And did thoughts or rememberance of my dear sweet grandmother come through my mind? Nope. This is why the extreme guilt.

Now, fast forward to back in Green Bay. My mom comes over and tells me that my Wimmer grandfather has passed away. Last week. And it was in the paper. But nary a Wimmer (and specifically not the Wimmer that you would like, ie. my father) called me to tell me. No, my grandmother has to see it in the paper and call my Mom, who thought I was still in Key West. So I look up the obituary online and it was in the Tuesday, Jan 16 issue. No, I didn’t do the math yet. I’m still stuck on the phrase “the funeral was attended to by immediate family and friends” because apparently direct blood relation is not only not “immediate” enough to attend the funeral, but also not “immediate” enough to even fucking call and inform. And then I get stuck at “six grandchildren”. Let’s see, Sharon has two kids, Gary’s kid Jason, that’s three, David has two kids, that makes five, and then I’m certain that they counted my evil step sister (ok, she’s not evil, she’s just massively addicted to cocaine and god knows what else), judging by the phrase “He spent his declining years helping his granddaughter fix her car”. Folks, he wasn’t fixing my car. That means I wasn’t even fucking COUNTED in the whole grandchild equation.

So I call my Aunt Sharon (who I’ve tried to find off and on for several years, but my father wouldn’t tell me her name, city, etc) and she fills me in on stuff. Apparently, she had asked my evil step monster if she (Sharon) could have a bullet from the military funeral as a rememberance and step monster says “No, I’m saving those for Mark” (my dad). So then Sharon asks “Can I have his glasses then to remember him by?” and StepMonster says “No, we’re giving them to the Lion’s Club”. And Sharon says “Well, have you got anything of his I can have to remember my father by?” and Step Monster says (I kid you not!) “Well, we have some of his old SHIT DIAPERS around, I suppose we could let you have one of them!” And she was serious. I told you she is evil.

Anyway, apparently, Sharon had tried to get ahold of me, but my dad didn’t whatsoever. Sharon also said that my stepsister (step monster’s “daughter”) always asked for help with her car because my grandfather would then give her money to get it fixed and she’d then snort the money he gave her.

So, a few things came from this. First, the chill coming from Big Lake Minnesota is almost palpable. Second, some interesting words came out of my mouth to Sharon and they were this “I tried for years and years to get in touch with him and I was always spurned away. Then he sent that letter and I didn’t respond. I decided that I had enough people who like me for who I am, who love me, so I don’t need to go looking for love from him.”. Which is like, wow, incredible. It felt really good to say it. And yes, I actually used the word “spurned” in conversation.

So what have I done? Well, a little vindictive thing. I published my wedding announcement in their local paper. Yes, I know it’s been a year and a half, but I figured since we are now using the local rags to communicate, so be it. Also, I plan on calling my grandmother Wimmer (had been divorced from grandfather Wimmer). I have not talked to my grandmother since I was 9 years old, people. Not that I haven’t tried. The best I could get out of my father (back when I actually talked to him) was that she had married a Jew, so her name changed. I also got to talk to Sharon, which was fabulous. I hope everything I told her gets back to him. Yes, I’m not truly healthy about this, but I think I’m doing fairly well.

Now, the true bummer that just bit me in the ass about this today. I realized that he died on Saturday, January 13, 2001. While I was sitting on the goddamn Sunset Pier in Key West, getting blitzed on rum. And my great grandfather died on July 13, 1985. (and both myself and my husband were born on the 13th too) I’m trying not to look for the Karma in this.

Right now I’m eating little carrots with dill dip from the vending machine at work.

Sadly, I would call them “baby carrots”, which is what I always thought that they were, but they aren’t.

Baby carrots are merely big old carrots, cut down with the ends carved into rounded pleasing shapes.

Faux baby carrots.

Which cost more than regular old, long, hairy carrots.

Baby carrots, that are not baby carrots, somehow taste better than straight cut blunt finger carrots.

When I was a kid, baby carrots were still baby carrots and we got blunt cut carrots for dinner, blunt cut carrot sticks in our lunches, plucked from damp sandwich baggies. Carrot coins as snacks with yellow middle CBS eyes looking out at you. And no dill dip either.

Then someone started carving big carrots into baby carrot shapes and selling them. The poor people bought em up because they thought they were somehow nouveau and classy. The rich people bought em because they just don’t know any better.

Now the real baby carrots just look overpriced and no one buys them anymore. Compared to the fake baby carrots, they just look like a mistake because they seem to be the exact same thing, just more expensive.

And the poor people laugh because for just $1.45 more a bag, they can get cute baby carrots rather than big old hairy carrots for 49 cents.

And poorer people still are loading big hairy carrots into carrot carvers, that whittle and peel and exfoliate the orange rods into cute little pellets.

And true baby carrots are left in the ground, due to poor sales, to become long and tough and then get whittled down to baby size again.

Today was a bust. Here’s the scoop: I rushed to volleyball (where we kicked butt in 2 of 3 games, narrowly missing a shut out by a point in the second game) and during play, I started to feel a tight pain in my chest. Before you get worried, it is nothing, but it freaked me out and I of course started worrying when it didn’t go away. I should really know better. Two years ago, I thought I had a major ulcer and it turned out that I had bruised a rib while playing.

Well, so I figured that I’d just mosey on over to the First Care place and see how my heart was acting. I was pretty perturbed as I walked into the ER and went to the triage and the nurse asks for my first name and then says have a seat. Didn’t ask what my problem was or how I was feeling, nothing. I should have dropped over in a faint right there, just to show them! You see, she was busy getting the weight and temperature of a frisky child. I figure, ok, I’ll be nice, but I’m freaking about my heart which at this point is now racing from stress. Then she calls a guy up to be weighed and temperatured and so on. Now I’m ticked. Then the guy leaves and nothing. I go up to the window and I say “Excuse me, is this the ER?” and she says “Yes” and I said “Well, I’m a little concerned because no one even asked me what was wrong.” and she says “That’s because I was with a patient. There was a line. Now it is your turn.” and she asks me all of these benign questions before even asking what my issue is. I say “I’m having a pain in my chest” and she says “do you feel like your going to throw up?” and I say “no” and she says “Well, then it’s probably not your heart”. Hello????? I think she just said that so she wouldn’t look so bad, since she didn’t ask what was wrong with me. Is SHE a cardiologist? Is she qualified to make these determinations upon a two second inspection?

So they take me into a room and tell me to strip, but I don’t all the way because the robe is short and there is a window into the room, looking into the busy hall and the minute I lie down on the gurney, they are going to see my ratty underwear. (Remember what your mother always told you? It’s true. The one day I don’t wear sparkly bright white underwear because I’m having my period is the one day I have to go the emergency room)

This Boy Scout comes in and I learn that he is my doctor. I tell him that I was playing volleyball when it started and he says “At school?” and I say “um, no” and he goes “Where?” and I say, “um, at a bar?” and he says “How old are you” and I say “29” and he nods. Bless his little heart. Must be the new short hairdo or the sweaty/no makeup thing?

So they do an EKG, which was yucky because they put stickers all over you, including under your boob, and then make you lie really still and yell at you if you move (not that I know this from experience). The nice thing about this was that I had my own private TV, so I got to watch some horrible Mark Harmon thing, which was much nicer than sitting there counting the screams of the bratty kid in the next room.

Then this very cute male nurse comes in, wearing scrubs and looking like a runaway from Dawson’s Creek (which I don’t watch, but I often see commercials for it during Buffy the Vampire Slayer, so I know what they look like), and he tells me that I am scheduled to wear a heart monitor that I have to pick up tomorrow. Which sucks. I don’t want to. Oh, and I have to quit caffeine. Which I don’t think is possible.

By the way, it never mattered that I put my pants back on. No one cared. I think those nurses’ just want to exert power on people by telling them to get naked. I think it makes it harder for a disgruntled patient to get up and leave on them. So next time they tell you that you have to be completely naked when you are going in because your throat hurts, just don’t.

Anyway, all I apparently did was pull the muscle that connects your chest muscle things (the muscle over your breastbone). Connective tissue, I guess. I know exactly when it must have happened too, because there was one serve where I was reaching and running backwards. Would have been a Reebok moment if not for the rampant chest pains.

So now all is well. I’ve decided to not wear the heart monitor thing. We’ll see about the caffeine abstinence. Yeah, I doubt it too.