Justice

First off, I must apologize for my long absence.  I’ve been feeling alternately lazy and apathetic and have not been blogging like I hoped to be once all the wedding and moving stuff was done with.  Enter the holidays and my free time is down to none.  Also, I have no energy and am super tired lately.

However, I’ve been following the Kyle Deemer murder trial almost obssessively and am glad to report that justice has been served.  I guess I never really wrote about what inspired that poem, so I’ll cover it here because otherwise it won’t make any sense.  So last fall a classmate of mine and a friend of his were shot to death north of Marshalltown last fall.  The article I linked to above explains the rest.  The whole thing has really been bugging me lately; his trial started last week and they wrapped it up yesterday.  It took the jury less than two hours to convict him.  Now if only we had the death penalty.  I think a firing squad would do the job nicely and would be rather poetic justice.

I’ve been doing a lot of writing lately, but it’s mostly been letters and diary entries.  I’m participating in a journal exchange and so far, it’s been a lot of fun, although I seem to have trouble finding time to write with everything that’s going on lately.  I think I’ll make a copy of the journal when it’s all done because it’s a permanent exchange and I’d like to have a copy of what I’ve written.  I also joined the American Legion Auxiliary and am looking forward to getting involved in that.

And now I think I’ll go back to munching on Bugles in an attempt to settle my tummy.  Happy Hump Day!

(c) 2009.  All rights reserved.

Blah

Yup, feeling kinda blah today.  It’s just one of those kind of days, you know?  The skies are all overcast, it’s cold outside and a bit windy, and I’m tired and tense and sore.  On the bright side, my dad finally agreed to go to the inpatient rehab clinic at the hospital, so that made my day.  I still want to beat him, though.  He’s so stubborn!  Why can’t he just take the help he’s being offered without being so obstinate?

Okay, I’m not going to think about that right now.  It will only get me all upset again.  I’m going to go visit him tonight – he wants me to bring his leg braces – but at least it won’t be quite as stressful as I had anticipated.  Maybe there’s still a chance to talk some sense into him.

Okay, so I must have a one-track mind today if I said I wasn’t going to think about my dad right now and then that’s the very next thing I wrote about.  Hmmm.  I’ve spent the last hour or so poking around Babelfish trying to write a letter to a new penpal in Spain.  In Spanish.  I don’t remember much of the Spanish that I used to know, which wasn’t all that much to start with, but maybe we’ll be able to teach each other our languages and that would be lots of fun.  I’m really looking forward to this.  Yay LJ!  I love getting mail and having penpals and since I lost touch with my penpal from Germany, I’ve really missed writing back and forth to people.  Cue the line from Time Enough for Drums: “I’d enjoy getting your letters and corresponding!”

Okay, I’m a complete dork.  And I’ve used the word okay entirely too many times in this post.  I don’t suppose it will stop me, but at least I recognize that I’ve used it far, far too many times.  Although at least I can write better than our daycare center director.  From the November newsletter that was sent home last night:

If there is not enough children signed up, the center will be closed those two days.

She also used the wrong to/two/too at one point.  Gotta love good ol’ G-R!

Apparently now I’m in Grammar Nazi mode.  I don’t really care.  What can I say?  I’m just that snarky and nitpicky when it comes to proper grammar and spelling and punctuation and you name it.  But it’s okay; I usually try to keep my snark to myself.  And I usually do a pretty good job, unless I’m in a rotten mood like I was last night when I happened to notice her mistakes.  She makes a lot of mistakes and I’m sure her grammar checker would have caught the one from last night, but apparently she just ignores those little squiggly lines underneath words that are spelled/used incorrectly.  I mean, how hard is it to just hit F7 before you print something?  It’s one keystroke – it’s not brain surgery!  End rant.  I think.

All right!  So!  I’m kinda tired today.  And kinda really getting back into the Spanish groove.  For instance, I remembered how to say, “She was seven,” instead of, “She is seven.”  It didn’t really do me any good since I wanted to say, “She will be seven,” but I was proud of myself nonetheless.  I suppose if I’m going to learn all of the languages of the world before I die, I should start with Spanish, which I at least have a (very) minimal understanding of.  That’s where my new penpal comes in!  I’m actually really excited by this prospect because I love learning new things.  Oh, how I would love to be a professional student and spend all my time learning new things!

Whoops – got distracted by Facebook flair.  It’s just so addictive!  *sigh*  My head hurts and it’s too early to go home.  Now what?  Back to letter-writing in Spanish, I guess.  Later, gators!

(c) 2009.  All rights reserved.

And now a little venting…

Apparently I use big words when I’m upset.  My last Facebook status:

Kay is angry and upset and annoyed and aggravated and patricidal…

I got off work tonight feeling okay.  I wasn’t in a great mood, but I wasn’t in a rotten mood, either.  I was just okay.  Then I dug my phone out of  my purse and discovered I had two voicemails.  The first one was from my dad, whose voice was still hoarse from being on a ventilator last week.  The second was from a nurse.  Both messages were to inform me that he was being released from the hospital tonight and I needed to come and pick him up.  WTF?????

The nurse said that if I had any questions, I could give them a call and left a number for me.  I promptly called it and got a hold of someone who promptly put me on hold.  I think I was on hold for close to ten minutes.  I finally got to talk to a nurse and she told me that my dad refused to go to the inpatient rehab clinic in the hospital, which is where all his doctors think he belongs, and he refuses to go to a nursing home, which was their second choice.  They said since he’s refusing all treatment options and just wants to go home, they have no choice but to let him.  I assume, of course, that they’re discharging him against medical advice and I assume, too, that he doesn’t give a rat’s behind if it’s against medical advice or not.  He is so goddamned stubborn!

And so now I’m very angry.  And frustrated.  And I need a drink.  And a hug.  And perhaps some therapy.  Or maybe he’s the one who needs therapy.  I can understand his desire not to go to a nursing home because I sure as hell don’t ever want to be in one, but he needs some freaking help and I can’t do it all.  Bev can’t do it all.  Any nurses they might send in can’t do it all because they won’t be there round the clock and knowing him, he’ll refuse any in-home assistance, too, because he’s too STUBBORN for his own good.  You can’t reason with him; it’s like talking to a brick wall – you could talk till you’re blue in the face and it won’t do any good.  My sister’s the same way.  I’m sorely tempted to drive up there tonight and let him have it; if I thought it would do any good, I’d be in my car right now.

I spent most of my drive home on the phone either with the hospital discussing his incredible obstinacy or with my attorney discussing my apparently non-existant options.  He needs help but is too stubborn and stupid to take it when it’s offered and I can’t ensure that he gets the help he needs because my hands are tied.  I have his Power of Attorney, but since he’s not unconscious or otherwise incapacitated, it doesn’t do me a darn bit of good.  Unless I can get the doctors to declare him unfit to make decisions concerning his health care, he’s going to go home tomorrow night and probably get hurt and there’s nothing I can do about it.

He happened to fall at the hospital this afternoon after all the discharge paperwork had been arranged, so his doctor’s P.A. came up to take a look at him.  She ordered an X-ray to make sure everything’s okay and decided to keep him overnight for observation.  She sounded just as frustrated as me because he won’t listen to her, either.  Apparently the School of Hard Knocks has a higher accreditation than any medical school in the world because my dad seems to think he knows more than the doctors.  He can be so infuriating sometimes!

So I guess I’m going to go and pick him up tomorrow night.  I really hope they’ll get him to change his mind and agree to the inpatient rehab clinic.  I’m not holding my breath, but I can still hope, foolish as it is.  I would just love to slap him silly right now.  He’s so concerned about something happening to derail the results of his surgery that he insisted they put a smoking ban in his discharge instructions so that he can “psych himself up to quit” smoking when he gets home, but he can’t see that going home to an empty apartment is asking for trouble.  He has enough trouble with falling as it is and I don’t think it has anything to do with his back or his legs or his hip or anything else he wants to blame it on; I think a lot of it has to do with his seizures, which he shouldn’t be having problems with if he were taking his medication correctly.  But he swears up and down that he’s taking everything just like he’s supposed to.  He also insists that he weighs 165 pounds but if that’s the case, then I’m a best-selling author and should just quit my job because, after all, why should a best-selling author have to have a second job?  the King of England.

*grrrrrrhisssssfffttfffttffftt* *thwack* *thwack* *thwack*

(c) 2009.  All rights reserved.