Saturday, On The Couch

I don't think it was the fourth of July...

Hey Gang!

I hope y'all are all having a great weekend. I had big plans for mine, but they fell through with a thud.  Friday seemed OK at first, but it was one of those days at work where you just have to grind through it and try not to look at the clock.  However, instead of spending the entire day at work, I had to go to Summit Hospital and visit one of my least favorite places in the world, Tennessee Oncology.

Yes, I have an oncologist, but no, I don't have cancer.  We had a huge scare earlier last summer and I dealt with it for several months, which was a definite pain in the ass, not to mention worrisome.  Long story short, after several months of scans and every test known to man, in November they finally decided to cut me open again, then took out a bunch of stuff, tested it all, and a week later gave me the good news that all results came back negative.  Of course, no doctor in the world is going to declare you 100% healed, that would be bad for business, so I have to go back every few months, cough up that co-pay, and have more tests and lab work done.  (Cynical me thinks that if I didn't have insurance, I would've been 'healed' months ago...)

Did I mention that it's a pain in the ass?  Well, that's how I spent my Friday--after getting bent over at work all morning, it was off to the Oncology center to get poked, prodded, stabbed, and examined all afternoon.  What makes it worse is that I'm in there with all of the cancer patients, everyone else is getting chemo, and the whole place is about as lively as a funeral home. I hate going there. On the plus side, my doctor, who by the way is fantastic, told me that I'm his healthiest patient.  Well duh, I'm the only one there who doesn't have cancer.

I was there for quite awhile, and it turns out I was damn near the last one in the building.  Half the office staff was already gone for the day by the time I got checked out and released.  The problem was, they had drained several vials of blood from me, and since I hardly eat much of anything anymore, it just wipes me out.  And also, since the hospital is about 50 miles from my house, the drive is a tough one in my condition.  They told me to go eat ASAP, so I called up Amy and Scottie to see if they wanted to go out and get some dinner since I was down in the city and needed to get some sort of nourishment, even if it were bar food.

They suggested that I just drive over to their house for dinner, Amy was cooking turkey chili (one of my favorite things nowadays) and our friend Cory was over with her kids, too.  So I motored over to the west side, exhausted, played with the puglets and visited with Scottie for a bit, then collapsed on the couch before dinner.

The food did me good, and they even broke out a bottle of good red wine, which always makes me feel better, although only in small doses. 

We had an enjoyable evening, but then one of Cory's kids dove head first into my wine glass after dinner, covering me with purple stains.  My white shirt immediately giving me the look of a victim at a crime scene (We were all sitting on the couch, and since most kids treat me as a jungle gym, well, shiat happens).  I ditched the clothes from the waist up, and just wore my fleece jacket while Amy threw my stuff in the laundry.  Of course I kept it halfway unzipped, rocking the Seventies porn-star look for the rest of the evening.

But the rest of the evening was a short one.  Even though the food and wine were just what I needed, I still felt pretty crummy and shuffled off to the guest room earlier than usual, sharing my space with two adorable pugs who's small stature belies their uncanny ability to completely take over an entire queen-sized bed.  Scottie even turned on the PA in the music room, running the Pink Floyd Spotify station through it, so I drifted off much too early, listening to Dark Side of the Moon.

My alarm went off at 6:30 in the morning, and I swear I was out the door, sans shirt, at 6:45.  To all outward appearances, it probably looked like a walk of shame, but the neighbors know me and my car, so it didn't raise too many eyebrows when I snuck out early on a Saturday morning. 

I was scheduled to work that day, and although the shirt I wore the day before was still in Amy's washing machine, I still got called out for obviously not going home the night before. Luckily I had a company t-shirt in the trunk of my car for just such occasions--although it's business casual during the week, on weekends we can wear any of the swag the vendors provide, and so my collection of t-shirts and polos with logos I would never buy in a million years is quite extensive.  Perfect to have on hand when I have an unexpected need for a change of clothes.

I was only going to work a half day, but I still felt like crap on a stick all morning.  Another friend of ours was having a housewarming party/cookout that afternoon, but I just wasn't up to it.  Instead of partying with everyone and enjoying some more bacon-wrapped dates (Amy made up two full trays of them to bring), I spent the afternoon and evening at home.  I took a shower, as hot as I could stand, grabbed some old comfy gym clothes that are about four sizes too big, and put on a pair of my favorite wool socks.  I don't think I got off the couch for about eight hours straight. 

I cleaned up some of my DVR, and watched a couple of movies, also.  That movie, Flight, with Denzel Washington, about an airline pilot who survives a crash, was actually pretty good, and it certainly wasn't about what I thought it was about.  I also watched Battleship, which wasn't nearly as stupid as I thought it would be.  Clearly I went in expecting the worst, but it wasn't too bad for mindless entertainment.  Lots of action movie cliches and a little bit of ripoff of Independence Day (or was that an homage?  I couldn't tell), but having Brooklyn Decker in a supporting role kept me watching...

Speaking of movies, that reminds me of the absolute WORST movie I've seen in a very long time--the other night I watched Alex Cross.  Oh dear god what a steaming pile of crap that was.  It was awful.  I think Tyler Perry wrote it (he must have, I mean, who would cast him as the lead in an action movie?), and while I understand how difficult it is to write a script and a screenplay, he, and everyone else involved in the production, should seriously do some hard time for crimes against creativity.  I felt bad for Edward Burns, who I really like as an actor, but it appears that paychecks must be getting hard to come by for him to take a role in this silver-screen turd.  The only problem is, once people see this, it's gonna be even harder for him to find work.  Yeah, it was that bad.  Imagine a two-hour long Cadillac commercial, with a script churned out by a bunch of eighth-graders, and well, you get the idea.  The most ridiculous over-the-top product and logo placement you could possibly imagine.  I expect that crap from Pepsi, but now Cadillac is in on that annoying game, too.

OK, rant over.

So yeah, that was my Saturday.  I didn't do a damn thing except go to bed early.  Of course I woke up at 6:30 this morning all pumped up and excited to go on a six-mile hike in the woods, but I'm still under the weather.  I've got a pot of coffee brewing, and I'm hoping I feel better after I get a bit of food in me, but right now I'm still pretty drained and listless.  The weatherman says it's supposed to rain all afternoon, and it's pretty windy out there right now, so we'll see how it goes. 

I have an excellent Marmot rain hat that I bought at REI last summer that I use exclusively for hiking, and it's so nice that I also wanted a Marmot rain jacket.  I got the jacket for Christmas, but I purposely asked for one that was too small for me--their stuff is *expensive* and I didn't want to shrink out of it like the rest of my clothes.  So while I can put on the rain jacket, and this point I can't really zip it up--it's still too small, but I'm getting there.  But basically it means that for now, if it's raining, I'm not going--I know it sounds fun walking in the rain, and it is, but only if you can get back to someplace warm and dry whenever you want.  Being out in the woods soggy and cold all afternoon, a few miles from your car, with no shelter around, is not fun at all.  So I'm in a holding pattern this morning.

I'm tempted to just say the hell with it and park my ass on the couch all day, but then this picture starts to gnaw at me and guilts my soul:

Mikey