I go for a hike in the Badlands

Me, before I humiliated myself

 Sometime during the summer of 2009, I had an emotional breakdown and as soon as I could, I took my 2 week vacation from work.  I had been saving my pennies (literally) for almost a year.  I got in my car and drove…and ended up in Wyoming.  The vacation was exactly what I needed. 5,400 miles of just me, music, strangers, hiking, great food, amazing views.  I could type for days about that trip, but that’s not what this blog is about: instead, I’m going to tell you a story about how much of a twit I am.

I got to the Badlands of South Dakota on September 10th.  The weather was absolutely beautiful-the sun was shining, not a cloud in the sky.  As I pulled up to the Ranger station, it’s like the temperature rose 10 degrees.  I asked the Ranger on duty what the temperature actually was and she told me that it was somewhere in the mid-9os at the gate, but to be careful–it would be hotter out on the rocks.  She reminded me to hydrate properly and I giggled as I drove into the park: I was so excited to be there that I could not sit still.  Also, I was excited because the day before, I had bought these little Crystal Light single serve packets that you can just dump into your water bottle, shake and drink.  And it’s delicious.  I pulled over at one of the designated parking spots, shook up my water bottle, grabbed my camera and took off on a short hike to the top of the outer rim of the Badlands.  As I reached the top, my breath was knocked out of me.  I was looking at one of the most beautiful sights I had ever seen.

The view from the top

When the Ranger told me that it would be hotter on the rocks, she wasn’t kidding.  I had started sweating the instant I stepped out of my air conditioned car.  And I sweat a lot.  I always have.  There was absolutely no one else around, so I sat with my feet dangling over the edge, back leaning on the cliff.  I sat there for over an hour–it was absoltely silent there, and I wanted to take it in.  No cars, people, no birds, no electrical buzz.  I had never experienced pure silence before.  It was so unbelievably peaceful, even though I felt like I was melting.  I drank a few gulps of my Raspberry water, got up and descended back to my car.

Now, here is where the story really begins.  As you can see above, I was an idiot and wore a black shirt in 100 degree sunlight and capris (I almost never wear shorts.)  I took several more gulps of water and drove to another trailhead, this time, there were other people there hiking as well. 

Again, I grabbed my water and my camera and took off.  It was a 2-mile trail on the outside of the Badlands that had some really amazing views, as well as signs posted everywhere for rattlesnakes.  I continued my sweat-fest.  The last quarter of the hike was actually quite physical-enough for me to be out of breath.  I stopped a couple of times to rehydrate and ended up finishing the Crystal Light just before the end of the trail.  I could feel the sweat running down my back–and my front, as well.  I hustled through the rest of the trail and clumbsily emerged through the brush and small trees that had bordered it. 

Tourists were everywhere.  A small handful of people were already gazing in my direction, and to my horror, I saw their faces turn from smiles to bulging eyes.  Conversations stopped.  More people turned to look.  I was instantly embarrassed.  What the heck was going on?!?  I swear I’m not that ugly.

I looked down.  I was drenched, and my capris showed this fact.  My lady V, where all the sweat had collected, was dark green.  I knew without a doubt that my backside looked the same, if not worse.  I was pissed that I was being judged for being sweaty.  It was so hot!  People should have understood this!  They were sweaty, too!  I shamefully got into my car, shaking with adrenaline.  Fight or flight, and we all know which I chose.  I just wanted to get out of there as quickly as I could.

I put my car in reverse and checked around me for traffic.  I sat up straight and looked in my rearview mirror, and what I saw made me cringe.  I looked like freakin’ Ronald McDonald.  My lips were bright red.  And so was the half inch or so of skin above my lips and most of the skin between my mouth and chin.  What the heck!?  I looked at my hands; some of my fingers were stained, as was my left forearm!  BLOOD RED.  Oh my God.  How did I not notice this before?!? (Probably because I was preoccupied by the views and the fact that I was actively looking for rattlesnakes the entire trail?)

I put my car in park and grabbed the water bottle.  As I untwisted the top, I saw that I had been a little careless and excess powder was on the threads of both the bottle and the cap.  Unreal.  I was drinking from it, spreading the powder, then wiping my sweat away. 

I had emerged from the woods looking like I had not only peed myself, but it probably appeared that I had just eaten a small, raw animal.

That powder dyed my skin for several, several hours.  I used to think that my mother was crazy for keeping baby/hand wipes in her car.  Throughout the years, I have learned that this is actually a superb idea.  Especially if you are known for being messy. Like I am.  Or if you kill and eat animals raw while hiking.  Like I do.

How my day started

Seriously, be glad that I own these asshole cats and you do not.  Every single day, they get into SOMETHING that they shouldn’t.  Don’t get me wrong: I’m grateful that I no longer have a stray critter in my living quarters, but cleaning up after its demise is no fun. 

I sprayed the spots, scrubbed them, and took off for the hospital, where I was given radioactive IV drugs galore and had my gall bladder shrunk.  I simply cannot tell you what a wonderful day I have had.  Mother nature also decided to hit me, too.  I’m going to go crawl into my bed, pop one of my pills (that I haven’t been able to take all day due to testing) and mope for a while.

Oh-almost forgot: THAT huge beast above is Spike; one of the cats my sister left at my house.  He is a Kurilian Bobtail, sent from Siberia to destroy vacuum cleaners in Western New York.  He acts more like a dog than a cat (jumps up on you when you get home sometimes) and can carry on conversations with you.  Weirdest looking cat I’ve ever seen.

Sometimes I just have to take the pill.

When I was 22 (almost 23), I went to rehab.  I had numerous bad habits, one of them being prescription pills.  I loved them.  I took pain killers nearly every day.  When I finally cleaned up, I made a list of rules with my counselor that I still live by today.  One of those rules was that I could not take or be in possession of any pain killer stronger than Advil or Tylenol.  I have changed my life around and have stuck to my rules so well that I haven’t relapsed in over 5 years.  Most of the time, I don’t feel like I’m in danger of losing control.  I do drink socially, but I only do so when I’m in a good mood, and even then, I rarely go past the point of legal intoxication (although I’ve had a few crazy nights here and there…)  All in all, I’ve lived clean and well within my rules for over five years.  My life now is calmer, my thoughts are clearer and I’m capable of having healthy relationships.

That said, I’ve broken the pain killer rule: twice.  Once, three years ago when I broke my elbow, I took vicodin for about a day or two.  I had to.  Advil was not cutting it.  I was delirious with pain.  I had my doctor prescribe only a handful of pills with no refill.

And now I’m breaking the rule again, but with non-narcotic pain killers.  I’m taking Tramadol for the pain I’ve been having in my side. 

Over a year and a half ago, we thought that I broke my floating rib-and honestly, I might have.  The pain went away after several weeks, and life went back to normal.  Six months ago, I started feeling the same pain in my side.  This time, my back hurt, too.  My doctor felt around, then ordered blood and urine tests to see if my liver and kidneys were working properly.  They were.  Eventually, the pain went away. 

About three weeks ago, my back started to hurt.  A friend of mine is in massage school and she worked on me for a bit, thinking that I was just knotted up.  It clicked to me what was happening, and sure enough, I was right: my side started hurting.  It started as a dull pain.  Two weeks later, it was nearly unbearable.  Since this has happened before, I knew that this pain would pass, and I attempted to wait it out. 

It didn’t go away.  On this last Friday, I went to my doctor and she had my ribs X-rayed, thinking that maybe I just keep breaking my floater.  My ribs are intact.  I was sent home with an anti-inflammatory medicine and told to lay low and be boring.

On Saturday, I stopped by my friend’s new BBQ joint, grabbed dinner, took my meds and went to bed.  In the middle of the night, I was awoken by the sharpest stab of pain in my side that I have ever felt.  I yelled out in pain and felt around for my cell phone.  I found it, pulled it to my face and rolled over onto my stomach, grasping my side.  I laid there for about 3 minutes, debating calling my mother (who was sleeping directly upstairs from me.) 

And then, the pain was gone.  Well, not gone…but less.  Bearably less.  I ended up piling pillows and blankets in the middle of my bed and leaning into it.  I covered up with half of a blanket and fell asleep face-down into the pile.  When I woke up, I felt pretty damn good.  Better than I had in days.  I still called into work and took a sick day-I knew that standing upright would agitate things. 

When I woke up today, I made another doctor’s appointment and went in.  She looked at me, shook her head and poked around my abdomen.  There are 3 different unique spots that are capable of making me cry when pushed on.  I told her about my incident on Saturday night.  She looked at me, blinked, then asked me what I had eaten.  I told her: I stuffed myself on BBQ and drank a bunch of chocolate milk.  She brought her hand to her head, shook it and laughed.  I told her that I don’t typically have milk, but I couldn’t resist.  “I don’t so much care about the milk, K, but that in combination with BBQ is very fattening.  We need to check your gall bladder. I’m sending you for a Disida scan and it’ll check your liver as well.”

She wrote me a script for the Tramadol and sent me to reception to schedule the scan.  There was a complication at the other end of the phone line, and I stood there, leaning forward onto the counter.  We were on hold for what seemed like an hour (probably 4-5 minutes).  I was ushered to a seat just as I began to realize that I was about to pass out.  My vision was spotty.  I sat for another 10 minutes until the appointment was made (for tomorrow morning) and until I felt okay to get up and drive.  I’m not sure why I almost passed out-maybe I’m just tired of the pain, tired of the run-around.  I felt better once I got to my car.

So here I am, at home, a half-dose of Tramadol in my system.  And guess what?-the pain is tolerable right now.  I cannot beat myself up right now about the meds.  I will go crazy if I keep hurting like this.  If my gall bladder turns out to the cause of all this, they will remove it immediately.  I will need more pills.

I hate that I broke my rules, but then again, I don’t.  I shouldn’t have to suffer if I don’t have to.  I just have to be careful that this doesn’t spiral out of control again.  My life is too good now to fall apart again. I just hope that we can figure this out tomorrow.  I’m sick of all this.

Yummy.

My life’s calling

 

Facebook has an uncanny way of recommending ads and sponsored pages for me that make absolutely no sense for someone of my lifestyle and means.  Christian dating sites, vacation sites in Bermuda, ADOPTION, rappers. 

But about a month ago, they started suggesting that maybe I should become a social worker.  And THIS! is how they are enticing me to click away:

Yeah, like I want to be a social worker to a child that will stab me in the back of the head.  Then THIS ad came up a few days later:

What the F is that thing?!?

And then THIS one:

And let’s not forget the little blue girl that someone has just attempted to drown:

Little guy gets around.

A few weeks ago, I first saw the little construction barrel/cone critter that someone had made and stuck up on the embankment of a major highway convergence in my city.  It made me laugh!  I passed the little guy every day for about 2.5 weeks…then it mysteriously disappeared.  I figured someone in the DOT was missing a sense of humor and took it down.

Two days ago, it reappeared!  This time, it is in a median about 5 minutes from my house!  Whoever is doing this, please continue! 

Here’s a closer look:

This is new…

One of the reasons I decided to start this blog is that I feel the need document the crazy stuff that happens to and/or around me.  My friends approve.

Today I went out to run a few errands, and to save running around, I went to the town where my best friend lives to shop.  She lives in the nice part of this town, but as with much of my city, it gets scary really quickly.  I had to run into a Wegmans really quick for a snack and let’s face it-beer for tonight-and ran right back out.  By the time I got out, I was stuck in the plaza by police tape and K-9 units.  The bank in this plaza had just been robbed and they were searching cars. 

I quickly fumbled through my bag to find my camera: I NEEDED to document this.  Couldn’t find it.  I had pulled the camera out earlier and it had been thrown to the floorboard without my knowledge.  As the police man came up to my car with his dog, I must have looked like I was trying to hide my stash or something; eliciting a very awkward glare from the officer.  When they finally cleared the line of cars attempting to exit, I pulled out onto the street and ran head first into another road block.  The neighborhood was in a full-out manhunt. 

I called E and told her about it.  She just laughed and asked if I was the one who had robbed the bank.  Please.  I would have been LONG GONE by then!  And probably hiding out at her house.

The realization hit me a few minutes later: I had probably  seen the person fleeing the bank when I entered the plaza.  I just wasn’t paying attention. 

The weirdest stuff happens around me, but this is new.  Never been in the midst of a bank robbery before.  It appeared that no one got hurt AND I got my beer.  So we’re all good.

Fat Hitler

I started my shift tonight by having my Glycol system shitting out on me, causing foam (temperature differential) issues. It took me two times longer to pour a beer as it should have…which means that I got backed up making tickets.  While my servers were patient with me, my temper was riding the verge of a breakdown, and I could see their frustration on their faces.  There were a handful of time-consuming server errors that also wasted my time and tested me. I kept thinking to myself:  “Self.  Suck it up.  Get through tonight and you have tomorrow off.  You get to hang out with your friends tomorrow.  Just get through tonight.”

I was also getting spit at by the beer taps tonight.  I reeked of beer and even took my watch off at one point so it wouldn’t get ruined/filthy.  I even got sprayed opening a bottle of beer.  My uniform is a smelly, disgusting mess.

I somehow got caught up with service tickets, barguests and dishes (I was on bar solo tonight and had no backup…) and went to my phone to tweet something like, “OMG GONNA CRY AT WORK,” when I saw a text from PP saying that he and AR were coming in.  My spirits lightened a bit.  Familiar faces that will make me laugh.  Ahh, I relaxed, replied, and within five minutes, they walked in.  They witnessed the ridiculousness that my servers put me through, night after night, SO I’M NOT CRAZY AND EXAGGERATING BECAUSE OTHER PEOPLE SAW IT, TOO.  They offered to stab people for me.  True friends, indeed.

And then it happened.  They started laughing, and waved me over.  “Fat Hitler!” was all they said.  I looked to my left and saw this:

There was no stifling my laugh.  It just let loose.  And I have a very loud laugh.  I alerted two of my servers, who both thought it fitting to burst out laughing, too.  PP took this picture and posted it immediately to Twitter.  Within moments, my phone was abuzz with replies to it. 

I suggested that Fat Hitler’s server deliver their food and say, “Here you go, Miss Braun,” when placing the wife’s food in front of her.  I also suggested that we sing the birthday song and apologize for being two days late.

My mood picked up drastically after this celebrity spotting.  I had no more mental breakdowns/head-butting with the servers and the rest of the night flew by.  Thank you, Adolf: you made my night.  Never thought that I would ever say that and actually mean it.

And thank you, AR and PP for pointing him out.  I would have never gotten my head out of my own ass long enough to have seen him on my own.

Label me bored.

We have two guests that come in and draw anime for hours.  They stay til past closing time, but usually we don’t mind because they are causing no harm and they tip well.  They’ve been coming in for months and months, and for the most part, we all love them.

I had to serve them while bartending a couple of weeks ago, and I finished my closing outs early.  I sat and ate, listened to music, watched TV…and they were still there. 

Then I found the blue painter’s tape.

What could I do with this?  My day bartender would be opening in the morning after being on vacation for a week.  He’d been on a cruise in The Caribbean.  Asshole.  He deserved some snide payback.

So this is what I did:

I labeled things.

I labeled a lot of things.  My boss came into the bar, looked at me, shook his head and said, “There’s got to be a good reason why you’re wasting all the painter’s tape.”

“Oh, there is,” I replied.  “I was bored.” Grin.

What’s the date again?

So what if it’s April 18th?  This is what it looks like here:

Aaaand upon loading the pic, I realize that I’m a dork.  We just got new texting/cell laws and here I am driving and taking pictures…with a cop right there.  No ticket.  I’m safe yet again.  Somehow.

This picture doesn’t show it very well, but it was snowing.  Visibility over the lake was non-existant.  I didn’t feel the need to take a picture while driving over the bridge and risk my life and my car’s front end, so just use your imagination. 

This year, more than ever, I’ve realized that I’m growing up.  Not only am I facing greater responsibilities, but I’m getting random hairs on me-on my arms, my shoulders, neck.  I’m told this is a sign of changing hormones that comes with age.  Super.  The most obvious sign that I’m becoming an adult is hating the weather.  Before, I loved the snow.  My birthday is in January, so I’m a snow-baby.  Cold never bothered me.  Now, as the date nearers summertime, I get increasingly peeved if I have to drive in snow, or if it’s cold outside. 

I’m becoming a crabby old lady.  But I’m happy today because I got ID’ed at a bar today.  It’s happening less frequently.  Yay!

FB makes me smarter.

This is an actual screen print from someone that I am friends with on Facebook. 

We went to grade school together.

Stay in school, kids.