Friday. December 28, 2001

it kept the drinks cold, got kicked in and now it's 'pay as you throw'

for Chalow's home page

getting back some desk space

"Art is unthinkable without risk and spirtual self-sacrifice."

Boris Pasternak, Speech at Writer's Conference

I didn't do my projects last night that needed FFP to be off the network. Rather, I listened to jazzy Christmas CDs that FFP had loaded into the system in the big room. Where the TV is, as we all know, broken. And I read some stuff in the newspapers and started one of my Christmas books.

I need to install software on his machine, I want to take my Linux machine down that acts as a Gateway and see if it and my WIN98 machine that I use most of the time can operate on the same monitor, keyboard and mouse using a little device I bought long ago. I want to switch monitors with my WIN95 machine, too. I want to make some backups as well. Maybe I'll do them tonight, I think, while showering. Nothing cosmic, of course. I could put all of it off another month.

I stayed in bed too late this morning. I was having weird dreams about Goodwill stores, gift certificates to Mexican restaurants, showers that were directly over beds and people trying to be incognito in rhinestone eyeglasses. I didn't like the dreams but kept wanting to go back to sleep to get back to them and see what was going on.

After I'm showered and dressed and into my first cup of coffee, I call Mom. She is trying to decide whether to go to church for games day. (They have a Friday morning activity for retired folks to play games and have snacks. They are Methodists, you see.) Anyway, Dad wants to go. Mom says her chest is still tight and she feels 'mediocre.' I think she'll decide to go along to church. I tell her to call me and tell me what she decides.

"The doctor might call," she says.

"We can always call them back," I say. I don't think they will call but I plan to call them today and see if they have at least started the process of looking at all the xrays together. Like found all the xrays and gotten them in one place. No one is going to do anything until Wednesday after this, the woman I've talked to has made that much clear. The bad news is that they probably won't schedule a visit for a week or two. Except maybe it's good news because maybe I can take off and go to the visit with her. Bad for her, though, because she is in pain, she says, her chest constantly tight 'even if she doesn't even have a bra on'.

I read the obituary for my friend's wife. Life is short. Much shorter for some of us.

I decide I'm spending too much of my vacation inside worrying about Mom. Chalow and I take a walk. Not a long one but just a little walk. She loves it. Me, too. The weather is great. We see two dogs we've seen before, Spot and Wanda. I take a picture of the flag for the collection and a picture of a fire hydrant for a page I'm planning for Chalow. Her very own home page. Except I never get around to it.

I drag my feet about going to my mother's. It's 11:30 and then 12:30. I eat the leftover lettuce wraps from FFP's take-out meal. On the breakfast table the latest The New Yorker is open to a memoir by Nadine Gordimer called Visting George. I guess FFP was reading it. I read it. I discovered this author after I discovered South Africa. This piece drives to the heart of what I'm feeling today. About friends lost. Not just to death but due to letting down the reins of friendship. Friends lost in a memory fog, something that they meant to us the only reality left. And that memory not so accurate itself.

I go to my mom's house. They are sitting in the living room. Mom is trying to fill out a form for waiver of premium for disability on an old life insurance policy with a face of a couple of thousand dollars. I wish she would just forget it. Why do they need a further waiver for someone over 80? Clearly, she can't work. If the waiver runs out at a certain age, why not just cite that? I am too overwhelmed with her health issues to intervene on that.

I call the doctor's office. I explain my quest. I'm put on hold. I explain again. I'm transferred to hold. I leave a message. I call back later. I'm transferred, put on hold and finally they check and they don't know anything so they agree to call me back. They do. They ask about her symptoms. Yes, tightness in the chest, some coughing. They get Mom on the phone. She admits using an inhalor. She is using four-year-old ampules that a doctor in Mesquite prescribed for my dad. Of course, it turns out, her GP gave a sample of the same stuff. The woman on the phone is all uppidity about 'using out-of-date drugs prescribed for the husband.' Well, um, like you guys are following a protocol for her problems. Not. OK, she will call back.

And she finally does. But in the interim, I'm working jigsaw puzzles with my mom. I'm suggesting that she is getting better 'by herself.' Maybe it was an infection and she is shaking it off. She hasn't taken a Darvoset since last night.

When the woman calls back she says the doctor says that my mother should go to the emergency room but at the hospital on 34th Street, not the one near their house because 'our doctors never go there.' OK, so why should she go in?

"She tells me that she's having chest pains and is shorter of breath than usual and she's been using out-of-date inhalers."

"What would they do there?"

"Take a chest xray."

"Have they evaluated the xray she had last Friday?"

"No, they are still going to do that."

"So, we would admit her to the hospital to have another chest xray they haven't evaluated?"

"Well, no they wouldn't admit her. Just see her."

"Well, I think if she gets worse, can't breath or is in a lot of pain like last week, then OK. Otherwise, it's a waste.

"Then she shouldn't use the out-of-date inhalers. Get [other doctor omitted because they are probably more litigious than I am] to prescribe it. And, of course, Dr. [can't be bothered specialist] only practices on Tuesday and Friday and Tuesday is a holiday so don't really expect anything until Friday."

So, I explain to my dad the following. If she has lots of pain or trouble breathing, take her to the emergency room but at 34th Street (assuming you have time). Otherwise, keep her calm and sedated. Get the GP to write a script for the inhaler. Or not. He and I agree that if she believes the old ampules of the inhaler are working, wonderful, probably no harm done. And, I tell him, call [first name of helpful woman at Dr. Can't be Bothered's Office] next Friday (one WEEK hence) and see if anyone has bothered with the xrays. My dad agrees to this. He looks at her skin color. Tries to examine her nail beds (polish obscures but his point is that he knows when people are not actually getting enough oxygen).

I go home. My niece has sent a gourmet box for Christmas. I eat some cheese and crackers and FFP opens a 1994 Rex Hill Reserve Pinot with a stunning nose and pores it into Riedel Burgundy glasses.

It's time to make good on my promise to do a few things on FFP's machine and the network. I try to install the PowerPoint upgrade. Only to discover that it isn't legal to upgrade. The box says that the Small Business Office Suite is an OK basis to add PowerPoint. But, indeed, what they meant was that the OEM edition is not OK. I find this out by searching their site. I'm sure I can't return the useless $109 upgrade. No, I can buy PowerPoint by itself for $350 or something or buy a Standard suite for about the same. Why do people hate Bill Gates? Why is PowerPoint suddenly so important that FFP can't use it on the two other machines where it is installed? Well, people keep sending him PowerPoint documents. I didn't figure when I ordered the machine that 'Small Business' wouldn't include PowerPoint. It's a racket, I tell you.

So, defeated on that project, I decide to try another. I'm confident it will be a disaster, too. This is the attempt to get desk space by using one monitor, keyboard and mouse for two machines. I take the machines down connect the cables and, whoa, it actually works. That is what the computer gods do just when you think you will give up using them.

JUST TYPING
Illness.
Is subjective.
Until you die.