For the moment I’m not feeling especially chatty, newsy or creative, so maybe I’ll just shut down my MacBook and grab a quick nap. The hospital is quiet right now; I think I should take advantage of this! I’ll be back later, okay?
FRIDAY, 4:57 P.M. It’s been a pleasant afternoon. I had a nice sponge bath, my girlfriend Sandi called from Chicago, I’m wearing my favorite perfume oil (a Dolce & Gabbana knockoff) and, last but not least, I’m looking forward to my dinner tray because I’M EXTREMELY HUNGRY. I think tonight’s menu is roast beef with mashed potatoes, spinach and something dull for dessert, such as applesauce. Because earlier in the week I asked the food service department to please chop my food a little (due to I have zero lower teeth right now) they started pulverizing it into baby food. Trust me, there’s nothing as unappealing as a bowl of pulverized pancakes! (Who the fuck eats chopped pancakes?! They’re already soft!) So I had to meet with another representative from the food service team this morning to ask them to use some common sense when they chop up my food. Don’t serve me mush!
I can’t wait to see what they’ll do to my roast beef.
Today I enjoyed a full day of trashy Joan Crawford movies … such as Torch Song (1953) with Michael Wilding and Queen Bee (1955) with Barry Sullivan. Joan Crawford’s insane eyebrows and red lips in the 1950s were enough to terrify Frankenstein.
FRIDAY, 8:03 P.M. Sam just left. We had a nice three-hour visit that included an unexpected dinner from the hospital cafeteria after food service delivered an inedible meal around 5:15 p.m. This time they didn’t chop anything and gave me two big slabs of rather tough roast beef, horrible canned-tasting spinach (Popeye, anybody?) and canned sugar-free peach halves. Seriously, even if they had cut my roast beef into manageable bite-sized pieces, I still wouldn’t have been able to chew them without any lower teeth, nor would I have consumed a single bite of that nasty wad of spinach. (And I’m a big fan of spinach!) So Sam, being altogether wonderful, ran downstairs to the hospital dining room and brought me a grilled cheese sandwich and some fries. PERFECT.
The food in the hospital dining room is awesome. Sam has been buying me lunch from there almost every day. I’ve had toastadas, Szechwan garlic shrimp on brown rice, tacos, etc. My cardiologist would probably have a stroke if he knew, though. I’m supposed to be on a low sodium diet. Oy.
I’m enjoying a nice evening of movies on TCM. At the moment I’m watching an old favorite: The Third Man (1949) starring Joseph Cotten. Coming up later tonight: Diabolique (1955), a French subtitled thriller starring Simone Signoret; Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966) starring Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton; followed by two cult horror movies I definitely will NOT watch, Willard (1971) and Ben (1972) … both of them about a young psychopath’s army of trained killer rats. Today he’d just buy an AR-15 and be a school shooter! (Michael Jackson sings the title song to Ben. It was a huge hit for him in 1972.)
Incidentally, it won’t be hard for me to avoid watching Willard and Ben. They’re not airing until 2:45 a.m. and I’m always asleep by then.
If my Howdygram posts have been boring all week I know you’ll forgive me. There’s not much to write about from my bed at Baylor Hospital … I don’t even have a view from my window! I visit with Sam, take pills, get an intravenous antibiotic four times a day, eat occasional meals and watch movies on TV. That’s it. When I get home on Sunday I’ll fall back into my usual daily routine, which isn’t really too much different … mornings at my computer in the study, lunch with Sam, afternoons in the family room sleeping and watching movies, dinner with Sam, and a few hours with my laptop while I’m on the sofa. It’s a nice routine that doesn’t involve too much walking, because it’s almost impossible for me to walk. This is due to a combination of mobility issues that includes: 1) arthritis; 2) diabetic neuropathy; 3) gout; and 4) an ingrown corn on the baby toe of my left foot.
If you feel sorry for me please feel free to send cards and presents. Click here to request my shipping address.
I thought you might be interested in Turner Classic Movies’ lineup for tomorrow. Here we go: Red Barry: The Decoy (1938) starring Buster Crabbe; Tarzan Escapes (1936) starring Johnny Weissmuller and Maureen O’Sullivan; Kismet (1955), a sappy Arabian Nights operetta starring Howard Keel and Ann Blyth; The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947), one of my all-time favorites, starring Rex Harrison and Gene Tierney; Midnight Lace (1960) starring Rex Harrison and Doris Day; The Wrong Man (1956) starring Henry Fonda and Vera Miles; and another favorite, The Odd Couple (1968) starring Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon.
Adding to the excitement … a nursing aide just popped in to tell me she’d be back in a couple of hours to WASH MY HAIR. Holy shit … I almost can’t believe it! CLEAN HAIR! Stay tuned for additional developments, okay?
After I’m finally home next week I’ve got three urgent items on my to-do list: 1) call Elite Mobile Dental for a final fitting for my lower denture; 2) call Mobile Vision to come over and adjust my new progressive trifocals because I can’t focus on my computer screen; and 3) set up an appointment with the manager of Agape Home Health so she can introduce us to the home health aide she’ll assign to me in June when Sam goes to Phoenix for a couple of days. That’s a lot of hoo-hah for a reasonably boring person like yours truly. I usually have almost nothing going on in my life whatsoever except for food, writing the Howdygram and designing whatnots (greeting cards, mugs, and so on) for The Howdygram Store.
FRIDAY, 10:38 P.M. The shampoo was amazing. My nursing aide used a product called Ready Bath Cap from Medline, Inc., which is a big shower cap filled with a no-rinse shampoo. You just put on the shower cap, smoosh it over your hair until everything’s saturated, and — whammo! — YOU HAVE CLEAN HAIR! She also brought me a nice little hair brush, and I used the Face Time screen on my MacBook as a mirror. By the way, a few minutes ago I ordered four Ready Bath Caps from Express Medical because this is a fabulous product and I want to keep a few of these at home.
Now I think I’ll pester the nurses for a bedtime snack (Jell-O cups!) before I turn out the lights. Thank you for reading this!
No comments:
Post a Comment