A Wednesday morning hanging hoo-hah.

So it’s Friday morning, just a few minutes after 11 a.m., and I’m considering how swell it would be to spend some quality time with my new best friends Ben & Jerry.

I ordered two different flavors with my Wal-Mart pickup yesterday … Cherry Garcia and Brownie Batter Core. (I polished off the pint of Cherry Garcia last night after dinner. I’m ready for the other one now.)

I’m presently waiting for my hospice C.N.A. to get here for a Friday morning bathing and hygiene appointment. She’s late. She texted Sam about half an hour ago to let him know she’s “stuck in Allen” with another patient and will come over as soon as she’s done. Please note that “stuck in Allen” refers to Leticia’s physical location. Allen is a sprawling and relatively new Dallas suburb about an hour’s drive due north of the Howdygram’s nerve center in Mesquite … providing there’s no traffic on I-75 and nobody pesters you to stop at Watters Creek or the Allen Premium Outlets.

However, Allen is probably best known for Eagles Stadium, which is the fifth-largest high school football stadium in the Lone Star State. It’s yooge. Eagles Stadium holds 18,000 screaming spectators in MAGA hats, serves as the home field for only one fucking enormous high school and cost just under $60 million when it was built in 2012. Yup … Texans take their right-wing presidents, their local bond issues and their high school football games VERY SERIOUSLY, y’all.

Go Eagles. Rah.

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As always, there are a few incidents to report and some ongoing “whines” to perk up my Howdygram post! Under the circumstances, though, I’m actually doing well right now. I’ve had some major pain relief — NO MORE BLADDER SPASMS! — and some enjoyable creative projects to take my mind off the overall crappiness (whoa, I finally found a rhyme for “happiness”) that goes hand-in-hand with being a bedridden old lady with shitty knees, a failing heart and a collapsing bladder. Oy. Is that dramatic enough for you?

MY BURNING BLADDER SPASMS ARE GONE. Yesterday afternoon I started taking Detrol, a prescription medication that’s supposed to control my spastic bladder. I’m not totally sure I need this drug at all now, because a few minutes ago Sam adjusted the position of my catheter cord and single-handedly stopped the goddamn spasms AND the horrible “leakage” that accompanies them! Oh my God, boys and girls, the relief is absolutely incredible. And now I’ll probably never know if Detrol works or not!

A WEDNESDAY MORNING HANGING HOO-HAH. In other medical news … I think I forgot to mention a little “accident” here on Wednesday morning. A few minutes before my hospice R.N. (Martha) began my catheter change procedure, Sam was darting around my bed, raising the guard rails, moving my side table out of the way, etc., when he accidentally tripped on the cord to my oxygen generator and nearly asphyxiated me by public hanging. The sudden jerking movement bruised my neck, squished my esophagus and almost pulled me out of bed! Two and a half days later my throat still hurts and I’m still having a great deal of pain when I swallow … especially pills. Sam feels terrible about this but I know it wasn’t intentional. (I hope.) (Oy.)

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For lunch on Friday, “Wolfgang” Marks served me some very tasty CHICKEN FRIED STEAK “FRITTERS” — like little pounded, breaded and pan-fried veal cutlets — by Tyson with Pioneer Country Gravy made from a powdered mix packet. This was such excellent food! Due to an immutable dental condition* I’m always happy to discover an easy-to-eat steak or beef entrée that’s soft enough for me to chew … and that’s NOT boring ready-made meatballs! These frozen Tyson Country Fried Steak Fritters are also delightful with barbecue sauce or maybe on a bun with lettuce and tomatoes, except the aforementioned immutable dental condition prohibits biting into a sandwich or masticating an actual steak. (Lettuce doesn’t work very well, either.) Plus I’d probably also choke to death because I have to eat reclining in bed. (Please raise your hand if this sounds really, really pathetic.)

MY IMMUTABLE DENTAL CONDITION. To put it bluntly, I HAVE NO LOWER TEETH. The last of them (seven!) were extracted in January 2018 right here in the family room by a visiting dentist. Sadly, the overpriced lower denture they made for me didn’t work out very well and I’ve never been able to wear the rotten thing. Thank you.

Another exotic meal option that always works well with my “dental condition” is sushi, and since I always have a craving for wasabi — and/or horseradish, hot sauce, Chinese mustard, etc. — I recently ordered a package of frozen Banzai Spicy Crab Roll, pictured below, with my last Wal-Mart pickup … 15 pieces for only $5.94. (Wow, right?) Too bad they were out of stock!

I have no idea whether or not frozen sushi is a “thing,” but I promise to write a review if I ever actually get to try this product. (My only requirement is soft and squishy rice.)

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A very big deal! This week the hospice administrator told Sam that our M.D. was coming to see us on Friday or Saturday for our first face-to-face meeting and to deliver a “comfort kit.” Both of us suspect that a “comfort kit” refers to powerful pain relief drugs for that moment when I reach the end of my life … what every hospice patient always seems to know before anybody else.

We aren’t certain what triggered this M.D. visit — something I said? something Sam said? — but we’re glad he’s coming. So I brush my hair, fluff up my pretty new blanket from Amazon, and we wait … and wait … and wait. And now I look at the clock, it’s already a few minutes after 6:30 p.m. on Saturday night, and since there’s no fucking way a doctor is still making house calls at this hour Sam and I decide that maybe we shouldn’t be holding our breath.

The hospice let us down again. WTF.

So … we’re watching Panic in the Streets (1950) starring Richard Widmark and Paul Douglas, Sam is drifting off to sleep on the sofa, and I’m trying to decide what I want for dinner. At the top of my list … Stouffer’s frozen Spaghetti with Meat Sauce and a slab of lemon meringue pie. It just doesn’t get more perfect than that!

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Good night, dear friends. Thank you for reading this. And with heartfelt apologies to John Fitzgerald Kennedy … ask not what the Alamo can do for you, ask what you can do for the Alamo!