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Friday, November 26, 2010

Pie, Panties and Nightmares

This has definitely been the most peculiar Thanksgiving ever.  We're in Houston, taking another shot at finding us a house to live in, and Jayson and I are both feeling a little under the weather.  Jayson has a head cold so he's whacked out on cold/sinus medicine and he keeps playing with his voice cuz it's all deep and gravelly.  I am slowly bleeding to death and have been for the past 4 months but I'm having a little surgery next week that should fix it all up.  And poor Taylor is trapped here with her old and ailing decrepit parents all weekend. 

In typical Green fashion I waited until the last possible minute to make a plan for Thanksgiving.  I stayed up late last night, cruising the internet to see which restaurants were open and serving a special dinner.  There appeared to be lots of options at first until I dug deeper and saw that most of the restaurants required reservations.  I did manage to find a few that still had reservations available but the average price they were charging was between $50 and $75 PER PERSON.  And most of them weren't even serving regular turkey and dressing but they had roasted duck and stuff I couldn't pronounce.  No freakin' way.

Jayson wanted to go to Fogo de Chao which is pricey but worth it every now and then for the experience.  And the papaya cream dessert.  Unfortunately, they were closed so I chose the next best thing: The House of Pies.  It's like an IHOP that makes its own homemade pies.  Can I just say, that was the best pie I've ever put in my mouth??  Jayson had the french silk and I had the bayou goo and I'm looking forward to working my way through their entire pie menu. 

Oddly enough, their little thanksgiving dinner was quite good.  It wasn't fancy, just traditional thanksgiving food and it was pretty darn tasty.  I was really thinking it was going to be sort of pitiful and hilarious like when the family on The Christmas Story went to the Chinese restaurant after the dog ate their turkey.  We even started singing, "Deck the hars with boughs of horry, fa ra ra ra ra ra ra ra ra," but we couldn't get our waitress on board.  She kept humming the Mission: Possible theme song.

I guess I should mention what happened before we left the hotel room to go eat.  This is another one of those gross TMI situations but it cracked me up so I can't not share it.

So I have this little medical problem where there are some things attached to my uterus and one of my ovaries that shouldn't be there.  My doctor has been keeping a close eye on things and it's no big deal so I'm going to have a little outpatient surgery next week to take care of it.  It's a common procedure called a D & C which stands for dilation and curettage.  My doctor is Mika King and I love her, she's fantastic.  The way she explained it to me, they basically dilate my cervix then scoop out the lining of my uterus in much the same way someone might scoop the seeds out of half a cantaloupe.  Okay, she didn't say it exactly like that, that's just the mental image I prefer to have.

Anyway, that should clear up my ongoing problem which has been chronic bleeding that varies from mildly annoying to oh my God I'm hemorrhaging.  This weekend I seem to be on the more unpleasant end of that scale which can cause some wardrobe problems, if you know what I mean.  And there isn't a woman out there who doesn't. 

So this morning I had a minor wardrobe problem, no biggie, but I did have to rinse out a pair of panties in the sink.  It happens, it doesn't phase me anymore, I rinsed them out and sort of left them on the side of the sink to drip dry.  I forgot all about it and went about the business of getting ready for the day.

Shortly before we left the hotel, Taylor came out of the bathroom and asked sort of tentatively, "Um, mom, why are there panties in the sink?"

I said, "You don't want to know."  She's a grown woman (sort of) but she's young and still easily grossed out so I was trying to spare her the traumatic details.

Taylor said, "No, I probably don't want to know.  Wait.  Yes I do.  I want to know."  I asked her if she was sure about that and she said she was so I told her that it was my ongoing excessive bleeding problem.

Taylor said, "Oh thank God!" which temporarily stunned me.

I said, "You seem relieved that I'm bleeding to death."

She said, "I am!  I thought you had to pee and you couldn't make it to the bathroom in time and I thought to myself oh no she's getting so old!"

So.  Apparently my only child would rather I bleed to death than become an incontinent old person.  Feelin' the love.

Right before we walked out the door, I visited the bathroom one last time and saw a pair of Jayson's panties hanging from the light fixture.  That was a little weird, even for us.  When I asked him about it he said that he saw mine on the sink and of course he knew why they were there and he didn't want me to be embarrassed about it so he hung his on the light fixture to distract the maid.  What a guy!  Of course, the maid will come in and see mine on the sink and will think to herself "been there done that" and go on about her business.  But I think tighty whities (which happen to be gray) on the light fixture are going to get her attention...and possibly get us evicted.


And while I'm on the subject of the bathroom check out how the water runs in the sink.  Jayson noticed this and called me in to look at it and of course I had to take a picture.  It makes a heart shape.  That's just cool.


After our Thanksgiving pie, Jayson took us both back to his office so he could show Taylor where he works.  She headed straight for the candy dish in the reception area...she is her mother's child.  He gave her the same tour he gave me a couple of weeks ago and she pretended to be appropriately impressed.









Here Jayson and Taylor are showing off the new Expro journal which has a lovely embossed logo on the cover and high quality heavy bond pages inside. 











And here you see the heavy stone coasters that are on all the conference tables in the board rooms.  They're really very nice and I told Jayson if he'd just palm one a week we could have a nice complete set in no time.














On our way back to the hotel I finally got a picture of the divorce van that's always parked in front of the Shell station.  I'm not sure which is more pitiful...the people would actually call this number to get a divorce or the attorney who advertises his services in this way.  It's kinda sad but kinda funny.







This afternoon we all took long naps because we were exhausted for various reasons.  Jayson isn't sleeping well because his head cold makes him not be able to breath and lack of oxygen can sometimes disrupt your sleep.  I'm not sleeping well because I'm bleeding to death and as a bonus I get to have severe cramps to go along with it.  Taylor is not sleeping well because even though she has her own bed she's in the same room with us and my nightmares are disturbing her sleep.  She should be on my end of them. 

One of the added benefits of narcolepsy is vivid dreams or hypnagogic dreams.  Mine are usually extremely real, loud and vivid, I have at least 4 or 5 every night and I wake up between each one.  It's exhausting really.  Sometimes when I'm screaming in a particularly terrifying dream I will wake up to find that I'm actually screaming for real.  It's usually not a super loud, full-on scream but the kind you have in your dreams that comes out sort of strangled where no one can hear you to help you.  Apparently I did that last night and it was loud enough to wake Taylor up who in turn woke me up because she thought I was dying.

Tonight I promised Taylor that just for her benefit I would try my best not to scream or pee in my pants, but instead I will quietly bleed to death so as not to upset her.  She was most grateful for my thoughtfulness. 

4 comments:

Lisa Ledet said...

Shannon, thank you for sharing your Thanksgiving Day experience. I laughed so hard...not because you're bleeding to death...just everything else. Jayson's tighty grays, Taylor's relief that you are not incontinent, etc. I am so happy you are my friend. Get ready cuz I am coming to visit you in Houston. After you actually move there.

donna joy said...

the maid will just think you all were reeaally wild in the bathroom-and i've been to the house of pies-YUM. like you, i would like to work my way through a bunch of them.
As for the van, i jotted the number down just in case-

SkylersDad said...

Happy belated Thanksgiving, and I hope the surgery fixes you up. By the way, it's only minor surgery if it is happening to somebody else, right?

Shannon Green said...

Taylor kind of cracked me up too. Especially when she fell into my arms, sobbing with joy because I had not peed my pants. Twas a special moment.

Our days of doing the wild thing in a hotel bathroom are pretty much over since they're getting smaller while we're getting bigger. The last time we flew Jayson mentioned something about the mile high club and we both laughed hysterically knowing that if by some miracle we managed to squeeze ourselves in there, it would take the jaws of life to pry us out.

Yes, SkyDad, minor surgery is what you have, major surgery is what I have. I'm annoyed that I even have to have it but there's always the pain pills to look forward to.