Hubbie here.
You know from Pauline’s post yesterday that we woke this morning to see four or five inches of snow on the ground. Hardly earth shattering but it is the largest snow we have had in five years. (That history nugget is from the weather dude. Like a friend of mine, “I have the memory of a crack baby”.) The roads did clear about noon so Pauline was able to get to the hospital to sit with Lewy. I’m glad because he doesn’t handle things well when he is surrounded by strangers. On the other hand, in this case the strangers are sweet, caring nurses so I’m sure the dirty ol’ man in him is eating it up.
Lewy’s room is a typical hospital room. It’s a fairly new facility and the rooms are large. The window has a wonderful view of the driveway and several very nice pieces of mechanical equipment on the roof but, to say the least, Lewy is not roaming around looking out the window.
There are two things about the room that have attracted his interest. First it appears that the room was originally a pediatric room because the large border around the top of the wall is populated by bunny rabbits, teddy bears, a toy sailboat and a snare drum with a smiling face. Lewy finds these creatures interesting but can’t seem to figure out why they are there and what it is that they want with him. Perhaps because they are toys Lewy does not perceive then as threatening. Thank god he didn’t grow up with movies like Chucky and Small Soldiers.
The second feature that attacked Lewy's interest is, no surprise, the television. Like many hospitals this one seems to have purchased the bizarro package from the cable company. It has one sports channel, the local channels and then a collection of game show and educational channels. The most interesting, meaning weirdest, is an “arts” channel. It rotates bits of ballet, opera, symphony pieces, etc. You know………. boring stuff. It might be good live but on a small TV screen? ZZzzzzz. Then again the drugs in a major hospital are pretty good. Perhaps with a morphine drip this is academy award winning stuff. It certainly made it more interesting for Lewy. One segment had two very proper ladies sitting at a table. The subject under discussion was unknown to me as the sound was off. Lewy knew the subject. It was the position of his feet. Despite his protests that the morphine drip was having no effect it seems that the lady on the right was pressing on his foot and I had to adjust his foot to relieve the pressure. The lady on the left just held his foot. That did not seem to bother him. It is interesting to note that it is his left foot that had the lesser damage.
The most interesting thing about the bizzaro channel was that some of the pieces had set decoration that seemed to be taken from movies directed by Ed Wood’s grandfather. (Remember Plan 9 From Outer Space where you could clearly see the string holding up the Flying Pie Plate..…I mean Saucer?) One piece from the 1940’s was a depiction of the robot butler of the future. A big boxy robot like your kids would build from the boxes left over after Christmas. I imagined it waving its arms shouting “Danger Will Robinson!!” but given the age of the film and the tone of the channel the robot would have been more likely to quietly state, “Excuse me Master Robinson but there appears to be a matter that may need the attention of your father.” The strangest piece seemed to be set in a judge’s chamber from the movie Metropolis. The judge’s podium was about eighty feet tall. Stage right was a man one could assume was the prosecutor. Stage left stood a petite young woman holding her hanky and singing an aria. I can’t tell you what she pled as the sound was off but it appeared she felt she was not guilty. As the scene wound to a close titles appeared stating that the singer was Ethel Merman. Ethel Merman!?!?! The Ethel Merman I remember could have eaten this child for lunch and still have had room for desert.
Ugggghhhh…Yuck!!....OMG!!!…For someone that reads a lot I am a lousy speller so I just Googled “Ethel Mermin” to make sure I spelled it right. Yes, I know, I had it spelled wrong but an odd thing came up in the search. You know how Google shows a portion of the verbiage of the webpage for each page found for your search? Well the third item down in my search was titled Photo Album and had this phrase “ethel merman the sugar coated love sausage”. OMG!! Eeeewwww!!! Ethel Merman a love sausage? A sugar coated love sausage?!? But I swear it’s true. Try it. If you dare go to the website please let me know what sort of strange information it contains. I’m curious but I just finished supper and don’t want to lose it. Maybe Ethel was a different kind of girl before she put on all that weight and learned the words to God Bless America. Maybe she wasn’t even a girl. God I hope I don’t dream about this.
2 comments:
3rd Wife said...
Hubbie, you crack me up sometimes!
I'm glad Lewy made it thru surgery ok. Pauline should try to rest while she has a chance.
kddove said...
If this wasn't so sad, and horrible about how the medical profession seems to have gone to hell... you guys could give up your day jobs and write sitcoms! But it seems like I once read that there would be no comedy without something tragic to make fun of... maybe it's true?