Year: 2006

Incredible with a capital eye

I mentioned in my previous post, with utmost sympathy and concern, that P was having Lasik eye surgery today. What I didn’t know was that I was going to be able to watch the surgery happen live on a video monitor.

Now because of my job, I read alot of articles in medical journals so I am well aware of the advances that have been made in medical technology. Did you know that a study came out this Spring that showed that a certain drug can actually reduce the amount of plaque in your arteries and that they discovered this by sending a teeny tiny little camera through peoples’ arteries? I find it unbelievable that modern science is now at the point where it can undo years of eating at McDonalds and that they can send a teeny tiny camera through your veins to prove it.

Anyway, my point is that when you read about this stuff it’s one thing, but to see it was incredible.

When we arrived for the surgery they offered him a Valium, which he declined. If I had known what I was going to see, I would’ve asked for it but I wasn’t thinking ahead.

So he heads into the little room with all the big scary looking machines and I stand outside the door watching the whole thing on the monitor. Y’all they sliced into his eyeballs like they were pearl onions. Just watching it made me cringe and make noises like “Ooohh” and “Owwww” which probably explains why they didn’t let me be in the actual room. The whole thing lasted 20 minutes. I kid you not.

Now it’s 4 hours later and while his vision is still fuzzy probably due to all the slicing and lasering, he can already tell that his vision is vastly improved which seeing as how they diagnosed him as legally blind is probably a good thing. Y’all he couldn’t even see the huge E at the top of the eye chart and tomorrow he has a 98% chance of having at least 20/20 vision. I think that’s incredible.

I’m editing this to include the email that P sent out to his friends pre-surgery because I think it’s funny.

I am going in for my Lasik at 1:30 today and would appreciate your prayers that all goes well. Statistically there is a 98% chance I will have perfect vision and 70% chance that I will have better than perfect. Please pray for the better than perfect. Recovery is supposed to be nothing and they say I can drive tomorrow if I think I can see well enough. Thanks for the prayers.

P

p.s. If I write yall tomorrow to give an update and it looks like this: uevn lnfvkbne foip nvoe;fnvj eqnd nqduj docndn doiqnnqd c vqo d qoivjr . You know it didn’t go so well.
I love you tomorrow, you’re only a day away

I haven’t even told y’all about the biggest excitement in my week. Tomorrow I get to go see the Aggies play. They’re playing Army right here in town and Gulley’s stepdad, Big Roy, got tickets for all of us. Even better, they’re on the 50 yard line.

P can’t go because he’s having Lasik eye surgery today and will be wearing goggles for the next 24 hours, but being the concerned wife that I am I made sure that his surgery wouldn’t interfere with me getting to see the Aggies. His doctor assured us he’ll be fine, so I’m going to the game with Gulley and family.

It is going to be big fun. One of our other best friends from college, Meredith, is driving in from Shreveport with her husband and they’ll be tailgating with his family so we’re going to go up early and hang out with them for awhile. This alone will provide more entertainment than should be allowed. We spent many years in college tailgating with Gene’s family and sufficed to say when Gene’s dad, Leo, gets the pit going there is barbecue and fun aplenty.

I brought Caroline over to Gulley’s house the other day so that she and Jackson could play for awhile. While the kids were busy playing, Gulley’s husband (we’ll call him J) came home from work and we started talking about all the things we were looking forward to about the game. Watching the Aggie band and the Corps march in, seeing old friends that we haven’t seen in a long time, and most importantly watching the Ags beat the hell outta Army. We were having a great time laughing about different college football memories.

As if on cue, Gulley’s youngest who we call “brother” came toddling into the room and started dancing to some music. He was bobbing and twirling and all of a sudden just fell over. I said “Hey, I think I did that same move once at Hurricane Harry’s (which is a bar we used to frequent at A&M).” And then Gulley brought up a college memory that has made me laugh out loud every time I have thought about it this week.

One night we were at Hurricane Harry’s hanging out and Gulley decided to have a seat so she put her bottom on the edge of a barstool so that she could hoist herself up. She gave a powerful hoist only to come to the startling revelation that what she had actually done was hoist herself into a trash can. There was Gulley with arms and legs askew hanging out of what had to be a filthy trash can. Being the good friends that we are, I immediately offered her assistance.

I am sorry, that’s a complete lie. I was laughing so hard that I couldn’t stand up and had tears running down my face. It was a good 3-4 minutes before anyone in the crowd gained enough composure to help her out of the can.

As she was retelling this story, her husband J was just looking at her shaking his head and said, “That’s one of the things I love about you. Your grace and delicate nature.”

There is going to be alot of that grace and delicate nature on display tomorrow as we’re yelling our heads off on the 50 yard line. Good times to be had by all. Gig ’em Ags!
The little black and white dress

For those of y’all who watch Project Runway, how glad were you that Laura won last night? Not only did I love her little dress, but I felt so bad for her because she was so down about last week. I mean this woman is pregnant with her 6th child. I have one child and have days where I can barely manage a coherent thought, so the fact that she is on this show coming up with brilliant designs amazes me. I’m not sure she’ll win the whole thing, because my money is still on Michael.

Loved Michael’s white dress and the judges are so right that he has a great eye for the whole look. It just “worked” as Tim would say.

Jeffrey’s outfit (and I use the term loosely) was as horrendous as his attitude. I don’t like Jeffrey. I don’t like the way he treats people and I am tired of his arrogant attitude. I took no small amount of pleasure in seeing him parade that truly hideous outfit down the runway. I knew Kayne was the one getting kicked off but I was glad Jeffrey was in the bottom two.

Poor Kayne. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. He will be great at designing pageant gowns in the South. I was sad to see him go though because he really was the best personality of the bunch.

Angela and Vincent. I knew they would both quickly be gone again once Heidi announced that they had to win to stay in the challenge. They did not disappoint.

And last but not least, Ulli. I think the judges are finally starting to tire of her silk printed flowy dresses. They really all look like different versions of the same dress. Maybe she figures that Diane Von Furstenburg built her career with the wrap dress, so she can build hers with the dressy caftan. We’ll see what happens, but I’m betting if she doesn’t come up with something different there is no way she’ll win.

So on that note, I’ll sign off. The casino episode of The Office is coming on and it’s a must see.
If only I could think of 6 more things

I have so many things running through my head today and rather than trying to make them all flow together, I’m taking the easy (lazy) way out and just throwing them at y’all.

1. Y’all, Emmitt Smith can dance. He might dance as well as he plays football. If y’all aren’t watching Dancing with the Stars, it is worth it just to watch Emmitt. I may have a small crush on him.

2. I ran to the grocery store yesterday to pick up a few necessities and this is what I found when I was unpacking my bags.

Can you say PMS? Is there even a food group represented here?

3. Reason #8456 that I love my friends. I got this in the mail from my friend Hite yesterday.

If y’all can’t see what it is, it’s instructions for a Brother brand label maker. In college, our friend Jen had a Brother word processor that we thought was the greatest technological invention ever for writing papers since apparently we were all too lazy to get to the computer lab and learn how to use this new technology called a COMPUTER. We were always calling Jen asking if she could bring her Brother over. “Hey Jen, what’s your Brother doing tonight?” I don’t know what makes this funnier, the fact that Hite remembers the days of the Brother or that he bought a label maker. Either way, I love him for taking the time to put this in the mail.

4. Last night I asked Caroline is she needed to tee-tee and she said she already had. Only problem was that I hadn’t seen her go in the bathroom. I asked if she tee-teed in her pants and she said yes. I asked “Did you really?” And she looked right at me like I might be a little slow and said “I really, really did.”

5. This morning I put a load of P’s laundry in the dryer and it was clanking around so loud. I kept thinking man his laundry is loud but never considered there might be something else in there. Later I discovered that I had dried a huge piece of plastic that broke off of the inside of our new washing machine. How do you not investigate a sound that is as loud as a huge piece of plastic banging around in your dryer? I honestly don’t have the answer.

6. What makes the fashion designers at Baby Gap think that moms of toddlers are looking for that perfect blazer or sweater vest for their little one to wear to a playdate? Do they sit and look at their sketch pads and imagine little mini-executives on the playground exchanging business cards and entering information into mini Blackberrys that they whip out of their blazer pockets?

7. Last night during dinner which was Mexican takeout and eaten in front of the T.V., P and I actually watched a documentary on the making of various shovels. You would think I’d be embarrassed that we reached that level of boredom and we actually chose to watch it instead of having you know, meaningful conversation. Apparently not.

I seriously considered coming up with 6 more things to turn this into a Thursday 13, but just didn’t have it in me. So, here it is…my Thursday 7. I’ve reached a whole new level of below average.
Faith lifts

Sweet Barb over at A Chelsea Morning read a post I wrote last week and asked if she could submit it to a new site called Faith Lifts. Barb and several other women including Sarah at In the Midst of It are regular contributors, so I am truly honored to have something I’ve written posted along with the writings of some pretty incredible women.

My post is up today. Go on over and check it out.
You know it’s a good day when you’re calling the IRS

P and I have an accountant do our taxes every year because he’s too busy to do them and frankly, I’m not smart enough. Numbers tend to make me think in circles, and not logical ones. If I look at a row of numbers long enough, my head might literally explode. So, we gladly pay someone else to take care of keeping us above board with the federal government.

This year, our accountant filed an extension and we didn’t even send in our return until the end of July. Then, we got a letter from the IRS explaining that our refund wouldn’t be returned in full because we forgot to put in some information. I’m so glad that we paid an accountant. I’m fully capable of this kind of inefficiency on my own, I don’t need to hire someone to do it for me.

So yesterday I got to spend a large chunk of time on the phone with the Internal Revenue Service. I had all my information ready and when the friendly, automated voice answered the phone, I gladly typed in 1 since I preferred to hear the voice in English. Then, I punched in P’s social security number, then I punched in how we filed, then I punched in the reference number on the letter they sent and then I punched in P’s social security number again. Long pause. Please punch in the social security number again.

Automated voice repeated the number back to me and then “Push 1 if this is correct”. I pushed 1. Please enter the social security number again. Now hold for the next available representative. I held so long that I began to think it might be convenient because I could discuss next year’s return also. Finally, a live voice came on the phone.

And asked for P’s social security number.

Because apparently the eighteen times I had punched it in previously meant nothing.

The IRS worker told me to hold while he looked up our file. I held and looked out the window where Caroline was playing with a worm. I made a goofy face at her through the window and in a gut wrenching move, accidentally HUNG UP THE PHONE. Oh the humanity.

So I repeat the entire incredibly efficient process.

I know people joke about being scared of the IRS (anyone else remember the episode of Designing Women with Ray Don the IRS agent?) but there is something intimidating about calling them on the phone to tell them you want your full refund and can supply them with the proper information. I’ve never said yes ma’am or no ma’am so many times in my life. It’s like I didn’t want to awaken the beast. I was afraid if I got short tempered they would put a big yellow flag across my social security number saying “AUDIT, AUDIT, AUDIT” and I would end up shuffling down the street homeless, wearing a bathrobe. So in spite of all my frustrations and the fact that the numbers on our phone comprising P’s social security number are now faded from use, I was my most polite, patient self.

The good news is we’re getting our full refund. The bad news is that calling the IRS was the most exciting thing that happened yesterday.