Taking the keys is smart.

You will do it all exactly right, even if it's wrong, because you love her. And in addition to your family, we can be a kind of support system. PM me anytime, my hero.

She doesn't seem frightened. She seems to be taking it in stride. Am I right? My dad's brain cancer left him, after he came home from the hospital, in his plane at Hickam Field until he died. He was very happy to be there. It was the best time of his life , that era.

One night when I was relieving my stepmom from caretaking duties she called me from Oregon in the middle of the night and said, "I think there's something wrong. Will you check on him?". I went to the hospital at 3am. Security was non-existent, I just walked into his room to find him hanging upside down next to his bed. They had strapped him in because he was wandering at night and they had twice lost him.

Earlier in the evening, they had brought his new roommate in. This roommate was a terrifying sight. He was having an allergic reaction to antibiotics and his skin had turned black and was sloughing off. Dad wasn't in the room when they brought him in. His first sight of him was at dinner and it shocked him. Later, after lights out, he was convinced the guy was coming after him and tried to get away but couldn't cuz he was strapped in. Hence the dangling. We were quite upset at the night staff. From then on, he was allowed to sit at the nurses station with them, until he went home.

You're right, Kate, that mom isn't frightened. She is frustrated from time to time, but generally good humored about her condition. She is the one, after all, who raised three smart-ass sons and taught us that you gotta cry sometimes, but when laughter will do, that's where you go.

Your dad's hospital experience reminds me, in a vague way, of one of my own. Since this is the thread where threadjacking is encouraged, I shall relate it here.

When I was a lad of 21 years I had to have my left knee rebuilt. Serious surgery, broke the lower leg & realigned it (I still have three screws in that leg) Fixed the torn/stressed tendons & ligaments, cleared out the floating cartilage (Joint Mice!) repaired a torn meniscus, shaved and reshaped the patella and drilled a few small holes in the bones to try and promote new cartilage growth. I was in the hospital for a week or so and mostly flat on my back for the next 5 weeks before physical therapy started. (If I ever meet that Physical Therapist I will shake his hand and thank him right before I tear out his throat and drink his blood)

Anyway, in the hospital after the surgery they had me on a morphine drip cuz knee surgery HURTS! This was fine at first; until the hallucinations and nightmares started that night. My screaming caused the poor guy in the other bed, who was in traction for a back injury, to try and get up to help me. He ended up hung up in his traction half on/half off of his bed and, for his kindness and compassion, earned himself another 3-4 days in the hospital. He was a really nice guy and even his fambly didn't blame me for his extended stay.

The nurse who woke me up from my screaming was apparently grabbed by the lapels and told, "Switch me to demerol!"

This was a few years before my love affair with certain opiates and alkaloids, but for our purposes I was once the guy in the other bed for someone, as he was for me. Poor guy got the short end of the stick on that one, huh?

Post script, just to bring it all home, the O.R. Director in charge at that hospital? The lady who ran the Operating Rooms, bossed the surgical RNs, rode herd on the orderlies and kept the godlike tendencies of the surgeons in check?

Yeah, that was my Mom.

Thank you, Highlands, for that wonderful pic. indeed, New Yawk! Well done.

Congrats New York -- it's about time.

The film is probably long gone from your local cinema complex, but Tree of Life is worth taking a trip to see. It won't be the same on a TV screen, even with Blu-Ray and 7.1 sound. It is a work of art, just as is Days of Heaven, also by Terrence Malick. IMDB users' synopsis gets it just right for me (spoiler alert for the synopsis).

Sounds interesting, Tollie. I thought Days of Heaven was a cinematic masterpiece. Not very many people did.

An exciting development this week. Paul Hayes (one of the Antiques experts from Cash in the Attic) has a new show where each expert has to use 1,000 pounds to buy stuff from various locations and then use their "contacts" in their little black book to sell the item on, whatever profit they make goes to charity. Apparently Paul bought a Victorian scent bottle in France, and as one of his contacts (given to him by his Mum who lives in Hest Bank apparently and has been too events where my Mum appears) he called my Mum (who dresses up as Queen Victoria for various Rennaisance Fairs). Apparently Mum and Paul got on like a house on fire (which is nice cause I have a bit of a crush on him), and it looks like she might be filming the show on Wednesday (he wanted to film on Monday but Mum has to go into the hospital for lady surgery) (and the surgeon wants her in the day before for a full day of rest prior to the surgery on Tuesday and then out on Wednesday, OMG no checking in the morning of the surgery and being discharged at 3pm the same day while you are still screwed up with anesthetic, damn sochulist communist universal health care).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Hayes ... ues_expert)

This is so cool!

Britty, good thoughts for your mum's surgery. What a great thing to look forward to! It ought to make what comes before easier. Will we be able to see it here?

I'm not a superstitious person, but if I were I'd sure wonder what the poor folks in all those red states being beat into the ground by weather had done to Mother Nature to make her so angry.

Wow. Just wow! A system that does what's best for the patient, not what's best for the insurance co's CEO and shareholders.

We used to check patients who needed preps in the night before, now the patient and their family have to do the prep at home. Some friends had to help another friend with a bowel prep. The friend having the procedure was debilitated and the 3 of them were up all night getting her to the bathroom over and over again, then had to check in at 6 am... and yes, take her home still groggy from the sedatives.

Mark Halperin has been suspended by MSNBC for calling The President a dick on Scarborough this morning!!

http://www.adweek.com/news/television/m ... ick-133110

Almost worth the insult to see Halperin humiliated.

I suppose fair is fair, I spent the entire 2008 campaign calling Halperin a dick.

Stephen Colbert just got a ruling from the FEC that he can form his own SuperPac.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/3 ... 87851.html

I just want to wish y'all a happy Canada Day and I hope that y'all have a great 4th of July weekend. I've for once gotten a day off, and of course naturally have no idea what to do...

Happy Canada Day in return, my pretty one. Is there a Canada Dry Day? I loves me some ginger ale!

I think the key to your day is to give your brainbone a rest, after all that math you do.

For example, DON'T look at this list of unsolved math problems.


No thanks are necessary, I do it from a spirit of public service.

I just clicked the link to PJ Active Topics and received a message that the site had been suspended.

http://p3nlhclust404.shr.prod.phx3.secu ... ive_topics

So sad, lots of brainpower just gone...

I get the same redirect message from politijab.com:

This site has stepped out for a bit.
If you're the site owner, contact us at 1-480-505-8855.
If you are a visitor, please check back soon.

http://p3nlhclust404.shr.prod.phx3.secu ... ect_0.html

Wow, what a shame.

I nominate realist's dancing avatar for most entertaining av of 2011! At first it kind of freaked me out, then I went to the Dono/Pidge thread and saw it for several posts in a row, dancing in synch and got hipmotized. Then it induced massive toe-tapping especially when dancing along to the Birfday video at Jez's birthday thread!!!

I came here to tell realist how much I love his new avatar, but you beat me, you little lioness you.

Quelle surprise.

If Politijab has disappeared, is there any way to retrieve its archives? There is a lot of information and opinion there that would be worth preserving, perhaps in a special segment of TFB. Hopefully, Justin is just absorbed in preparations for the 4th of July and simply needs to do something administrative.