Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Audrey Marie


On this day five years ago I flew with Joe to New York.  For his 30th birthday I took him to NY, bought tickets for a Yankees game, and bought tickets to see Eric Clapton at Madison Square Gardens.  When I had planned the trip I would have never thought that as I touched down in NY my mom would breath her last breath of life. 
 
As soon as we were off the plane I opened my phone to call Lara.  She told me the news and I didn’t know what to feel.  I was sad that I wasn’t there, but glad to have the distraction of NY.  My mom said at the beginning of the home hospice business that no matter what happened she wanted me to carry on with the trip to NY.  I promised her that I would.  The truth of it is…we all thought she would have died long before the trip.  At the beginning of June the doctor gave her an estimated 2-6 weeks…if I remember correctly?  All that long summer we watched as she slowly drifted away from us and into a confused and mumbeling morphine induced existence.  She would reach for things that weren’t there.  She would call and talk to people on her imaginary hand phone.  Ulitmatly we had to have someone in the room with her at all times after she took a small tumble down some stairs!  Over 3 months of hanging around in her room watching and waiting for her to die.  It was awful.  At a certain point you just want it to end.  You want the suffering to stop.  But it just kept going…until the night I got to NY.  I have a certain amount of guilt that I was not there with the rest of the family when it happened.  I never had to see her in her final state.  I know my family understands and they know that it’s what my mom wanted…but I feel horrible that I wasn’t there to help support.  No matter how ready or prepared you are for someone’s death…the finality of it is still so hard to deal with.  As I mentioned in a previous post, the hardest thing to think about is that I don’t get to see her interact with her beautiful little granddaughter Emily.  She would have loved and fussed over her so much and every time I think about it I cry. 
 
Mom…we miss you very much.  Here’s a few songs she loved…and I hope she is dancing to them somewhere and watching over us…
 
The Hollies - Jennifer Eccles - video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a98UIplGL6k&feature=related

 
Lulu - To Sir With Love [HD]
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3IT9jUoKw0&feature=related


Come Dancing - The Kinks
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gs2kFrGluKs

 
FREUR Doot Doot 12 inch HQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qCvbLVAIY8w&feature=related


 
The Fresh Prince of Bel Air - Original Theme - Opening
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQZc53dpPrQ&feature=related




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Monday, September 19, 2011

Oh! Monday...

When my alarm went off this morning I hit the snooze and felt as if I had a 2 ton brick resting on my chest preventing me from being able to physically get out of my bed.  It didn't help that mentally I had no interest in the notion either!  I fought and fought with myself about weather or not I should just call in sick for the day.  Eventually I decided to save my time for another day, got out of bed, and slowly but surely got my shit together for a day of work...or so I thought.  As I started my journey to work (and I was already running slightly late) I realized that I had forgotten to grab my heels.  I wondered for a second if I could get away with wearing my flip-flops all day, decided that I shouldn't, and turned around to go back for the heels.  Since I was already running late I decided that on take two of my trip to work I would stop for some coffee.  I pulled up, ordered my medium coffee with nonfat milk and 2 raw sugars, and promptly realized that I didn't happen to have my ATM card on me.  Why oh why did I not just stay in bed???  I continued on my way to work without a coffee and without an ounce of enthusiasm for the day ahead of me.  As I was listening to a story on NPR about a book by Roman writer Lucretius called On The Nature of Things: http://www.npr.org/blogs/krulwich/2011/09/19/140533195/lucretius-man-of-modern-mystery
(link to the story)
they broke in to cover a speech being made by President Obama.  I "listened" to the speech, which lasted the remaining time it took me to get to work, but really all that was going on in my head was this:



So I will spend most of the day skillfully avoiding all things work and continue to find other amusing youtube videos to take away the pain of the thorn in my side (that is having a job) and wait impatiently for 5:00 pm to arrive which brings to me about 12 hours of freedom until I have to start the whole process over again.  

Thursday, September 15, 2011

Slowin' the roll...then pickin' it back up again...

I took it down a notch with the energy level in the car this morning...but make no mistake...I was belting this gem out on Long Beach Blvd. this morning like I was singing for my life.  Bowie makes my heart happy.


On another note...I have been stepping up my activity level and trying to eat healthy over the last few weeks.  I joined a sort of biggest loser thing at work and only lost .7lbs this past week...but I guess it's better than nothing. I attribute the fact that I haven't lost any more than that to the vast amount of alcohol (namely beer) that I consumed over the weekend.  If I could somehow kick my weekend beer binges I would probably be in great shape...I just can't seem to let it go!  It starts with the taste of the salt crystals on the rim and then the lemony beer flavor rushes into the mouth and down the throat and always seems to leave me wanting more!  I end up consuming half my body weight in ounces of beer and have a good time until I step on the scale the next morning and am horrified by the number that flashes up at me. I then spend the rest of the week working it off only to be right back where I was the week before.  Ugh!  As every weekend approaches I tell myself "Don't overdo it this weekend Jessica.  Just have a couple drinks and cut it off.  If you reach your fourth beer and find yourself wanting to order the fifth just hold back.  PLEASE!!! HOLD BACK!!!  You will regret it in the morning if you don't!!!"  But then I've just finished my fourth beer and I really want a fifth and when I'm in the moment I say "Ah...what the hell...what's one more beer?"  and go for it.  One day I think it will sink in that I need to let go of the extreme drinking in order to lose the weight...I just hope it happens sooner rather than later!  My name is Jessica and I am a weekend alcoholic.  Is that my first step?  BAM!


haha...this girl loooooooooooooves her beer (this pic was saved on my work computer...awesome...)...




Wednesday, September 14, 2011

Morning CarRide Dance Party

Sometimes when Emily allows me to listen to something other than Disney music in the car on the way to work in the morning I like to have a dance party in the car.  Today's Morning CarRide Dance Party song of the day was "Bulletproof" by La Roux...brought to me by Pandora.  DANCE! BAM!

Tuesday, September 13, 2011

Feeling sad about Amy...

At the gym last night I decided on Amy Winehouse as my music of choice for my treadmill session.  I hopped on the treadmill and once I had sorted out the untangling of my headphones (how the FUCK do they get so tangled when all I do is wrap them around my fingers and put it into a little pouch??  Every time I go to the gym I have to spend 5 minutes doing this!  So annoying!!!) I placed the buds in my ears and started walking away to the soulful sounds of Amy's voice.  I warmed up by walking a quarter mile to "Rehab" and then kicked it up a notch and started jogging to "You Know I'm No Good."  As I started jogging I glanced up at the TV and noticed the face of the voice that was singing in my ears.  Apparently her parents had appeared on the new Anderson Cooper daytime talk show (?) about her death and how alcohol was the cause of it.  I'm horrible at reading the closed captions on the TV at the gym because I don't have my glasses with me and because I'm on the move so all the words are jumping up and down.  It's too much for my weak eyes to handle.  As I jogged through my next two miles I kept glancing up at the TV monitor (because...really...there are only so many places you can look when you're on a treadmill at the gym...TV monitor, calories burned, distance traveled, in the mirror to the side to see if all this is making any sort of difference in my weight or appearance, to the other machines to see how those people are looking, compare myself to them, look down to the first level to all the people with the weights, back to the calories burned, time elapsed...holy shit it's only been 5 seconds!!! ahhhhhhhhh!!!!!!! Back to the TV Monitor and repeat...sometimes varying the order to mix it up a bit)  and I see that now there is a Dr Drew show on and there is some kind of panel discussion about the addiction and death of the troubled singer.  I started to feel really sad that this beautiful voice ringing in my ears will sing no more.  That we will never hear new songs from this immense talent.  That she must have been in so much pain to be such a mess.  I also was feeling a little annoyed that this panel of people were there talking about her and speculating about her when they don't really know.  Who are they?  One girl was an ex drug addict?  Who isn't!  (Well...I guess a lot of people aren't...but there are A LOT that are!!) How does she qualify as someone that can get on TV and talk about someone she never knew for a huge paycheck!?!  I finished up my treadmill session and walked away...but still with the sound of Amy in my ears.  I'm sad for the loss of her...so young and so talented.  I wish that she didn't have to be exploited in such ways, but that's what this fucked up world is about so I guess it's unavoidable.  Sorry Amy. 

Wednesday, September 7, 2011

Hump Day-PULL OVER!...

So it's Wednesday...otherwise referred to as Hump Day.  It's my first day back to work since last Tuesday and I'm not exactly thrilled about it.  Back to the usual routine of getting out of bed at an unGODly hour to get myself and Emily ready for another day.  Dad's pissed off back to Madrid and here I am back in Long Beach for another day of work.  As am driving up the 605 this morning in the carpool lane (and thank goodness I have the privilege...now that school is back in session everywhere the traffic has returned to hellish conditions) cruising somewhere between 65-70MPH I happened to pass by a cop or highway patrol who was crawling along in the "FAST" lane.  I glanced up into the rear view mirror a second later and noticed that the cop had crossed over into the carpool lane behind me.  I started to get nervous but assured myself that I was (thankfully) going the speed limit and he was just moving over to get through the traffic.  I approached my exit from the carpool lane as I was approaching the 91 freeway (where I need to go next on my route to drop Emily off).  I moved over one lane and then noticed the cop do the same.  I moved over another lane and noticed the cop continue to follow me.  Uh oh...the panic sets in.  Thoughts racing through my head: Oh shit! What the hell am I going to do?  I'm going to get arrested.  They're going to have to call Joe to pick up Emily on the side of the freeway as her mom gets dragged away for jail as there is surely a warrant out for my arrest for the speeding ticket that is outstanding from two years ago that I haven't paid or done anything about hoping it would just magically disappear from my life if I ignore it long enough!  AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!! 
So the bright lights start flashing behind me and I'm starting to shit it big time.  I almost started crying but I think I got too scared to even do that.  The whole time Emily is in the back seat saying "Not that one! Not that one!" because she was unhappy with the song that was playing at the time.  I saw no place to pull over because there were cones and barricades along the side of the freeway you would normally pull over on.  Now I'm freaking out because I don't know what to do next.  I turn off the song that Emily is crying about and hear the cop yelling something at me over the loudspeaker.  I can't really make out what the fuck he is saying so I just keep going and hope that there will be a place for me to pull over soon!  At last there is a turnout.  I pull over and my hands are shaking and my heart is racing and I just want it all to fade to black so bad so I don't have to deal with whatever is about to happen.  He walks up to the side of the car, I roll down the passenger side window and he chirps a "Good morning" to me.  I give some kind of nervous smile and repeat "Good morning" back to him.  He says "I'm sorry.  I pulled you over for riding solo in the Carpool lane...but I see you have your daughter with you..." and then he says "Good morning" to Emily and she just looks at me like "What the Fuck is going on here?" and he says "just make sure you gain some speed before you merge back onto the freeway," and I rolled up the window, gained speed on the shoulder and merged back onto the freeway and went on my merry way.  My heart was pounding out of my chest and did so for about the next hour but I won!  Nothing happened!  I played by the rules and NOTHING HAPPENED!  YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!  Emily was still really confused and asked "Where we going?"  I assured her we were going to grandma's house and it was smooth sailing from there on out. Crisis averted! BAM!!!

However, if I had been arrested I would have requested that they use these: