Anything that doesn't kill you, makes you stronger. God only gives you what you can handle. When the going gets tough, the tough, get going. Etc...

Who decided I needed to be this able or any stronger than I already am, which if I do say so, is pretty damn strong already. I have had one heck of a time since Wednesday. Let me see if I can explain this in a way that will make sense... So, where I live, across the street is a neighbor, Jesse, and he has been my neighbor for the last 27 years since we moved in here when I was 3. Jesse, and his wife Linda, who died about 3 years ago have always been family to us because we don't have a lot, and the family we do have is pretty far away so we sort of adopted each other. So, Jesse is 75 years old now, and we don't see as much of each other as we did when Linda was alive, but my kids see him often, he's like a Grandpa to them, and I help him out with things like getting groceries for him or whatever.

So, my old neighbor guy across the street calls me on Wednesday and asks me if i'm doing anything that afternoon and I tell him that I have to work that night, but otherwise, no. Why? What's up? He says, "Well *wheeze* I was just wondering if you could *wheeze* drive me over to the hospital *wheeze*" So I'm like "Umm, okay. Are you okay?" He says, "Well, I think *wheeze* that I'm... what do you call it? Like when it's hot?" So I say, "Dehydrated?" and he says, "Yeah *wheeze*" and so I say, "Of course, are you ready to go now?" and he says, "No, I still need to take my shower." So I'm like wtf?! and I say, "Okay..." So he tells me he'll call me when he's ready.

Okay, so then I wait, and wait, and wait till I'm like freaking out he collapsed or something so I send my daughter over to see if he's ready, and she comes back crying and she's so scared... what if something bad happens? So I say, "Is he ready!?" and she says, "Yes... he'll meet you at the door." So I go move my car by his driveway so he won't have to walk so far, and I go knock, but he's pretty close to being deaf and I can hear his dog barking, but he can't hear me knocking, so I walk in and I can hear him moving around somewhere, and I'm calling out, "Jesse, Jesse," and I find him in some room wheezing and I'm like OMG, get in the car, and we have to stop at the couch on the way out so he can sit down and catch his breath. So I finally get him to the car with his fanny pack and his bag o' prescription drugs, and we drive to the ER which is like three minutes away. So we're in the car and he can barely breathe or walk, but he says, "So how's the new car? It's pretty nice." :wacko:

Anyway, then I can't even stop by the ER door to get him out cause there's like 5 ambulances parked there so I have to park in the regular parking lot and leave him in the car and run in and ask for a wheel chair and run back out with the two girls to get him out of the car. So then I have to sign him in and when I say he can't breathe, they put us right in and then we are talking to the nurse who is trying to find out what's wrong, what medications he takes, etc and he can't hear her, so he is trying to put his hearing aide on while she is grumbling about how that might be a good idea and I'm telling her what I know, and then she asks him his age... OH BOY!

He says, "Well... I want you to guess," and we both are like so she tells him, "No! I don't want to guess, and it's my job to ask you and you're going to tell me!" So he grumbles and says... "75" and I'm like... ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!! So, anyway they won't let me back there with him cause I'm not family, so she sends me home and I call later and they admitted him. And... the kicker to the story is he called his son, I guess before he called me, who lives nearby to see if they could take him and the wife said she could take him but not till later... she has to pick up the kids... wtf?!

So I finally dredge up enough oomph to go in there and see him today and he is like 2 rooms down from the room my mom died in and across the hall from where his wife died and... just ugh! Apparently, he also has the same heart surgeon my mom had, and we had to talk all about that, so, yay for me... but I tried to reassure him and told him not to worry too much. He is having his angioplasty procedure in the morning, unless that goes haywire, and then they will be installing a defibrilator into his heart, unless that won't work, and then he'll have a pace maker. Anyway, so we left to go have dinner, and then Avril lavigne's song, "When You're Gone" came on the radio and I was crying...

Besides that, in case anyone is interested... Davey and I both type 41 words per minute according to the online test we took, not that that is at all surprising to either one of us

So last night I want out with Steve again. I picked him up and we went to eat and while we were eating, there was this couple across the way from us in this booth, and I was complaining that it bugs me when people where their sunglasses inside at night. Anyway, so I was wondering to myself if they were on a date, but I never said anything, although apparently Steve had been watching them, and when they stood up to leave, the one guy put his arms around the other guy's waist and was kissing him So the guy is like but not in a weird 'omg you're kissing me' way... more like an ' you do remember we're in public' type of way, and they almost stumble into our table so we at them. Then we wandered around in Borders for an hour waiting for our movie to start, and then we went and saw "I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry" SO FREAKING FUNNY! And Lance Bass... that is all.

Hugs,

Viv

PS. Having a LOT of fun talking to Billy and Sweetie... ALWAYS YOURS!