Life as a Spectator Sport

A little more than a week ago, my cell phone rang. The prime contractor, Mike, said in my ear, "Liz, that inspection you uploaded yesterday is a mess! Half the thumbnails don't match the big images." I apologized, and told him laughingly that he was lucky he'd gotten that much, as I had done the work at 3 in the morning, more than half asleep.

"I'm only twenty minutes from home," I said. "Soon as I get there, I'll get online and fix the images."

"No problem," he assured me. "Just sometime before tomorrow night."

As I was pulling into the driveway, the phone rang again. It was Anne, the rector of the church Kate attends, telling me that Kate had gone to the emergency room with severe shortness of breath and had been admitted to the hospital with an irregular heartbeat. At least, that's what I thought she was telling me, because I kept losing the signal. "Hold on, Anne," I said urgently, "I'm home--I'll call you from the regular phone."

The phone on my desk wasn't working, so I ran back to use the one in Clarence's bedroom. I didn't see him and assumed he was in the bathroom. "I'm home," I hollered. "Kate's in the hospital."

There was no response, and just as the phone rang in Alexandria, I became aware of an odd panting sound. There was Clarence on the floor on the other side of the bed, wedged between the bed and the wall, semi-concious and barely breathing. He wasn't visible from the door, and I was so focused on getting to the phone that I hadn't seen him even when I got closer. Anne answered, and all I could say was, "I've got an emergency here, I'll call you back as soon as I can."

That was over a week ago and I'm still dealing with all the reverberations. Kate is home and on two new medications. Clarence was transferred to a larger hospital capable of treating diabetic ketoacidosis, and then transferred again to have a heart catheterization done. I was supposed to pick him up this morning, but he says now that his doctor wants him in a nursing home for a week for intensive physical therapy, because he can't get out of bed by himself any more. They didn't know whether Blue Cross was going to pay for that or not. Clarence sure as heck can't pay for a week in residential care, nor can I, so I have no idea where we stand.

I've managed to see Clarence only once since all this began, and Kate not at all, and I'm still not finished with the overwhelming pile of work that was dumped on me in the middle of June. The Daewoo, once the most fuel efficient car I'd ever driven, has deteriorated to the point where it's cheaper for me to rent a car than to put gas in my own, and my camera is failing. When I began to process the images I had taken on Thursday, I discovered that pictures from two of the stores had been saved in a lovely shade of green, and nothing else, so today I have to go back to those stores and retake those pictures. I'm not sure why I'm wasting time on the blog, but I feel the need to just do something different for a few minutes. When all this if over, I'm going to have a nervous breakdown.

I think the hardest part is having to deal with it all by telephone. I had always promised Kate that even if we couldn't live together right now, I would be there if she needed me. And I couldn't. Even if not for Clarence's problems, I could not walk away from the deadlines on my work. I did ask Mike to find someone to do a couple of the stores at the greatest distance from home, but it wouldn't have been possible for them to reassign all the work--this is the busy time of the year for everyone. And of course, if I don't do the work, I don't get paid for it. Saying "Family comes first" is fine, except that sometimes you have to make a decision between putting family first by being physically present, and putting family first by not abandoning one's only source of income.

So here I sit in a motel room, trying to be-stir myself to get back on the road, go re-take those pictures, pick Clarence up from his current hospital and possibly take him to a fourth facility, and somehow get all this work turned in by tonight's deadline. And in a kind of morbid, fatalistic way, waiting to see what happens next.

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RSS Feed PERSONAL Send email to liz at life-as-a-spectator-sport.com Home I'm a mother, grandmother, a computer professional, Democrat, Christian. I welcome politely worded comments and email, my spam filter throws the rest away, so don't bother to flame me WHY 'LIFE AS A SPECTATOR SPORT' "If you're lucky not to live in the gutters of a slum, but still can't afford to take vacations in the Alps, you're part of that enormous middle class who lives life through the medium of the television, further separated from "real" life by air conditioner, by automobile, by dishwasher, microwave and ice-in-the-door refrigerator, by automatic washer and dryer, and all the other appliances and conveniences that make it possible for America to live life at second hand. I'm not sure why Americans decided that televised drama was better than the real thing, that cardboard microwave food containers were an adequate substitute for real dishes, and their contents for real food, or that cooking, dishwashing and face-to-face conversation wasn't worth the effort and time it required. Someone fed this nation a plastic crate of out-of-season tomatoes and told us it was life and we took them at their word, and we're so much the poorer for it that it's hard to know where to start to list the shortcomings." I wrote this a couple of years ago, but I have to admit it's much less amusing than I thought it would be to see the artifical construct falling apart. THE NON-ELECTRIC HOME Cleaning, 1 Cleaning, 2 Cleaning, 3 KNITTING BLOGS Extravayarnza Knitting Heretic Mind of Winter Pie Knits Persistent Illusion See Eunny Knit The Keyboard Biologist Taleweaver's Ramblings TECHnitting Wendy Knits FINISHED PROJECTS -------FINISHED IN 2006------- Peruvian Cap Tutti-Frutti Socks Shelley's Socks Carol's Socks -------FINISHED IN 2007------- Chain Link Socks Baby Surprise Jacket Valerie & Friend Baby Bonnet Rainbow Baby Socks Girls Pixie Hood Mitred Square Heart Red & White Socks Coffee Cup Pot Holder Nubbins Dishcloth Garterlac Dishcloth Suede Booties Kate's Socks Norwegian Sweet Baby Cap Half Thumbless Mittens Red Mittens for Akkol -------FINISHED IN 2008------- SELF-RELIANCE AND THE FUTURE -- Blogs and websites -- Causubon's Book Club Orlov Food Storage Made Easy From the Wilderness In the Wake Listening to Katrina Survival Topics The Modern Homestead The Oil Drum Notes from a Hillside Farm -- Mailing Lists -- 12vdc Power Living on the Land Rainwater Refrigeration Alternatives Old Ways of Living POLITICAL BLOGS and SITES The political sites have moved BOOKS I'M READING How to Grow More Vegetables, etc. Small Scale Grain Raising ARCHIVES February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 August 2008 July 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007 September 2007 August 2007 July 2007 June 2007 May 2007 April 2007 March 2007 February 2007 January 2007 December 2006 November 2006 October 2006 September 2006 August 2006 July 2006 June 2006 May 2006 April 2006 March 2006 February 2006 January 2006 December 2005 November 2005 October 2005 September 2005 August 2005 July 2005 June 2005 May 2005 April 2005 March 2005 February 2005 January 2005 December 2004 November 2004 October 2004 September 2004 August 2004 July 2004 June 2004 May 2004 April 2004 March 2004 February 2004 January 2004 December 2003 November 2003 October 2003 September 2003 August 2003 July 2003 June 2003 May 2003 April 2003 March 2003 February 2003 January 2003 December 2002 November 2002 October 2002 September 2002 August 2002 July 2002 June 2002 May 2002 April 2002 March 2002 February 2002