Three Hundred Twenty-Sixth Entry

It's been a while since I've updated this! Lots of stuff happened...

My brother got into an ATV accident the day before Easter...Here's what happened...

I got a call about 2:30am Saturday:

Fred (obviously in pain): Phillip...
Me (half asleep): Yeah.
Fred (drugged out): I crashed an ATV tonight.
Me (waking up): What? Are you hurt?
Fred (wincing): Yeah, it hella hurts.
Me: Did you go to the Emergency Room?
Fred: No, I took some Vicodin and I'm going to try to sleep.
Me: You should go to the hospital! Do you want me to go over there and take you?
Fred: No, but call me when you wake up in the morning to make sure I made it through the night.
Me (stifling laughter): OK.
Fred: Don't tell mom.

The whole thing was hella funny! I get up in the morning and call him. He answers and sounds no better than the night before. He's decided he needs to go to the hospital. 4 hours of hospital sitting and waiting and x-raying, he discovers that nothing is broken. Apparently, during the wreck he dislocated and relocated his left knee and right shoulder, and bruised a lot of internal stuff. They sent him home. He's an idiot.

The story is, he was "mashin" on the ATV across the street from his house in an empty field, in the middle of the night. He swears he was going 40, no 50 miles an hour. Then all of a sudden, this ditch appears out of nowhere and BAM! he crashes into it. Luckily, his buddies were out there with him and found him within several minutes. They wanted to take him to the hospital, but he wanted to "sleep it off".

He kept his humor the whole time. I'm sure the drugs had something to do with it. He wore his evil bunny slippers to the ER and for the rest of the weekend. He received many compliments on them. He claims that he asked everyone in the hospital if they watched House, and when they said yes, he informed them that "it's never Lupus." When I took him to get his scrip, the very kind Pharmacist asked him what happened. Without even thinking, he shot back with a tale about falling into the gorilla pit at the SF Zoo.

Easter evening through Wednesday, I stayed at his house and did stuff he couldn't do: laundry, make food, wash dishes, put on his socks and shoes, administer his Norco's. The really sucky thing is that he had to work the whole week. I guess things are going bad at his work and he can't miss any days. I offered to drive him, but his stubborn ass said he could drive. And no, he did not go to work under the influence of Norco's. He struggled through with just Advil.

It's funny because he really is healing quickly. You can hardly notice his limp (he stopped using his "House" cane after a coupla days), and he isn't using the sling anymore.

I slept on an air mattress in the living room. I awoke one morning to the cat meowing loudly at a peacock on the other side of the sliding glass door. I sat up for a spell, shushed the cat, noticed the peacock and went back to sleep. I realized later that sometimes the cats meows sound like peacock calls.

My mom relieved me of my duties Wednesday and I came home, to two televisions still with no cable!!!

I called Comcast on Wednesday and they still weren't able to fix it. They conceded defeat and scheduled a tech to come out to the house the next day, between 2 and 4 pm. Finally! Someone was going to deliver me from my cable-less room!

The guy (let's call him Ed) came a little after 2:30pm. I was in the middle of watching Springer on the "cabled" TV. I was more than glad to give up watching the battles of the toothless, in order to restore televisual balance in the house. Ed wasn't even here half an hour and he had fixed everything. There wasn't anything incorrectly plugged, he informed me. The problem was that our devices (digital TV receiver, cable modem, and two problematic digital adapters) were in the wrong order in the system. I asked if that wasn't something they could have fixed over the phone. Ed said that the problem could have been easily solved over the phone, confirming the laziness and ineptitude of the technical staff I spoke with.

I was stoked about the cable being fixed and watched TV in bed for the rest of the afternoon and night.

Friday, I packed a bag and headed on down to Tulare to visit my family. I got there and the first order of business was getting Rock Band!

Now, I hate shopping at Walmart. In fact I haven't done so in years. But, they do have everything. I was disappointed when Target didn't have Rock Band for the Wii. Walmart 1, Target 0. Target did have fresh produce, so I bought tons of fruit for my world famous fruit salad. They also have a Starbucks in there! So I got one. Target 2, Walmart 1. Target still won for the weekend, even with the Rock Band let-down of '09.

We get back to the house and the girls hooked up Rock Band. Next thing I hear is someone butchering "Spirit in the Sky". Hilarious! We all got into it. I'm super good on the drums and on the mic, but sucked on the guitar. I sang "Lump"...Paula and the girls were looking at me all weird because they had never heard the song. Really? Never heard Lump?? They must've been living in a cave in Afghanistan for the past 10 years.

Paula and I talked for quite some time in the kitchen while I made my fruit salad and while everyone else played Rock Band. By this time Dalila's(17-yr. old cousin) friends had come over for a sleepover. They were all going on a fieldtrip to Universal Studios the next day. I volunteered to wake up at 4am, get all the fieldtrip kids up and take them over to the high school where the bus was picking them up. Dalila's three friends slept on the couch (it's a huge couch) and I slept in Dalila's room. I couldn't get any sleep. Dalila has this Aero/sleep number bed thing and I couldn't get used to it. She also insisted on sleeping with some discoball thingy on all night. So there I was, sleepless in the bed, humming "I Will Survive", and Dalila sawing logs on the trundle bed on the floor.

Four o'clock reared it's ugly head and everyone got up. I parked myself on at the dining table and waited for everyone to get ready. The sooner I could drop everyone off, I could come back and go to sleep! Calvin got home from work about 4:30. He offered to take everyone for me, but I insisted, since he was going to have a long day ahead of him.

We're out the door at just after five. I get to the school, and there are a handful of vehicles parked out there waiting for the teacher and bus to arrive. The teacher begged everyone to be at the school by 5:15. He didn't get there until 5:45! And I couldn't leave the kids there alone and without a car to stay warm in!!! Let me tell you, when he got there, I bolted, cursing the teachers name!

I crashed on the couch, and woke up at 6:30 to Georgia (my 11 year old goddaughter) asking if she could play Rock Band quietly. I said it was fine...at least she asked! I slept until about 9. Not bad...

I called another cousin, and she invited me over for breakfast. She made a stellar meal! Bacon, sausage and a biscuit/egg/ham/cheese casserole thing that can only be described as heavenly!! We visited for a while and I got to put my arms in her pool. Very refreshing, especially since it was hella hot already.

I got back to Paula's and helped her and Calvin prepare for a party/BBQ they were having that evening. I planned on taking a nap before everyone got there, but ended up sleeping through the eating part of the party. I woke up, scarfed down some awesome BBQ and played Taboo and Peanuts til about 3 am. A good time was had by all!

I left the next day I got up before everyone else and started to clean the kitchen. Dishes mainly. We all breakfasted on leftovers. Still hella good. Then I left for the Bay Area.

I got home late. I called up Amy and she came over. We watched "Two Weeks Notice" starring Hugh Grant and Sandra Bullock. Does anyone else think it's funny that her last name sounds just like the British word for testicle?

Monday morning I got up at a respectable hour and called Firmino to see if he wanted to have lunch. He just got laid off too. Last Friday, in fact. I picked him up at his apartment in Alameda and we made our way over to La Pinata on Park Street. I wrestled with the parking meter for a few minutes, but I got it to work. I made that parking meter my bitch.

La Pinata in Alameda is the best of all the La Pinatas, in my opinion. It's hard to believe that they are even the same restaurants. The one here in San Leandro always serves their burritos in a pool of water. It's not even sauce! It's freaking water!!! And the chips are disgusting!! But the Alameda La Pinata is so different. Delicious food, served promptly with the appropriate moisture content.

After that unbelievably satisfying meal, we walked down the street to a bookstore and perused the aisles. Nothing good. So we went to the Borders and the "Alameda Towne Center", formerly "South Shore Center". I still call it South Shore. I bought a book entitled "How the States Got Their Shapes" or something similar. Very excited about it.

I went back to Firmino's apartment and we filled out his EDD application. Then he played me some hella cool clips on youtube. We played Phase 10. He hella cheated. I lost by 20 points. He is such a cheater!! But I ain't mad...

I got home to a package from Amazon.com. Very nice! My merch has arrived!!!:
-Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life by Barbara Kingsolver
-The Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton
-Earth Abides by George Stewart
-Jailbird: A Novel by Kurt Vonnegut
-Armageddon in Retrospect by Kurt Vonnegut
-Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies
-Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
-The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas
-V for Vendetta (movie)
-Home Alone 2: Lost in New York (movie).

Now I've got lots to do, right?? Thanks Louis and Jen!!!!

Monday night I returned to Fred's house to relieve my mother of babysitting duties. She really doesn't sleep well at Fred's house. It's the strong winds that keep her up. They do make quite a racket!

By Tuesday morning I realized that Fred didn't really need any help anymore. The first week was the hardest and each day he sees some improvement. But I still stuck around. I wanted to soak in as much HD DirecTV as possible. He even has a DVR! Very cool. I'm a DVR pro now.

I watched so much TV the last few days. I watched lots of BBC America, TNT, TBS. Family Guy was a daily occurance since my brother was recording them all. I love that show. I also got to watch the Graham Norton show. Remember him Lisa!?!?!? Awwww, you guys!!

I also finally finished reading "I Am Legend". The print edition I bought has the first half of the book as "I Am Legend" and the second half of the book is a collection of short stories by the same author. And each and every short story was as disturbing as "I Am Legend". I usually prefer the book over the movie, but in this case it was very close. The book won out by a clove of garlic. I thoroughly enjoyed how the book delved into the science involved more than the movie, but was non-plussed by the ending. However, after reading the short stories, I understood, even appreciated the "Legend" ending more. This Richard Matheson guy is definitely weird.

I came back to San Leandro today! Yay!!!

Had a very good dinner at Vo's in San Leandro tonight. With Jen and Louis!! I had never been there before so I relied on their experience to carry me through the evening. We shared the sampler, which was very good! Spring rolls, noodle salad, fried calamari and some fried egg rolly thingy. I had Pho for the first time in a great while. It was Pho with thinly sliced beef and thickerly sliced beef and beef balls. It was sooo good. And FBI for dessert...very good! I hadn't had FBI in ages. I'm glad Jen is back! We got all caught up on things. She misses the birth center, but that's certainly understandable considering she was there for three months. And she was pleased with the additions/modifications Louis made to the decor of the house. Well done Louis.

Tomorrow the job search begins in earnest. I'm having lunch with ex-coworkers. That should be fun. Sushi...mmmmm...