Tat's all, folks!

Thursday afternoon sucked! Maybe it was the paint fumes, who knows? Anyway, I was trying to get out of town & down to see Spouse as early as possible, but a Higher Power must've wanted me to delay my departure. I didn't get the painting completely finished until after noon. As soon as the mess was cleaned up, tools put away & the car packed with things Spouse wanted, my overnight bag & the two indoor doggies, I locked up the house and set out toward the VA hospital. I drove 2 miles, turned onto the blacktop from the gravel road and went maybe a 1/4 of a mile when OHSh**!! I swear she wasn't there a moment before, but must have been lurking in the cornfield. It was the scariest thing, because she wasn't there and then, suddenly, I see her face in the corner of the windshield, on the passenger side. Running alongside the car and then INTO the side of my car! A yearling doe, too stupid to know she couldn't outrun my car & jump it at the same time, stumbled or something and went underneath the rear tire. I slammed on the brakes, as soon as I saw her tiny face in the glass and then she disappeared... underneath the front passenger window. It all happened so fast and the next thing I know, my car goes over her & I watched in the rear view mirror, as she fell to the ground, right in the middle of my lane. It was 3 in the afternoon & we rarely see deer out at that time of day. She was as dead as she was ever going to get, so I pulled back onto the road and drove to the vet office. I took Muffin and Chikki inside and used their phone to call the sheriff. They said they would send someone out to move her off the road and then inquired as to how badly my car was damaged. I looked out the window of the vet's office and was stunned to see there wasn't a hair out of place on the toylet. Not a single teensy ding from the collision. Wow!

So, that taken care of, I left my babies with the vet for an overnight stay and began my journey south. As I drove along, I realized I'd forgotten to put my wedding rings back on, after cleaning up from the painting. Then, I began to wonder if there wasn't an orphan fawn hiding in the corn & wondering why mommy wouldn't get up from the road. I turned around and headed back toward home. As I passed my poor deer victim, I saw she was probably too young to have fawned this year, so I breathed a sigh of relief on that worry. I still felt awful about it though. Sick, even.

Once at the house, I put on my rings and remembered I forgot the bag of garden fresh tomatoes that Spouse has been craving. There was a farmer's market in Watertown earlier this week and I bought him some barely ripe ones. Grabbed the bag and was eventually on the road. Crap, after 2 pm by now & I knew I was going to miss an appointment I had set up earlier in the day. The rest of the trip was pretty uneventful, thankfully and I had a nice, but short visit with Spouse. He was pretty tired & I was too, from going up & down the ladder during my paint project. I left his room and headed out to the motel where I like to stay. Er... liked to stay, until Thursday night.

Usually, I have gotten nice rooms there, with beds that are comfortable to sleep on. Not this trip, kids. I was given one of their older rooms that hasn't been touched by the recent remodeling they've been doing. The heat/air fan didn't work, but the room seemed a bit stuffy. The curtains didn't close all the way, so I opened up the window and walked the 1/2 mile to the front desk for a safety pin. Got back with the pin and secured the curtain, so I would feel more comfortable about sitting around in my jammies in the room. Looked for the non-existant ice bucket & returned to the front desk for one. Yay! Lookit all the calories I burned for ice. I got the ice, returned to my room and took a well deserved hot shower. I'm so glad that worked.

Once in my jammies, I sipped my Rx Stress tea and watched a little tv, to help me unwind. Half of the bed was as hard as stone, the other side wasn't bad. So, I closed the window, because I'm paranoid about open motel windows on the ground floor and snuggled under the covers for some rest. It took me a bit to finally get to sleep & when I did, I was entertaining myself with a nice dream.

Dreamt I was in Chicago, staying in a luxurious hotel, in a penthouse suite. Most of the walls of my suite were glass, giving me a panoramic view of the beautiful city lights at night. For some reason, I was standing at the railing of the loft that was in my suite and I, apparently was hosting a party. Were you there? *shrugs shoulders* I dunno, but the suite was packed. I looked at the floor below and saw a boatload of gorgeous, scantily clad men dancing and waving at me. Nothing wrong with THIS dream yet, was there? As I watched the men dancing, I could hear a persistant "beep" about every 3 minutes. The crowd in the room got really loud and somebody screamed. I turned to see what was wrong and several of the party guests were pointing at the windows and getting angry because it had started snowing. They were blaming me for the snow, since I came from S. Dakota. I never promised my dream would make sense, btw. The persisitant "beep" continued, while the crowd began discussing something about a lynching and pulled me from my slumber. I laid still for a few minutes and heard the "beep" again. It wasn't my cellphone, but the smoke alarm in the room. The battery had died and the smoke alarm insisted on it being replaced. Now. "beep" 3 freaking a.m. & the smoke alarm wants me to change the battery. Frickin' crap. I called the front desk and a pudgy man came huffing down the 1/2 mile corridor from the front desk, with the wrong kind of batteries in his pocket. After about 45 minutes, he gave up and ripped the smoke alarm off the wall, once we realized the damned thing would continue beeping, even without the current dead battery inside. One of THOSE kind of smoke alarms. Lovely. I eventually got to crawl back into my bed, after the clerk left, huffing and beeping all the way back to the front desk.

This morning I woke up with a serious case of bed head. Fixed that & took another hike down to the front of the motel for the continental breakfast. Everything was pretty well picked over, so I settled for a slice of wheat toast with peanut butter. Back to my room, put on a bit of eye makeup, while eating my breakfast and sipping my coffee. Made it to the hospital, in plenty of time for the care team/family plan of action meeting that was held on Spouse's behalf. A lot was discussed and I was able to ask lots of questions. I also, handed over the two bottles of morphine tablets, because I don't want them in the house. No sense in keeping it here, since he won't be coming home & I won't use the stuff. The meeting went well and Spouse is definitely going to a nursing home, when he is well enough. The tentative date for that transition is October 2, but that depends on if he is able to gain some more strength back by then. If not, then they'll push the date back a bit, to give him more time.

Spouse & I got to visit for a bit, then I went to buy him some clothes. Sleep pants, actually. On sale, too. Sweet. Dropped them off and then I drove to the grand establishment of Permanent Addictions. The guy who did my llama told me he would not be able to do my new tat, today, after all, but passed me on to another guy who worked there. Jon Gamache. There's a pic of him in the slide show I'm going to try to add here. Sweet guy, great personality and outlook on life. He played his music and introduced me to a group that I really like! I'm going to get the two CDs that I heard while Jon worked on my arm. Check them out... Wookie Foot. So, about 3 1/2 hours later, I have the majority of the new tat finished. It needs to heal for a couple of weeks, before he will add the scales of the fish.

The reason for this design? Okay - the fish is symbolic for Spouse, because he's a Pices. The dragonfly symbolizes me, because I like 'em & fish don't normally eat llamas. I wanted this design to be representative of the love Spouse & I share. My arm is sore as heck and I'm going to hit the sack now. Enjoy the play by play of my new tat's development. Oh ya, there's also a pic of my new haircut in that wee show. Stop laughing! ;)

My tat slideshow