On Tuesday, Terry and I decided it was time to re-introduce Rubin to the outside world, by resuming his daily walk, which we’d temporarily halted after The Episode, thinking it might be best to try and keep him quiet for a couple of days (and ignoring the fact that Rubin was anything BUT “quiet” during this time). So we drove to a local park we’ve taken to visiting lately, and, of course, halfway there it started to rain.
“It might stop,” Terry said optimistically, so we drove on, and parked up next to the children’s play area of this park, which was empty but for one lone figure hanging out in a “bus shelter” style seating area, presumably in order to shelter from the rain, which had now turned into a downpour. We were just about to give up and go home when the figure in the shelter stood up. Terry just had time to utter the words, “Wow, that guy’s DRUNK!”, when the man abruptly fell over, going down like a tree being felled.
Now, from the way the guy had stood up, not to mention the manner in which he’d fallen, it was very, very obvious that his problem was what’s colloquially known around here as “the bevvy”, as opposed to anything more immediately life-threatening. Still, he was a human being falling over in a public place, so Terry and I were more than a little surprised when a couple of dog walkers, who’d appeared just in time to see him fall, passed close by the man’s prostrate form without so much as stopping to check he was OK.
Then two more people did exactly the same thing.
Huh.
Terry had just started to open his car door to go and help, when the man on the ground tried to sit up. I say “tried”: I have honestly never seen anyone quite as drunk as this in my entire life (and bear in mind, I was a student in Edinburgh for four years). He literally couldn’t stand, much less walk, so after crouching on the ground for a couple of minutes, during which we wondered what on earth to do (we weren’t sure how someone as drunk as this would react to an offer of assistance), he begun to crawl on hands and knees back towards his shelter. Only he couldn’t even crawl: he had to basically drag himself the few feet to the shelter, and, once there, he tried once again to stand up… and fell flat on his face into the mud.
At this point I must confess I started to wonder if we were on one of those TV shows where they secretly film you reacting to outrageous situations, because these falls were like textbook slapstick comedy: the kind of falls only a very, very drunk person, who can’t feel the ground hit him, would do. And having admitted to that, I’m also going to admit to a couple of other unpleasant truths about my initial reaction to all of this:
1. My first instinct was to snigger a little: drunk people are, after all, sometimes mildly amusing to watch.
2. My second instinct was to roll my eyes and engage in a little bit of tut-tutting. “It’s only three o’clock,” I said, self-righteously. “And it’s a children’s play park! Won’t someone think of the chhhiiiillldren?!”
Of course, there were no children in evidence at the time. There was, however, a very drunk adult who, having fallen face-first into the mud, had apparently given up on the idea of movement, and perhaps life, and was just lying there, motionless. Wordlessly, Terry got out of the car, and ran through the now-torrential rain to try and help him, while I sat there and wondered what the hell we were supposed to do now. We were in a totally deserted park, with the nearest house being a good half-mile away. Given that the man couldn’t even CRAWL, it seemed unlikely that Terry and I would be able to get him to our car (which was parked at some distance from the shelter), and even assuming that we could, I wasn’t at all confident that he’d get through the journey home (wherever that was) without throwing up all over us, which would’ve been exactly the kind of thing that happens to us.
Oh, and obviously neither of us had our phones with us. OF COURSE NOT.
Well, I sat in the passenger seat and watched through the pouring rain as Terry approached the man, and helped him back onto his bench. I waited. And waited. And waited. Terry and the man appeared to be deep in conversation: in fact, it all looked very cordial, which made me wonder just what on earth was going on. WAS the guy drunk? Was Terry trying to help him? Or were they just talking about, I don’t know, football, or some other kind of MAN thing? Who knew. (Clue: not me.) By now it was raining in that kind of way that will soak through your clothes in seconds. Not exactly relishing the thought of being soaked through in seconds, I didn’t want to get out of the car to find out what was happening, but I didn’t really want to just drive off for help and leave Terry in a deserted area with a drunk guy either, so I decided to sit tight.
Finally, Terry returned and slid into the driver’s seat.
“Give me your phone,” he said. Er, DUH. “This is me you’re talking to,” I reminded him. “Obviously I’ve left my phone at home, where it can be of no possible use to anyone.” Terry opened up the glove box and searched through it in vain. “WHY DO WE NEVER HAVE PHONES WITH US?!” he said in frustration, before abruptly getting out of the car and running back to his new friend without so much as telling me what was going on. Or giving me time to present him with my “I will take the car and get help,” plan.
Gah.
With no other plan of action suggesting itself to me, I sat where I was, and watched as Terry once again approached the shelter and was greeted like an old friend by the man inside it. I watched them sit and talk, and then I watched the man lean forward and embrace Terry, several times. They appeared to be getting on like a house on fire. They also appeared to be drinking from a bottle of vodka: or at least, one of them did, and it’ll come as no surprise to you to discover that it was not Terry. Every few minutes, the rain seemed to get heavier. Finally, just when I thought it couldn’t possibly get any worse… it got worse. And that was the moment Terry chose to leave the shelter, and return to the car.
“Yeah, he’s drunk,” he announced, getting in. “Are you absolutely SURE you don’t have your phone with you?”
I started to roll my eyes in response to this, but at that moment my rolling eye caught a welcome sight: a police car, heading towards us. “Wow, how did you do that without a phone?” I asked Terry, impressed.
He hadn’t. It seems that one of the people who’d simply walked past the man without stopping had, at least, had the decency to call the police and tell them where to find him. Terry got back out of the car again (by this point he was soaked through anyway) and had a quick word with them, before leaving them to get on with it.
“That was so sad,” he said, when he finally got back. It turned out the man was an alcoholic whose partner had kicked him out, and who’d been sleeping rough for three days. He’d told Terry that dozens of people had just walked right by him before we’d turned up, and not one person had stopped to ask if he was OK. Not one. ”I think you’re the nicest person I’ve ever met,” he told Terry, tearfully. “In fact, I think you must be an angel.”
As Terry’s wife, I obviously have to agree with that assessment (maybe not the “angel” part: let’s not get carried away here.). I have to agree with Terry, too, though: it wasn’t comical, or even something to be sneered at - it was all just very, very sad. I hope the man managed to get some help.
EDIT: I just noticed that an awful lot of emails from readers have somehow ended up in my spam folder – huge apologies if you’ve emailed me and I haven’t replied: I’ve dug a few out of the spam folder tonight and will reply to them as soon as I can, but I suspect some older emails may have been lost, so if you think yours could be one of them, please re-send, and accept my apologies!
Also, I’ve had loads of emails and comments now about the links at the top of the page not working – again, I’m really sorry that this has been an issue for some of you: Terry has been really busy with work lately and hasn’t had time to look at it, but he will get to it as soon as he can!
Tagged Terry
So, on Friday night Terry and I are getting ready for bed. I come out of the bathroom, only to find Terry standing at the bedroom window, scanning the street, and sniffing the air like a bloodhound. “Someone in the street’s having a party,” he told me, with an anxious look in his eyes. “But it’s OK! There’s no music! Just… shouting.”
Now, as regular readers will know, I have no tolerance whatsoever for noise, especially when I’m trying to sleep, hence Terry’s anxiety. “Christ,” he was probably thinking, “I’m going to have to listen to her rant about this for hours now. And then I’ll probably have to read her ranting about it again on her stupid blog.” He was only partly right, though, because I actually handled the news better than you would think. You see, I was absolutely exhausted. And while a thumping baseline would have driven me straight to Insanity City, I figured a bit of shouting was nothing I couldn’t block out with my earplugs.
But I was wrong.
Not twenty minutes later, Terry was back at the window. Because it wasn’t some neighbours having a party. No, it was a marauding gang of teenagers, moving up and down the street in a pack. And they were drunk. As skunks. (Why do people say that, by the way? DO skunks drink a lot? Because you never seem to see them buying booze?) You know the sound a crowd at a football match makes? It was like that, only worse. There were about twenty of them, and they’d obviously decided that the Best! Thing! Ever! to do on a Friday night would be to stand around my street, shouting at the tops of their voices.
This went on for at least an hour. The crowd would move from one end of the street to the other, always making sure to stay within our earshot. Then they’d move into the forest opposite the house – also within our earshot – and we’d think they were leaving, only for them all to crowd back out again five minutes later, like, “SURPRISE! It’s us, your drunken teenage friends!” They were so loud that there was no way to block out the sound. All we could do was lie there and listen to the screaming, and you know what? After the first forty minutes, some of the screaming was coming from ME.
Midnight turned to 1am, and still the pack was in action in the street. Terry was still pacing at the window. I was curled up in a ball on the bed, rocking back and forth and muttering, “Why, God, why? Why are you doing this to me? All I wanted was some sleeeeep!” Eventually, Terry snapped. “I’m going out there!” he announced, throwing off his dressing gown dramatically. “NOOOOOO!” I shrieked in horror. “They’re teenagers! They’ll kill you! And also… you’re not wearing anything under your dressing gown!”
Terry was adamant that he could face up to 20 teenagers, and they’d be so terrified they all run straight home to mummy. I was adamant that this would not be happening. So Terry did the next best thing. Throwing open the window, he leaned out and shouted at the top of his voice:
“HEY! YOU LOT! WOULD YOU SHUT THE $%&^^& UP!”
And… nothing. Because the gang were making so much noise themselves that Terry was totally drowned out. He had no choice but to slink back to bed defeated and join me in wondering what we could possibly have done in a past life to justify being tortured like this. Eventually, though, after another twenty minutes or so of yelling, the teenagers melted away into the night. Silence reigned. Except it didn’t, because no sooner had we settled down to FINALLY get to sleep, but:
“WUFF!”
Rubin had slept soundly throughout the shouting (he sleeps on the other side of the house), but apparently now the silence had awakened him. And was annoying him. We gave it a few minutes to see if he’d settle down.
“WUFF!”
Another few minutes, in case he was just jerkin’ us.
“WUFF!”
With a deep sigh, Terry got up and went to see if Rubin needed to go out. Rubin, however, had other plans. Skillfully evading Terry, he ran at top speed through to the bedroom, and hid under the bed. And he would. not. come. out. Normally the words, “Do you want to go out?” are enough to send Rubin careering downstairs, to slam his body against the back door in excitement. Not this time. No, this time Rubin didn’t WANT to go out. This time, Rubin wanted to sleep in The Big Basket. And he was gonna. Accepting defeat on this issue, and also accepting that it was now approaching 2am, Terry coaxed him out from underneath the bed, and placed him on top of it, where Rubin proceeded to get absolutely hysterical with excitement. “OMG, AMBER!” he seemed to say. “OMG! TERRY! SO EXCITING! SO! EXCITING!”
Usually if Rubin is permitted to sleep in The Big Basket, he will settle down after a minute or so and go straight to sleep. Not this time. This time the hysteria went on, and on, and on, with Rubin trying to lick both our faces repeatedly, and lying down only to jump straight back up and start up the hysteria again. Eventually, however, he found a area of the bed that was to his liking (it was the area my legs normally occupy, but by then I’d have let him sleep on my head if it meant actually getting some sleep), and we all FINALLY settled down to sleep.
Silence reigned for five minutes.
Then Rubin stood up, jumped off the bed and came to place his paws on the edge of it, next to my face. “I need to go out, now,” he said. AAARRGH!
By this point, a headache had settled itself behind my right eye, and was steadily drilling into my brain. There was no way I was budging. “Terry,” I said. “I don’t feel well. I have a really sore head. I think it’s a brain tumour. Also, Rubin needs to go out.”
So poor Terry got up once more and opened the bedroom door. “Come on then, Rubin,” he said resignedly. “Let’s go out.”
“Let’s not,” said Rubin. “Let’s hide under the bed again!”
And he did.
Terry tried to bribe him with everything, but nope, Rubin was not for moving. “Leave him,” I muttered, my hand clamped over my throbbing head. “Just let him sleep there if he wants. He’ll make a nest out of my dressing gown and he’ll be fine. And we’ll get some sleep.”
Terry got back into bed. Silence descended. I was just drifting off to sleep, when:
“HIIIIIIIIIIII!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” Rubin was back at the side of the bed, his face thrust into mine. “LET’S PLAY!” said Rubin. “PLAY! PLAY! PLAY!” I reached out to pick him up and place him on the bed…
… and he ran and hid underneath it.
GAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
I decided to ignore this move and let him sleep there if he wanted. He’d only been sleeping (or doing whatever else he was doing under there) for a few minutes, however, when he suddenly let out a high pitched shriek: the kind of noise dogs make if something has hurt them. This was the third such shriek Rubin had made that day: first, while on his walk and rummaging through undergrowth, he had jumped back and yelped. Then later, while jumping onto the couch, he’d done it again. Both times, I’d examined him, but been unable to find out what was wrong, or why he’d yelped, and he’d seemed perfectly fine, so I’d forgotten about it. And now he’d yelped again.
Well, I reached down and picked him up (And he HAD made a nest out of my dressing gown, by the way) and got him onto the bed. Terry checked him over, but couldn’t find anything wrong with him, so we let him lie down at the bottom of the bed and - wonder of wonders! – this time he actually went to sleep! Aaaaah! Peace!
Or not.
3am came. I was WIDE AWAKE. My head felt like someone was drilling through my eye. And my brain WOULD NOT STOP TALKING TO ME.
“Hi, Amber!” my brain said. “‘S’up? I was just thinking… that was some strange behaviour from Rubin tonight, wasn’t it? He doesn’t normally act like that at bedtime, does he? And you know, he was kinda quiet tonight, don’t you think? Like, when you and Terry were watching TV, and dogs came on, he only got up to stare at the screen a few times. The rest of the time he just lay there with his nose between his paws. He looked a bit depressed to me, actually. And what was with all of the yelping? Seems like something is wrong with him. I bet something is wrong with him! OMG! What could it be! It sounds like something REALLY SERIOUS!”
By now I was even more wide awake. I nudged Rubin’s sleeping form with my toe, which he happened to be lying on at the time. He didn’t move. I nudged him again. Nothing. Oh my God! He was dead! He was surely dead! I raised my foot up in the air, with his body draped over it, and… Rubin woke up and stared at me like I was a lunatic. “PLAY?” he said. Whoops. I lowered him, and tried to settle down.
“Hi, Amber!” said my brain. “I wouldn’t be convinced by that little performance, by the way. I mean, can YOU see him breathing?”
I raised myself up on my elbow and looked at Rubin. Sure enough, his sides weren’t moving. I leaned closer.
“HE. IS. FINE.” hissed Terry, from beside me. “For God’ sake, go to sleep.”
So I lay back down, but by now my head was absolutely THROBBING. The room was stuffy, and Rubin was lying on my legs, so I got up and opened the window. When I came back to the bed, Rubin was lying in my space, so I squeezed myself into the small area he’d left me, and lay down.
“Hi Amber!” said my brain. “SO! Wonder what the sore head’s all about? Pretty painful, no? Remember that migraine you had last week? That was the second one this month. Been a long time since you had two migraines in a month. Probably not ACTUALLY a migraine, then. Probably a brain tumour. Actually? DEFINITELY a brain tumour.”
“Shut up, brain,” I said. “Is not a brain tumour. Have spoken to doctor about migraines. He said not tumour, just crazy.”
Twenty minutes passed, during which Terry and Rubin sunk into blissful, deep sleeps, and I almost fell off my small corner of the bed.
“HI!” said my brain. “You know how you have that appointment with the optician tomorrow? For your contact lens checkup? Well, two things about that: 1) when he shines those lights into your eyes, he is totally going to see a tumour lurking behind one. Probably the right one. 2) Man, you’re going to feel like CRAP tomorrow if you don’t get some sleep. Look! It’s light outside!”
And it WAS light outside. And I DID feel like crap. I guess I must have slept at some point, because when I woke up, Rubin was next to my head, and I don’t remember how he got there, but it was one of those nights where I felt like I just lay awake ALL NIGHT. When I finally decided to give sleep up as a bad job and got up, my headache was even worse than it had been the night before. It took two large coffees, two paracetamol and two ibuprofen to get me out the door. I went to my optician’s appointment, and discovered that I did NOT have a brain tumour. Or not one that was detectable to an eye doctor, anyway, although it’s amazing he could see ANYTHING in my eyes given how bloodshot they were.
As for Rubin… well, Rubin had some other surprises in store for us that day, but that, my friends, is another story for another time…
[To be continued...]
Tagged noise, rubin, Terry
Yes, folks, it’s true! The least popular section of my blog ever is back by… well. I was going to say “by popular demand”, but that would be an exaggeration too far, even for me. But! It is true to say that some a few two of you requested to see some more of my holiday photos, so the Friday Photo limps from the ashes! (“GOOD GRIEF, don’t encourage her!” I hear the rest of you cry. “Or she’ll still be talking about this freaking holiday at Christmas.” And you know what? I probably will.)
This is probably my favourite photo of the whole trip. It’s Clearwater beach at sunset, photographed by Terry, using our swish new camera, which was purchased shortly before we left. Did I mention we purchased a swish new camera shortly before we left? Well, we did. It is technically “my” camera, and was really bought for “me” to take blog photos with (not for this blog! Don’t worry!), but I think I took maybe five shots with it in three weeks, because Terry guarded it like a jealous lover, carrying it with him at all times, and barking instructions at the rest of us, like a Nikon-wielding Sergeant Major. In most of the photos that resulted from the holiday, we may look like we’re smiling, but our faces are actually just frozen in fear as we stand there with Terry shouting, “AMBER! Take that look off your face! NORMA! Hold your leg at a 32 degree angle to your body! NO! That’s thirty ONE degrees! That’s spoiled it completely, we’ll have to start again: PLACES, EVERYONE!”
I swear I’m not exaggerating about this. On one particularly memorable occasion, we were having dinner when Terry, attempting to take a photo of all four of us, turned to me and barked, “AMBER! Put your head in the middle of the table!” And he couldn’t understand why my parents and I thought that was funny. I mean, I know it might seem like my head screws right off, but it obviously doesn’t. Because if it did, I’d probably have left it at Sanford airport by now, or on top of the car roof, or some such place.
You know what? I’ve come this far, so I may as well just show you the photo of my head in the middle of the table, no? Here it is:
Terry was NOT happy with this, let me tell you. For, in attempting to follow his instructions and place my head in the middle of the table, I succeeded only in making myself look like a giant growth sprouting out of the side of his head. Athena and Zeus, or just Terry and his Terrible Twin? You decide.
I can’t even BEGIN to tell you the grief my dad got over this attempt at a self-timed shot, which he failed to take his designated place for at the allotted time:
You can tell by my mum’s face and Terry’s fixed grin that we all knew what was going to happen here, can’t you? As punishment, Terry made my dad stand a little away from the rest of us for the remainder of the night:
He had to sit on the Naughty Step when he got home, too. He won’t be making that mistake again in a hurry.
But I digress. I was going to talk about Clearwater and its beautiful sunset, which is the subject of the first photo (and also my desktop wallpaper, replacing Microsoft’s seminal ‘Gigantic Green Leaf’). It was gorgeous. The light had this amazing quality to it, which made everything look so soft and dreamlike. The huge pink building you can see is the hotel we had dinner in that night, and the photo was taken from the pier, which we walked to the end of to watch the sun sink into the sea. Not long after this had happened (and mighty fine it was, too), I was watching the man next to me fishing from the end of the pier, when he reeled in his line, and do you know what was on the end of it?
A GIANT CRAB WAS ON THE END OF IT.
Yes, I came face to face with my old nemesis on Clearwater Pier. Or at least, I would have come face to face with my old nemesis if it wasn’t for the fact that as soon as I saw its evil and grotesque form break the surface of the water and come swinging towards land, I got the hell outta dodge, as fast as my little legs could carry me.
It didn’t spoil the sunset. But I was glad I’d seen it after I’d been in the water rather than before…
Tagged florida, I hate crabs, Terry
Terry: Last night I had a nightmare. I dreamt we were in a car crash. The car rolled over onto its roof, and I was trapped inside it…
Me: Wow, that must have been scary!
Terry: And then you got out and started taking photos for your blog.
[dramatic pause]
Me: I’m totally blogging that dream…
Tagged Terry, the stuff of nightmares
I had two questions on Formspring about how Terry and I met, so I decided to answer those first :
How did you and Terry meet and fall in love?
How did you and your husband meet? You seem like a perfect couple – Do you ever argue?! Haha.
You know, I’d love to be able to answer this with some romantic, tear-jerker of a story. Probably one involving a chance encounter, a railway station platform, and me wearing a kicky little hat. Because every time I entertain this fantasy, it’s always the 1940s for some reason. Moving on…
The reality, as always, is much more prosaic than that, and like most people we know, Terry and I met at work. When I say “like most people we know”, I mean that literally, by the way: most of the people Terry and I know met their partners in exactly the same place I met Terry. Which was a call centre. No one’s ever going to want to make a movie out of this, are they?
So, the call centre - or the “Phone Farm” as I always used to think of it. Terry and I both worked the weekend shift there, in order to help pay our respective ways through university. And then when we left university, we stayed on, to pay our way through the Benefit counter, and the shoe department at House of Fraser. (Can you guess which one of us I’m referring to here? Yes, Terry really needs to ease up on that cosmetics habit of his!)
I started work at the Phone Farm first, and by the time Terry joined the company, I had already worked my way up to the giddy heights of “Personal Trainer”, which meant that I was responsible for moulding the minds of the constant influx of new recruits (Which could be anything from 10 – 40 people per week at busy periods. It was – and is – a huge organisation.). That’s why, to this day, the Phone Farm has a large number of staff who believe whistling is banned AT ALL TIMES, and who would not, under any circumstances, use the phrase “just sayin’”.
Although I was to come to hate and detest the Phone Farm more than I would ever have believed possible, at that time, I had yet to realise that the job was slowly SUCKING THE SOUL RIGHT OUT OF MY BODY, and was weirdly ambitious about it. I was a Personal Trainer now, but by God, one day I might become an ‘Experienced Operator’ (snigger) or even a Team Leader! (I did, in fact, become a Team Leader, but by that point I had lost all hope and accepted the job only because it came with internet access, which the rest of the staff were forbidden, on pain of death.) I also had this weird idea that when I finally graduated, I would probably become a high-flying business woman of some kind, and that the Phone Farm would provide a good grounding for this. I have absolutely no idea WHY I thought this, because there is nothing I would hate more than being a high-flying business woman, but I kept getting this metal image of myself, wearing a snappy little business suit and talking excitedly into a cellphone, while striding out of my office on the top floor of a New York skyscraper. I was an absolute idiot, I really was.
Anyway! I was young and I was stupid, and I was ALL ABOUT being a personal trainer, and upholding the laws of the Phone Farm. And then, one day, Terry arrived. “Of all the call centres, in all the world, you hadta walk into this one,” I said, with a drawl. (No, you’re right, I didn’t. I totally made that up. Sorry.) It would be great if I could say here that the moment our eyes met across a crowded call centre, I collapsed into a swoon and knew he was The One. But I didn’t. Actually? It was dislike at (almost) first sight. For both of us, I’m sure.
I still remember my first ever conversation with Terry. He called me over from my important job of pacing up and down in high heels and “supervising” the other new recruits, (The high heels weren’t a requirement of the job, by the way. That was just a requirement I placed upon myself.) and asked me if he could phone his friend, who worked in another department of the Phone Farm.
“WHAT?” I said, amazed at the sheer cheek of the man. “You’re not allowed PERSONAL CALLS! You don’t get to phone a friend! What do you think this is, Who Wants to be a Millionaire?”
(OK, OK, I didn’t say that last bit either. I just thought of it later. Much later, that is: I mean, I don’t think WWTBAM was even ON back then. This would’ve been a much more interesting post if I HAD been quick with the smart comebacks, though.)
At that, Terry calmly picked up the phone and called his friend. And I marched over to my boss and told her I couldn’t possibly work with That Guy, because That Guy wouldn’t listen to a word I said, had totally failed to recognise my supreme authority as Personal-Trainer-Who-Would-One-Day-Have-a-Glass-Topped-Table-in-Her-New-York-Office, and OMG, wasn’t That Guy SO ANNOYING? And my boss laughed and said to give him a chance, maybe he wouldn’t turn out to be so bad. She’s like the old, wise woman in this tale, who’s constantly saying weirdly prophetic things, except she wasn’t actually old, and I think that was the only prophetic thing she ever said to me. Well, that and “Amber, I think you’re just about to spill that coffee down your…oh.”
So, after those Wise Words, you’re probably expecting me to say I came into work the next day, and Terry was bathed in a halo of golden light, and that was when I knew he was The One. Or even that we became good friends, and it was totally like When Harry Met Sally, but without the bit in the restaurant. But no. It took several more years for Terry and I to even be able to be in the same room as each other without bickering, and although we worked in the same department for some of those years, we didn’t really talk much. Or, you know, at all. Sometimes to this day I will look over at him and think, “Wow, I can’t believe I actually married That Guy! How trippy is that?”
In fact, Terry and I probably wouldn’t have gotten together at all if it hadn’t been for the Phone Farm’s policy of always seating people next to someone they hated. I’m not joking about this: they would change the seating plan every few weeks, to make sure you didn’t get too friendly with the person sitting next to you, because that would mean you might actually start ENJOYING work, and can you imagine the anarchy that would break out if people were having FUN? By this point, Terry and I were both “managers”. It was a small department, but we had still avoided ever becoming friends, so naturally the people in charge decided to make us sit next to each other. And THAT was their big mistake! Because Terry and I got together just to spite them, mwahaha!
Well, no, we didn’t. We did start to talk, though, and then we started to talk some more, and eventually we talked so much that we were all, “Hey, why don’t we swap email addresses? Just so we can make sure both of our email addresses are working properly?” Then we started emailing. Then we emailed some more. During the week, I was working in my first job as a journalist, and every morning I would come in to work and find a sweet little email from Terry waiting for me: often with funny illustrations, which he would draw in MS Paint. (Look, he was a student, he couldn’t afford Photoshop!) This is how he won me over: it was all because of the MS Paint.
The rest, as they say, is history. And it’s a chapter of history that involves a work night out, too many vodka shots, and Shania Twain singing You’re Still the One. I think that chapter is probably best left unwritten.
Tagged ancient history, Terry
Gran Canaria, December 2009.
At least SOMEONE in the house still has his favourite pair of sunglasses. And oh, hey! If you look really closely, you’ll see that I’m actually wearing mine in this photo, too. Gah.
Nope, still haven’t found them, still not over it. Happy Friday, everyone!
Tagged friday photo, gran canaria, Terry
I’m upset.
A few weeks ago, I mentioned that Terry and I would both be eligible for the swine flu vaccination when it became available: Terry because he is in a high risk group for serious complications (read: death) if he caught this flu, and me because I live with him and could pass it on.
Well, last week our area finally got some supplies of the H1N1 vaccine. And they’re refusing to give it to either of us. Terry called his doctor’s surgery three times last week. Each time he was told that, why, of COURSE he couldn’t have the vaccine! Only pregnant women can get the vaccine, because obviously only pregnant women can die from flu, d’uh!
Now, before I go any further here, I should first of all say that I’m all for pregnant women being vaccinated. Of course I am. They do seem to be at higher risk than most of us, and so obviously they should be one of the priority groups. ONE of the priority groups. Because, actually, pregnant women aren’t the ONLY people at serious risk from swine flu – or any other flu, for that matter. Absolutely not. Terry is a transplant recipient. Every day he takes immunosuppressants which basically leave him with no immune system whatsoever. A bad dose of flu could be really serious for him, and that’s not just my paranoia speaking: it’s what we’ve been told by Terry’s doctors, and it’s why he gets the regular flu jab every year.
He’s not getting this one, though. Because he’s not pregnant. On Friday, his doctor called him and said that, contrary to the information the NHS have been churning out for months now about how they will be offering the vaccination to people with chronic health conditions, where we live they will ONLY vaccinate pregnant women . Our health centre, which serves a population of tens of thousands of people, you see, was only given 100 doses of the vaccine and they’ve decided to use it on pregnant women only. (For the moment, anyway. If and when they get any more supplies of the vaccine, they might think about giving it to people with serious underlying health conditions, but only if there are no pregnant people to give it to first.)
And the reason for this?
The media.
Yes, Terry’s doctor admitted to him that although Terry is in a high risk group and should be given the vaccine, media pressure has forced the NHS here to make the decision only to vaccinate pregnant women. This is despite the following information, from the NHS’s own website :
I’m on immunosuppressants. Am I more at risk of catching swine flu?
Yes. If you take immunosuppressants you have a greater risk of becoming infected with any virus, including swine flu, and will be less able to fight it off once you have it.
That’s what they say on their website. What they say in real life, however, is basically, “Good luck with that! Hope you survive the winter!” In other words: screw you.
I’m not bothered about getting the vaccine myself at this point. I would take it if it was offered, but I agree that there are people who need it more than I do. There aren’t many people who need it more than Terry does, though, and I just can’t understand why he should be refused it just because the media says so. Hell, lots of other people with chronic health problems have ALREADY been vaccinated in other parts of the county, but where we live we’ve had to wait until November to get any vaccine at all, and even then we only get enough for 100 people, all of whom must be pregnant to qualify. And that’s fair HOW?
So, I’m pretty disgusted – to put it mildly – that, by their own admission, the NHS is more interested in what the media says about them than in actually saving people’s lives. I’m outraged to find that the media now apparently gets to make important decisions on health care. But most of all, I’m just really, really frightened about what will happen if Terry gets this bug. This is the reality of life with a transplant for us. The fear never really goes away. You don’t just get the transplant and then go back to living a normal life. You have to spend the rest of your life worrying about it, and fighting endless battles to get the care you need. We don’t even have the option of going private and paying for the vaccine (which we would resent, but would do if we had to) because the private sector don’t have it, apparently. So we’re at the mercy of the NHS once again.
Terry has emailed his consultant at the hospital and asked what, if anything, can be done now. His consultant sounded almost as shocked as we were to be told that Terry “isn’t on the priority list” and confirmed that, yes, OF COURSE he should be offered this vaccine. He’s going to look into it and see what he can do to help. I’m just hoping the answer isn’t going to be “nothing”.
* Figuratively speaking
Tagged swine flu, Terry
Yesterday, Terry ran his first 10km. Everyone say “Yay, Terry!”
It was a proper race, too: with hills, and other people and stuff. Not like the 10ks I run in the gym. He got a t-shirt and a banana at the end of it and everything, which, quite frankly, is begging for some kind of “I ran for 10 kilometres and all I got was this lousy banana” joke, but I will refrain. (I don’t think he even ate the banana, either.)
Anyway, as I said, Yay, Terry! You rock! And also: roll. And that’s why last night we decided to go out to dinner to celebrate. I wore The Dress. You know, the one that was lost, and then was… well, was still lost, so was re-purchased, after huge amounts of whining on my part? THAT dress.
What I failed to consider, though, was that the dress is question has a huge skirt. And it was a very, very windy night. Which meant that, the second I stepped out of the car, the wind snatched up the skirt of the dress and pulled it right up over my head. Like Marilyn Monroe in The Seven Year Itch, only much less classy and my whole head was covered by it.
Just to make matters worse, when I finally managed to tear the fabric away from my head, I saw:
a) Terry doubled up laughing next to me
b) An entire balcony’s worth of people outside the restaurant, all just sitting there watching me as if I was the floor show. One man in particular stood and blatantly stared as I walked the rest of the way to the door with my skirt clutched between my knees and the wind still trying to drag it up around my face. That man was NO GENTLEMAN, let me tell you.
We had a nice meal, though. And I managed to keep my skirt in the proper place for the duration of it. I’m starting to think that dress is just unlucky, though…
Tagged missing green dress, running, Terry
Today Terry decided to follow up his “eating a giant burger” stunt by eating a scorpion:
Tagged Terry
Terry is in training for our trip to Florida. He ate this tonight. Good job we’ve got that gym membership…
Tagged Terry
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