Month: October 2016

Soooooo…. y’all dyin’ to hear about The Day of Karen 2016, huh?

Save your enthusiasm… 46 sucked the fatty.

I don’t even know how to go about relating this disaster…  I’ll start by quoting Annie… “you definitely need a birthday do-over”

Let’s see, it all started on Karen Eve as I sat watching “A Few Good Men” for the… I don’t know…. 12,943rd time.  But let me say this about that – A) it’s a great fucking movie and B) my kids commandeer the tv every.single.night – it’s was Karen Eve for chrissake…

Abby came down with her Math24 cards (4 numbers on a card, you gotta figure out how to make them equal 24).  So, she sits down and starts doing them OUT LOUD next to me.  Yes… I’ve seen “A Few Good Men” A LOT of times.  Yes… I love that she was interested in an educational experience on a Friday night.  But it was Karen Eve…  it was Karen damn Eve…

I asked her to be quiet – in MY way… “do you HAVE to be doing that NOW.  Can I FOR.ONE.NIGHT. watch something without listening to somebody run at the damned mouth right next to me????” – real classy, real parental like…..  She acted like an ass in response.  I stormed off to bed (it was 8:15).  Dan punished her then I spent 15 minutes explaining to her why she’s a pain in the ass.

So… the next morning – Karenday – she got up, looked at me and said, “happy birthday mom,” and went about her business.

Abby is me – we are celebraters – this was a shot; and make no mistake, it landed a bullseye.

I got ready for work.  I left early to have my brows and lip waxed… listen – I have a facial hair problem… let’s not make it more than it is.  (Ironically, the waxing was so I’d look decent for celebrating… keep reading to discover the irony).  As I walked into Pinkies (my waxers extraordinaire…) I ran into an uncomfortable situation.  Let’s just say – I had a not-awesome interaction during the week with an acquaintance; and in walking into the beauty salon, found myself face-to-face with the acquaintance’s spouse.  It ended perfectly – we had a very pleasant chat (the initial issue had righted itself earlier in the week) and I think we will move on seamlessly.

Still… this kinda timing only happens to me… I’m sure of it.

So… with red swollen eyelids (1/2 waxing, 1/2 crying) and swollen lip – I headed off to work.  My work day wasn’t awful – but does anybody REALLY want to work on their (Saturday) birthday????  Sara brought me a caramel frappuccino (a.k.a. orgasm through a straw) and we got down to business.

Listen… I try not to be an asshole, but the truth is – some patients drive me crazy.  Of the 10 or so really trying customers I have – 6 of them visited me yesterday.  I think we had 11 customers total… it was essentially long stretches of face sliding off boredom broken up by people who make me want to chew on Decon.  (I’m a bad person… I’m acutely aware of it).

To get the full effect of how less-than-desirable The Day of Karen really was… I have to get a touch personal… Dan and I are currently deep into a rough patch.  You need no details, just know that – like every couple… we, too, struggle.  Outrageously active kids, overwhelmingly daunting jobs, and 19 years of learning each other’s weaknesses…  We’re dealing, we’re talking, we’re mapping out a plan… it’s not the most “Karen-centric” ideal…

At this point it’s been a rough day.

And then the Dinnocenti’s walked in……..

My saviors.

Abby is holding the balloons they brought (not pictured are the cupcakes and tub of peanut butter icing… A.TUB.OF.ICING.).  Let’s start with the flowers…  that didn’t have a signature on the card.  And when I texted her a picture of them, she responded with, “Those are awesome, who are they from?”

so much fun

But the balloons!!!!!!  They each wrote why they love me…  Annie’s was typical – it had to do with my being agreeable to the purchase of an MRI machine.  Barry’s was about our mutual love of the Packers, tailgating and Annie.  The boys’ were spectacular…….  Gavin’s said, “I love her because she makes the best cereal”  I do, too… I fuckin’ rock cereal.  Jackson’s was my favorite… “I love her because she likes football and she’s pretty”  Jackson is now ahead of Alex in my will.

Abby was invited to a birthday party in the evening, and being who I am – I pushed my other 2 on the party mom (it’s a small town… we do this sort of thing…  I mean, it’s an asshole move, but it’s a common asshole move).  On the day of the party, after about 35 texts with 19 people – the transportation situation was a total cluster fuck.  We got it straightened out (some of the people involved might read this – please don’t think anything of it – Dan and I did not communicate well… it’s my life in a nutshell.)  My friend Mia was on the receiving end of the Iseminger life-style all day.  I sent her at least 5 texts changing things up – only to not even follow through with what we had FINALLY settled on… each text got increasingly more embarrassing…

I snoozed while Dan dropped off kids; he snoozed when he got back home.  By 7pm I was starving, there was no chance for a dinner out and there was some sparring.  I went to our local grocery store, got a couple of frozen turkey pot pies and popped them in the oven (I genuinely thanked Dan for not being stubborn, he graciously accepted my offering of frozen pot pie).  I had it time perfectly… about 7 minutes after he returned with the kids – our Day of Karen dinner would be ready.  Only…

when he got back with the kids, they decided they wanted to stay the night at Pop’s.  Sooooooooo…. the pot pie burned.

The

 

 

 

pot pie

 

 

 

 

burned.

Did I mention Alex didn’t tell me happy birthday until 20 minutes after I got home from work?  I’m sure she didn’t have her phone beside her all day, texting stupid shit, to people who didn’t give her life…  Cal did actually text me at 10:45 (after 4 hours in his tree stand), so there is that…  Pop told me ‘happy birthday’ after I called him to get Cal’s baseball practice snafu cleared up (this was another fun situation – 5 phone calls, a few texts and a lost baseball bag later…  wouldn’t be such a big deal but… Wednesday I said, “I’m working, Dan will have Abby at cheerleading, Pop will take Cal to baseball”… by Karenday – this, too, was a cluster that I had to straighten out).

I did come home to a card from my mother-in-law.  It was a very nice card – with no signature.  She felt the sentiment enough to purchase the card but not enough to own up to the words, I guess… I would never point this out to her – she’d be devastated…  it just kinda fit the day.

I had a card from a very dear friend of mine from Minnesota – one of the best people I know.  Jess wrote, “Minnesota loves you…”  I’m trying to talk myself out of correlating this with the recent emergence of the Vikings in the NFC North.

Claudette – who is infinitely more than family – sent me this beautiful bracelet:

…apparently they were out of H’s for ‘Hot mess’.

The night kinda slid on without event… I did get perfect messages from Gary and Missy separately – some people just know how to save you without realizing you needed to be saved.

And then there was Facebook…  say what you will about the Book of Face – the stupid posts, the political nonsense…  but the most smiling I did yesterday was while responding to the almost 200 posts that graced my page.  Wow… I have some amazing friends.  I’m always amazed by the people who take time to say ‘Happy Birthday’ – one in particular blew me away… a guy I went to college with – Jim.  He mentioned his anticipation regarding my day-after Karenday Facebook post…  I had no idea he even paid attention to my posts.

The ‘Day After’ has been ok… lots of guilt laid on my sloth kids, Dan and I had a good day, a non-Packers-game day tailgate with the 4 D’s, my dad sent me a ridiculously touching text and the Facebook messages are still dribbling in…

…still… 46 didn’t come in with as much hoopla as I’d hoped :/

Hey 47… it’s lookin’ pretty good for you 🙂

 

There are a number of customers whom I refer to as ‘one of my favorites’…

There is only one who I refer to as ‘my favorite’…

He’s a crotchety old guy in his late 80’s, only… he’s actually a big ball of sweet dipped in grump giving him an outer shell of curmudgeon.

He usually walks into the store, slams his hand on the counter and says something along the lines of: “Could a guy get a little bit of customer service, here – cause that’s all I ‘spect outta you people… a little bit….”

His eyes light up when he sees me, my eyes light up when I see him.  I’d say, “wha’d’ya want?”  He’d say, “A bag full of 20’s.”  So I got some fake $20 bills and put them in with his meds one day.

We are in the midst of a wonderful, exceptional, platonic love affair….

For 3 years I watched him take care of his dying wife of 70 years.  He was mighty surly in those days… understandably.  I could always seem to coax some banter out of him but as her condition deteriorated so did my ability to cheer up the old grouch (again… understandably).  Inevitably, the day came when she passed.  As expected, he did not handle it well.

The next thing I knew, he was in a nursing home.  I went to visit him and it was awful.  He had lost his will to live.  This vibrant, charming, pain in the ass character was neglecting himself to death.

We sat and talked at the nursing home; him… asking me to break him out of there, me… feeling helpless and so sad to see this man brought to this…  A nurse walked by as he grabbed my hand, he looked up at her and said, “I’ve loved 2 women in my life… my wife and this girl;” then he kissed my hand.

Wow…

Life, as it does, got in the way and I’m embarrassed to admit… I didn’t visit him again; I wanted to… I’m an ass.

There was a period of time when I didn’t even know where he was – he’d been moved to another home but I had no idea where; he has only distant relatives in our area and I don’t know them.  Months passed; every once in a while we’d wonder where he’d gone, but I had no way to find him.

And then randomly… his son from Ohio stopped in to the store – I got an address and an update on my favorite customer.  It was not good.

The next day I wrote him a 3 page letter.  I got nothing back and again weeks passed.  Then… outta the blue… he called to say he was coming home.  I hate to say it but… I didn’t give this much credence.

Lo and behold – the next week I got discharge orders for him.  Apparently he was due home on the 1st of the month (today).  I won’t get into the ins and outs of how we go about this stuff but suffice it to say – we struggled to get the meds ready for him and of course… today was my Saturday off so I had to dump that on Tyler.

Tyler handled it like the champ he is (I love me some Tyler) and Trish agreed to deliver them on her way home (this is how the awesome Everett Pharmacy people roll).  I was making the most of my Saturday off – I was on the couch dozing.

I had kinda forgotten all about the situation until I got a frantic text from Trish – I’ll spare you the details, you just need to know it was an SOS.

He wasn’t understanding our system of packaging meds and was getting a little belligerent.  Trish asked me to come to his house right away.  (At this point you also need to know – most people would’ve just left the meds and gone on about their day, Trish is not most people).

A few minutes later I walked into his house and it was uh… tense… for a bit.

“Quit being so mean, I’m trying to help you.”

“Well if this is what you call helping somebody – you’re in the wrong business.”

It went down hill from there.

He wasn’t understanding me, I surely wasn’t understanding him…  Not to mention it was 97 fucking degrees in there – why in the hell do old people keep it so damned hot?  I couldn’t even think with the sweat literally pouring down my back….

I’m not sure when it happened – but at some point, I broke him and he softened up a bit; he was finally picking up what I was throwing down.  Well… to be honest, I’m not sure he was picking me up but at least he wasn’t fighting me.

90 minutes later I was melting and ready to leave.  I looked over at his meds that were sent with him from the nursing home, “Hey… you already missed 2 doses!  Come on now… you need to take these…”

“Well, what good does it do for you to be standing there talking about it?  Give me the pills girl.”

I tore open the packaging and said, “Give me your hand; I don’t want to put them in my hand ’cause I was eating chips before I came over…”

“Eating chips…  well… it’d be no wonder you’re so heavy…”