Big day: people, the return of family and badminton

Guess what I learned today? It’s May.

Don't worry, this isn’t going to be a post endlessly about how confused I was today or strange things I said, though there will be enough of that. No, this is about the re-emergence of what Linda confused the hell out of me by saying, “Let’s go see your friends” (“I have friends?” A: “Yes, they are in the park”). Anyway, I don’t know where he went for winter (Las Vegas comes to mind), but here is a character which I do remember....the return of Psycho! Yup, he’s back and he ran across an entire field, leapt into my lap and then took off. And as usual, he also stole from Linda, literally, but that will be in the video, hopefully tomorrow. But this is all later, when Linda convinced me to go outside. As you see, I am a changed, twisted and altered woman. Poor, poor Beth, living out that existence, among the trees and green and squirrels.
But first I actually have to get to the afternoon. I had my first dream since going into hospital Saturday night. Only it wasn’t a dream, it was a movie, or specificially, I am Legend, with Will Smith. That was my dream, watching I Am Legend, so now I remember it again (and the odd fear North Americans have that if they don’t keep CONTROL on every aspect of nature that in five years there will be packs of lions and gazelle in New York City – Wha?). Anyway, then my carer came, and I kind of remembered her, but then she would ask me questions which were very open ended (meaning I did not know all the answer), which confused me. Like, “Are we having a shower today?” Me: “Do we usually shower together?”

Also, when I was to wash Area 51, I told her “I’m going upstairs.” Which made her open the curtain to stare at me. Also there were sticky tabs all over me from the hospital so I said, “Someone littered on me.” Stare. “They didn’t clean up after the picnic.”

Then after the shower she had me on the walker seat and asked, “Are you okay to do all your hair by yourself?” Now, how can I know that? I cannot know that.

So I said, “Everything is…………..illuminated.” Which meant, I will find out, I think I am okay (there were some words or phrases I use which seem to throw people, as well as words I can’t find).

She stared and looked into my eyes and said, “Are you OKAY to be by yourself?

I stared back in her eyes and said, “EVERYTHING is……ILLUMINATED!”

She got a strange look and said, “I’ll be in the kitchen, call me if you need me.”

From my blog and Linda it seems I fought Blue Cross until I literally collapsed, but today the person Melanie called and Linda talked to her. It seems all that she needs is a letter from my Doctor sent to her and she will get my mattress taken care of and I will have a hospital bed. Looking back at the blog and talking to Linda I think that I was going to “blow” soon anyway because I was having at least two systems fail repeatedly each day including passing out twice a day from Thursday eve to Saturday. So if not Saturday then a day soon, like Sunday. I guess I have to try this word which has no meaning for me, “Relax” because there are always people and things that are in motion. How do I stop that? Seriously?

From there we went to the Park which was good because squirrels don’t have a long list of questions or assume that you have a long relationship or mind if you say, “Here Kitty” or whatever you want. If you smell of peanuts, they want to know you. There were a lot of workers around scaring the squirrels but I met one named Spasm (because he seemed to have some sort of back flip every time he got CLOSE to getting a peanut, so lots of energy but few peanuts) and Peggy.

Peggy is by far the most trusting squirrel I have ever met. I called her Peggy because she was pregnant (preggy!), and she literally ripped the shell apart in the same way women in the late stages attack whatever food their bodies are telling them to get. Never get between a pregnant woman and her Hagen Daaz. So Peggy climbed up into my lap a few times and then was like, “Oh, for goodness sakes, it just isn’t worth the effort anymore” and she just sat there chowing down on peanuts and then looking up at me when she was done with a “HELLO! Hit me, pregnant squirrel here!” so I fed her and she just sat there.
In fact it got to the point that while she was sitting there I was feeding other squirrels. Here you can see, by my hand I am tossing the grey squirrel a peanut and Peggy is still there. Indeed, Peggy after a while either marked the top of my leg as her territory, or her water broke (I hope it wasn’t the latter, not good on tiny squirrel delivery!). As she had been there for MANY peanuts I told her that I was going now to find other squirrels and she was happy to come and I took off my brakes and prepared to roll.
Well she still seemed happy to come, just as long as she could keep eating, so, I slowly wheeled away with Peggy chowing down the whole time. I was very slow and careful, I mean, I had a pregnant mammal on board! She later jumped off a few times, and then would come back, climb up on the wall and jump back into my lap when she wanted more. I was the definitive “gravy train” for her but finally after bingeing for quite a while she grabbed two peanuts and disappeared.

So I played with some greys who kept emerging out of the bushes to grab peanuts and then disappear again. This is when Psycho showed up. I mean when someone runs 200 yards and then leaps into your lap, sniffs your groin, grabs a peanut and then bounds off, and does this a FEW times, I was pretty sure that my “bad side of the track” family member was back. Eventually, because I had rolled away, he started crawling all over Linda (literally) before stealing the peanuts out of the hand holding the camera. What a scamp!

On the way out I found another few greys who wanted some peanuts but I am greedy, I want the contact. I am not a peanut vending machine, I need to FEEL the love, or in some cases the “I’m kind of scared because you are 100 times larger than me BUT I will eat from your hand.” As you can see here, afterward it all I was pretty traumatized by the whole event – I mean, green fields, flowers, squirrels, the love pouring toward me – it was just what my snow-globe brain needed (shake it again and see what I say!).
After my nap (no movie in flight, sorry!), I went up to play badminton. There was a mixed couple there from Saturday who refused to play with Cheryl and I (cause we were in wheelchairs) and here, with 24 people, they kept refusing to play except with two friends as a “group of four.” It is odd, because if they refused to play with someone based on race – that’s a bigot, what is it when guys won’t stop playing because there are a couple GIRLS waiting, or refuse to play with the wheelie? First, it isn’t 3rd grade anymore, we aren’t chasing you for kisses (oddly I think these guys would rather bask in their testosterone grunting badminton slams than GET kissed, it was THOSE kinds of sports guys), and second, grow the fuck up! Everything doesn’t revolve around you and this is RECREATIONAL BADMINTON, not “Badass Badminton” or “Only with my friends and lover!” Badminton. The woman actually said to me, “I know you, I was here on Saturday.”

I replied, “That’s odd because I was here for two hours and I never played you. Or was that you with your legs up in the air?” (actually that’s what she did with her LOVER between the 5 point matches, rolled on the floor with her legs in the air). See, I remember THAT.

Anyway, Linda and I played two mixed doubles together and they were close but I managed a few more, “Hit directly at Linda’s head” and service points and ended up winning. I also told my male partners that if they thought a hit might smack the back of my head or smash me with their racket…..TAKE THE SHOT!

After that we split up and I ended up on this team with “The best player here, right..” and the Badminton Director, Tim as my opponent. I was with Victor, who had been Linda’s partner earlier, but I felt he had been “holding back.” So I told him, none of that and we talked position strategy. It was a HARD game, I mean Linda started after me and finished before we finished, as we would fight for every point. Well, at point 10, I went for a smash and my head exploded.

Literally, I was just holding my head, falling out of the chair and shuddering. I must have screamed as Linda was there and she put an ice pack in my bra, and kept me in the chair. I kept motioning them to put the racket in my hand but I couldn’t hold it. And then I could and it felt like the left side of the back of my head had dropsy (does that happen?) and couldn’t see very well on the left eye. And I couldn’t speak for a bit and when I did, it was in Japanese. Luckily, Victor speaks Japanese, so it was “Domo”, “Dozo” and “Ju-Ichi” for the score and “Summimesen” on our side of the court until we were up 12-10. And then the English came back and we got 14 and then they did and we chose to go for three point finish.

It was really tense and Victor served a great serve and slammed the return. The next point everyone including me was doing smashes back and forth and I saw that both of them were way back due to Victor’s smashing and when it came to me I did a little “boop!” over the net and the “great guy” dove full out sliding on the floor and just missed it. And we were at game point again. There was some play and a birdie out and we all congrats on the great game because it was – it is fun to play really focused like that, and I had to change the way I was wheeling a few times because they tried to use my chair as a block.

I explained that I had been in hospital due to seizures and thought I would quit now if that was okay and they were okay with that. Well except Tim (from Saturday) who was like, “Yeah, you need to test your limits!” which I thought was kind of odd, but compared to, “Um, you’re not playing again without a doctors note” I can live with that. And that was my day. And there is a night worker here I am suppose to remember but I don’t really. And my head still hurts in a funny way, so maybe I WILL rest tomorrow. It is a lot easier to think now, but I still get headaches all the time (like all day) because it is like taking the “Advanced Class” where they give you two weeks of info each day, only this info is my life. So I like talking to squirrels and the people on the Badminton Court as I didn’t know them and I could say, “Yeah!” or “Good!” and that was enough. And I was enough, and someone and they liked me. And they didn’t know that medicos littered on me and only cared if I could smash back at their face. Which is always a useful life skill I think. Nite.

By the way, I have decided I will give myself a week to get back to "fully operational!"

I wonder which movie I will get tonight.