grandma

So as you may or may not know i stayed with my grandmother last night at the hospital. I got there at around 8 and she was in bed watching TV. My aunt Pat was getting ready to leave as i got in the room. This was pretty much the changing of the guards. i sat down in the chair facing my grandma's bed. She insisted that i ask for a pillow and a blanket. I figured that i wasn't going to be doing much sleeping however. I sat as she watched a bit of tv and i read out of my book that i had. 8 o'clock became 10 oclock and she was tired so she tried to sleep. But it so happened that the bed she was on was rigged with a sensor that went off if she went off of the pad.So if she shifted weight, rolled off of it or sometimes even moving slightly set it off. So, needless to say she didn't fall asleep right away.

Eventually she tried sleeping and i noticed her breathing was shallow and rapid, i also noticed that her leg was twitchy. So i asked her if everything was ok and she told me that she was feeling anxious. This was essentially the beginning of a bad night. i propped her bed up so that she was sitting upright a little bit because it seemed to help her breathing. However she was still feeling anxious so i put on the TV and that blessed dear man Will Smith was on The Fresh Prince of Bel Air. So grandma was able to get her mind off things for a while. Eventually it got to the point where she started getting short of breath again because she felt like the doctors were going to discharge her even though she didnt feel better and i kept asking the nurses if there was anything they could give her. Their response was to call the doctor to get permission to administer medications. That left me with 20-30 minute sections of having my grandma not being able to breathe. She was scared, tired, and didn't know what to do, and frankly neither did i. She wanted to cry, but couldn't because she couldn't breathe. She asked me to help her move out of the bed into the arm chair so that she could move a little better with out the alarm going off. I helped her into the chair and put her feet up on the footstools that way she could be in a reclining position.

Eventually the nurse came in with a shot of what i later found out was a low dosage of morphine. Another nurse followed shortly there after with an albuterol mask which opened up my grandma's airwaves and allowed her to take deeper breaths. She eventually got tired and started to fall asleep in the chair. so i got her a blanket and put it on her and she dozed off. Eventually she woke up and asked if we were "going to go back to the room" to which i reminded her that we were still there. She wanted to get back into bed so i helped her. At this point its roughly 4am. She gets in bed and passes out. I stay up and try and read a little bit while keeping an eye on her. She got up a few times and started making gestures, like trying to reach for something, and when i would ask what she was reaching for she'd mumble and fall back asleep. Eventually she got into rhythmic breathing and i was able to relax a little bit.

At about 5 or so i started to get sleepy so i pulled the chairs up so that i formed a lil bed and layed down for like a half an hour. At around 7 i woke up and decided that i needed a bit of sleep. so i wrote a note to my grandpa or whoever else was going to the hospital at ten am on the note pad that my aunt had left. i got home and ate some cereal and passed out. My grandpa and sister went to the hospital at like 10 to go pick my grandma up, but i had explained to trisha how she was feeling so i let her make the executive decision there. I ended up waking up at like 5:45 cuz my friends had arrived to pick me up to take me to our friend lizzie's bday dinner.

The dinner went well enough. I ended up stopping at walgreens to get cash and i saw the perfect birthday gift that I'd hate myself if i didnt purchase. So with little to no trepidation i purchased said Sham-Wow's and wrapped them in walgreen's bags. During dinner i got a text from my Aunt saying that Grandma had gone back to the hospital because she still didn't feel good. God. My grandpa must feel so powerless. He came into my room right now saying "I don't know if i should go to bed or not in case i have to go to the hospital" i told him that my aunt was still waiting and that if i needed to my sister marilynn and i would go to the hospital with my aunt, and he looked at me and goes "ok...yeah...ok well either way wake me up and tell me." and he went to his room .

its really hard to see a loved one like this.

EDIT: turns out she had a heart attack today :-(

the other night my grandma was having trouble breathing, so my sisters tried to help her to the car so that they could drive her to the hospital, but she was wheezing and gasping for air so they called an ambulance and it took her to the ER. Shes been there for about 2a day and a half roughly. tonight i get to go to the hospital and stay with my grandma till tomorrow morning. It's about 7 pm now and i guess ill leave at like 7am or something. should be fun. i'm gonna bring a book and my nintendo DS. and maybe my ipod. i assume she'll be sleeping most of the time.

I tried selling my DS and this guy said he'd buy it and even made plans to come get it today and then i called him to let him know when i'd be home and he was like "oh yeah hey, sorry but something came up and now i dont have the money to buy it. sorry." jerk. I'm thinking i'm gonna sell my car for like 700 or something and my grandpa said he'd meet me half way on a newer car. so thats good but yeah thats it for now.

movies

Yesterday was a grueling 12+ hours of movie watching. My mom, her "room mate" Randall, my two sisters Nina and Trisha, Paula (Nina's wife) and I went to the AMC theatre in San Jose to go see The Oscar Nominated Best Picture Showcase. Which were all five oscar movies. it started at 10:30am and we sat there watching movies until roughly 12:30 am. My favorites, in order of my ratings are: Slumdog Millionaire, Milk, Frost/Nixon, The Reader, and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (which was long and drawn out.) Today we are going to Nina's to watch the Oscars and eat copious amounts of food. My diet yesterday consisted of a sandwich, popcorn, m&m's, popcorn, a jamba juice, and In n' out. I hope todays food is more substantial.

that fucking time-vampire...

Car status: Still shitty.

So i took it to Shawn after Danny told me about the thermostat. Shawn had one of the mechanics at the shop look at it and he was like "yeah its the thermostat." so Shawn ordered me one and he installed it for me. It turned out Danny was right and the damn thing was stuck open. Not only that but the rubber grommet around it was melted to shit. So Shawn sandblasted the housing making it nice and shiny and put in the thermostat and told me to keep an eye on it. Naturally as i drove home it started getting hot again. Shawn now thinks there's a problem with my head gasket because my car emits a lot of white smoke from the tail pipe. So not only do i have a shit car, it's STILL overheating. I can't even drive to work in the morning without the damn thing getting hot. Ugh. Maybe also the water pump? It's something to look into.
The other night i went to my sister nina's house to hang out and watch a movie. I was there for roughly two or so hours and when i went out side to check the water level in the radiator. I uncap it and PSSSHSHHHHFFFTTTT all up in my face with coolant and water. Luckily i had glasses on and none got in my eyes. I was severely annoyed however.
I fed Baxter yesterday. He struck the rat super hard cuz when i looked at him there was blood splatter on his face. I was a lil shocked cuz i've never seen that happen with snakes before. My initial reaction was that of "did the rat bite him?" But i dont think that was the case cuz he ate it just fine. I always feel kinda bad.
Today i stayed home from work because my car is so shitty and i didn't feel like dealing with it. I ended up watching one of my netflix movies Star Wars: The Clone wars. That animated flick that they did. It was alright. A little cheesy but still i enjoyed it. My grandpa asked me to look up a recipe for tortilla soup so i did that and we're in the process of making it. My hands smell like cilantro.

busy weekend

god damnit i hate my car. A while ago i noticed my car had started over heating and so i took it to shawn and he and i replaced the radiator filled it with coolant and called it a day. a few days later i noticed again that it was overheating/losing water. So i asked around and it was concluded that it was a hose that needed to be replaced or something similar. So naturally i ignored the need for replacement and just filled it up when i needed to. Until recently when i had filled it up and less than 40 miles later it was over heating. So i took it to my mechanic since i needed an oil change as it was. So i left it there for a day or two. The mechanic calls me and tells me there was a leak in my radiator's reservoir so he patched it up with some JB weld and replaced a hose, filled it with coolant and called it a day. That night i drove to my friend ryan's party. After the party i was driving my pal Danny home and it started overheating. He noted the symptoms and was like "dude i think it's your thermostat." he then explained the mechanics of the car to me. So after getting home i just let it chill in front of my house and went to bed. The next day i went to my friend Ashley's bbq thing after filling up the radiator with water. After that i got home and got ready to go out later in the evening. I made sure to put water in it before i left. I drove out to oakland and upon getting there i was hot again. I'm planning on taking it to Shawn to see what he can do for me.

So i've decided to kinda stop drinking for a while just cuz. And i mean i don't like hangovers and recently i've been getting them even after a few beers. So Friday evening i went to Ryan's party and there were a few people there. Not too much later after that HELLLA people showed up. So it was interesting to be the sober one and watch everyone. I met a lot of new people and got a few numeros. All in all it was an awesome party. I think mace said it pretty concisely:
mace : that party was insane last night
mace : it pretty much had all of the elements it needed
mace : hella alcohol
mace : hella beer
mace : hella drunks
mace : hella weed
billy : mhm
mace : hella girls
mace : hella drama
mace : hella fights
mace : it was excellent

Now yesterday was a horse of a slightly different color. I woke up around 1:30pm due to getting home at 4am. I got up and got dressed for the day and my mom, who was over, asked me to take her to the store to go grocery shopping. Like i said, i filled up the radiator and took her. After that was Ashley's bbq which was pretty awesome. A bunch of my friends were over there and there was lots of food. As well as lots of Ashley's family. I think Ashley's mom tried to hit on me while she was drunk. Haha. Anyway after the bbq and being cooped up out side near fire pits i went home and took a shower and got ready to go hangout with Parisa for her "flavor trip" party.

As i got ready to head out to oakland i filled up the radiator and when i got there blam-o super hot. The party was a bunch of Parisa's friends and she had purchased these berries called Miracle Fruit.
Wikipedia notes the berry as such: The Miracle Fruit plant (Synsepalum dulcificum) produces berries that, when eaten, cause sour foods (such as lemons and limes) consumed later to taste sweet. The berry, also known as Miracle Berry, Magic Berry, Miraculous Berry or Flavour Berry,[2][3] was first documented by explorer Chevalier des Marchais[4] who searched for many different fruits during a 1725 excursion to its native West Africa. Marchais noticed that local tribes picked the berry from shrubs and chewed it before meals.
It was pretty crazy. i had like a half a glass of red wine which tasted super fruity and i ate a few slices of lemons and limes which tasted as sweet as oranges. Salt and Vinegar chips tasted like bbq chips. It was quite the experience. I ended up going home at around 1am. Yesterday was good times.

Today i'm pretty much chilling, waiting for tomorrow. I hope you guys are doing well.

FML

So to say i don't drive the best of cars would not be straying too far from the truth. I drive a 1988 Honda Prelude. It's got a crappy transmission, a leaky radiator, and leaks oil. Among other problems. Today i hung out with mace in Castro Valley at a house that he's housesitting. I went home around 7 and as i got home i noticed my temperature was running really hot in the car, which meant that i needed to fill the radiator with water. However, being incredibly hot upon turning the car off i waited. At around 8 i skedaddled from my house to go get dinner with some friends, forgetting to fill the radiator. After dinner i came home and saw the gauge and remembered. So before going back out to hang out with Mace again, i got the hood open using the lil stick that keeps it up and proceeded to run the engine and fill the radiator with water. Naturally it started to rain as i was halfway done. So i'm standing in the rain filling my radiator and all of a sudden a huge gust of wind pushes me a lil bit as i'm filling and WOOSH the stick holding the hood up is knocked loose, sending my hood up hitting my roof. The rain is coming down harder and seconds later the hood comes crashing down onto my head. BAM hurt like a bitch. so i lift the hood again and finish pouring the water, recap the radiator, and put everything back in the trunk and head out.

Upon getting on the freeway my windshield starts to fog up and i can barely see through the damn thing even with the defroster on. So i'm wiping holes of visibility and sitting as close to the viewhole as i can i think at this point i'm driving like 50 on the freeway. I eventually can't handle it and pull off the free way and park at the CV bart station where i run my defroster full blast and wipe down the windshield. It eventually works and I'm able to drive to the house, but that shit scared the hell out of me.

it was also really cold tonight.