Author: Jen Rios

November 2018 FAVES

Sean has known me for his entire life. He knows my likes and dislikes. I like the color purple and I dislike onions on my food. He has watched me be in pain since my injury.   He has watched me be basically homebound once I get my new motorized chair. He knows that I have a thing for Bradley Cooper! I showed him this trailer a while ago and told him that I wanted to see the movie!:

He watched me become a bit stir crazy so he took me to see this movie. I cried tears of joy in the beginning to see Bradley Cooper singing in an open air concert! I absolutely loved it! By the end of the movie, with the credits rolling, I was sobbing.  Sean stood up and asked me if I wanted to go and as I was blabbering I held up  my index finger and told him that I needed a minute. I downloaded the soundtrack on Apple Music shortly after it came out and before I saw the movie. I have been listening to these Bradley Cooper songs almost daily since!

This was the first song I heard him sing and it had a 70s rock vibe to it. I was reminded of Chris Cornell the more I listened to him.

I hard this song in the trailer and I knew I would absolutely love the movie!  I knew I would love the movie when he tells Lady Gaga that he wanted to take another look at her!   He’s so dreamy!

The guitar! Are you serious?! Can he get any hotter?!

Regretfully, I’ve always been a sucker for a bad boy but it’s true!

Yes. Chris Cornell. His solo stuff.

Bonanza

My Mom came by this morning  and was mumbling something and then  said. “Adam Cartwright.”  I asked her if that was the guy from … And she looked at me and we both said, “Bonanza” at the same time.  She started to tell me about an episode she saw OnDemand yesterday. With every break in her story, I begin to sing the tune of the theme song!:

This show was my childhood! My Dad used to watch it all the time!  I think my two brothers and I used to watch it after school because we were so used to seeing it. It was probably around the 10th time I sang the melody that my Mom smiled and kind of rolled her eyes.   I think I may have to watch that show OnDemand now!  After today of course because today is Halloween and the last time I will be able to watch Hocus Pocus. I have already seen it once today and am finishing up the second time I will see it. Then I won’t see it again until next year!

So Many Memories!

My aunt posted this picture on Facebook a few days ago:

This picture was taken 17 years ago today at my baby shower.  I had Sean four days later.   Well, it was a Sunday and I went to  school on Monday and work on Tuesday which was Halloween. I worked at a credit union back then and at each teller window, there was a basket of candy for the members to have while we worked on their transaction.

Not many people came to the  Credit union that day so us tellers were trading candy in our baskets at our window for the candy we liked in other tellers’ baskets.  I ate so much candy!

I stood in the hall at the doorway to the living room at my son’s dad’s house that evening as trick-or-treaters were coming to the house and announced that I couldn’t carry the baby anymore!   He told me that I had to and I agreed and said that I would but I didn’t want to. I was miserable! Sean wasn’t due for another two months!

That night, I couldn’t sleep and I didn’t feel well.  I thought it was from all the candy I had eaten earlier that day. My Mom told me to call the hospital. I called the hospital that I was scheduled to have Sean at and they told me that I was too early (I was almost thirty-two weeks pregnant) and that I need to call Henry Ford downtown because they have an NICU.   I didn’t think what was going on with me was serious but I called them anyway.

They told me that I needed to go to the emergency room and possibly  I would be admitted. My Mom drove me there my back began to hurt as we drove there. I was  admitted to the hospital and spent all of November 1st incoherent.   The nurse kept waking me up and asking me questions like where I was and what day it was.

They hooked me up to a baby monitor. Morning came and I was by myself on the 2nd.   The high-risk doctor came into my room and looked at the monitor  paper. He looked to the doctor at the doorway and told him, “Labor and Delivery STAT!” and I was whisked away to have my baby. There was tons of commotion and phone calls but I ended up having an emergency C-section with just a nursing student with me in the delivery room. Her name was Lisa  and she had never witnessed a birth before.

I had Sean at 9:38 AM on November 2nd. Eight weeks premature.  He stayed in the NICU for 31 days. The longest month of my life!   That one picture brought back so many memories!  I’m so excited that he will be 17 on Friday! I’m feeling really old!

I cried.

Yesterday, just before my Mom put the pads on my knees for my tens unit, my knee made the biggest crack! It wasn’t just  a’pop;” it was a HUGE crack! My knee was bent and it felt funny so I shook my hands and asked my Mom to straighten it out in an almost breathless panic.  As she did, it cracked louder than it ever has before! It was immediately accompanied with two of my screams just as crests stung my eyes.

There is no medical explanation for this for all the times I’ve been to see Dr. Moore since my surgery. I just saw him last Thursday and I will post about that a little bit later. So, I didn’t feel well yesterday following the big crack with my knee and it was raining!  So you know, I’m just gonna blame it on the rain!:

I thought this song as I heard the rain outside and I knew that, “The  rain don’t mind and the rain don’t care. You know you got to blame it on something…” I’ve figured out that when I am in this much pain, it’s best to just sleep.

I was in a very deep sleep but I dreamt about when I woke up from surgery. I didn’t even open my eyes and said, “My  knee hurts!”   I then looked over to a nurse on a computer and asked if I just had surgery. When she told me yes, I asked why it felt like  was crying.  She told me that’s because I was. I asked if that was normal. She told me that it was. Well, I woke up from my nap yesterday and my knee felt exactly like it did after surgery! Why on earth is this happening?! I looked at the lights on my tens unit that I keep clipped to the front pocket of my hoodie.

They were barely let up green. That’s why my knee hurt! I needed a new battery! I have already bought three batteries! These batteries are $9 a piece!   My Nom came back by and I showed her my tens unit. I was sad. My knee hurts! She hugged me and I cried.

Millionaires

I convinced my Mom to buy us a mega millions lottery ticket Tuesday night. I got so excited to be a $1.6 billionaire!   I figured that I could scrounge together a dollar and if she matched my dollar to get the ticket, we could buy one mega millions ticket and possibly be the winner of a $1.6 billion jackpot!   I started to laugh as I dreamed of what I could do with all of that money.

I told her we probably would be taxed $500 million but that really didn’t matter because we’d have  more millions to spend!  I told her that it would be just like The Script’s song  and began singing it for her! She didn’t know what song I was talking about and I offered to play it for her. I told her that it wasn’t one of my, “Wah, Wah.  Cry, cry”  songs and I’ve pulled it up on Apple Music as she put the pads for my tens unit on my knee.

She didn’t like this song even though it wasn’t one of my, Wah, Wah. Cry cry songs.”   I didn’t care because I liked it! She showed me the ticket and Tuesday and I found out Tuesday night before I went to bed that we didn’t win, we didn’t even match one number!  We do not live in South Carolina!  My Mom got a little irritated that we could have bought a gallon of milk with that money but I said that it was an investment in our future and it was fun. I never buy a ticket unless it’s like $1 billion anyway!   It’s fun to dream!

ALMOST Forgotten Tune #33

I hadn’t been out of my house for probably around a month but it was Sean’s first quarter  conferences,  so I made sure my tens unit was on and I had to go. My Mom and I got chicken Schwarnas afterward.   I absolutely love having grown up in East Dearborn!  Because I can fully appreciate Middle Eastern food!

There’s a place right by the school and we sat in the car to eat them.  She went in to the restaurant to go grab them and when she came out, this song was on the radio. I was kind of surprised that I knew all the words still and that I didn’t have a hard time bulging them out. I was  surprisingly on key as well!

My Mom got back into the car and didn’t mind that I was belting this song out at the top of my lungs. When the song was over, she kind of sighed and said, “Yrah, one of your Wah Wah, cry cry songs!”   Yeah, I guess so! And, it might be official that I  I am older because I stick to the 90s on nine or  The early 2000‘s radio. They were songs that were cool when I was in high school!

Book Ends

The same time that I thought about that, “Hands Clean” song by Alamo’s Morrisette,, I also thought about my ALMOST Forgotten Tune #7:

I listened to this song a lot during my first days at WMU and the first days in my dorm.   Yesterday morning, I saw this video on my YouTube feed;

These two songs served as bookends of my time at WMU.  I had to click on the video when I saw it and I was immediately transported back to my dorm! I listened to Dido’s Album as I drove home for the last time from Kalamazoo.  I had to click on the video when I saw it in my feed. I was immediately transported back to my dorm  and my time at WMU.

My time there, although it was so long ago, it definitely feels like a LIFETIME ago because so many things in my life have changed!

ALMOST Forgotten Tune #32

I thought of this song yesterday and I’m not sure why.  It probably had to do with washing my hands.   I remember that this song got a lot of radio play but I couldn’t really remember more of the songs  from the album. I borrowed the CD from a friend’s daughter. I will have to download it later. It came out just after Sean came home from the hospital so I’m trying to remember what was going on when I had a small baby and was still an undergrad.

Yes, it is DEFINITELY a lifetime ago because my son is going to be 17 soon!   I haven’t thought about Alanis Morissette as an artist for a long time but now I’m going to have to.

Platinum

So here’s the deal, I say things  repetitively and absentmindedly for a while after te first time I hear it.  Especially if it’s a song!  I’m not even aware that I am doing it when I am and I’m not sure why.  I’m sure it says something about my mental state but Sean even does it. At least, he used to when he was about two.

My Mom took Sean on a walk in his stroller with my brother. They walked pretty far away from our house and when they turned back  to begin walking back to my parents’ house.  Sean was repeatedly saying, “You and me.”   It didn’t bother my Mom but it annoyed my brother. I didn’t think anything of it but then a few days later, we had a toy from a Burger King kids meal that head pictures of Shark Boy and Lava Girl.

It was cardboard and when you pushed it one way, it was Shark Boy and when you pushed it the opposite way, it was Lava Girl.   I sat on the kitchen floor and played with it with Sean, I pushed it one way and then the apposite saying, “Shark Boy, Lava Girl.”   Sean joined in with me after a while and said, “Shark Boy, Wava Girl.”

Sean was sleeping later that day and I sat at the dining room table doing my homework. My Dad was also seated at the table and my Mom was in the kitchen. I don’t remember which homework I was doing but I  absentmindedly started to say, “Shark Boy, Wava Girl”

So yeah, that’s when I discovered that I do that!

Anyway, the other day, my Mom had the alarm set on her phone for something and it ended up going off.   I  had never heard before but it was the cutest sound!  I mimicked this sound drumming the fingers of both of my hands on my thumbs and moving my hands from side to side. I was having fun!

Today, as my Mom put my tens unit on, we talked about some pretty heavy stuff.  To relieve the tension, I told her that we need to just hear her alarm!  She laughed and  told me that she would only set it if I didn’t repeat it, “1 million times.”  I laughed and pantomime md zipping my lips. A little while later, I got the first two notes out before I clasped but of my hands over my mouth.

I don’t have an android, but rather an iPhone so I can’t get this alarm but I added it here so you guys can hear it:

Isn’t it super cute?!