Weekend Plans Post: Just Subversive Enough
I was raised in what I now know was a somewhat strict household. There were a lot of things that we weren’t allowed to do, kids we weren’t allowed to play with, and words we were absolutely NOT allowed to say. All in all, it was a pretty good way to be raised, I guess. I rebelled in a fairly straightforward way: I grew my hair out and listened to contraband Rock and Roll (I had to destroy a Twisted Sister cassette tape and give away my AC/DC cassette tape).
My nephews are raised in a somewhat similar fashion to the one that I was raised with. They can get away with listening to more music than I could but I was able to get away with playing more edgy games than they can. (I played “Wasteland” when I was their age… it wasn’t THAT violent but when you did an amount of damage over a certain number, it gave somewhat graphic descriptions of what happened. “The enemy explodes like a blood sausage” is one that I remember fondly. There weren’t any graphics depicting this or anything. Just a sentence.) Anyway, the nephew is not allowed to play games that involve “realistic shooting”. (This means that he can play Fortnite but not Call of Duty.)
As an uncle, it is my job to be a bit of a troublemaker. Not, like, a HUGE one… but a small one. One that gets the sister and brother-in-law to roll their eyes without tightening their lips. (Or, ideally, to get the sister to sputter and the brother-in-law to laugh.) And so he told me that, now that he’s 17, he’s allowed to play M games and the only thing he wants for his birthday is Call of Duty: Black Ops IV.
And within a half hour of him texting me that, I got a text from my sister telling me that she’s not crazy about him getting Black Ops IV.
So I went online and found websites from Concerned Parental Types who came out and said “you know what? If you turn off the blood and the swearing, this game is okay” and I sent the site to my sister and told her to read the reviews with my nephew and… I got the official okay to give the kiddo Call of Duty: Black Ops IV.
But, as transgressions go, that’s a pretty small one. I mean, I got permission first.
So I went to the retro candy store near the local Costco and picked up a couple of packs of Candy Cigarettes. I will give them to the boys and explain that we weren’t allowed to get these when we were kids but when we managed to bum one off of the kids who could get their hands on them, their mom enjoyed them during the wintertime because she could exhale and see her breath. And THAT should be just subversive enough.
This weekend will be spent in preparation for that birthday party (alongside all of the other usual chores, errands, and things that always just pop up every weekend) and I’m really looking forward to it. (Maybe I’ll bring a can of Diet Rite and drink it on the porch right before I ring the bell.)
So… what’s on your docket?
(Featured image is “Sing!” by Gabriel White. Used under a Creative Commons License.)
T-2 weeks until I have the scoping that everyone over 50 is supposed to get. (My doctor tends to be very insistent about screening tests. The GI doc she sent me to chuckled and said “You just barely turned 50 and here you are!” and I sort of miserably said my doctor is very insistent about these things).
So I need good distractions because I am having all the anxiety. (Weird allergies, including some drug allergies, which makes me worry about how I’ll react, also I had an extremely bad experience as a teen getting a broken nose set under a different, harsher anesthetic)
So I need to find myself some fun and diverting things to do. I’ve already given myself permission to re-read all the escapist stuff I read as a teen (I am going through maybe my 20th re-read of “The Hobbit” right now) and I’m thinking maybe going antiquing tomorrow afternoon.
the other problem is most of the people I hang out with in meatspace are on vacation right now so I’m very alone, which is not good for what goes on in my brain.
I plan on playing a lot of “Mahjong Titans” between now and then; that’s one thing that shuts up the yammering in my brain.
I might also take a quilt off to drop off at the quilter’s, as a little promise to myself that there WILL be a “future me” to pick up that quilt. Because I confess that I am scared something will go wrong and there WON’T be a “future me.”Report
We switched providers to Kaiser Permanente last year. Kaiser’s research arm has studied colon cancer screening methods since the 1980s. If you have no personal or family history of problems, Kaiser recommends one of (a) annual fecal test, (b) every five year flexible sigmoidoscopy, or (c) every ten year colonoscopy, all being about equally effective in actual practice. I have no history and immediately opted for (a), at least until one comes back positive.
The first year I got the FIT package at the doctor’s office. This year (and each year going forward) Kaiser mailed me the package.Report
I have the family risk, so I had my first scoping last year (at 47). They found a small polyp which they removed, otherwise I’m good until 2023. The prep wasn’t as bad as I feared and the anesthetic “nap” was amazing. I was on the table and the doc starts selling me on how important this is and how dangerous colon cancer is and I’m like “I went through the prep; we’re doing this. No need to convince me.”
I hope it goes well for you. I was nervous before the procedure–zone out and think about The Hobbit until they knock you out.Report
Good luck! Go antiquing and get yourself something that will make you say “I lived, jerkfaces!” every time you see it.
And put it someplace where you will see it often.Report
You’ll be fine, fillyjonk! And please go antiquing, my field needs more lovers (and spenders!) And I have this coming up in a couple of years, being 48. So, right there with you.Report
Yep. I too am scheduled to get “scoped” sometime soon.
I actually don’t mind the scoping itself. Given my lifestyle it probably won’t be a big deal (if you see what I’m trying to say). But dammit all the prep work and diet restrictions and having to have someone pick me up (my gf lives in a neighboring state and only comes out on weekends), etc. It’s a damn nuisance.Report
Since I’m at extremely high risk and get scoped every six months, I make sure they arrange for the Endoscopy to be at the same time, since they have to put me all the way out for that. Both ends at the same time while I nap seems the most efficient way to do things.Report
Actually I’m terrified of “going under.” I just — dammit I hate that gap.
(Yeah, I know it’s just like sleep, but it isn’t exactly. I can’t explain.)Report
YES. Most of my fear right now is centered on the anesthetic.
I have a lot of weird allergies and am trying v. hard not to think about “what if you’re allergic to propofol and no one knows it”
No endoscopy has been suggested for me; this is just screening. I hope no one says “hey you also need an endoscopy too” at a later date; that would just seem cruel.Report
I didn’t like it either, same reason I don’t like pain meds I like my head clear after 15-odd years of sobriety, but the experience with induced coma and ventilator where I have something like three weeks of nothing and fog make the routine not too bad now. Plus as a frequent flyer I get the same med-surg team each time and the anesthesiologist and I have a running gag of him singing me to sleep with Chi-Lites or some other such tuneage.Report
I was most nervous about “going under” but man, I liked it. I was only out about 45 minutes but it felt like two weeks–I guess the gap doesn’t bother me; I don’t know why. Maybe I just needed the nap. And I still don’t want any lemon or lime popsicles.Report
Heh, I get your drift but yes, I am different, and am even having stress over “a man I barely know is going to see my naked butt up close and personal”
well, more stress about “I am going to be given the drug that killed Michael Jackson” and also “what the hell if they find something bad in there” but….yeah, stress about many things.
I live alone and a friend is driving me and waiting on me, and I’m putting together another rota of friends to call me the evening after (and maybe even someone to sit with me for a couple hours after I get home) just to be sure I’m still alive and don’t do anything stupid like put the teakettle on the stove and then forget about it. (I have been warned that short-term memory may be crap for a couple days after the procedure).
A lot of my stress is that I have been a super healthy person and literally the last big procedure I had done was getting my wisdom teeth out 30 years ago. I’ve had the “knocked out” type of anesthesia twice in my life, and local not even very many times (dental procedures and one when I needed stitches…)
So I don’t know what to expect. And I HATE hospitals.Report
I think I get it. It’s a lot all at once.
I really wish medical providers did a better job at understanding patients as people. The whole process feels dehumanizing.Report
I’d say “I wonder if the doctor’s ever been through this before” but he looks like he’s maybe a little older than I am so perhaps he has.
My regular doctor has, she recommended this guy as she had him (and then sent her husband to him) but she was a little too jolly about me joining the “Colonoscopy Club” (as she joked about it) for me to be entirely happy. I get that she’s trying to jolly me out of being unhappy about it; people have done that all my life about unpleasant things, but….
I’ll just be glad when it’s over. (I joked on Twitter about “maybe I’ll wake up in the timeline where Prince and David Bowie are still alive and making music”)Report
This just serves as yet another reminder that I probably haven’t seen my doctor since I tore my rotator cuff six-ish years ago. I should probably do something about that…
Hope things go well, fillyjonk!Report
It’s the weekend for The Great Oregon Steam Up! 48 hours of ancient steam tractors, steam donkeys, steam sawmills, and everything else steam-powered, as part of our industrial heritage. Dorkery for the whole family! (my wife refuses to go)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fBvbiEhU4cIReport
My mother bought me Motley Crue’s “Shout At The Devil” in 1983–at the height of the Satanic Panic”–without even batting an eye.
I used to carefully monitor the games my two boys wanted to play until I realized that I was censoring for sex but not for violence. At that point I threw the censoring rubric out the window and decided that the better rubric was to have conversations about the things they were doing in their games. There have been a few games I’ve said “no” to over the years. I can’t remember what they were but I recall my objections having more to do with “this is just mindless stupidity without a real objective point.”Report
Oh, I can help… one of those games is called Twitter.Report
Ha! That’s the worst game of them all!Report
The Most Dangerous (for your mental health) GameReport
I promised myself that when Denver’s commuter rail finally got to my suburb, I would spend time riding and visit — or at least go by — every station in the system. Hopefully today, but definitely this weekend, I’ll start that. I may write a Tenshot on it, since this is as much for entertainment as anything. Cheap entertainment, at that. As an official oldster now, a day pass good for anywhere the trains go is $5.25. (A two-zone day pass that would get me downtown and back is $1.50. The gas to drive downtown and back is probably more than $1.50.)Report
very big bad change in plans.
my father is likely dying, so I have a train ticket to go up there tomorrow.
I don’t even know what to think. A part of me is longing for it to turn out that the nurses were wrong, it was just a bad medication reaction or something, and he gets better, but realisitically, I do not think that will happen. He was having difficulty breathing this morning and by midday was unresponsive/unable to talk. (I am wondering if he could have had a stroke that was not detected).
I am pretty devastated. We had a good relationship.
at any rate, colonoscopy is not happening this summer. Even if everything up there is all over by the day it was scheduled, I think it’s too much for me to go through that after this. They can get me next summer, or if my doctor is really concerned about some kind of test I could do Colaguard this year.
this sucks big timeReport
Ah, good luck. It sucks to have something like this happen. I hope…
Well, there are a dozen things I hope, depending on how good/bad it is.
Good luck.Report
At this point I think the only hope is for me to get up there in time to say goodbye, and then for him not to linger too much longer. It does not sound good.
this all feels very unreal.Report
I’m so sorry.Report
I’m so sorry. I hope things turn out okay.Report