February 7, 2003
The Adventures of Paisley
Blue
It seems like forever since I have written in this journal but that is because of two things. First, one of my coworkers went on vacation and I had to cover her job in addition to mine. I was so stressed and exhausted that I never got to do any extracurricular web activities.
Right after she returned I became sick, which can't be too much of a surprise since Mechanic and Opera and Michael had all been passing this thing around. I had just been lucky, and instead of being the first person to get it, I was the last. However, they are now passing it around again amongst themselves so I may be doomed anyway.
I left work early on Monday to go to the emergency room where I was diagnosed with bronchitis which had aggravated my asthma. They gave me prednisone (steroids) to help with the breathing but they were sure that the other was a viral infection so I did not get antibiotics. They also gave me three breathing treatments so I was jittering like an alcoholic with DT's when I walked out of there. Hey, at least I walked out of there. They did not even talk about admitting me.
I went in to work on Tuesday morning because there were two tasks I just "had" to do... but everyone was pressuring me to leave and finally I did around noon. I haven't been back since, and here it is Friday afternoon. I am so thankful for a job with sick pay and catastrophic illness coverage. I can see that I will be dipping into that to cover this week. I just hope by Monday I am well enough to return to work.
I remember how bad it was last year, though, when I was in the hospital for a week, and then at home for a week, and it really affected my paycheck with an ouch. Not only that, I felt like I was dying. This time around I decided to get medical help early, to try and avoid a repeat of that scenario.
The only downer is that Mechanic is doing worse, and did not go to the doctor until the wee hours of yesterday morning. They gave him steroids and antibiotics and two breathing treatments. Last night his fever started spiking and all he's done for the last two days is sleep.
Opera still refuses to see a doctor, worried about the bills she cannot afford to pay. We have tried to convince her that if she would just go to Harbor View they will write off the bill once she proves she cannot pay. That is why they are there. The only reason I don't go there is that I have insurance, so I can go somewhere else. When I didn't have insurance, I used to go to Harbor View. They did okay, except for not catching my broken foot the first year I lived here. *sigh*
My foot will probably bother me the rest of my life, and my podiatrist always asks me when I'm going to have the surgery to correct it. However, now that I live on the second floor of a building with no elevator, I don't see that happening anytime soon.
I still love this apartment so very much. I got my first gas bill yesterday - for two weeks, the bill was $15... plus an additional $5.50 for hooking it up. I can live with that. I'm really kinda holding my breath on the electric bill, but I'm not really scared. It's still going to all total way less than I was paying for that hotel room in Belltown.
Mechanic and I had an adventure trying to get the Zone 4 parking stickers for the cars. A day or two earlier he had finally got possession of his Thunderbird, and also got the title transferred from his ex-girlfriend. That only took, what, over a year! Anyway... with car registrations in hand, we headed downtown to the building to get these stickers so we can park out here for more than 2 hours at a time.
He had called ahead and found out that in the area we lived, Group Health was held responsible for the lack of parking places because their presence created a business zone in a residential area or something like that. The long and short of it is that they have to pay for all parking stickers in the area. So... we got two residential parking stickers and one guest sticker for FREE. Rockin!
Getting to the office was not easy, though. First, we went to the wrong building. We were told to go to the 37th floor of the building at 5th and Columbia or something like that. We went to the Columbia Tower building but for the life of us, we couldn't get the elevator to stop at the 37th floor. Finally we decided to take the stairs down from 38 to 37... but once we were in the stairwell, the doors were locked.
This very much reminded me of a certain Twilight Zone experience I shared with Twinkle and another couple when we went to a movie at a downtown theater. Well, I immediately read the sign on the wall which read that the only unlocked door was on the 4th floor, but that there were emergency intercom buttons every five floors, the closest being floors 40 and 35. I told Mechanic a brief summary of how I'd been in this kinda weird situation before, and we walked down to the 35th floor.
I pressed the intercome button and the security guard answered. I could barely hear him, though. He asked where we were, and I told him. He said he would be there in a moment. When he arrived, he asked us a lot of questions, like why we were trying to go to the 37th floor. When we told him our mission had been to get parking stickers, he told us we were in the wrong building. Further discussion revealed that he lived in the exact zone we did, and he confirmed that Group Health had to pay for the parking permits.
We headed out the door to go across to the correct building, and as we were walking, we were pondering just what was on the 37th floor of the Columbia Tower building? Why was it cut off from public access? And just what were they thinking of us for trying so hard to get there? You either have to laugh at that or wonder if they're afraid of us.
So we crossed the street and I was walking just as fast as my little legs could carry me because it was 10 minutes before the office was about to close. You know about city and county offices... we'd be lucky if they were still open. Fortunately we got there and one person was left - almost all the lights were off but she was still there, and because we were prepared with information and paperwork, we were able to get our permits quickly and she locked up on time at 4:45 pm.
We still had to go back to the Columbia Tower building because we were parked in the basement there. We were trying to find the correct elevator shaft to go down to the north underground parking lot, when I heard a voice calling from the other side of the building asking whether we had got our permits. It was the security guard. I told him we had and he wished us a good day.
Well, we were walking in circles trying to find the right bank of elevators, when another employee asked if he could help us. Turns out we had walked right past the correct elevators, so we ended up doing a complete circle of the lobby and then finally started going down. I tell you I was never so happy to get out of a parking garage before. LOL
On another Twilight Zone note, Mechanic told me the latest actions of his stalker. This amazes me... that a person would be so fixated and so obsessed instead of moving on with his life. It's a scary feeling, too. I totally understand and empathize with Mechanic because I've had my share of stalkers in the past, too. It almost makes you want to never speak to another person again, to be afraid to make friends, because you never know if that person is really psycho in disguise.
I have to say that since being sick, I have watched more movies than I think I have in all of 2002. I'm on my second book, this one by Dean Koontz. The steroids give me energy but when I move I cough my lungs up. It's interesting times here at the home of Paisley Blue. But weirdly enough, my spirits are up and I am happy. I guess I'm just glad to be alive.
Spring seems to be just around the corner, too. Cool.
~Paisley Blue
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