Just Before the Battle, Mother

So. Here's what's been going on in my world.

I got home from work Friday about 5:30. I immediately set about the task of finishing, once and for all, now and forever, the Band Video. The video that will serve as what director Ed calls the "Oral History Project" for the band's 20th anniversary concert this Sunday. Interviews with people in the band who were there from the beginning.

It's a long story about this video, and let's just say that I wanted to end up turning nine interviews, well, eight and a half really, into a coherent video I could hand over to Ed and not be embarrassed about. I almost made it, I think, but we'll see after I see his reaction. If in fact there will be a reaction.

I don't know if I can possibly explain the major drain upon my spinal cord that was this video, but I'll see if I can give a few high points as a background to set up Friday night.

These riveting highlights include, but are not restricted to:

1. Due to varying circumstances, it became mine to do.
2. Due to my mom's illness and impending hospitalization, it had to be completed this past weekend.
3. Due to my own illness, and the fact that I had to work during said illness, I didn't have a lot of down time to work on it before the weekend.
4. Due to time and location limitations, I spent too many practices filming interviews instead of getting to practice with the band, not that it particularly mattered.
5. Due to circumstances beyond my control, one of the three people who began the project with me was not at the final practice (Wednesday) where I was filming. Therefore, I had to go through 20 minutes of badly shot "practice video" and fish him out of it for a few questions.
6. Due to what I thought was Flip incompatibility but discovered was yet another Windows Movie Maker bug, every single fucking video I shot either froze, lost sound, or went completely black while I was editing, causing me to have to scrap many entire interview questions and start over, increasing my work time about tenfold.
7. Due to all of the above, I was of a very foul demeanor going into this whole thing.

OK, so back to Friday. I set right about making the video. I asked Ed via email for a piece of music I wanted to use as background music if he had the clip and could get it to me by about 1am. I waited, and started the task at hand.

With the colossal pain the ass that was all that freezing and losing of clips, I finally got every person's interview edited and labeled, and a storyboard written down of which clips went where. I had an outline; I was ready to put the clips together.

Which I started doing, only to find that clips that I'd saved in perfect condition were themselves freezing, losing sound, and going black.

It was at this point that I started to panic just a little bit. OK, Mr M's probably reading this, so I'll be honest. I panicked like a woman falling off the face of the earth.

After much internet surfing, I finally found out that this was in fact a bug in Movie Maker. Which put my mind at ease about what was going on, but still left me with clips I couldn't use and no way to put them together.

So another couple of hours going through every clip and writing down what I needed to re-edit, and a foray into Premiere Elements.

I don't know how to use Premiere Elements. Well, I didn't Friday night. I can use it like gangbusters now.

Anyway, after the thirteen re-edited clips were also labeled, I put the movie together in Elements, learning as I went. Learning how to make titles and make sure the text in the titles wasn't exposed long enough to carry over into the next frames. Learning to edit and not lose everything that came before and after. Learning, editing, learning, editing. Cussing, editing, learning. And cussing.

I finally had a basic finished product at 6:00 Saturday morning, and boy, do I love coffee, because that and sheer will were all that got me through. I played what I had and it kind of worked. Until I realized something.

I really wanted music.

I still didn't have the piece I asked for from Ed, chalked it up as a lost cause, and picked something else. I spent another hour recording and editing music in five and ten second increments, and spliced it into the video. I was finished at 7:00, as the sun was coming up, and I have to say if there's one thing I'm proud of it's that I learned the whole soundtrack part of Elements in an hour.

I burned it to disc and went to bed at about 7:15.

I slept till about 10:00, then got up and got ready to go to Mr M's to play some clarinet trios and deliver the video to him to get to our band president, along with two heavy bags containing the band's archives. I left home, got to the 2d red light on the Betty Bet Bet Inspirational Highway, and realized I'd forgotten the archives. I turned around and went back home, but still made it for trios in time.

Oh, and when I got out of bed Saturday and went to the computer to see if the disc was burned, there was an email from Ed with the clip of music I asked for. Oh well.

Mr M made a nice dinner, we watched a movie, then I had to drive back home at night on three hours' sleep because Sunday was the day I was taking my mom and dad, aka Granny and Paw, to R'noke so we could get a night's sleep before being at the hospital for her heart catheterization at 7:00am Monday. I really slept Sunday night.

We got to the hospital, and got Granny ready for her procedure. It was a long day. It was 7:00 when we got there, but they didn't take her down until about noon. She was gone a few hours, Paw and I sat around and looked at each other a lot, and when they brought her back she seemed to be in very good spirits. She said her doctor told her everything was fine. We wanted to believe her, but she was on drugs so we said, "That's wonderful!" and waited to hear it from the doctor himself.

He finally showed up at 6pm to tell us such. He said she looked fine, well, not fine, but no digression at all from her last cath. He released her at 6:15, and we were back to the hotel by 7pm or so. Granny was amazingly energetic and had eaten in the lock-up, and I went out and got Paw and I salads and stuff at a nice deli, I delivered his to their hotel room, then I went back to mine, put on my pajamas, and spent my evening in bed, thank you very much. A restful evening, good night's sleep, and traveling back home with Granny today.

I finally fell off to sleep about 1:15am. I had a nice doze, and my wake-up phone call came. "Holy damn, it only feels like I've been asleep five minutes," I said, then rolled over about three times in my king-sized bed as big as New Jersey to pick up the phone. I caught sight of the clock. It was 1:30am.

"Oh, crap," I muttered.

It was Paw. This is the phone call my sister and I get that we call "The Same Thing Happens Every Time."

"Bet (or sister), your mother's so sick, and I don't know what to do."
"What's going on?"
"She's so sick, sick at her stomach, vomiting, dizzy, staggering around, freezing to death."
"Call 911."
"She doesn't want me to."
"She's sick! Call 911."
"OK."

The phone call of last night went exactly the same way, and I got Paw to agree to call 911 while I rolled three times towards the end of my king-sized bed, into the floor, where I pulled on the same clothes I'd worn all day, fumbled around for keys, shoes, handbag, hair dryer, no wait, I don't need a hair dryer, and staggered down the way to their room. The ambulance was just arriving.

They took her back to the emergency room of the hospital. Paw rode with her in the ambulance, I drove behind. When I got there she was still being brought in, so I had to sit in the emergency room waiting area with bums, winos, gang members, and about 27 people in ones and twos wearing pajamas. I shouldn't have bothered dressing.

We sat with Granny in the emergency room until 5:30am, where many people looked at her, asked questions, took blood, did x-rays, and freaked out over her leg, which was swollen, red, and the temperature of hot coals. She had a fever. She was throwing up. They said she probably had another blod clot in her leg or an infection, possibly cellulitis.

At 5:30 they told us they wouldn't know anything more for at least two hours, and Granny was sleeping like a log - at least she was getting some sleep - so Paw and I decided to go back to the hotel and call my sister to let her know the situation. She went to bed - and also slept - thinking all was well. (I wouldn't call her earlier as a return of favor. Last time this happened, she let me sleep and called me the next morning.)

She said she'd come down today and we'd tag-team it from there. I said fine, but I had to get at least a couple hours sleep or I'd never be able to drive home. She said she'd start out at about noon. Wonderful, I'm going to bed, I said. It was about 7:00.

I slept. Until the phone rang, and when I rolled over three times in my king-sized bed to answer, I saw it was 8:30, and I knew Paw was going to be chomping at the bit to get back to the hospital. He was. I pleaded for just a little more sleep so I could drive home without totaling their vehicle and killing my person, and he said OK. I slept again, and the phone rang at 9:15. "OK, OK, I said," and rolled three times to the end of my king-sized bed, falling into the floor and going to the door in my pajamas to take the "Do Not Disturb" (or "No Moleste" if you're Spanish) sign off the door. Paw was standing by the car patting his foot.

So I pulled on some clothes, right over my unwashed body, combed my unwashed hair, packed up everything including the hair dryer, and packed it into the car. We went back to the hospital, where they told us Granny had a room assigned but was still in the emergency room. We walked over there, Paw with all of Granny's belongings and us looking just a little too much like the Joads, and got to her emergency room stall. It was empty. They told us she'd been taken to her room. We went there. It was empty. Finally, someone told us she was in "Vascular Surgery." We waited, and I finally had to leave without seeing Granny or knowing anything that was going on with her, and again, boy do I love coffee, because it was that minus any will at all that got me home in one piece.

I only found out this afternoon that "Vascular Surgery" can also mean "Getting an Ultrasound," and that there is no blood clot and they think it's cellulitis. As I write, I've heard from no one to tell me any different.

At least this time it happened we were already in R'noke, at a hospital and with doctors I trust. Maybe they can get to the bottom of all this unlike the incompetents and time-wasters in the hospital here in town.

I don't know how long she'll be in the hospital. I don't know how many more 2 hour drives to R'noke I'll be taking this week. I don't know much. I know I'm tired.

I also know two more things, which I'll leave you with.

First of all, it was at once sad and so incredibly heartening to see my dad taking care of my mom last night. She was sleeping, she was completely out of it and probably didn't even know we were there half the time, and yet he was tucking in her sheets and blankets, combing her hair, making sure her arms were placed where her IVs wouldn't hurt, patting her hands and feet. 54 years later and still as in love as the day they married. Half of me said, "If someone doted over me like that it would drive me crazy," and the other half said, "God, how I wish I knew someone would dote over me like that if I was so sick."

And finally, Huckleberry Hound, aka Lucky Huckie, laid in bed with Granny all day Monday. She was fine and up and around and out of the hospital. When I got them set in their hotel room afterward, I took Huckie back to my room to stay Monday night. Then all this happened.

You may think I'm weird, but you tell me he doesn't have some sort of medical good luck mojo.

I promised you an honest-to-God blog, didn't I?

Betland's Olympic Update:
* Tonight's blog comes courtesy of the fantastic new keyboard Mr M bought me. It's lighted. It also types like a dream. Thank you, Mr M.