Diary of a Crazy Lady

My mom sent me an email today telling me about some technical difficulties she had recently encountered. Namely, her student eligibility had expired and she was unable to log on to the internet site of her college to take her final exam. (How cool is that? My mom is taking online college courses! I am so proud of her.)  Here is a portion of what she wrote:

Okay, now I am in a horrible dither due to the fact I went to my little transcription student log-on program, only to find out that I had been deleted and had to be re-enrolled.  Well, I guess I didn't read the fine print of the contract that talked about one year enrollment.

No charge involved but I have to get going with this extension.  Mainly, I need to coordinate with my librarian who is the proctor for me to take that final. The rest is ready to happen after I do some mighty fast practice on what remains to get done.

I was sick at heart, due to the fact I was afraid I would have to retake the course, after all the work and trouble I have encountered in doing all this, what with traveling and then Norm's setback.

I've come to conclude that everything we do on these computers is a pain in the rear. Today I spent four freaking hours trying to download one single song from iTunes (clearly, iTunes had a problem, because I download music all the time and it has never taken four hours to buy one measly tune). All I wanted was the Up! song from the Shania Twain Up! album. Keeping in mind that I own the CD, and that before I tried to download the song, I spent one full hour searching my house and my car trying to locate the CD - well, suffice it to say, I really wanted that song.

And so off to iTunes I went. While I was logged on to iTunes, I decided just to replace the whole darn album (all for one stinkin' song). And while I was replacing and spending, I decided to have some fun with my crop girls next week and download some dance tunes for them... you know... songs like The Macarena and Cha Cha Slide and The Chicken Dance... silly songs that I can throw in every couple of hours to urge them to stand up and get the wiggles out. The all day crop lasts for ten hours and I am going to be digging deep to entertain a ballroom filled with hard working scrapbookers for ten long hours - the dance tunes are my way of shaking things up a bit.

Anyways, four hours later, I finally had my songs. And that is not accounting for how the rest of my day was spent making a Crop Tunes Playlist on my iPod. The Playlist has 8.7 hours of music on it - which adds up to 185 songs - which means that is how many songs I had to transfer from one place to another. This has been a HUGE project and I am sick to death of it. My goal was to make a 10 hour Playlist, but I'm not going to reach that goal. I am out of songs and out of ideas. I've got Beach Boys songs, and songs from Footloose and Dream Girls and Grease. I've got a ton of country songs, and I added a whole lot of pop and rock music into the mix. 185 songs is a lot of music! Every single song is upbeat and fast - nothing slow, or these croppers will be uninspired. And based on past experience, I have discovered that music can make or break a crop. Therefore, I was very discerning when putting together this Playlist, which is the reason it took so long - I had to listen to at least a portion of each song before it made the final cut.

Good Lord. Is anything ever easy? I just hope the girls in Dallas like the songs I selected for them. If they don't, I will have to refine the Playlist for the Chantilly, VA girls before I host the crop at their event later this month, because I am bound and determined to have a perfect Crop Tunes Playlist before this summer is over. It's become a mission.

So, yeah... I get it. I get that the computer can drive a person bonkers. And I get that when we want it to work, we want it to work. I also get that when we are in the mood, we want to do it now and not later. I am so sorry that my mom is dealing with a mess regarding her enrollment. No wonder she is in a dither. I was dithering like a maniac working with iTunes today. Yep. I definitely get it.

Okay, on to other stuff. John had an infusion today and I screwed up royally. He wanted me to pull him out of school really early so that he would not have to participate in P.E. before he was infused all afternoon. But I wouldn't do that. I made him go to P.E. and then I picked him up. Our temps are in the 90s. We are under a Code Orange Warning (not as severe as Code Red, but the next highest pollution warning there is). Yep, I made him go to P.E. Before his infusion. When I picked him up, he was beat red and sweating like a pig, which translates to extremely overheated and nearly dehydrated.

When Nurse Debbie arrived, she took his blood pressure. It was low. Very, very low (as in 80 over 52). She made him drink a giant jug of Gatorade and then she took his BP again. It was up, but not yet at his normal pressure. She added an IV bag of saline solution (I think that's what's in those bags) and dripped that into him. She later told me that his blood pressure was almost too low for her to give him the infusion. If the Gatorade and IV bag would not have helped bring the BP up, she would have had to reschedule. As it was, the infusion took longer than it usually does because she had to infuse into the vein much slower than standard procedure to insure that John's BP remained stable. To say that I felt bad is an understatement. John kept saying, "I told you so, I told you so, I told you so." He was so smug and smart about the whole P.E. thing. My bad. My bad, bad, bad.

And that, my friends, is the accounting of my day in a nutshell.

Comments

[Barb]

Man, you'll have to share your crop play list with me. I LOVE that Shania CD, but I suspect my hubby may have *hidden* it so he would never have to listen to it in the car again. lol

I'm glad things turned out okay with John. I hear ya on the whole mommy-guilt thing. I try very hard not to take my son's outbursts personally, but every now and then, he says something that touches a nerve, and I am a train wreck again. *sigh*

Biggest hugs to you, my friend. Hang in there.

[Joy]

I hope you don't mind, but I sent your blog link to my mom...with two older teens still at home and lots of medical issues and the normal frustrations as well, I think she will really enjoy reading it. And I love it too. I just can't believe it has taken me this long to visit!

[kkt]

hope you have some bon jovi and guns 'n roses on that playlist!!!

that's a LOT of songs!

[Regina]

Isn't it nice when our kids can be right every once in a while...?

[melissa]

lol at the whole Ipod downloads taking 4 hours-computers can defintely be a pain at times. like the idea of the fun dance music list!-Im sure they are going to love it

[heather]

@@ on the "I told you so."

Music: how about that "I Like to Move It" song? have 80's music? Dirty Dancing? "Shake a Tail Feather"? "Tubthumping"? Queen? "Pump up the Jam"? All part of my iTunes library for various reasons. . . ROFL . . .I even have "The Time Warp" ROFL . .. there's one of those weird get up and move it songs.

After this weekend (with 6 recitals) I may have to get that Rama Lama song they used for "So You Think You Can Dance" last season. And Rebel Yell. . . ROFL. I know all the words to them now.

[Helena]

Hey, Great Big Sea has an album called Up. Great stuff.

[slammie]

HUGS, Mommy. Is that BP low? Mine is usually around there. At least he didn't have to reschedule....

[May]

I've got the giggles now. First that you are probably as organized and detail oriented as I am to make such a play list. I don't have an ipod, but if I did I'd do the same thing you did. Sounds like a fabulous crop play list! Secondly the 'I told you so mom' just tickled my funny bone. I'm SO GLAD that it all worked out and she could still do it- I bet you don't make him do PE again before an infusion!

Take care!