What I did with my three day holiday weekend:
On Saturday, I got up. I got dressed. And then I drove my hiney down to Muncie to get a Depo shot at Planned Parenthood.
Only I got there and there was no LPN there to stab my ass.
This was a very upsetting thing, as this was my LAST day that I could get the shot (I procrastinate, I know this.).
The lady behind the counter asks why on earth I drive all the way down
from Fort Wayne to Muncie when there is a Planned Parenthood in Fort
Wayne.
I explain – the ladies are rude. I mean REALLY rude, as in hanging up
the phone rude. I was unaware that Fort Wayne even took walk-ins for
shots/pills purchases, like Muncie does, until the Muncie office told
me that they did. They don’t offer it to anyone (I’ve asked several
people) they want you to make an appointment, appointments which can
only be made on Saturday mornings from 8am to 10am (here is where the
first lady I managed to get on the phone hung-up on me), on a 1-line
telephone that is busy the entire time. Appointments are usually booked
full by 8:30am. When I complained about this, the lady I got on the
phone in Fort Wayne said: “Come stand in line on Saturday morning
then.” CLICK.
After I explained this to the Muncie office, the lady behind the
counter is indignant. After all, Planned Parenthood is supposed to
provide birth control to people who can’t otherwise obtain it -
teenagers, those without insurance or the means to pay for a good deal
of the medical office surcharges. PP is not supposed to hang up on
people – seriously, what if it had been an emergency? Or a need for the
morning-after pill? This lady then calls the Fort Wayne office for me
and determines that they have an LPN on hand, tells them I am coming
and when to expect me and for them to be ready for me.
I drive an hour or so back to Fort Wayne to that branch office. I walk
in to a completely empty office – not one single person was in the
waiting room and no one was back in the exam rooms – just two employees
talking behind the counter. I finally manage to get their attention and
explain the situation (after I scurry to the restroom – the rest area I
wanted to pee at was being cleaned and I didn’t want to just stand
there and wait). They look at each other, grumble and the one says
“well….we told Muncie that we’d do it,” sighs and gets the necessary
information.
I wait about 15 minutes while they talk some more. Then she calls
me back, weighs me, takes my blood pressure, has me drop my drawers and
then she swabs me, stabs me and says “You can go.”
I didn’t even get a band-aid. Bitch.
Then back to the apartment and swimming with my younger sibs and the
significant other of the elder. That didn’t last long, as the water was
pretty damn chilly – 50 degree nights quickly cool off water in pools
that don’t have solar covers. Then we went to our free baseball game -
we were supposed to have grandstand seats, the kind with backs that are
actually chair-like and nearly comfortable. Instead, we were relegated
to the bleachers. My word for bleachers is Ow. We stayed for the first
6 innings before we gave up due to assorted back and butt aches.
On the way to the game, I’d stopped at the BFs and started a
slow-cooker of beef and noodles. He was up near Chicago and was due
back at around 730ish. The noodles went in around 515 or so, so they
should have been just about right when he got back. I got over there at
about 9 or so after the game – sadly, by that time, the noodles were
mush. Very pasty, sticky mush. Not too un-tasty, but the texture
rendered them un-leftoverable and vaguely reminiscent of baby food. So,
now I know that noodles just aren’t going to last that long, even on
low in a slow-cooker. Apparently 2 hours is the max.
Sunday was the first day of real house work in preparation for my
moving in. De-wall-papering the bathroom. Yuck. He’d already
de-carpeted the bathroom and started laying tile in the weeks
previously. This had made the already hideous wallpaper look worse. I
can’t even find a picture that does justice to the ugly wall-paper. It
was vaguely creme/taupe background with a red vine/flower/leaf pattern
on it. In many places, where the water had damaged it, the pattern had
turned brown and the pigments had run down the wall, staining the crap
out of it. After trying to remove by hand (we were optimistic) for
about 15 minutes, it was determined that we were going to have to use
wall-paper remover, the chemical jazz. Sadly, we lacked anything to
scores the wall-paper with. So, off to the home improvement store -
where we purchased lots of fun stuff, including the tile for the
back-splash and a wall-scraper that we THOUGHT was a scorer as well, we
get home to find out that it was only a wall-scraper and that we had to
go back to the home improvement store. Finally, around 2pm we get going
on the wall-paper. 5 hours and a great deal of physical labor later and
we’re finally done – at least with the wallpaper. Considering neither
of us had ever done it before, I think we did well. We both reeked
greatly of wall-paper remover and other, less nice, smells.
So into the shower and off to pick up Little Caeser’s pizza. They have
pick up pizza for $5, if you get just cheese or just pepperoni. You
don’t even really wait, they’re just always there and ready to go.
Makes it fast and fairly easy. Then we watched Blade Runner while
eating pizza (and the required Crazy Bread…mmmmmm).
Monday we were up around 8am to start painting. First coat of primer
took over an hour and a half to put on, because we had oodles of trim,
as well as to paint around the tub (which is a stand alone
pedestal-type tub), the shower, the window, the door and the toilet.
Luckily, the primer dries for recover in an hour allowing us to quickly
top it off with the second coat. So….around about 1230 or so we
finally get to put on the first coat of latex semi-gloss ultra-white.
And damn…it is WHITE. Very, very! While that is drying (4 hours to
re-coat), we went to more hardware stores – and to KMart to pick up a
loofah to de-paint ourselves with – especially me, I’m only willing to
go so far with Lava soap and kitchen pot scrubby. We also purchased a
paint edger and a paint corner tool – those would have been nice three
coats earlier – but we still have lots of painting to do in other rooms
of the house yet. We also got new lighting fixtures and a medicine
cabinet/mirror to put up.
Around 530, after lounging about downstairs waiting for the paint to
dry, we go up and determine that we do NOT need a second full coat of
the latex, only touch-ups. So we touch up with those new tools, which
were, quite frankly, amazing. It’s almost irritating how much easier it
is to paint with these little tiny ghetto-cheap plastic tools….
So then the medicine cabinet goes up (that was less fun than it sounds
as it didn’t have any hanging hardware or instructions as such – just
drill holes through here and use long screws_ followed by a lighting
fixture so that we can actually SEE what is going on. 730 is dinner
with one of his friends so there is much scrubbing to at least de-paint
some portions of our anatomies. I still have paint in my hair even
today though….
And now that we know how to paint (another home improvement chore that
we had minimal experience in), I’m thinking other rooms will be much
easier – as they will lack immovable items like tubs and toilets. Our
bathroom isn’t quite done, it does need trim and the tile back splash
and some bits and pieces. But in general…it was a good weekend.
