So, I’m here in Las Vegas. Unfortunately, I spent the first night I was here in the emergency room – an experience I don’t look forward to ever repeating. Due to the non-existent blood clot I thought might be present in my leg, I finally panicked and went to the hospital to make sure I wasn’t going to suffer from sudden death by pulmonary embolism. Apparently, I just have some insanely painful leg cramps from the six long days of driving, so after all those hours in the emergency room, all I got was a painful ultrasound negative for blood clots, a lecture about getting enough potassium, and a prescription for Lortab. Needless to say, I won’t be returning to Jersey until the day I have enough money saved up to ship my car. But, for now, at least I can say, “I am the proud owner of strong narcotics” over and over again until the pill I just took knocks me out and puts me to sleep for 10 hours.
On a brighter note, I made $5 into $25 at a slot machine this afternoon. It may not seem like a lot, but it means I’ve increased my savings by 12 percent. (Yes, I am in desperate need of a job, I know.) Of course, of that $25, $5 of it was what I started with, I spent $15.59 on a belt (just what I need – another belt), and saved one of the one-dollar coins that came out of the slot machine for good luck, so I guess I only really left with $3.41 and a belt more than I started with. This journal entry is beginning to look like a word problem.
My four little cousins are cracking me up. Here’s a picture of this evening: I’m IMing friends on the computer. Franky comes in and starts reading over my shoulder. Courtney comes in and sees a fuzz on Franky’s head. She says it looks like spider eggs and that it won’t come out. He screams and starts rubbing his head on the bed I have to sleep in tonight. I shriek and tell him to get out of the room. Courtney comes back shaking with toilet paper and gets it out of his head. She flushes it down the toilet. Franky finally stops screaming and when Courtney comes back, he farts. She yells at him for farting on his shoe and he informs her that he got called back to the peanut butter commercial that my uncle took him to audition for this afternoon. He has to go back again tomorrow for more auditioning. She says she doesn’t care. It’s not polite to fart on people’s shoes. Franky leaves the room and Kristin comes in. They’re still reading IM conversations over my shoulder. Franky comes back with a banana which comes dangerously close to the laptop screen. “Please keep all squishy fruits 12 inches from all electronic devices,” I say. All of a sudden, Courtney says, “Franky, what did you put in my pants!” He may have put a piece of banana down the back of her pants, but I’m not sure. I do know that a slight wedgy war began shortly after that. Samantha comes into the room and I now have an audience of four watching me type all mesmerized by the sheer speed and accuracy of my typing. I realize I’m glad I didn’t take a nap this evening – I may have missed all of this excitement. Of course, I think this kind of eventfulness will be everpresent in the upcoming weeks.
Anyway, the painkiller is starting to kick in and I have a lot of sleep to catch up on. Here’s another word problem. If Lisa lost three nights of sleep due to panicking about a non-existent case of thrombosis and one night of sleep from spending six hours in an emergency room, then how many hours of sleep does Lisa need to get tonight? More than she will actually get, I’m sure.
Either way, I’m in Vegas, the weather’s nice, I got in a nice run this morning (which actually made my legs feel better), and I have my cutest, youngest , little cousin begging to cuddle up with me in bed. Life doesn’t get much better than that.
