MoviPrep, it's what's for dinner...

615 mix and drink 1st course  

Right away I feel the poison racing around my guts...also start feeling a little sleepy, eyes not focusing.  headache.  feeling like glucose is low.
635 drink 2nd course
645, drink 3rd
655 feel urge to fart....tentatively let it go...
703 4th 
708 more urges to fart, wonder if it is safe...not going to tempt fate.
710 wife cooks dinner, mocking me.  Pretty sure that when she needs to go, I'll be on the pot.  haha

711 tummy noises, the urge to fart intensifies.
713 chills
720 cramps
730 first eruption
745 wonder if I need to head back
800 oops, need to change clothes now.  :(

I know that what I ate did not smell like that. yuck

hungry!


One week later:

Moviprep, the dinner for those going in for a colonoscope.  I'll say this, right up front:  None of it is as bad as expected.  Except the smell of the gooselike emissions.  If what I was about to eat smelled as bad as that, I'd skip dinner, thank you very much.  I'm here to tell you that I've never said that my dumpings smelled like flowers, but this was several times worse than normal. The cat was looking around for a dog to blame it on, if you can believe that.  And I've been in the same room when the cat drops his load, and won't cover it.  Proud little fucker.  I should kick his stinky little ass for mocking me.

Ok, so all of that at the very top is notes I took after mixing and taking the prep solution.  The directions state that you can suck on either a lemon or lime wedge or suck on ice right before drinking it.  I didn't find the taste to be a problem, kind of a lemon lime laced with salty pool water.  Rather viscous, it left an unpleasant film in the mouth after drinking.  

I found myself holding my breath after swallowing it; not that it tasted bad, but I knew it was going to be bad.  I wanted it to taste bad because once it was in, it felt bad.  The stuff I was provided is only a quart at night and another quart in the morning...and it comes with a mixing jar.  Reusable, too!  

Directions also say to pay attention to how your body reacts to the gut bomb, since you'll have to time your travel to the clinic between rocket blasts.

BTW, since you have to drink a pint of water after the quart of doom, go ahead and sip hot coffee  after you drink each serving of your delicious supper and breakfast.  It cuts the film of nasty out of your mouth, leaving you much more happy about anticipating the rump reaming you're about to enjoy.  

I kinda quit taking notes because I was more irritated than anything about the whole ordeal.  I'll confess, I was almost hoping they'd find something wrong with the insides of my ass just to sort of justify this whole experience.  

There, the secret is out, my bowels are as healthy as can be, or so they say.  Yay.  I think there's still a little problem there, but I'm not going to tell you about it yet.

I think I finally went to bed about 11, it'd been most of an hour since the last explosion, and yes, I did have to change clothes due to "an accident".  Yeah, my house isn't that big,  I guess I shouldn't have been sitting on that bucket. ;)  I got up about 5:30 and took the first dose right away.  2nd dose was  a bit late, I was tempted to gulp all that crap down right away and be done with it, but I was afraid that there could be severe repercussions, so I didn't.  Interestingly, since there really wasn't anything to move on out, there was no more awful-dead-skunk-next-to-a-hog confinement/turkey farm smell.  I didn't know what to expect, and it's a good thing I paid attention to what was going on, because the intake nurse Ratched wanted to know "what my bowel movements were like".  She also asked how I reacted to IV anesthesia, to which I told her the story of my wisdom tooth extraction, long story short I woke up to the pounding of a hammer and chisel in my mouth.  I figgered after that she'd make a note to give me a little extra.  Nope, that was not the case at all.  Clearly she didn't like me and wanted me to experience a little more of the procedure than most. 

By 9:20 when we departed on the long drive to the clinic (.75 mile) I was hungry, had a headache, was grouchy, irritable, and we hadn't even really started yet.  I took my earpod, cranked some tunes, which helped.  Took my dumbly named ebook device, and thankfully didn't really have time to use it much.

Spent way too long with the nurse asking a whole bunch of questions that should have filled in automatically when the form accessed my medical records.  Why doesn't this happen? GRrrrrrrrrr finally to a different room, undress, put on this gown thingy, keep on your shoes and socks.  Sit and wait. 

CUTE little girl tried a couple times to start an IV thing w/o success.  I did find a small bit of my humor when the dude came to help her, she was saying something about getting a good flash; I replied that I certainly had not flashed her, because I couldn't stand the humiliation.  You had to be there.  Too bad you couldn't see me with the robe thingy on, my light blue hat on, earpod thingy blasting into my ears, I almost didn't hear the scope nurse call me.  I could see just fine, though, and the other guy in there didn't jump up, so I did.  This nurse was nicer to me, even though she was going to have to look at my hairy naked ass.  Poor girl, I should have bought her some flowers.   Or chocolate, but maybe with her job she doesn't like chocolate.  I bet her favorite flower is a tulip...she's from Holland MI.  

At the clinic, everyone asks, where are you from.  I always say:  From down by KMart.  They almost always look confused for a minute...and some of those that don't ask "which one".  To which I reply:  there is only one in town. 

There used to be 2, but it closed before I moved here.  I moved here in 1993. Get with it, people.   Live in the PRESENT!

Tiny little doctor came in, introduced herself, blah blah blah, lie on your left side, etc.  They squirted some stuff in the IV thingy and next thing I know, my eyes are open, I can see a tv sort of, kinda blurry and feel a snake prowling around my guts.  I squint at the tv, it's got a large intestine on it and it seems like I could see the snake in there, too.  Sucks having poor eyesight.

I feel them pulling the snake out, which was different, then I may have dozed off, don't know.  I didn't try to move, but I don't think I'd have been able to move.  I didn't feel anything but the snake moving around in my guts. Weird.  When they turned the bed around, I was awake, they commented on it...I said:  I was supposed to ask how I'd get the results?...blah blah.  They gave me more dope...I don't remember a single thing about the upper scope experience, they said that they change the scope, which is good, because it'd probably taste terrible.  I think I remember them saying something about sending some polyps off to pathology, they must have been nothing to worry about.

Woke up in recovery, got dressed, took off.  We went to John Hardy's for lunch, I ate all of mine and luckily they screwed up the taters for Val, so they brought her another set, I ate those too.  I was really very extremely hungry.  Val dropped me off at home, I sat down to do something or read something but went to sleep instead.  I slept for 3 hours or so, and felt pretty good when I woke up.  BTW, I expected to find some sort of lube, but no, nothing.

The first "real B M" post scopey was a rare treat.  That's about all I'll say about that.  Yuck.  Luckily we were in Plainview at the time, so I got to share it with some dude that stuck his head in.  When I was washing afterwards, I saw a can of spray, so I hosed the place down.  Yep, dude, once I flush, my poo smells like potpourri.  I was worried that I'd have another opportunity to perform, but no, I got to take it home.  

The results were delivered via a email message, I wonder if she would have called if it had been bad news?  I hope so.

Take my advice:  pull down your pants and slide on the ice.

 

Culinary experiments

Culinary experiments for the day:

I had a very small buttercup squash and thought it'd be perfect to use the way that my friend Gracie suggested:  stuff it with a meatloaf and bake it.  And that's what I did.

I had bought a pkg of "ground turkey" which I can't imagine that it's ground at all....I'm certain that it's mechanically separated, which means it's pink slime...comes in a tube.  I cut it open, dump it into a bowl.  Into the bowl I added 2 eggs and some warm flat beer.  

I don't know why I added the beer.

I chopped up half an onion, 2 mushrooms, smashed some corn chips, dumped in some seasoned HyVee bread crumbs, seasoned with salt, pepper, and "Canadian chicken" spice blend.  

I also added a small red coloured pepper that Owen gave to me.  I cut off the top, scraped out the seeds, and chopped it up pretty small.  Since it was red I didn't worry too much about it, promptly forgot all about it.  

This Canadian chicken spice blend is the same as Montreal Chicken spice, just a different brand.  I got this at Sam's club because I'm a cheap bastard.

Somehow, before I went into the bathroom, I didn't get washed sufficiently, and found out how hot that pepper was going to be.  I didn't exactly have a burning sensation when I peed, it came later.  If you know what I mean.  

Of course, if I were truly cheap, I'd just use the salt and pepper and suffer with poorly seasoned food.

I washed the little squash, knocked off the stem, and sawed off the bottom of the thing.  Scoop out the seeds, spoon in the meatloaf mix.  To make sure that it didn't rot in the fridge, I dumped the rest into a loaf pan, baked the 2 side by side on a cookie sheet.  

The cookie sheet is actually the lid for a cake pan.

Sadly, since I don't make meatloaf often, I didn't put in quite enough salt.  Nor did I cook it long enough.  :(  Since the loaf pan was not much more than half full, I pulled it out after 40 minutes and turned the squash around just in case the oven has a hot/cold spot.  When it had cooled a bit, I sampled it.  Pretty good, needs more salt.  :(  OH well, easier to add salt than to take it away!

After an hour, I pulled it out, and let it cool a bit.  Put it into a bowl, and sat down to eat.  Couple bites in I see that it's not done.  3 minutes in the microwave took care of it and tested it with the thermometer to make sure.  

Next time?  I think I'd sprinkle a bit of salt in the squash to season it too.  I'd  sprinkle some bread crumbs over the top or corn flakes, something like that.  The loaf held together just fine; I was worried about it being too wet, actually.  I figgered it would not be greasy/oily since the turkey is so lean.

However.

Once I got done eating, scraping out all the squash from the skin...I was still hungry.  Luckily I had some ripe bananas and some apples...since it was time to go back to work, those are bus friendly and quite portable.

Speaking of bananas....

I had 4 of them that were almost too ripe for eating, I ate 2 of them over the course of the afternoon and thought about what to do with the other 2 before they rotted.  

Hmmmmmmwhat to do, what to do?  A banana dessert makes sense, Fogo du Chao makes one that Val loves, so I tried to find a recipe.  No luck, but I found a recipe for something similar.

Peel the bananas, slice.  Throw a chunk of butter into the skillet, coat the slices with brown sugar.  When the skillet is hot, put some in.  Cook until they have some color, turn down heat and flip.  The other side will cook much faster...when all slices are cooked, pour in some bourbon or brandy or cognac or rum; flambe off the alcohol, boil to reduce the sauce.  Pour over the slices or ice cream, or add whipped cream or put onto cereal or oatmeal or pancakes or waffles or french toasty.

Reggie wanted to know if it was Bananas Foster.  No, no it's not.  But is quite close.  And it was delicious!  

Been a busy day in the kitchen...hey, do you want to hear about my scope experience, learn about my medical problems???

Sleep Number bed

Sleep number bed, first impressions and delivery review.

Val went to the state fair and bought a sleep number bed.  Who does weird crap like that?  We do, I guess. What's my sleep number?  Dunno.  Yet.  I've never been in the store, like a lot of people do before buying the bed, and the store personnel suggest having AT LEAST an hour of time to dedicate to the bed buying experience.  

What kind of person wants to sell sleep number beds?  I should go to the store to find out.  Think about this...you will spend an hour or 2 with prospective bed buyers, and you will see them lying down for part of this time.   Gravity changes the appearance of some body parts.

I'm not sure how much it cost, and I'm pretty sure that I don't really want to know.  I do remember spending $1800 for the bed that we've been sleeping on for the last 10/12 years.  (maybe longer)  I recall it being delivered on Memorial Day buy one dude, (they said they'd send 2) so I had to help haul the damn thing up the stairs.  (Heavy)  After a few years of the bed frame sagging, we took the frame out from under the box spring/mattress and pretended we were hippies sleeping on the floor.  No, we didn't take drugs and have wild sex parties...we just pretended to be hippies.  BTW, removing the frame didn't really solve the sagging problem.  :(

I really enjoyed this bed, it was soft and warm in the winter, it was soft and warm in the summer, soft and warm in the spring, soft and warm in the fall.  I did not use copy/paste to do that, and I should have.  Yes, I'm a dumbass.

The Sleep number bed is f'ing cold.  Except when it's hot.  Ok, I'll admit that we have changed blankets at the same time, Val took the white comforter thingy off and put on the quilt her mom made for us last winter.  I'm going to put a fleece blanket under that quilt thing, see if it helps. There's been a couple mornings when I've awakened covered with sweat,  and all I was doing was sleeping.  Maybe I was fast asleep?  Whatever.

We've had it a week now, here's delivery:

Delivery guy called Val, said they'd arrive at 9:30, and assembly should take 46 minutes.  They showed up at 10, left at 11.  Bastards.  They did not introduce themselves, cursed the whole time they were carrying up the parts, complained about the smallness of the house, banging parts and pieces into the door frames, etc.  And when they brought down the old set, they did not install it correctly onto the frame...it overhangs the headboard mounts by several inches...so we'll get to take it apart to fix that.  Yay, more exercise.

When they were done assembling, I hear "uh, we're done up here".  I mutter: does that mean I'm supposed to come up and look at it?  He showed me every page of the book, and inflated both sides to 100.

100 is about as soft as asstroturf on concrete.  I was going to suggest that the asstroturf would be installed in the bed of a Chevy ElCamino, but there you have the hope of a rust hole or a soft spring....and yes, I know I misspelled astroturf.   It's more fun that way.

At bedtime, I found the remote and lowered the setting to 50, they recommend changing it by 5 or 10 at a time.  Screw that, at 50 its about as soft as a good hotel bed, one that I can sleep on w/o waking with a backache.  Dropped to 45, and left it for a while.  I've since lowered it to 40.  

My current problem is that I don't like to lie on the edge of the bed so that my arm falls off.  But if I don't, it's like I'm lying on the side of a hill, which sucks. I did that once camping at Lake Icolda, which is just north of Corning.  The tent didn't have a built in floor, it'd been raining a bit so the ground was kinda wet.  The sleeping bag, clever! had a nylon or vinyl bottom/cloth top so that you'd stay dry and clean, except that since the tent had no floor, and the nylon was slippery, I kept sliding half out of the damn tent, until I turned over so that the cloth was in the mud, then I stayed the rest of the night inside the leaning tent of Icolda.  Yes, I froze that entire time, I hated camping.  

I suppose camping can be fun if you have the right gear, plenty of clothes and you like that sort of thing.  I know, instead of that stupid gif you want a pic of Val in the bed...maybe next week.  

I find that when I'm alone in the bed, and I'm in the center of the ravine, my ass is split by the baffle between the bladders, which must be sort of like wearing a thong.  I'd get one and try it, but you know I'd then have to post a pic of my hairy ass in the thing, and I don't want you to have to bleach your eyes, so I'll skip that entire experiment.

You're welcome.

I can't imagine what it'd be like if one of us liked it set at 75 and the other at 40...it'd be like having a mesa and a canyon in the same 5' wide bed.  Could make for some interesting/painful/inventive/frustrating rumpy pumpy.  I will just imagine how that would be....with my knee sliding off the hard side onto the soft side, plunging to my near death experience, spraining/straining several somethings in the process.  That would be an interruptus moment, to say the least.

So, a week in, I can't yet tell you to go buy a sleep number bed.  We've got 3 weeks to keep trying it before we can't send it back, we may have to call customer support or visit the store, to see if the grand canyon can be mitigated.  Feel free to share your experiences, esp if you have a sleep number bed thingy.  What's your number??