Damn, I'm old.

Well, not really old, buy I sure feel like it sometimes. Remember when I fainted a couple of months ago? Well, I fainted again this past weekend. I don't know what it's about, but they took a CAT scan this time and they didn't see anything. I asked if I could see the scan, but they wouldn't let me. Does that suck or what? The nurse was like, it looks like a brain. And I was like, but it's my brain and I want visual confirmation that my brain is as phenomenal as I think it is. It's a long story, but here goes:

Saturday morning, after waking up from having fallen asleep on the couch while watching TV Friday night after getting back home from the hospital gala (which I'll talk about a little later), I turned to get up and go to the bathroom. When I stood up, my sprained ankle buckled under me and I collapsed to the floor in pain. My husband and daughter heard the booming crash and came down to see what had happened. I laid there for about a minute because I didn't want them to touch me because my ankle hurt like a mo' fo', once again. Anyway, once the pain subsided enough where I could bear the thought of anyone touching me, my husband helped me back up to the couch, where I sat for about a minute waiting for the pain to go away enough for me to get up and actually go to the bathroom. As I sitting there, I noticed that it looked like starbursts where flashing in my eyes, which I thought was weird, but I wasn't really concerned. Then I told my husband to help me up so I could walk to the bathroom. As we were walking, it seemed like my left ear was blocked up and I couldn't hear out of it. I mentioned this to my husband and we hobbled to the bathroom. When we got there, I sat on the toilet and felt like the room was spinning around and I started feeling nauseated. I thought I was going to throw up while I was on the toilet and I told my husband that something was wrong with me. Then I finished going to the bathroom and I stood up and turned to try and flush the toilet and I remember reaching out to push the handle, but missed and then the next thing I know, I'm waking up on the floor staring up at the ceiling while my husband is on the phone to 911 and my daughter is sitting by my head playing her Gameboy.

So the paramedics get there and they take my blood pressure, which is fine and ask me questions and I notice they have their shoes on. I tell them I normally make people take their shoes off when they come into my house, but I'll make an exception in their case. Anyway, they ask if I want to go to the emergency room and my husband says yes. So they load me on the stretcher and I see the flashing lights outside of my house and I think, "Great, they've got the lights flashing and everything. Just what I need." I ask why an ambulance and a fire truck have to come just for a fainting spell and they tell me because they don't know what to expect when they get to a scene so they need to be prepared and I say, "Oh, you mean like if I was 500 lbs. and you needed to lift me up?" And they said, "Yeah, something like that."

I really didn't want to go to the emergency room because I didn't want to have to pay for the ambulance, or the emergency room for that matter. I told the paramedic in the ambulance on the way to the hospital to ask me any question and if I got it right, then they wouldn't charge me for the ambulance ride. He asked me how much does it cost to ride the ambulance and I said $100, but actually I just remembered hearing on the news that they'd just raised the cost, but I didn't know what it was. Then he told me he didn't know what they charged. So I guess that means I don't get the free ride.

Anyway, once we get to the hospital, they do some tests and about three hours later tell me I can go home. Nobody knows why I fainted this time either. The emergency room staff told me they'd send the results to my doctor and she can decide where to go from there. Anyway, I don't know if I want to bother calling her to find out if she gets the information because it's always such a hassle trying to fit doctor visits into the day. We'll see, I guess.

As for the gala, it was OK. The meal was alright, not fantastic. The people at our table were OK, but it was interesting to see the big fish in a small pond at work. They all sat there just getting drunk. Well, the women did. My husband managed to engage the other men at the table by commenting on the excellent flatbread offered in the bread basket. This spawned endless conversation on the merits of onions.

"Boy, nothing beats the taste of a nice, thick slab of onion on some nice tomato," one of the men commented.

I smiled and nodded. That is good information to have.

Now there was some attempt by the caterer to "jazz" up the meal by offering us something a little uncommon. We had a baked chicken breast with small summer squash, a root vegetable compote, and mashed potatoes with eggplant. I mean, it's really just a normal, stick-to-your-ribs kind of Amerian meal, with just a couple of small twists. Well, to listen to these people at the table, you would have thought they were trying to slip them sheep eyeballs or something.

"There's eggplant in the potatoes," one woman commented while grimacing at the thought. This particular woman also spent a good deal of time talking about how great things were in Florida, from where they had just returned after a week of vacation. This particular woman also spent a great deal of time looking like she had a poker shoved up her ass.

One of the other women asked me," What would be in a root vegetable compote?" I answered, I'm thinking they'll probably have beets, parsnips, turnips, you know, root vegetables. Being half-Korean, I'm probably used to eating more "exotic" fare than the average American, but I'm always astounded when I encounter what is averagely American. And, boy, do I encounter a lot of it here in the Midwest.