I don't know if you've GERD, but yesterday I had an endoscopy. Did you like that? Little medical procedure humor.
Ned and I got there at 10:30, which is inhuman. Why do they have to do these things so early in the morning? I am sorry to tell you that we were seated directly under the television, where they were showing Kathy Lee and Hoda, which, as someone with a job all the time, I've never had the good fortune to see.
Holy shit those two were a pain in my ass. They talked over each other constantly, which I guess is supposed to make you feel all, Oh, it's just us girls! Which as you know is my favorite emotion. Those heifers each had a glass of damn wine on their desk, at 10:30 in the morning, or maybe it was 11:00, and I don't know when I became your disapproving aunt with pursed lips, but I was appalled.
Finally, they called me in, and I put on another sexy blue gown with scratches on it. It's made from scratch. You're welcome.
The guy next to me was having a colonoscopy, and they asked him seven hundred and fourteen questions (who admits to using street drugs? That guy didn't, and neither did I, even though you've heard a hundred times how I like the Ecstacy. The X.)
Is it even spelled X? Or is it ecs or something? Why am I doubting that it's "ecs"? I am so street. Just like my drugs.
Anyway, they came in and asked me all the same questions, and that guy and I both take Imitrex, and this would have been a whole, romantic, "I met my soulmate at the surgery center" story except the guy looked like Big Bird, plus if he doesn't take ecs, he's no friend of mine.
They put in an IV, which was disgusting. I hate vein-related things. They took my blood pressure, which was negative two over 15. Then the nurse or coat check girl or whatever she was said, "Do you want your phone? You might have to wait a bit."
"No, thank you," I said to her. "I can be alone with my thoughts."
She laughed at that, then pulled the curtain and walked away.
All I could think of was my IV, and veins, and how I was so vein, and the procedure they were about to do, and Propofol, and Michael Jackson, and it turns out I cannot be alone with my thoughts for one moment.
Finally, they wheeled me into the room, and I love lying there while someone pushes you into another room. I was born to be a queen or an empress or a roast or something, because I love arriving all splayed out. I met the nice anesthesiologist, and we talked about front porches, and then it was time for my Propo--
Holy cats. Then it was over. I opened my eyes, and there was Ned's cute head right in front of me. Ned told me my eyes had been open when he walked in, but I was a stuffed bear when he walked in, then, because the first thing I recall is seeing Ned.
"I love you so much, Ned!" I burst into tears. Dear Propofol, Cut it out. You're making me lose my edge, man. My hard edge.
I know the doctor came in to say how unremarkable it all was in my throat, and does he not know I'm an empress? He said I probably have a muscle spasm thing making it hard to swallow, and it's POSSIBLE if I keep treating the GERD it will get better.
Does this mean it's possible it WON'T? Because, suck.
The nurse or the doctor gave Ned a list of what I couldn't eat yesterday, and I lolled on the bed like Otis the town drunk, and then it was time to go and it seems like we went home and slept but who can remember, and oh! I forgot to tell you I had some nausea. NAUSEA. You know I enjoy feeling nauseated, along with the rest of the country, but IT'S MY PHOBIA.
We told the nurse and she said, "You probably just need to release a little gas."
Well.
Humph!
I don't HAVE gas. As we all know, I never have gas. But finally, I did feel some, you know, breeze going on, and I frittered to the top of the ceiling in a zigzag pattern, and then I could go home.
My point is, eventually we had to go catsit at my old house.
I love My Tenant's cats. I know this comes as a surprise to you.
"Oh my god, now I'm STARVING," I announced, and it was decided we'd go to the grocery store, since I couldn't have anything fatty or fried or that was a vegetable. A vegetable. Pfft. "What are we getting?" asked Ned, who always needs to know everything. "What do you want to do tonight?" he'll ask, and I'll say something, and then I SWEAR TO GOD he'll ask, "What about after that?"
He asked me 400 times before we got there, and once we got inside, he said, "What are we getting?"
"Oh my GOD, Ned, I don't KNOW. I'm going to look around. Geez."
"Why are you so crabby?" he asked.
I traipsed through produce. "You can't have that. You can't have that, either. She said no tomatoes. That has seeds. I really think you shouldn't have seeds. Too fatty. No, that has dairy."
"SHUT UP, NED." I threw a giant fried chicken soaked in yogurt and seeds, with stewed tomatoes, into my cart. I mean, really, everything I reached for, Ned said I couldn't have. I think he would have approved of me sucking a lime and chewing a stick of gum.
And the point is, I felt fine. I got strawberries (SEEDS!!!), blueberries, some pistachios ("I don't think you're supposed to have nuts.") and some soup ("That soup has vegetables in it, June.")
Does anyone remember a few hours back, when Propofol made me love Ned? Other than that annoying 20 minutes, Ned is an excellent nurse. He brings you things, and checks on you, and he even sat through a really terrible movie with me. It has Ryan Reynolds in it. Enough said.
So, I lived, and that will be $5748484, please. Finally, I wanted to show you how just now, NedKitty is bird-watching out one window of Ned's room, while Lily was bird-watching out the other, but as soon as I went in there, Lily did this:
Goddammit. And Ned always vacuums that rug on Saturdays. I KNOW IT HAS FUR ON IT, OKAY? Whatdaya expect in this house of hair?
In fact, as I was convalescing yesterday at the surgery center, waiting for gas to pass, I pulled a cat fur off my blue scratch gown.
"How is there cat fur on this gown?" I asked Ned.
"It's inevitable. When we bury you in your final resting place, a big poof of cat fur will burst up."
He's right about that.
Throatily,
Empress June