Synthetic Pot Part II

I'm doing this in two parts so that someone who does not want to wade through the detail of the "backstory" doesn't have to...

So, now we're into 2012.  June 24th...and I know I talked about this in an earlier post, but this was before I knew about the synthetic pot. Here's what I wrote in July of 2012, which tells the story while fresh in my mind...

We were sitting at the dinner table, just having finished dinner.  I asked Mark to pass me a tissue - they were on his side of the table.  He reached out, his hand hovering over the table, nowhere near the tissue box.  He seemed confused, picked up an empty plastic grocery bag and handed it to me.  I said, "Mark, that's not a tissue!  They're right THERE!" and I pointed.  I thought he was messing with me.  His hand hovered over the table once more and he picked up a movie CD that we'd gotten in the mail a few days earlier and handed it to me.  Now I was really concerned.  "MARK!"  I said, "The tissues are right there, RIGHT THERE!!!" and I put my hand on the box.  I said, "Something is WRONG!  Something is VERY VERY WRONG, Mark!"  He pooh-poohed me and said something silly, like all tissue boxes were different, then saying, well, no he knew that wasn't true.  Then he got up and said, "I'm going to check my e-mail."  I continued to tell him something was wrong and he could be having a stroke - I should take him to the hospital.  (We live just a few blocks from the UNMC Med Center...)  He couldn't figure out how to get into his e-mail, something he's done a million times before.  I was SO concerned, I told him I would call an ambulance and he said, "If you do, I won't go - THERE'S NOTHING WRONG WITH ME!!"  He thought I'd lost my mind, seriously!  He said he was going to see his friend, Scott, and I started to cry.  Now if you know me, you know this is NOT something I do.  Ok, granted, since I've been in menopause, little things will make me teary-eyed, but I was all but hysterical, which is NOT me.  He really thought I'd lost it and said he was fine, "I'm going to see Scott."  Through my objections, he left.  I knew, I KNEW something bad was going to happen.  

I jumped in my car and went to my Mom's - a couple blocks away - and told her the whole story.  I was so scared.  Mark called my cell, I answered, and he said, "Where was I going?"  "WHAT?  MARK!!!!!!" I yelled.  He laughed and said, "I'm just kidding!  Quit worrying!"  I said, "Call me when you get to Scott's, ok?"  He agreed.  So I waited at my Mom's to hear that he'd arrived at Scott's - and waited, and waited.  I tried calling him.  No answer.  Tried again.  No answer.  I don't know Scott's number (or even his last name) so couldn't call him.  I went home and Mom & I agreed if we didn't hear anything within an hour, we'd go looking for him.

At about 8:35, I got a call from the hospital.  He'd been in an accident and that was all they would tell me on the phone.  He was at the Med Center.  We rushed up there and here's what happened in a nutshell...

Within 20 minutes or so of leaving the house, he ran a red light, hit another car hard enough to roll it on its side.  The driver, a young lady, was with her son - she had minor injuries (I heard she hurt her hand) and her son was pretty much uninjured.  (THANK GOD!)  Mark got out of his truck, apparently looked in the car, everyone at the scene thought he was drunk (he was acting weird), he got back in his truck and drove away.  Apparently, he got a couple blocks away and his tire went flat, and by the time he pulled over and got out of his truck, the cops were pulling up.  The cops said he seemed somewhat coherent at first, and he does remember them asking him if he had been drinking or if he was high, but then he went into a full-blown grand mal seizure, which lasted a half hour!  

He wasn't really injured at all in the accident, yet he was in ICU for 4 days, and in the hospital a total of 9 days. Looking at the faces on the nurses the first few days, I was convinced that I was going to be a widow soon.  They could not figure out what caused the seizure (apparently they never know in about 50% of the cases...), and they see evidence that he also had a mild heart attack (I'm thinking most likely due to the stress on his body of a 30 minute seizure!!!)  They did about a bazillion tests, which will probably bankrupt us, found nothing conclusive.

He was released on 7/3, put on all new BP meds, cholesterol lowering meds (in spite of having a cholestrol number of 111!), and anti-seizure meds.  And the state automatically suspended his license for 3 months.  AND he has to appear in court for the accident, running a red light, and leaving the scene of the accident.  WHAT A FUCKING MESS!!  (Pardon my French...)  

And now I'm going to stop thinking about it.  Every time I let my mind go there, I get the fluttery stomach, the sweaty palms... thinking about how this mess could ruin us financially, just when we were pulling out of our 3 year financial funk.  We're actually talking about getting divorced so that it can all fall on him - why?  Because how will I stay in business if this ruins my credit?  Then what??? 

As you can tell, it was probably the most horrible time of my life.  Well, come to find out that when things were SO bad, Mark had been using this synthetic pot because it's super-cheap.  It took him some time to admit it to me, but when I found out, I started doing some research and found all kinds of stories about it causing all kinds of health issues, up to and including death.  Even 4 months after his seizure, back to driving, he called me one night because he was lost (here, in the city he's lived in all his life) - he couldn't find his way home.  It was probably nearly a year before he was back to his old self, and even now, there are personality differences.  I don't think life will ever be the same.  All because he needed that high.  I don't really blame him, because they market that crap to sound completely harmless.  

But please... if you're reading this as a parent, warn your child.  If you're a young person smart enough to research something before you try it, DON'T!!  It's not worth it.  Have a couple beers.  Go buy some real pot.  Or better yet, do neither and find another way to feel good.  Hug a dog, pet a cat, talk to your best friend, whatever.  But just don't do this shit.  It could change your life forever, or worse, take your life...

Synthetic Pot

I'm going to tell this story in hopes that it will perhaps convince someone NOT to try this shit!  This is a long time coming...

I have to go back just a bit for some "back story" so those who know me understand... at least a little.  I met Mark in 1985 and I knew he was the rebel-type.  I knew going into this that he likes to smoke pot.  In all honesty, I really don't have a problem with it.  I don't agree with it being illegal - I don't think it's any more of a "gateway" drug than alcohol.  Therefore, if it should be illegal, so should alcohol.  That's my opinion.  And I'd rather hang out with a pot smoker than a drinker.  I mean, who ever heard of someone smoking a doobie and going out and "kicking some ass"??  Pot smokers are laid back, easy going cookie-eaters!  LOL! But... I don't do it.  I have never been a smoker and I never will be.  Not that I haven't tried it myself - but it just makes me feel like I have an elephant sitting on my chest and that's not particularly appealing to me.  So just give me a freakin' margarita, and smoke your weed and shut up!  LOL!

Anyway, fast forward to 2007...  And here's some real fast-forwarding. Mark lost his leg due to circulation issues related to smoking.  Got a prosthetic leg in mid-2007, but amazingly enough went back to work in the fall of 2007.  He's a sheet metal worker, which entails some ladder work, typically, but this job he got hired on was work off a lift, so that wasn't an issue.  The job went on for almost 2 years until summer of 2009, then it came to the last bit of the job, which DID have some ladder work, and Mark was laid off with others.  This was about the time that the economy here went to shit...

So we went through 2009...2010...unemployment ran out.  There were more union guys on the bench than working (many more, from what I found out...) and it seemed unlikely that Mark would find work, since it had to be jobs with little or no ladder work. After all, as an amputee, putting him on a ladder was almost like asking for an OSHA investigation!  He applied for non-union jobs.  Again, the prosthetic leg was a deterrent, I'm sure.  So he applied for disability.  Denied.  Applied again.  Denied.  And we hired a lawyer in 2011...

In the meantime, things were not great at my work, too, because of the economy.  Of course, I'm self employed, so little work = little pay.  And things were bad.  Our savings, which I had so diligently compiled over 20 years, was going away very fast.  I'm a master of living cheap, but I feared that our savings would run out and we would lose it all - the house I so loved and we'd been in for nearly a quarter century...  The times were tough, but we were surviving.  But, looking back, I realize Mark's ego must have been utterly crushed.  He wasn't "the man" anymore.  He wasn't contributing ANYthing, and he was having to rely on me for every minutia of his life. He had to feel totally emasculated.  And worst of all, he could not afford to buy pot to at least ease the pain... (Mark isn't a drinker, and from what I've heard about before I knew him, I don't ever want him to be a drinker!!) 

More in the next segment...

It's certainly been awhile since I posted!!  We've had a crazy summer at work.  July was slow, but we got into August, and I've been running my ass off ever since!!  And boy have we been making...MONEY

Let's just say it's been a GOOD year!  Big jobs, many jobs, good bars.  The universe is treating us well, for sure.  I'll have to expand on this in the future, as I don't feel I can do so right now...

But what I can do is talk about Mom.  In early or mid-September, she started talking about wanting to do lunches.  Wow, really MOM???  She has been (what we call) "semi-retired" for a few years.  She spent a couple years training Amanda to cook EXACTLY as she does (since our food is what we are most famous for...) and Amanda does a pretty dang good job.  And in the last couple years, she mostly comes in on Tuesdays and does cleanup from the weekend, puts together an order for our food supplier, and resets the buffet for the next job, goes to Sam's on Thursdays, and makes an appearance on the day of our reception, going home early.  "Semi" retired...  But I guess after so long, she was getting an "itch" for something more.  Lunches, REALLY???  But I was excited that SHE was excited about something.  I especially don't want her sitting around and thinking about Wes's last days.  And I'm sure HE doesn't, either, which is probably where this inspiration came from. 

So we've been experimenting with it.  We've been open now for a month, testing lunches.  She did this back in... oh, I'm gonna say 1988, over in the industrial area of Omaha, about 89th & J, where she had a half a bay, a kitchen for her "out" catering.  It was successful...  Well, it has not been here.  I think there is too much competition over here.  Where she was before, there were only a couple close places one could go for lunch - a Wendy's and some other not-so-fast restaurant.  Over here, we have...Taco Bell, Fazoli's, Wendy's, McDonald's, a plethura of Oriental restaurants, Runza and Burger King are only a hop-skip-and-jump away.  That's not even to mention IHOP, Applebee's, Chili's... Of course, our food is more like home cookin', so once they try it, they seem to love it.  But getting them in... it's been tough.  We're losin' our asses, let's just say it!  If it would take off, it would be a good little money maker through the slow months.  But the way it's going, it will only be a drain on our finances.  I wish I had some magic solution...

November 2013:  not ONE job.  November 2014:  5 jobs plus Lion's.  Wowwww, what's up with that?  Like I said...2014 has been a stellar year!!  I think Wes must be watching out for us and sending us jobs.  Love you, brother!  I know you know how much we want to... well, put Mom is a very comfortable financial position.  And I think you're lookin' after your ol' sis, too, huh?  You rock and I love ya!

I miss you so damn much.  I know you're here, hangin' with us.  There for all the special moments, for all the everyday moments.  I talk to you so much, in the car especially. And I know you hear me.  I see the signs.  I feel you.  And I know we are as simpatico as we were while you were here, but I have to admit... I miss your voice, seeing you, hugging you.  Oh, how I wish I had hugged you more!  You are my sunshine!...

Ok, so on to plant STUFF...  It's been a great fall.  I actually still have some plants outside - a couple Jades and a few others.  I'm pretty much out of space inside.  I've sold several of the larger Hoyas I've had for sale (thankfully).  But here's an interesting one:  about 6 or so weeks ago, I was looking over my Dischidia nummularia and saw these odd things I'd never seen before...

 

Of course, I figured out they were seed horns, but I'd never seen any quite like these!  A few weeks later, when I brought it in, here's what I found...

  Seed "fluff"!  Of course, I can't grow from seed worth a dang, but I thought it was still pretty exciting to get seed.  My Dischidia pectinoides actually bloomed!!...

 I couldn't believe my eyes!  I've grown this one I don't know how many times and always lost it.  This time seems to be the charm - it's done well for me and now that it's even bloomed, I have a little more confidence.

Well, that's about it for now.  I'll get back at this when we have another lull at work!