February 12-15, 2014

Last year was a rather eventful Valentine's Day. In addition to the day itself, I'm going to remember the two days before it and the day after.

Wednesday, February 12. My ward had rented out the BYU bowling alley for a dating activity. All the guys in the ward had donated ties, and the girls had randomly picked a tie, and that was how we were paired up. I had told my date, Deanna, that I was going to be late because I had a class that went late, but the class got out early. I met her at the bowling alley, and we teamed up with one of her roommates and her date. Deanna was a Latin major, so she gave me a Latin-esque name on the bowling screen. My roommate Scott had brought some cupcakes, but I didn't know if they were to share. Someone was going to have some, and I told them they should ask Scott, so I think they decided just not to have them. Since I hadn't been able to take Deanna to dinner (like we were supposed to do), I took her up to the Sugar and Spice (actually, I think it had changed its name) to get ice cream. While Deanna was picking her ice cream, another worker was wrapping the cakes, since it was almost closing time. I said, "Can I have a piece of that cake before you wrap it?" It was a festive red, pink, and white cake, which meant I could eat it. Deanna and I sat at a table and had a conversation. She told me she had worked in the Cougareat, so she knew that they were going to close Teriyaki Stix and bring back the Tomassito's which had been replaced by Chik-Fil-A. Deanna asked me if I was the one who only ate seasonal treats. She quibbled about me not eating pumpkin pie at Christmas because Christmas songs talk about it. I told her that "There's No Place Like Home for the Holidays" talked about pumpkin pie, but it didn't mention Christmas, and Wikipedia listed it as a Thanksgiving song. But then she said, "But 'Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree' talks about pumpkin pie." We talked about her plans for teaching history and Latin.

Thursday, February 13. It's possible that this was the day when I was watching A Charlie Brown Valentine, and Scott told me that he had watched part of the 1970s Charlie Brown special while making cupcakes with his date, and he was surprised to see "2002" when he looked at my Charlie Brown Valentine DVDs.

Friday, February 14. In the morning I had to take a French test. I was wearing my Valentine t-shirt and my Valentine socks and my red Vans. After the test, I went to work; and after work, I went to the French lab session; and then I went home. The One Stop office was giving out Valentine cookies near the Wilk, so of course I got one, but they said we had to post on Facebook saying we got one. Being a terrible person, I didn't, which was a little ungrateful. As I was walking home, I saw my roommate Jordan's girlfriend at the time, Laura, but I didn't say hi because she was going a different way. I needed to tie my shoe, so I put my foot up on a stair rail, and a guy told me he thought I was going to slide down the rail. I drove home, and when I got home, my mom told me my dad was home watching a movie. "It's been kind of a rough day," she said, and she told me that he had fainted at work. My sister had gone with him to the emergency room. I asked my mom if she had gotten candy that I could eat. She said I could have any of it, except there was a box of Palmer chocolates that she had given to Allie. I looked up at the candy, and I found a box of chocolates--I had one that was an orange creme, which was a little disappointing. Then I had another one, which was orange again! I later learned that that was the box my mom had given to Allie, but she was wrong about it being Palmer chocolate. Then we went to go get pizza from Papa Murphy's--we got a heart-shaped one and a stuffed one. While we were driving there, my mom asked if I wanted to go get Free Birds on DVD, but I said I wanted to wait until it got closer to Thanksgiving in case it was released in 3D. (It wasn't.) I think we had a conversation expressing our disdain at the legalization of marijuana in Colorado. I waited in the car while my mom got the pizzas, and I was disappointed when she came out with a bottle of soda. While one of the pizzas was cooking, I talked to my mom while she was cleaning the bathroom. Then we had the intention of going downstairs to eat pizza and watch Be My Valentine, Charlie Brown. When my mom was on the last step, she yelled and said "It's broken!" She sat down on the step and my dad came out of the room where he had been watching TV. "Call an ambulance!" she said. I didn't know what to do, so I said, "Should I call 911?" In all my haste, I wasn't thinking straight. I shouldn't have used my cell phone, and for some reason I stepped outside while I was making the call. The dispatcher first asked where the emergency was. When she asked how old my mom was, I said "56," even though she was 57. The dispatcher asked if she was talking, and I went back inside to make sure she was. The dispatcher asked if she was bleeding, and she was, which I hadn't realized. The dispatcher asked me to turn on lights outside, and then the call was ended. My mom asked for the phone so she could call someone in her Primary presidency, since she wouldn't be at church. I was a little surprised that with all the things going on, that's the first thing she felt she needed to do. She asked me to call Susanne and tell her what happened. I did so, and she said she would come. During all this, I tried really hard not to get near my mom's leg, and I could see that her foot was not at the correct angle. The paramedics arrived, and as they did, one Jay Ertmann came in and said, "Oh Ann, I'm so sorry." Susanne arrived soon thereafter. She wanted to take a picture of my mom's foot before the paramedics stabilized it and wrapped it all up. The medics hadn't noticed I was in the room, and Susanne said I could help when it was time to take my mom up the stairs. Once her leg was wrapped up, she could scoot around easily. The medics lifted her up and instructed me to put the seat under her. Then they were able to transfer her up the stairs. They wanted my dad and I to help with the gurney. I remember my mom apologizing to them for making them do that on Valentine's Day, and they said that it was the first day for one of them. Susanne asked me to watch over my dad and to clean up the blood, so I Googled how to do that. I picked up the pizza, but it wasn't too messy because it was stuffed and didn't really have toppings. Google told me to blot, not to rub, when cleaning the blood, and I realized I had done it wrong. I found the sock they had cut off my mom, which was full of curdling blood, so I took it outside and threw it away. It was a little hard to see all the blood, and just as I thought I had it all cleaned up, I noted another patch of blood. Just as I noticed it, my dad pointed it out. He said he felt really sad about that happening. He went to bed, and I announced the event on Facebook and wrote a blog post about it. While I was on the computer, my mom called and told me she was going into surgery and said, "I really am fine." I was a little confused at first because she sounded like Sue. I went down and watched Be My Valentine, Charlie Brown, which I had intended to watch hours earlier.

Saturday, February 15. My dad didn't seem overly anxious to go to the hospital, so in the morning I lifted weights downstairs while listening to Cherie Call's inferior Taken album. I also put out some pot of gold decorations, and I put some leftover Valentine chocolates in gold wrappers in the biggest pot. I also had to send some emails to make sure other people would take over for me at church. We drove out to the hospital, and my dad said he felt bad because he didn't realize Susanne had been there all day. Mom was on oxygen and sounded like a smoker. Eventually, she was ready to go to sleep, so we went home. I had to deliver something to one of her Primary counselors, and then I went to Arby's because I wanted to get their mint shake. I got something for my dad as well. I was listening to Imagine Dragons in the car. I brought the food home, and we ate it while watching the Olympics.