Lila's Locale

Time to plan your attack for Black Friday!

This website is amazing: http://www.blackfriday.info

I’m thinking Kohls, Bestbuy, Sears.

I’m looking for bras (really, what the hell do I do to mine?) cold weather clothes, guy clothes, luggage and jewelry.

What are you looking for?

Sick cousin Projectile Vomiting.

Sick cousin finally convinced of the fact that she is not going to be able to go to class Mon, Tues, Wed. (I figured WHEN WE WERE IN THE ER that she shouldn’t go to class this week.)

So sick cousin was driven back to college (60 miles), bags were packed, then cousin was driven to random small regional airport (her thanksgiving ticket was booked out of there and I was able to move it to today for $10-love Southwest,) and after advising her to not vomit on the plane, my cousin was up up and away, off to be my Aunts problem. I returned home (80 miles).

Whew. I love the kid and felt so bad for her, she felt so shitty, but my maternal instincts haven’t come in yet, and after the third round of cleaning my bathroom, while suppressing my own gag reflex, I was thinking my aunt could have stopped with one child.

Yesterday at 6:30pm, as I was packing up the last conference supplies to be shipped back to my office and day dreaming about taking off my suit and heels, my phone starts vibrating. Mom. Figuring it’s her asking about how the event went I ignore. Until I get this text: “Answer. It’s 911.”

Awww shit.

Turns out my  cousin, who goes to college about 60 miles from LA, had just been rushed to the Emergency Room. I was the closest person to her. I call the valet to bring my car, go into high speed to get everything done, and then race out. The racing ended as I pulled out into 6:30 on Friday Downtown LA traffic, but off I went. Home was the opposite way from her, so I head directly to her, still in my suit and heels.

2 Hours later (grimace) I arrive at the hospital, after having nearly crashed 1000 times because I was following directions using the gps on my phone and had to keep looking at it, and go rushing into the Emergency Room just as my cousin gets back from a CAT scan. I wait with her, demand they give her more pain meds, take away her cell phone so she’ll stop texting her bf, and then, when the Doctor comes in to explain what’s wrong, I whip out a pad and start making notes and lists.

My cousin is 19 and she has kidney stones. ?????

We’re out of the hospital by 10:30 and go on a trek looking for the 24 hour pharmacy. We hit 3 places before we arrive at the CVS we were supposed to be at (there were a freakish number of CVSs) and wait 45 min for them to INPUT her prescription. She’d never been there before and the system didn’t want to give her the massive amount of vicadin she’d been prescribed. After we get that turned in we have to wait an hour, so we try to get food, but the instant we sit down she gets miserably sick, so we pack up our food and go out to the car where it is dark and quiet to wait.

On a selfish note she felt better soon after and I let her eat her CPK in the car. No one eats in my car. It’s new, it’s perfect, it was my quarter life crisis present to myself. Now the interior smells like BBQ chicken pizza.

Anyway. By 11:30 we have her meds and we head back to her apartment, grab some clothes, and head for my apartment. She was in no shape to stay locked in her dorm room, where she can’t get anywhere and there is no one to help her, so I brought her back with me.

We’re driving by midnight and I am freebasing diet coke to stay awake. We had to stop along the way because the motion of the car was making her sick. Each time we had to stop I almost wept.

By 2 we’re at my place. My bed calls to me but first I get her set up, practically force her to drink a whole bottle of water, and make sure she’s okay. She’s okay, but she wants to talk, she’s feeling better, and instead of being sleepy like a normal person on heavy painkillers, she’s acting like they gave her speed. Resigned I sit down on the loveseat and talk to her until she falls asleep. It’s 3:30. By the time get out of my suit and heels (I heard choirs of angels) and into bed it’s 4am and I’d been awake 24 hours.

I hope everyone else had calm, peaceful Friday nights.

Lila