As I’ve been reflecting upon the past week… there have been a lot of things that have gone on in those particular dates – July 3-July 10 – in my life.
I’ll start out by saying this July 3-4 were some of the best of my life. I got to meet my wonderful friend Quinn. I’m so happy I got to meet Quinn – she’s the kind of person I know I’ll have in my life until my life no longer exists. <3 in an unrelated thing, got to say yes to a question that undoubtedly has and will change(d) my life forever. (yay for happy cryptic messages.)
So.. here's the sad parts, and they are really rather personal and painful. So.. bear with me.
The most recent.. and rather, very painful.. was the passing of my cat Truman last year on the 9th. I was going to write a blog post about it, but this one will suffice. I still miss him so much. I cried and sobbed and had to bite back the sobs that wrack your body and soul when I was telling someone very special about him. I feel guilty because I haven’t been able to donate as much as I wanted to to the Veterinary Cancer Society. When I get a job, I will… or when I win Month at the Museum.
Further back a few years… 2004. It was I think 7.6 or 7.7.04. I went to see Lucky Boys Confusion in Myrtle Beach at the House of Blues. I then drove back to Wilmington, NC, where I lived, and headed to the airport to go pick up my cat Sheba.
Yes, you read that right; Bathsheba is from Las Vegas. She was rehomed with me because of a kind person donating their frequent flier miles so a rescuer could bring her to me (as I already had Furball at this point, and Nicky, and both were somewhat feral, another feral cat didn’t bother me, and it greatly helped the rescuer).
So I turned left into the airport, I saw a flash of light, and felt a sudden lurch and pain all around me, smelled smoke, and when I opened my eyes I’d spun 270 degrees and my car’s totalled. I got out, looked in hers, saw 3 kids under the age of 10, no car seats, her screaming for a lawyer, and I just walked over, sat on the curb and the grass on the side of the road out of the way and stared at my car. I remember someone asked if 911 was called, and someone talked to me. My parents called going “We have a weird feeling, are you okay?” and that made me start hurting everywhere and crying. Oh, man, did I hurt. I still feel that hurt some days.. snowstorms make my left leg almost impossible to stand on, for example.
So I ended up in an ambulance on the way to the hospital… laid there in the ER in a cold room for almost 2 hours, by myself, no one to check up on me.. couldn’t do anything.. apparently the accident made the news and the ensuing cleanup actually blocked off the airport road for 5 hours that night.. Later she tried to sue me for the $300,000 medical bills she accrued.. while the lawyer got me off the hook (as uh, sorry, it wasn’t my fault she blew a red light), he wasn’t able to get State Farm to pay my medical bills that were overdue, so until a couple years ago I was still repaying ~$15k that insurance didn’t cover. (It’s since been paid off.)
I had a CAT scan, tons of Xrays.. was sent home with a prescription for a painkiller that i was allergic to. For 2 days after the wreck I had no painkillers (I have a super high pain tolerance…. ) caught a cab to the motel where the rescue lady was staying at… the taxi driver was kind enough to help us get up to my apartment, turned off his meter while we got the cat settled, and didn’t charge her for the time. (we tipped him a lot). I also called him a couple of times so i could get prescriptions filled (again, two days after for painkillers). I still, to this day, have scars from the accident, which is why i won’t wear some clothing, I’m so self conscious about it. They remind me too much. (I have a scar on my hip that is from the seatbelt cutting through 5 layers of clothing). I had bruises for weeks. Even today, I have problems with my left achilles tendon locking up on me. I have a weird … thing, phenomenon… whatever you want to call it… with my collarbone that cracks and even after xrays we can’t figure it out. My neck is naturally weakened and my back (i have scoliosis) has even more issues because it didn’t really heal correctly after the accident. Stuff like that.
As not to completely dampen everyone’s spirits.. I remember two weeks afterwards loading up a rental car with my friend Echo and driving to Boston to pick up a friend Krissy from Norway and go follow Hanson and The Whatnot up and down the east coast a bit. This trip was planned long before I had my accident, and it was happening.. come hell, high water, or bruises from head to toe. Thankfully they were super flexible and the rental car company gave us a gorgeous car to drive… At least I wasn’t on crutches anymore (though it might have helped to fight off the teeny boppers). It was beautiful, and everything AND I MEAN EVERYTHING hurt, but it was so worth it. Also, rental car + driving in Manhattan = holy… never again thanks.
There’s a reason why I wear a seat belt, and why I require others to wear them in my car. That’s because wearing a seat belt was the reason I walked away from this accident. This is a 98 Cavalier and I hit a Caddy head on .. I was doing less than 20, she was doing 45.
I broke the head visor thing when I smacked it and ate the airbag.
this umbrella was in the trunk. when the back seat broke, it rocketed up into the passenger seat and bent the handle. (It’s an emily strange umbrella with cat ears. I’ll never find another one.)
I have pictures still of all my bruises and such, but meh.. no need to post them. These make me cry enough.
I know who was watching down on me that night. That’s a blog post that will never be written.
So, really.. is there an Ides in July?
To pedantically answer the question, there’s an ides of every month, though the date is dependent on the month (there’s also a nones and a kalends, too).
I’ve never seen these pictures, though I remember you talking a bit about the accident. I had no idea it was quite *this* traumatic!
And I’m terribly sorry to hear about Truman. I cannot even imagine what you must feel. If something were to happen to Carolina, I’d be shattered. Just shattered.
Here’s hoping that the rest of July isn’t a source of sad memories, but rather of joyous ones.
Thank you so much!! And I’m so happy to hear Carolina is still with us. She was always so cute and adorable. She must be older now though yes?
There are Ides of every month, on the 13th or the 15th. So the Ides would
Romans named days by counting from three marking days, the Kalends (1st), Nones (7th or 9th) and the Ides.
So the third would be ‘two days past the Kalends of July” and so forth.
My month that has lots of events in it is April.
That’s fascinating. Maybe I should take that class on Roman History…. Thank you so much for the information. I somewhat feel ashamed as someone who is a history major, that I didn’t know that.
Almost!–the Romans counted in days *before*, not days after, calendar events. Even more confusing, they included the days they were counting towards.
So, for example, in March, the ides falls on the fifteenth. The thirteenth of march therefore is III ides Mart.: three days before the ides of March, including the day of the ides itself.
Lastly, there is not really a II ides or a II nones–the day that fell before an ides, kalends, or nones was a Pridie. i.e. 14 March is Pridie Mart.
So in the space of one of our months, the kalends would fall, then they would start counting towards the nones, then they would count toward the ides, and then towards the kalends of the next month, ending on the pridie of the kalends.
wow, a lot happens to you in Julys! First off, I’m sorry about Truman. He’s such a handsome cat, reminds me of my cat Bertie, who’s been missing for a few years. We refuse to believe he’s gone though, he just went away to model!
http://www.kittywigs.com/pink.html
Also, as you can imagine, I’m with you on the seat belt thing. Only reason I’m here too. I have a few scars, some are still healing so I understand the not wanting to wear certain clothes. And that taxi driver was very kind.
Here’s also hoping that July has some happier memories too for you!