Swimming...Things I love...use to love.

"Swimming always cleans your soul"                                                  
                                        Peter Carey


"Swimming isn't for wimps"
                              Sue Cook

Try number one!

Whoopee summer is here...oh shit summers here.  Yes summer is here and the pool is ready. Well sort of. Last year I could walk down the steps to the pool hanging on to the $1,000 rail we had installed.  (Except for the fall from the top with a full glass of wine that flew. (Still pisses me off I lost a whole glass of wine, read prior post from a while back).  Well this year I can't walk at all (part of the perks of having the Shit Ass Disease) so totally in a wheelchair the $1,000 rail is longer a help in fact a hindrance.  So step number one remove $1,000 rail. 

The normal person would get a pool lift and be done with it.  Noooooooooooo not my husband, he decided a pool wheelchair would be a much better option... and a couple grand cheaper, nothing but the best for me.  Now that would be great if you didn't have to go down 4 steps to get to the pool, then there is the 4 steps down into the pool.  Oh by the way the first step is to small for the wheels on the wheelchair so I have to be dropped to the second step,  Well he built a ramp that he (in theory) was going to push me in and the wheelchair would go ever so slowly down the ramp and I could float away, like an angel in slow motion and enjoy a little swim.  Well in reality...I flew down the ramp at I'm guessing 150 miles per hour, landed face first and flopped around like a freshly caught fish. Don't worry I finally got control of myself and after spitting ten gallons of water had a decent swim.

Results of try number one!

Now will my husband give up?  No way Jose!  This afternoon he tried it again without the ramp! Yeah I love being a trail monkey!  He put cinder blocks to help balance the steps (refer to above photo), you heard me right fucking cinder blocks.  Nothing but the best for me again!  Guess he figures after paying a $1,000 for a four foot rail that had to be removed, he will just stick to the simple things in life like cinder blocks.  Well we tried this for about ten minutes, flopping me in and yanking me out, until he finally decided this was not going to work. See above photo.

Ha ha!

I almost drowned being a trail monkey so I guess we will have to try #3 on how to get me out of the pool.  I told my husband  if the cinder blocks didn't work he could always get some 2 x 4's and put a stereo on them, or even keep empty beer cans! I can see it now, a water wheelchair and stacked empty beer cans!!  Well they didn't work. So if I want to  get out of the pool at this point I am shit out of luck!  Now he is going to pour some concrete, make his own cinder block that has an angle, Well shoot girl if this doesn't work than the angle will defiantly screw up my 2 x 4 for the stereo and beer cans, or at least the beer cans can get in and out of the pool.

The perks just never end with the Shit Ass Disease!  We discovered getting in the pool with the wheelchair wasn't the problem at all, it's just getting me out. He finally discovered that if one person gets in the pool and lifts from the bottom while the other person pulls from the handle bars on the wheelchair (grunt, grunt) they can get me out.  Again nothing but the best for me.  This works sufficient IF you have two people to get you out.  There is only two of that live here, so in the mean time I swim until I am a wrinkled prune, while he does his thing and maybe looks in the pool every now and then to make sure I haven't drowned.  I guess I will be alright, so the fuck what if I am in the pool for 10 hours.  I mean I wanted to swim so swim it is.

I will keep you updated on my getting out of the pool (grunt grunt) and how the Mike, self made cinder block works.............

Swim on, if you can...

Sue "CiCi" Cook

  

Your Not You....Things I'm Sure Of.

"One thing I've learned: You never know where life is taking you, but it's taking you"
                                                                                                                 Hillary Swank

Well I made the stupid mistake of watching, "Your Not You" yesterday.  It's the story of a women with the Shit Ass Disease and her quirky care taker.  It hit on a lot of the hell's of the Shit Ass Disease but was more a story of two people and how they grew to love  one another.  I bat shit cried through the whole movie like a moron. Like the scene where the care taker has to take her to the bathroom and how uncomfortable it was for both of them.  Well I have that scene beat, I went to an event with two friends.  After sitting there drinking for an hour and a half (real smart on my part) we had to go to the restroom.  Yes three drunk girls, just going to the bathroom.  Well I couldn't use the bathroom because I'm a moron. So one of my friends picked me up while the other pulled my pants down...nothing embarrassing about that, when I was done one picked me up while the other pulled my pants up.  That's how it is done bitches, three drunk girls going to the bathroom.  Lesson learned don't drink wine for hours and this won't happen. Tough decision wine or peeing?  

That's the thing about this Shit Ass Disease, is no one talks about the bad things.  They are scary and difficult, but I just feel the need to talk about it.  I want Emerson and Truett to realize I wasn't a lazy CiCi but a sick one.  One year ago I was using the "rollader"  I could push it to the stairs by my pool and with the help of someone I could walk down the stairs and get in the pool.  This year I can't walk at all so getting into the pool is impossible unless my son in law carries me in. He grunted the first time so there was almost not a second.  Hold your grunts or I am not going anywhere. Which is all well and fine, but he is only here on weekends and in the process of moving so I have to roll out in the sun and sit and fry like a fucking fried chicken wing if I want any sun.  I love the sun, I have since I was a kid growing up in California going to the beach. However, there needs to be a little water with the sun.

Then there is getting in and out of bed.  It gets more difficult every day and since I spend most of my time in bed (because it's the most comfortable place to be).  My foot swells to wear my toes look like sausages unless I keep my foot up.  Once I get in bed the other fun starts, trying to get in position. My legs don't work so it's dragging myself by my arms until I get in the most comfortable position. It's really a lot of fun but I don't recommend.

Now starts the hand problem... my right hand is going numb by the minute. Don't know what I am going to do when it finally goes?  I mean I am right handed for God's sake. Do I need to drink wine left handed?  What happens when both hands go, do I have to get one of those helmets with cup holders and straws?  Don't kid yourself I will do it.

And still with all this I am by far not the worse off.  There are a lot of people a lot worse off then me. Whoopee shit there is more to look forward to! I mean there are people who have this Shit Ass Disease and have no family or worse yet have small children.  It's a cruel joke for sure..  I won't complain (much) because I do have a wonderful family, and the two most precious grand kids on the planet. But in the mean time I will continue to drink wine right handed and in an emergency have my friends pull my pants up and down:(


Pee on...
Sue "CiCi" Cook

Hair....Things I'm Not Sure Of

"A woman who cuts her hair is about to change her life"
                                                                   CoCo Chanel

Almost to long!!

Why do woman have to care so much about clothes, makeup, shoes and hair. My post today is about hair, yes I am stretching the subject, but my post my prerogative:)  There are people with great hair (hate them) people with OK hair and then the WTF hair.  Well I am somewhere between OK hair and WTF hair. I'm not sure if it is the Shit Ass Disease or age or just being weird, but one of the above is playing a joke on me.  Here it is... I can't stand hair on my neck. I know, tragic right?  It makes my skin crawl, can't sleep or even breath with hair on my neck! I know it's weird. I know it's weird beyond words, but the truth.

Channa wanted to do photos, which was brilliant considering my situation.  So I had extensions but in my hair for the photo shoot.  Luscious long blond hair, I could stand it for ten minutes but had to wear them for a month until my hair dresser could take them out. I mean who can't stand long luscious blond hair??  Me, I hated every second of those luscious blond locks.  

Well I finally got them taken out.  Channa brought them over the other day in a box, and all I could do is look at them and growl. I went shorter, kinda in-between a lesbian and as my friend calls me the blond Kris Jenner (hair, obvi not face).  Well in four weeks it was growing down my neck and driving me crazy!  I mean it was maybe 2 1/2 to 3 inches long and I was trying to put it in a pony tail to get it off my neck.  You can imagine how cool that looked. So this time I went full blown lesbian and unless I wanted to have a reverse mullet the front had to be cut as well.   Not that I have a thing again lesbians, I just happen to be strait and have the Shit Ass Disease and can't hardly use a flat iron any longer.  So I will wear my new lesbian cut with pride!  I will walk or uh roll threw the streets with my no hair head held high.  You don't like my butch new look, turn your fucking flowing head of hair the other way.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it.



Roll on.....
Sue "CiCi" Cook

Ambien...Things I Love

"A good laugh and a long sleep are the best cures in the doctor's book"

After such a serious post yesterday I thought I would write about one of my favorite things.  Yes I admit it, it's Ambien.  Sleep is also one of my favorite things and sleep doesn't exist without Ambien. I have taken Ambien for a while (11 years) but who is counting?  Now for the first few (9) years it had it's ups and downs.  When I say downs I mean eating and not remember doing so.  One morning I woke up and something was stabbing me in the leg.  I was like what the fuck?  I reached down  in the covers and it was a Dorito:)  First of all I didn't remember eating Doritos, second how did the Dorito end up under the covers and down by my leg?

I know that sounds funny but Channa would beg to differ.  I was staying at her house for the weekend and we had bought some Peep's.  Peep's is a whole post on it's own, love me some Peep's!  Anyway I went to bed, woke up the next day, went to the kitchen to have a Peep or two and they were gone!  I asked Channa what happened to the Peep's?  She didn't know (yeah right) had someone broke in, in the middle of the night and stole my Peep's, or had Justin eaten them?  Where are my fucking PEEP'S???  So a little later I went to make my bed and there they were, well there was the empty package of Peep's, under the pillow.  Damn it, I didn't even remember eating the sugary, marshmallowy goodness. I got to a point that when I woke up in the morning I would just look at my night stand to see what I had eaten.

I'm not the only one who had this problem.  I have a friend that when she took Ambien would get a beer and chips and not remember it.  At least I didn't bust out the wine, or maybe that would have been a good thing....hummmm?

I really would have weighed 90 pounds if I hadn't spent a few (9) years eating chips or Cheetos every night!  But what was more important, sleep or weighing 90 pounds?  Obvi sleep!  Well having the Shit Ass Disease has put an end to night eating unless I can crawl/sleep eat:)  So if your debating taking Ambien, sleep eating is possible and the sad part is you don't even get the joy of eating Cheetos or Peep's!

This is how I looked to myself in my dreams...

But I really looked like this.

Sleep/Eat on....

Sue "CiCi" Cook

June 5th...Things I HATE

"Weeping is not the same as crying.  It takes your whole body to weep, and when it's over, you feel like you don't have any bones left to hold you up"

                                                                                                                                          Sarah Ockler

I'm writing this for Emerson and Truett.  There will come a day that they will want to know what happened and I want them to be able to read this and know.

I was in Lubbock helping Channa move from one apartment to the other her senior year at college.  It had been a long day of moving and shopping.  We were sound asleep when the phone rang at 6:00 a.m.  I looked at my phone and it was my husband.  I thought what is he thinking calling so early?  I answered the phone and I guess out of nervousness he said, "What are you doing"?  My reaction was sleeping!  He said, "Chase has been in a motorcycle accident".  My reaction was oh no was he hurt? Thinking he broke a leg or something like that.  The next thing out of his mouth was the only thing a parent never wants to hear, "He didn't make it".  What?  He said, "He was on a bridge and crashed that's all I know".  The next thing I remember is crying, yelling and saying "No not Chase, what am I going to do" over and over again.  Then Channa said, "Mom your going to wake the neighbors", that's when I looked at her and said Chase is dead.

How Mike received the news was from Chase's girlfriend.  How she found out was from calling him over and over and not getting a answer until finally the sheriff's department answered the phone and told her he was deceased.  She wouldn't give the sheriff's office our number, she wanted to call and tell us herself.

Channa in shock not knowing what to do with me called my mom.  I got on the phone with her and she said, "You need to calm down, and we need to think what we are going to do with the body".  I thought body, body, no!  I am sure she was in shock and trying to calm me down in the middle of her head spinning. I had flown to Lubbock so we had to drive Channa's car back to Lake Kiowa where Mike and I were living.  We of course cried the whole way, 5 1/2 hours drive home. Channa looked at me and said, "Mom do you remember what you said to me yesterday"?  While we were shopping I asked her to be careful driving because I had a feeling something bad was going to happen.

One of the worse things I remember once we got home was looking out the window and seeing a car I didn't know.  I asked Mike who it was?  My parents he said.  Now these people were never nice, OK not nice is a understatement they were flat mean let a loan being grandparents to my kids.  They hated me therefore they hated my kids. But they showed up like the grieving grandparents and it made me want to throw up.  The only comfort I could find was shutting myself in the closet where I could whale and nobody could hear me.

Little did I know the insanity was just beginning.  We had to make flights to Portland, Oregon the next day.  (American Airlines being the generous company they are only charged us a grievance fair of $3,000).  I had arranged for his girlfriend to hide a key to his house.  When we got there the key wasn't where it was supposed to but I remembered that Chase hid a key in the back.  Thank God it was there.  Walking into your 24 year old's house, when he has died less that 48 hours is a gut wrenching experience.  Where do you start, what do you do and you feel like you are invading every inch of his privacy.  It was horrible but then again what part of this isn't. We started going through his art, first and foremost that was most important. It was what was the most important thing to him, therefore the most important thing to me.  We continued to go through what we could, packing anything and everything we could get in suitcases.

The next day was the day to go to the funeral home... only I couldn't do it.  I knew if I walked into that funeral home I would not be able to be in the same building and not go see him. I just couldn't do it.  Channa and Mike had to make the arrangements without me. I found out what basically happened. Chase was on his way to his house with a couple friends.  For some reason he got behind and was trying to catch up to his friends. That's why he was speeding, he lost control. He was going over a 100 miles per hour on a crotch rocket when he lost control and hit the concrete divider head first. How could I possibly see my son in that condition?

The funeral was on overload, well over a hundred people were there.  His friends all got up and talked about Chase and the love they had for him. Afterward when people lined up to give their condolences, it was one person after the other showing us the tattoo's Chase did or started and hadn't finished.  There were his motorcycle friends and they all had stories about Chase. Afterwards his friends wanted to have a get together at Chase's favorite bar, which we did.  It was more stories of Chase all of which I could have listened to forever. We left the bar and went by Chases one more time before we went home.  When we pulled up his best friend Salvador was sitting on the front steps crying.

A year later he wrote me a 6 page letter that among other things said:

Everything I've done thought, perceived, experienced, enjoyed, cherished, mocked, wanted, idolized, consumed, discovered, created, begun, destroyed, dreamt, expected, envied, recognized, coped with and missed had been directly effected by Chases existence.

He also wrote:

Because of Chase I am able to experience one of the truest joys of being a human.  Being a father. Sue, I tell you I was on a mission to destroy myself, and then I met this girl and we had a child.  In the beginning I wasn't very admirable. Chase was always supportive and encouraging. This is gift he gave...this is one of the many things he has left for me to help me in this time of absence.

 One of the last movies we watched together was City of Angles where the Sarah McLachlan song Angel came from.  We played it at his funeral. To this day I can't hear that song without crying.  There are actually several songs that happens to me.

In February,1999 his school honored Chase with an art show that was amazing.  His friends and professors were there.  All his close friends did art pieces to honor him.  His girlfriend helped tremendously.  I accomplished two special things on this trip to Portland.  One his friend Cheyenne mixed some of Chase's ashes to make ink and I had his initials and a tear drop tattooed on my finger. I had always asked Chase to not tattoo his hands or his face so I figured my hand would be the better option.  The second was to drive over the bridge he died on.  No one had to tell me when we got to the spot, I just knew and a feeling of peace came over me.  At least Chase was doing something he loved when he died.  I am a firm believer your death is predestine, other wise I wouldn't have made it 14 years.  I believe that when your born God knows that day you will die.  He choose June 5th for Chase.  I still hate June 5th with all my being but God sure got an angel.

I realized that the relationship between me, my artwork and the world is exactly the same.  That from on moment to the next, I am not there at all, just the art as evidence that I was.  One day I will cease to be at any moment and all of my artwork will exist as one line of evidence that I was a point in this world.

                                                                                                                          Chase Cook

                                                                                                                          05/09/1998

Sue "CiCi" Cook