February 14, 2003: Happy Birthday Madeline!

Happy Valentine’s Day and Happy Birthday Madeline! Francesca’s (our September Llama of the Month’s) daughter Madeline turns a big 3 in Webster, Texas today. We would have called to wish her a happy birthday but Min was a little preoccupied with the events of the day. I wrote the update yesterday but somehow I didn’t remember to post it so for all of you who have been following along and think that I forgot to do it, it isn’t true. I just forgot to post it. Well, today started off good but didn’t end up being so good in the long run. Actually, maybe it was all bad. The day started off with the alarm not going off, apparently it had gotten turned off at some point. So instead of jumping out of bed at 5:15, we started moving at 6:45. So we were in a pretty major rush from the moment go. We have to be out the door by 7:40 to make it to work on time. And there are three of us to get ready in one bathroom. And on top of that, we had to pack and check out of the hotel and then load the car. So it was a bit much for first thing in the morning. Then, the car was out of windshield wiper fluid and we had to get some before we could go anywhere because I couldn’t see. And we were out of gas. So a quick pit stop to refill both items had to be done and that takes a little while. But, since we were in such a hurry, I tried taking a short-cut that we had heard about and we ended up making it to work right on time. In fact, we pulled in in front of the other team. So it ended up being okay.

Our day went pretty smoothly after that. It was different from the rest of the week. Today was our first day in a shop instead of in offices. So the environment was much more casual. The day ended up going really fast. We took a late lunch and headed over to Anthony’s for a free lunch. It was awesome and today they had us go over to the full service dining room instead of the fast side. We had an amazing lunch. After lunch, we had very little to do and we just finished up and hit the road by 2:30. Pretty good deal for St. Valentine’s Day.

Since we were on the road so early and the weather was good, I got on the phone and managed to convince Turback’s in Ithaca to give me a reservation for 9:00 pm. I knew that Min wanted to go there and I was hoping that we could get in. I had been calling her since 11:00 am (because I knew that I was going to be getting out early by then) trying to make sure that she didn’t make any plans or anything because I would be home early enough to have dinner. But I was never able to track her down. I left messages at the house, at her office and on her cell. I finally talked to the receptionist at Advion and she told me that she had left for the day. We stopped in Herkimer on the way home to see if the Super Walmart there had any more copies of My Big Fat Greek Wedding because the one in Schenectady was sold out. They did have a few so I picked one up (Min wanted to watch that for Valentine’s Day.)

Right after we left Herkimer, Gibran called to say that Min had been taken from work to Cayuga Medical Center because her back had gone out on her at work and she had collapsed. She is the first person to ever have been taken out of Advion on a stretcher. However, Advion didn’t call me or anyone else to tell them that she had gone to the hospital and everyone with a local phone number was out of town. So she was stuck there and had no way to tell anyone where she was or anything. Luckily, Min was able to get a hold of Ingrid who was able to get a hold of Gibran who drove up to the hospital to take care of her and was able to call me to let me know what was going on. We were about ten minutes east of Syracuse when we found out where she was so we rushed straight back to the house to meet them there. Min and Gibran were able to convince the hospital to let her come home for the weekend to recover here.

They gave Min a lot of drugs at the hospital so she wasn’t in so much pain and she barely knew where she was. I went out and got McDonalds for dinner (Min didn’t get to eat all day because she went to the hospital before lunch time) and got her prescriptions filled because she will need more pain killers before the ones that are in her wear off because her back is really bad. She ended up sleeping most of the evening. At least she doesn’t feel her back too much. So that is Valentine’s Day here. Hope that everyone managed to have a good one.

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