Update 3: Shoveling Snow and Insulting Legends and Doctors

So I haven't been so consistent in updating the blog.  I apologize.  My wife keeps up with 17 and I can barely keep up with one.  So a few updates and then I am off to probably not update for another week or two.  One would think with all the snow piling up outside that I would have ample opportunity to work out a blog update.  However, that was before I had to shovel Superman's ice fortress of solitude off of my driveway.

You see, basically we live at the end of a wind tunnel.  The wind blows all of the snow in the neighborhood into one massive drift in my front yard.  It means I have a four foot drift to dig out of even when there is only about six inches of snow.  Last year I was not very prepared to deal with my own Pike's Peak in the drive.  This year I was.  I attacked the driveway for about an hour three different times.  After three plus hours of shoveling and sweating, I had cleared about one third of the drive.  At least I can get the cars out.  I went back out two days later and cleared a bit more out.  The wife was a bit "anxious" about backing out.  But now I can safely say that backing out is a "non-issue."

I want her to be comfortable driving.  We still have some tense moments on highway 76 as the best and brightest in the greater Tri-City area continue to set land-speed records on this smallish, two lane highway with the unbelievable and unexplainable speed limit of 65.  That is why I dug out more snow on the driveway and why she is already cruising the fine streets of the Metro in a brand new (to us) ride.  We got a new car.  The wife earned her mom card with a new mini van.  It is a delightful black Honda Odyssey.  She likes it.  The J Train loves it.  And it still smells new.  And we were finally able to let them cash the down payment check only about two weeks after writing it.  Even though the med claim stays open, I do feel mostly a sense of closure about my entire family being in a bad wreck.  I still don't like thinking about my pregnant wife and my two year old son being in a wreck that totaled the car they were in.  But there is one fun little anecdote I can take from this incident.

I took her to a hospital about two hours after the wreck so we could have an ultra-sound and hear the heartbeat.  We drove out to a hospital in Moore that will remain unnamed as it is a great place and not very crowded.  While she was in a room being attended by Norman doctors, my lovely bride managed to be rude and insult not one but three doctors AND Oklahoma's ONLY living inductee into the Rock'n'Roll Hall of Fame.  The hospital we went to is associated with one in Norman.  In fact the ER docs pull shifts in both Moore and Norman.  So imagine my horror when my wife said, "I am glad to be here and not in Norman. I think they kill people at that hospital."

She said that.  Out loud.  Not in some crazy inside voice that you never, ever make known to the listening public.  Especially listening public that you are implicating in a building-wide game of death tag.  The doctors brushed it off as they would anyone accusing them of "offing" patients.  I just stared at her.  My other favorite thing was her flippant response to them asking her if she was ever unconscious after the wreck.  She would typically answer, "I think I blacked out.  It went black.  I am not sure.  Maybe I just closed my eyes."  She wasn't sure if she was unconscious or just blinking.  This is the same person who has self-diagnosed herself being allergic to ibuprofin or some such pain killer.  But I nixed the "blacking out theory" because I could see myself talking her through two hours in an MRI machine.  Ugh. And if it wasn't enough to insult the kind doctors taking care of her, she also managed to insult a living legend in Rock and Roll that I have been angling to meet for almost two years!

Wanda Jackson is the Queen of Rockabilly and a legend in Rock'n'Roll.  She is a true pioneer who recently recorded a great album with Jack White of all people.  A week after our meeting she would perform on Letterman.  A week after Letterman, Conan.  She was also two cubicles down in the ER with her 97 year old mother.  I had called my best friend who had served at the same church Wanda attends when she is not RECORDING WITH JACK WHITE or talking about DATING ELVIS PRESLEY!  I have her greatest hits on my iPod and iPhone.  I listen to them frequently.  My buddy saw her there and asked if she would meet me, telling her I was a big fan (quite true) and that my wife was pregnant and in a wreck and we were there checking on the baby.  She had graciously agreed and he came in to get me.  This had all taken place without my knowledge.  I walked out and he said, "Craig, this is Wanda Jackson."  I was shocked.  I told her it was a great pleasure to meet her and I hated saying this in an emergency room but that I was a big fan.  I scored points simply by knowing the band that made Jack White famous (which my very sheltered and sacred friend had not known).  While she was telling me about Letterman and Conan, the wife came out and asked me for her driver's license.  I gave it to her.  Wanda Jackson addressed her too.
"I am glad you are okay, honey" said the Queen of Rock'n'Roll.
"Thank you, ma'am," grunted my loving bride.
Later when I told her who that was and that her own mother was very weak and failing, the wife was more sympathetic.  One of the wife's high school friends who has always wanted to meet Wanda was more horrified than I was.  But that is the wife.  Had it been that guy who hosts The Bachelor, you know, the guy they pay a bazillion bucks to count roses each week, she would have gone apey.  She would have introduced me as "a guy from Super Summer" instead of her husband had it been The Bachelor dude.  But it was just Wanda Jackson.  Ha.  We still laugh at that.

An update on the weight loss:  Since we last updated, I am down a total of 25 lbs so far.  I have been faithful to workout and the lovely wife has been very patient with my persnickety diet.  But it has been effective.  My goal is to be down another 15 or so by March 1st.  I have a retreat at the end of February with some other youth dudes.  I am excited to be down enough weight to actually be in 60th percentile of body mass instead of the 90th.  I also like not being the biggest guy in my church.  I may not even be top five.  I am certainly not top five in youth dudes.  Those guys can strap on a feed bag and then wear out a couch cushion.  I hope I can help them change that.  We will see.