After the week I've had, the ONLY thing I asked for was a little peace and quiet this weekend. I swear..that's ALL that I wanted--just some time to take it easy, maybe work on going through some stuff in the spare room I've been needing to get rid of...

Clearly I was wrong in my assumption that my request was a small one because shortly after 1pm today my day went completely to hell.....

While I'm in the bathroom showering, I hear the phone ringing....of course I can't answer it while I'm soaking wet, so when I get out, I check the caller ID to see who'd called. It was Cindy's number, but she hadn't left a message. I figured that she was probably calling to see if I wanted to come over to hang out by the pool for awhile, so I decided I'd call her back after I finished getting dressed. About 5 minutes later, I try calling and get a busy signal (Cindy is one of the few folks in the world who still doesn't have call waiting!) so I decide to just try again later and I go into the den to watch some tv. Since the den has 4 huge windows that cast a very annoying bright spot on the tv, I'd hung dark drapes and closed them & the blinds....which prevents me from seeing anything going on outside, such as cars [or an ambulance!] coming down the street.

A few minutes after that, the doorbell rings....I figure it's Cindy popping over for a visit since she couldn't get me on the phone, so I head into the living room to answer the door. It wasn't Cindy at all, but my other neighbor Jeremy. So I answer the door and he tells me, "Cindy wants to know if you can come over and take care of her dogs for a little while....she's really sick." I give him this weird look and look past him to Cindy's house, where I see an AMBULANCE in her driveway!!!   Of course I shot past Jeremy and was at her house in less than 10 seconds [although at some point I'd put on my socks and shoes, though I don't remember doing that!] and go in to find two paramedics hovering over Cindy while she's barely conscious in a recliner!! I asked what happened and she tells me that she had been weeding in her back yard and had apparently gotten bitten by some fire ants and was feeling really sick. I could tell right away that she was in VERY bad shape...she was swollen up, barely conscious, and was turning different colors! Now here she is, on the verge [literally] of death and the only thing she's worried about is her dogs!! I assured her that I'd take care of her dogs while the paramedics took her to the hospital....and then they took her away with sirens blaring and lights flashing. Meanwhile, another neighbor had come over and asks me, "she looked really bad...do you think she did something stupid?" I looked at her and said, "Um, no. If you visited her on a regular basis, you'd know that she's doing a lot better these days (after Kevin's death) and the thoughts of doing herself in have pretty well dissipated." What a bitch.

Anyway....THANKFULLY Cindy got to the hospital in time and was saved literally just in the nick of time. Her blood pressure when she got to the hospital had dropped to 50 over 30...no that's NOT a misprint....it was really that low! It was amazing that she was even still conscious at that point...or even alive really! But anyway, here's what had happened: she'd been out in the back yard doing some weeding at an area behind her pool...the ground is sort of raised up....the landscaping that has a retaining wall (you all know the look I'm talking about)...well it's about chest height on her, and while she was weeding, the bottom of her arm was resting on top of the retaining wall...which was unfortunately the home of a colony of fire ants...these little shits are all over the place out here....anyway, when they're disturbed, they will swarm (like army ants) and they are actually quite poisionous in large numbers.....so Cindy didn't realize what was going on until her arm started to burn and she saw some crawling on her.....then she realized there were LOTS of them on her...so she runs to the pool and jumps in to get them off of her....but by then it was too late. They had already gotten all over her arm and even into her bathing suit and were biting her all up and down the front of her body!! While she was getting out of the pool she started to feel faint and just barely made it into the house to call me. Well when she didn't get me {and didn't leave a voicemail!!} she called 911----and spent the rest of the afternoon in the emergency room. The docs at the hospital told her she was very lucky to have survived because she'd had literally HUNDREDS of those little evil bastards on her....so now she has to carry an EPI-pen because if she gets bitten again the reaction will come on faster and even stronger!!!

Needless to say, it scared the living shit out of Chris, Cindy, and me!!!! I told her that we now have to come up with some sort of plan to alert each other when something like this happens.....and she made a good point....she said something like this could have happened to any of us and we wouldn't think about leaving a voicemail....and we're not always alarmed if there's no message because we're always calling just to say hi...which is why I didn't think much of getting a busy signal when I tried to call back! Being that she's alone over there now, she could have died had she not been able to call 911....so we're going to get walkie-talkie's or something to alert each other in case of an emergency.....

GAAAAAHHHHH!! Can I at least have SUNDAY with a little peace??!!!